Chris and I are very affectionate with each other and it does not matter who is around. My kids usually do not say anything about it since they are pretty used to it. There are times that our oldest will scrunch up his face or say EWWW. We will continue to be affectionate in front of the kids. We want them to look at our marriage and want that for themselves when they are older.

Growing up was the same for me. My parents were always very loving with each other. I knew when I was older I wanted a relationship like theirs. They showed us what a good marriage was.

Chris never saw his parents be affectionate with each other growing up. They slept in different rooms since he was a small child, he could count on one hand how many times he saw them kiss or hold hands. When he and I first became friends ( he was 18 and I was 14 ) it was a little shocking for him to see my parents together. He was not used to seeing people my parents age snuggling on the couch, holding hands while out and about and kissing. He never saw his parents act like that and the most his friend’s parents ever did was sneak a kiss once and awhile. He said he would never forget the day that he saw my Dad walk past my Mom and slap her on the butt. He thought my parents were a little strange and it made him uncomfortable. As time went one and he and I got closer he realized that my parents relationship was how a marriage should be and he grew to really like them. He told me shortly before we got engaged that he hoped our relationship would always be like that.

Chris and I have been married for almost eight years now and we have people tell us we still act like newlyweds. I take that as a compliment. I hope we continue to act like newlyweds for the rest of our lives. We will always gross out our kids and hope that one day they will be grossing out their own children.

Even with my oldest daughter I would shrug off my husband excusing temper tantrums and toddler meltdowns as the product of the “terrible twos.” This time around, however, I begin to wonder. My daughter is almost three, though so surely it couldn’t be terrible twos. Or maybe she’s a late bloomer. And if that’s the case, I fear for her third year!

To put it bluntly, she is driving our entire family crazy. But Mommy most of all, of course, because I have to be around her twenty-four/seven. I love her so much, but my once sweet, adorable, fun, loving baby has turned in a toddler who always wants—nay, demands her own way! She is upset about everything: if I turn off the TV, or she is told to go to potty, or if her sister drinks from their shared cup when we’re at a restaurant. If I ever say the words no or stop or be quiet.

The list is, as you can imagine, never-ending. Sadly, my patience is not. I am struggling to recall my four-year old ever acting like this. I am trying, but perhaps I have blocked out such memories. Luckily, Alison has been showing an amazing maturity and is sharing with her sister, and making allowances for her feelings that I find myself unable to do. I threatened to put her in time-out for one of her numerous infractions this evening and her sister came to her rescue, saying, “No, Mama, don’t do that. It will make her cry.”

I wanted to turn to her and say, “What doesn’t?”

We have only been there to visit once since Amelia was born. I would love to visit more but planning trips like that is not an easy task. I do not like traveling with kids and dislike it even more when the kids are babies. A five hour trip with a newborn is not a fun task at all.

Last time we went Amelia was three months old. She did better then I thought she would because we made several stops along the way. She slept most of the time we were actually driving. The extra stops allowed the kids to get out and run around for a few minutes and that helped their restlessness as well.

We do not plan on stopping like that this time. We are leaving later in the day and do not want to get there extremely late. Alex and Destiny are riding down with my parents the night before. We will leave with the younger two girls when Chris gets off work.  If we can make minimal stops, we will be getting there around ten at night.

In order to make the trip easier on the little girls we are bringing a cooler with snacks and drinks, taking some cartoons they can watch on the car dvd player and I am making a busy box for each child. Their boxes will have different coloring supplies and little games they can play. Alex and Destiny will be taking their busy box, DS systems and a cooler of snacks with them in my parents car to help keep them entertained as well.

Chris and I will stop a couple times to let the girls out, one of those stops will be for dinner. We thought about eating in the car but we think it would be better for us all to get out for that short amount of time. Hopefully the snacks and games keep the girls happy and the trip will be stress free for us all.

I do have to say that is seems like big birthday parties are not the norm in my area. We go to a handful of birthday parties each year and it seems like more and more people are going to family only parties. I am not sure if it is because of tight budgets or how stressful party planning can be. Personally, I will be throwing big parties until my kids are out of the house ( well maybe not that long but as long as they want a party, they will get one ).

All my kid’s birthdays are pretty close together which is another reason I start my planning so early. Alex’s is in April, Amelia’s is in June, Kairi’s is in July and Destiny’s is in August. It can be very stressful to do that many parties in such a short time. So far this year we have done Alex’s party. He requested a star wars party. I went to work at the beginning of this year making a pinterst board full of ideas for his party. He sat with me and picked out different ideas for games, food and what kind of cake he wanted. Over the next several months we narrowed things down and started buying supplies and making things.

