Saturday morning fun

Although this wouldn't be my choice on a Saturday morning the kids choose it and it was a great activity for a cold Sat. morning.

I had a why do I bother moment

I think I'm gonna start calling this our sticky floor period. Atticus hasn't been using a lid and he's spilled about once a day and Alexandra has been spilling a lot oh and so has Sebastian. I mopped on Friday of last week and it was still really sticky. So because of so many spills I decided to mop both the kitchen and dining room. I was feeling really great about myself. How great am I to do mopping on a weeknight with no one coming over. Then, I go to get something out of the fridge and one of the kids cups spills all over the floor. Then later, I spill a glass from the table on to the floor, table and chair. I've realized that it's ok for me to have these moments. it won't keep me from mopping the floor, giving kids baths (even when they accidently hit me in the nose and spit in my face) or cooking dinner or giving kiss and hugs at bedtime. But sometimes a momma gets frustrated and feels like it doesn't really matter that I mop the floor, but it does. It does matter. Can you tell I'm working on giving my self grace.....

A new outlet for Creativity

I heard from a friend via facebook that she got her kids the new Crayola window crayons for Christmas and that they loved them. With all the stuff we are trying to do with Sebastian to encourage crossing the midline I thought this would be a great thing.
I tried to find them around Christmas but Walmart didn't have them yet. Today when we went we found them. Wow, the kids fell in love right away. Many times I saw Sebastian crossing the midline. It was so cool. Hopefully, the new ness won't wear off too soon.

Alexandra decided to draw the pigeon from "don't let the pigeon drive the bus". She did a really great job and then got out the book and copied some of the word bubbles. Very good idea!

Sledding

I really wanted Paul to go with us to go sledding at least once this season. Even thought we've had above freezing temps in the past few days, there is still plenty of snow. Unlike the other day when we went today it was really, really icy. The kids had a lot of trouble getting up the hill but going down was really fast. There are a few hills where we go and two are really, really big. The kids went down the first big hill and couldn't get back up. Paul helped them up and then I decided I would go down with one of them to help them get up. Then after a couple of times of that, we headed for the really big hill. I went down with Atticus and it was really fast. We hit a bump and slid to the side. We were going so fast I clutched my legs with Atticus between them and took the blow of the icy ground right in the shoulder. I think I bumped the ground a couple of times. It really hurt. Atticus was laughing and then said, my leg hurts a little. The next time down the really big hill, Atticus wanted to go down the hill by himself. No big deal right, well think again. There was a jump at the bottom of the hill that we couldn't see from the top. He hit it and flew off the slide and I saw him slam his head to the icy ground. He got right up but was screaming his head off. Paul went down with one of the other kids and I started down the hill on my behind to make sure he was ok. Earlier in the winter a kid hit a tree and died so I'm a little nervous about seeing my 3 year old fly off his sled. Paul went and grabbed him right away and he kept crying. What's hard is not knowing if it's cause he's really hurt or if it just scared the crap out of him. Paul talked to him about it later telling him that he went off a jump that big kids go off of and then he thought he was pretty awesome. I'm not looking forward to my sore shoulders tomorrow.

The Gospel of Lost

I cannot express the excitement I feel when I think about the last season of Lost starting Feb. 2 on ABC. I just started blogging reviews for Thomas Nelson publishers and my first assignment was to read the book "The Gospel of Lost" by Chris Seay. Now this isn't my official review and I just got through the first two chapters and I love it. For a fan of the show, this is a must have book about the characters and the deeper meaning of Lost. With the way I read and the time I have to read it may take me a week to get through this fairly short book, but I'm excited to read more and see what he has to say about it. More to come...

Hey Good Lookin'

This guy comes up with some really, really funny stuff. I prompt a little and he takes off running with it. I love him so much. He (as you can hear in the video) cracks me up.

Sledding

Last Friday when we saw the OT for Sebastian she told me that sledding would be really great for Sebastian. Oh, I thought. It's just so much work to do it all by myself with either just the two boys or with all three kids. I knew it would be a good workout for him and would meet his movement need plus I knew it would help Atticus to run out some of his energy. It was sunny today and actually right around freezing so I decided we should go sledding. It still seems to daunting and kept trying to talk myself into it all morning. Knowing this would be so good for the boys. So, as I'm driving home I think, hey wait, there might be another mom who would be available to go with me and then our kids could sled. I called her and she was available and we decided to wait until our older kids got out of school and take them all. It seemed so much more do-able with another mom. It was so much less hard with another adult there to help out. We even ran into a mom with her two girls from the same school and all the kids sled together. I even got on a sled and went down a couple of times. The kids had so much fun and the boys are tired out and will sleep well tonight. Yea, for other moms to help me get out and enjoy the snow.

