This is the Clearasil

I don't really know what to do with myself right now.  I am sitting at the computer with sweat pouring down my back.  And face.  And everywhere, really.  The house is silent except for the ticking of the clock.

Ava, Luke, and now Max are at school. Finn is asleep.  But I can never know for how long, hence the sweaty blogging.

After completing one month of Insanity this summer, I started over fresh today.  And now with the baby still asleep, I will press my luck and try to catch up with our life on here.

I feel like I've been so overwhelmed (not necessarily in a bad way) with the kids lately, that I have only done surface blogging,  just trying to keep up so I don't get too far into a hole.  And as with anything, the surface can only be wiped over for so long before you need a nice, deep scrub.

Don't worry, I won't be spilling any emotional problems today. Not going that deep, just some good old fashioned updating.

We started our bathroom remodel right after we got back from Utah. The shower was ripped out, along with the flooring (carpet!) and the toilet was replaced.  After about a week of working, things were all done except for the new shower glass, which would take another 10 days.  Meanwhile, the whole family began showering and bathing in the kids bathroom, where the tub faucet was hardly working and eventually broke right off.  I would be lying if I said things weren't a little stinkier than usual around here for a few days.

We had a small fiasco with the shower tile, being installed with no finished edges.  I had a small breakdown, and the contractor may have seen me cry.  But there was no way we were paying thousands of dollars to have dark red exposed edges all over our beige and cream shower.  So after mulling over the options, they came over with some epoxy paint and all was right in the world again.

I will post the final after pictures when I get it painted and do all the finishing touches.

My parents sold their house and immediately left on a 2 and half week visit to my northerly siblings.  Upon their return, we set up their accommodations in the toy room.

 My mom left a few days later for my north westerly sibling's, while my dad stayed here to work.

 Now my mom is home and we are all living quite peacefully among each other and it's kind of fun.  I think this will not make it any easier to say goodbye to them when the time comes.

Shortly before school started, Ava decided to go for a short haircut.  She and I were equally tired of the tangles that come with long hair.  So rather painlessly, we said goodbye! And she looks so cute!

She decided to dance again this year. 

Luke insisted that he play soccer this year, which is kind of funny considering he hated going to Ava's soccer games and has never played at all.  Not even in the backyard or anything.  Dan dangled the idea of flag football in front of him but he wouldn't bite.

So we signed him up.  And due to a shortage of coaches, player requests were not honored. Luke was put on a team with a group of boys who've played together since they were 3.  Also, his birthday was just before the cut-off so he is much younger than the others.  Add to that, the email we received from the coach prior to the first practice which made no mention of learning or having fun, but only detailed his full proof plan on winning.  Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with winning.  As long as it doesn't require me to "lace up my boys shoes" and have him "hit the pavement for 30 minutes daily"  because, oh yeah, he's six and in kindergarten and I'm not going to make him jog everyday. But we live in Texas and it's all, Go Big or Go Home! And all I really want to do these days is go home and stay there.

Again, we talked up flag football (which is run by a totally different league) like there was no tomorrow.  And again he was adamant.  He was going to play soccer.

Dan didn't sleep the night before his first practice.  I wouldn't have either if I wasn't so tired.  But Luke is just so tender.  And he doesn't handle yelling well. And we worried how it would go.

I have yet to see him practice but I will get a good dose of it at his first game this Saturday.  They run the first 30 minutes of their hour practice.  It has been in the low 100's here lately so it is very miserable.  After running, they do their drills and go over their positions and the coach yells about "staying in your lane" and "don't move until the ball crosses" and Luke thinks he's speaking Chinese.  By the end of practice, Luke tells Dan, "I finally got it!" and it appears that he does. He is a fast little guy with his long, skinny legs and has zero problem keeping up. The only problem is he doesn't feel confident in where he should be running.  And he knows he'll hear about it from the coach if he's wrong.  It's probably good I'm not at the practice or the coach might hear about some things from me.

Never the less, even when we think Luke is going to come home and announce that he hates soccer, he never does. I hope he doesn't.  I hope he loves it and learns a lot and has fun.  But if he doesn't, I don't care if he quits.  We will teach him the "finish what you start" lesson another day.

His first week at Kindergarten has been a roaring success.  And I feel good knowing that he is absolutely ready.  I am glad we gave him that extra year.

Max. Oh, Max.  Over the past few months he's been a little stressed.  He started refusing to go to primary at church with out a huge fit and lots of tears.  He started crying when the babysitter came.  He had trouble going to sleep and having bad dreams.  He has wanted nothing to do with school.

We went to Meet the Teacher last week and he wouldn't look at or talk to her.  I was very nervous how this morning would go.  He got up saying "I am a natural big boy.  And natural big boys don't go to school."  I have no idea where he got that from.  When I asked him what he wanted me to pack in his lunch he told me he didn't want anything and wasn't going to eat.   In fact, he said "I'm not going to do anything at school.  I'm just going to sit there and wait for you to pick me up."  That worried me some because if anyone has the ability to stubbornly sit and do nothing for four hours, it's him.

But once he got on his Superman shoes, and his Darf Gator backpack and I showed him where I stuck his Spiderman water bottle, he tried hard, but couldn't hide his excitement.

 He walked right into his class and took a picture with his teacher Mrs. Riggs.

He looked a little worried when we said goodbye but I have high hopes and I think he's going to do great.



Finn is almost six months old and I cannot believe that we've seen the passing of half a year.

He's such a sweety baby.  I love him so much that I literally can't stand it and I must restrain myself from eating his face and try to settle for little soft nibbles of his cheeks and ears and nose.

Up until a couple of weeks ago, he was sleeping great.  He'd been going through the night, from about 9pm to 5 or 6am just fine.  And he even started to take some hour+ naps during the day which was so wonderful.  And then something happened, I'm not sure what, maybe his second ear infection or maybe his little bottom teeth trying to pop out, but Little Mr. has been waking up all kinds of ways and times in the night and I am waving the white flag.  I need sleep.  Someday, someday I will sleep again.

He takes mostly bottles now, which works out well, because with the other boys, we get this far and I run out of milk and we go through a very traumatic switch over and we are all so miserable.

 I planned ahead this time and it has worked well to start him with a daily bottle of formula and increase that gradually.  So I feel pretty good about breastfeeding him up to six months and also having a smooth transition to formula. He's eating baby food now, which he loves.  He's always watching out for what people are eating and it makes it hard not to share with him when he uses his puppy dog eyes.

He is getting better at sitting up everyday.

 He would probably be a professional by now if I actually set him on the floor during the day, but he is so much happier in my arms.  He adores the kids and most smiling faces in general.  I miss having Ava around to help me out.

But 3:00 makes for some happy reunions, all the way around.

Now. That feels a little better.  The nooks and crannies are all cleaned out! Come what may!