Each child that came received a light saber, Darth Vader mask and we had a pinata. I made lunch that was all star wars themed and then we just let the kids play. Alex had a great time, his friends had fun and the adults were able to sit down enjoy some company. When the party was over Alex was already talking about wanting to help me plan his party for next year.

I have all three of my girl’s parties planned also. Amelia is having a rainbow party, Kairi is having an ice cream party and Destiny is having a tea party.

Amelia’s party will be smaller then the other kids. She is not a fan of large groups of people and I do not want her to be overwhelmed. We will probably just do a family party and invite her God parents. I am still going all out on her cake, decorations and food.

Kairi’s party is going to be a blast. She used to be a lot like Amelia and did not like big groups of people. Her party last year and the year before were both pretty small. We did not want to upset her on her birthday. Now that she has outgrown that we want to throw her a bigger party. We went with the ice cream theme because that girl loves ice cream. We plan to do it like an old fashion ice cream social would have been. I know the kids are going to love it.

Destiny’s party is years in the making. She has been wanting a tea party birthday but we wanted to wait until she was old enough to remember it. We are going to find tea cups at antique shops, ask all guests to dress the part, have a gift for every little girl and make all kinds of tea party themed food. Destiny is extremely excited about her party.

I love doing these parties for my kids. I am hoping they will have fond memories of their birthday parties when they are older and know how much I enjoyed putting together their parties each year.

Here are some pictures from the parties we had last year -

One of the baby goats was rejected by her mother so she became a bottle feed baby, the kids love feeding and playing her. Alex named her Chocolate Vanilla and she is his buddy. My parents let them be very involved in the care of the animals, they get to help feed them, clean pens and a lot more. Alex and Destiny like spending the night with their grandparents and usually do every other week or so. For the last couple of months they have been asking if they can go and spend a week with them. I am not sure why they want to go for a whole week, I know my parents would not care but I do not know if I am ready to have them be gone for that long.

The longest they have been gone was for four days when they went to their other Grandparent’s house last summer. Chris’ parents live a couple hours away from us and now that Alex and Destiny are getting older they have been going to their house for a few days at a time without us. They were suppose to another night but Kairi was crying for them to come home so I had my inlaws bring them back a day early. Since they keep asking about going for a week we plan on trying sometime this summer. They are close enough that I can pick them up whenever I want and I can always take the two little girls out for a day ( they do not like staying the night places without mom and dad ).

Destiny is my little artist, she is always drawing pictures, making cards and coloring. She loves making art for other people and we always have art work on the fridge from her. She loves making pictures for daddy to take to work and hang in his locker.  Whenever she makes us a new piece of artwork we lay on the praise. I want her to know that every picture she makes us is special.

Last year for Mother’s day my husband took the kids to the store and had them all pick out a gift for me. My son picked out an orange juice maker, my oldest daughter picked out a boutique of flowers and my second oldest daughter picked out a small rake ( which was funny because she called it a broom but I actually use it all the time ). Obviously the baby was way to young to be involved in this so Chris just added her name to the card that the kids picked out. They were so proud to give me their gifts that they picked out all on their own. It was extremely sweet and way better then any elaborate gift could have been.

Gifts from my kids are the best gifts, they are always straight from the heart and given with so much love.

Now that warmer weather is rolling around you would think we would not have to worry about this allergy but  that is not the case. Kairi could have a reaction even in the summer time. Things that could set off a reaction include ice cream ( luckily we have not had this issue yet ), swimming, playing in the sprinkler while there is a cool breeze and even getting out of the bath in an air conditioned house. Her allergy has also been getting worse.

Our spring here in Iowa has not been a very nice one, it has been raining a lot and on the colder side. I had to run errands one day so I got Kairi all bundled, warmed the car ahead of time and off we went. I decided to take the kids for a quick lunch first and in the time it took for us to walk from the car to where were eating ( we outside for less then a minute ) her ears and hands were red with welts. It was damp, cool and windy that day.  It was the quickest reaction she ever had.

We are going to have to watch her very carefully this summer. We want her to be able to enjoy summer but we want her safe. We will try letting her play in the sprinkler, we will just have to check her often for any signs of hives, my parents are looking into a heater for their pool so she can still swim out there and before either of these activities she will be taking an allergy medication.

There have been reports of people having a problem from eating ice cream. Kairi has not had that problem yet but we are planning on talking to her doctor and seeing if she needs to take her medication before we go have ice cream as well.