Sadness

I worked the younger kids door today at school. It was too cold to go outside so the kids were in by their lockers. A 7 year old boy came up to me and asked if I had seen the movie District 9. I told him no. He told me he saw it last night and it was violent and bloody. I told him I didn't think I would watch that movie cause it would scare me. He said it did kind of freak him out. At first I was appalled. I couldn't believe a mom would let her son watch a rated R movie at 7 years old. Then I was sad. I kept thinking of how seeing that kind of violence would affect him as an adult. You see i know a little girl, about 10 or so who was sure she would be ok to watch the exorcist. I watched 5 minutes and was freaked out of my mind. I couldn't sleep without a light on for a while. I also know a young boy who saw pornography at a young age and it shaped the way he viewed women into his adulthood. I just feel so compelled to protect our kids from what they see and hear and experience. We have enough time in our lives to watch those things as adults when we can process them through more mature eyes or be able to make the decision that it's not right for me to see. I don't want to see that movie. It does nothing to encourage me or to entertain me. It's not that I'm against all rated R movies for adults, I just don't want our kids to be exposed to that before their time.

Alexandra did this without the camera on and It was so funny I had to take a video of it.



Although Sebastian flipped out, the rest of us thought it was funny!

Hop on the Erbe Train

Instead of going out and spending a lot of money on a Saturday night, a $10 buy on EBAY for the brown and blue track adapters and we've got an Erbe Train Party. Paul was the designer and the boys were the engineers. Although it was hectic at times, boy it was fun.

Mom, got a question for ya....

We get in the house after picking up Alexandra from school and Alexandra says this:

Alexandra: Got a question for ya.
Me: sure
A: I wondered when you die or something can I have this house?
M: You want this house when I die?
A: Yes, I mean you won't need it.
M: Cause I'm dead or something.
A: yes
M: What got you thinking about wanting the house.
A: My friend at school Hunter is already saving his money for a house. So I told him that I wouldn't need to save my money for a house since I'll just have the one my mom lives in now. Then I won't need to worry about saving for it.

The things this girl comes up with...the mind of a 1st grader.

I need a t-shirt that says.....

...I survived Chuck e Cheeses! Ok, It wasn't that bad. It was a Saturday afternoon on Christmas break, so it was busy but I tell you my plan came together like a charm. I had planned for 1 1/2 hours. We got there about 3 PM. I got a couponchuckecheese.comby signing up to be in their e-mail newsletter club.

The coupon was if you bought 40 tokens for $10 you would get 60 free. Pretty good deal. I gave each of the 5 kids 20 tolkens and hoped it would get us to 4 PM. Right around 4 PM all but one of the kids (Alexandra) had like 1 tolken left. Yes! We turned in the tickets and because we rode a lot of the rides and didn't get many tickets we were in the car by 4:25 PM. Now that doesn't happen very often, that we are on time that is. The kids had a blast and really didn't realize that we were actually having the birthday party there. We picked up pizza on the way home and then had cake and ice cream after we opened presents. Pretty successful If I do say so myself.

Sebastian is 5

It's pretty amazing that Sebastian is five.

Happy Birthday Jesus

The Kids sang a song for Jesus at our Birthday Party for him. They were awesome.

All I want for Christmas

Thought this might be a great video to look back at when they are 16 or 20 or 50 :)

The Blizzard of 09

We went out for a little bit to play in the "Blizzard of 09".

Christmas time around the Erbe House

Alexandra seems to get pretty dramatic at bedtime. Tonight she came downstairs and told me she had something really really important to tell me. She preceeded to tell me that she wanted me to make her a colorful blanket and if I didn't she would be really said. Then she added, I also want all the other stuff I told you I wanted. At the time, I just told her to go back to bed, after I recounted the story to Paul, I cried laughing at it. It was so funny when I wasn't irritated with her getting out of bed.

Thanksgiving 2009 Erbe Style

Halloween parade

Alexandra's school always has a halloween parade. The boys and I went and enjoyed seeing all the costumes. As you can see there was some downtime and Atticus took that opportunity to dance. :)

I wonder if this is a trend

I thought it was just the sickness but there's a trend starting with Atticus. He's gotten attached to two shirts and this is one of them. He accidentally peed on it the other day and wanted to wear it and I told him no since it had pee on it. He through a fit. Then he said he wanted to wear his hook 'em horns shirt he got from Allyson and Ian. Well that one was dirty too sooo much weeping insued. I offered one of the many other shirts he has but none would do. Finally Daddy got him to put on one but today I washed it and he had to put it on right after I got it out of the dryer. He looks really cute in it so I had to take a couple pics.