There is a chance that Kairi will outgrow this allergy and we are really hoping she does. It is hard for her and scary for us.

It was easier to wean my other three kids. Alex weaned himself right at the eighteen month mark. Destiny was three months old at the time, I had been tandem nursing and one day he just said No, for baby and was done.Destiny was just under eighteen months, I was pregnant at the time, I slowly cut out nursing and after about a week she was done, it went the same for Kairi.

Things are different with Amelia, I am not pregnant so I know my supply is fine. Not being pregnant is probably why I nursed longer this time. For me nursing a toddler while pregnant started to get painful and I just did not want to do it anymore. At the eighteen month mark I was still okay nursing her so we kept on going.

It was right around the 22 month mark that I started wanting to wean. She was still nursing a lot so I slowly cut her down to once in the morning, once for naps and bed time ( plus if she woke in the middle of the night ).

I was most worried about cutting out the bedtime and overnight nursing. I did not foresee it going very well but I pleasantly surprised. She did resist at first, it took a couple nights of rocking with a sippy before she stopped being upset. After that she just started asking for a sippy and then she would willingly be rocked to sleep. Over night I just gave her the sippy again and she would lay down by me and fall asleep.

The morning nursing was easy as well. I just would fill her cup again and then let her lay down on my lap. I think a large part of the morning nursing was just her wanting a cuddle and since she is still getting that cuddle, she is fine with it.

The nap time nursing is still going on, I have not been able to get her to nap without it. This is going to be the hard one. I am not going to just force it either, I want her to nap, she needs her nap and I do not want to make her scream. I will try each day to get her to nap with just her sippy and I know it will happen eventually. I can not imagine that nursing once a day will keep my milk supply around anyway.

I will admit, it will be strange once she is fully weaned. I have been pregnant or breastfeeding for almost eight years straight. Since we are not deciding on a fifth child for a couple years, I will have a long break!

A look back at some wonderful moments in our breastfeeding reletionship -

When she woke me up at eleven and showed me her vomit, I was in robot Mommy mode and just cleaned it up and sent her back to bed, thinking, “I guess her stomach really was upset.” However, when she woke me again an hour later and I saw piles of vomit on her floor… I woke up, and fast.

I remember the last time she vomited she was less than a year old, and it was because the restaurant we ate at fried their French fries in the same oil as the shrimp, even though we told them she couldn’t eat the fries if that was the case. She has seen over three years of not being sick like that, so it came as a shock to her. She didn’t know what to do with it, and kept looking at me like I was crazy when I told her to do it in the toilet.

She has been burning up and has chills, one minute cold, then hot. Unfortunately the doctor said it is highly contagious and there isn’t anything we can do about it. Chances are her sister already has it. The bright side is that it only lasts for forty eight hours, even if those hours can get bad. Hang in there, parents, and remember to keep your kiddos on fluids!

Not only am I changing the plans for Father’s day itself but I am also having the kids make some things for Chris.I usually have the kids pick out a small present for him and then I get him something he has been wanting but this year the kids are making him gifts instead. I will still be buying him a gift.

Alex and Destiny are going to make little books for him. I found several pages that I can print for free and I will have them fill out. All four of the kids are going to make him frames that he can hang in his locker at work. We may make something else, it will depend on timing.  I am not sure what gift I am getting for him yet, I already got him a cool star wars drinking glass but I want to do something else as well.

Over the weekend I am planning on going to where Chris’ family is. They live in Illinois about two and half hours from us. We will leave when Chris gets home from work Friday and stay till Sunday afternoon. We will get there around dinner time Friday, we will just eat with Chris’ parents and then spend the evening with them.

Saturday we will probably go to his aunt’s house and take the kids swimming. She has a nice pool and the kids love going over there. I talked to Chris’ mom and Saturday evening she is going to watch the kids so I can take Chris to see the new Superman movie. He really wants to go see it and I know he will be thrilled to get an evening for just the two of us.

Sunday morning his parents want to take us to brunch. They have a nice restaurant there that is offering a father’s day brunch. After brunch we will probably stop in and see his Grandma before we head back home. My parents house is on the way back so we will stop in before we go home and spend a little time with my Dad as well.

Here are links to the free printables we are using -
http://www.classroomfreebies.com/2012/06/d-is-for-dad.html
http://kinzieskreations.blogspot.com/2012/05/fathers-day-printable.html?m=1
http://www.teachersnotebook.com/product/tmaguire/my-dad-rules-fathers-day-and-other-special-people-writing