I fed him pudding. I ran upstairs to get something. I got distracted by a book. When I came back, Daniel had finished eating and moved onto nap. Wow, Daniel.

Daniel, age 6 months, napping on my friend Sherry, during Alan’s promotion ceremony

There are many things my beautiful little boys do well. Yes, I am sorry. I said beautiful.  They are!! Handsome, if it makes you feel better, but my goodness, they look like sleeping angels to me.

This is one of the things we do with FLARE. That’s right. We NAP. We are seriously great nappers. I remember one time, in Sunday school, our class was debating rest on Sundays. Who would debate that? Seriously. Don’t just agree to rest, embrace it, love it, protect it. The people need their naps!!!

All children look even sweeter when they are asleep, don’t you think? My blogging pal Slyvia at Tales from the Mommy Trenches had this post of  her babies sleeping on their daddy, and I thought it was SO adorable. I knew I had to copy cat, but when I went through recent photos, I found most of our pictures are of our children sleeping in the floor, soooooo…

I put together this little napping slideshow for ya. I hope you all get at least one day off a week, to just do this!

 Not one sleeping babe, but two. It doesn’t get any sweeter than this.

 Gotta love the nursing induced coma–a powerful bedtime ritual!

 Caleb sleeping on his Mama 🙂

Caleb sleeping on his daddy…or wait, no, Daddy is doing the sleeping!

 We sleep in the car.

They even sleep in their beds, without us even asking them to. I used to find Caleb sleeping in Joshua’s bed.

Caleb, sleeping in his own bed, with his Daddy doll, when Alan was in Afghanistan.

 They even trust each other. That’s newborn Dan, sleeping on three-and a half year-old Caleb.

 serious rump-in-the-air-sleep
 Caleb, 6 months, passed out on the couch, on Christmas day

I used to have to wake Daniel up from his nap every day at 2:30, to go get the boys from school. I put his gloves and jacket on him, in his sleep, and carried him out to the stroller.

passed out in a room full of kids

I’m going to slide down and go play, wait noooo, nooo, I’m just gonna zzzzzz.

Daniel seemed to prefer dropping down and sleeping in the living room floor.

just plain exhausted

But if I said the words, “nap time,” he’d run and hide in Daddy’s closet.

. ….ah, the ever peaceful Ergo nap.

We wish you all a restful day and a wonderful week!

The post Will Nap Anywhere appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

the beauty of sleep

Christmas vacation was exactly what I think I needed. It was so refreshing to spend time with our families. I was horribly selfish. I slept late every single morning. No, really. One day, I actually slept until 1:00pm. No kidding! I did almost no work at all. None. I sat on sofas, opened presents galore, drank copious amounts of flavored coffee and let other people chase J.D. around.

You can’t pour sweet tea from a broken pitcher, and this Momma pitcher just needed to stop for a few repairs.

At one point, on Christmas Day, Alan and I were sitting in Alan’s grandparents’ living room with all of the adults. I’m not sure you know how unusual this is for parents of ‘littles’:  Alan and I were sitting, together, in a room with adults!

Please don’t ever think I do all the work around here. Alan and I are equal partners in this venture, and we were equally in need of a vacation!

Everyone there seemed to realize this was odd for us. I think they were just teasing us.

“Look at ya’ll just sitting here! Who is watching your children?”

Alan and I looked at each other. “J.D. is asleep, and the kids are outside,” we sighed a blissful sigh of relief, “so this is our chance to relax a little.”

“Where is Daniel?”

“Pretty sure he’s outside with his brothers. He’s fine.”

“You aren’t worried about what they’re doing?”

One by one, each of my three oldest boys mosied into the living room, as this conversation took place.

“Nah. They are fine.” We’d been following J.D. around diligently, of course, and now that he was sleeping, this was our time to chill.

I guess this is why people think of Alan and me as laid back. No, we don’t police our children every second of the blessed day. We feel like we’ve taught them enough basics of safety to play without causing any great disaster, and EVERYONE has to rest sometime!! You can’t watch four boys every second of the day. That isn’t possible. We watch the babies and check on the others. Alan and I were both raised that way, and you know what? I think we turned out pretty well. We both graduated PUBLIC high school without ever drinking a drop of alchohol, seeing a drug…oh wait, Alan saw one but never used any, and I never even saw any.

I remember having this conversation with my friend B.J. in 10th grade history class:

Me: We have gangs? (Our high school was 1400 students strong, 9-12 grade, and this was not a wealthy school.)

BJ: OH, yeah, April, I’m on the basketball team. You don’t even want to know about all the drugs and gangs we have at this school.

Me: Huh. I had no idea.

But you can’t worry yourself and your children to death about these things. You just have to do the best you can do and trust God with the rest.

The funny thing is that most of our great disasters have happened with us right there, watching it happen. When Joshua broke his arm, Alan and I were right outside with him. How could we know that he’d suddenly decide to jump off the pick-up truck?He’d done that dozens of times without breaking his arm.

This is life.

It’s exhausting and delightful, if you let it be. This year I decided, “I’m going have a FUN Christmas.” I did. I think I had just as much fun as the children even! Okay, I will admit, by the end of it, Alan and I were starting to snip at each other. Why does that happen?

Because we are ALL sinners, and sometimes it is SO HARD to be good!

Well, you know I can’t make a January 2nd blog post without mentioning my New Year’s Goals, and this year I have TWO, okay three.

1. Study Jesus.

Last year I was supposed to “read the Bible through in a year”.  I only made it through the Old Testament.

This year I am going to read the New Testament, focusing on studying the words of Jesus.  I’m not just reading this year. This year I’m studying each individual chapter.

After I do my studying, I pray and write down my objectives for that day, or that week. I have a lot more clarity of mind once I have read my Bible and prayed! If only I could squeeze this in every single morning. That is always my aim, but life is life, and so sometimes that is hard.

“Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added unto you.”  Matthew 6:33

More on this in my next post!

2. Make a budget. We haven’t had one in years. 

There are lots of other little goals, floating around in my head, but if I spread my focus out too much, I get overwhelmed, and then I accomplish nothing at all.

3. I want God to use our family to bless others.

“And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.

But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.

Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few;

pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.”  Matthew 9:35-38

Let me tell you the result of my lazy Christmas vacation!

For the first time since I do not even remember when, I cannot feel that pinch in my right shoulder and my right hip. I haven’t used pain cream or advil in weeks! Plus, my finger nails look almost completely normal!

Living a lazy life is a bad idea, but living a stressful-never sleeping life is awfully hard on the body. Oh, to find the balance. They say that the first year of home schooling is the hardest, and I jumped right into the middle of it, rather than easing in, one kiddo at a time, sooo I have HIGH hopes for this year.

I have decided: This year I am appreciating my very Disney-movie-like life. I am thanking God for his blessings. I feel like I am re-grouping and preparing to return to “battle”, aka home schooling J, C, D, and JD. (Never think the babies don’t count. Little ones require a TON of attention.)

 Look at my mom’s beautiful hair. I hope I can age this gracefully!

I’m taking more time to plan for family fun and rest too. These boys need that just as much as I do. I may even plan some fun family mini-vacations for us, in advance!

Happy New Year!! 

The post This Year appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Tonight everyone in this house is seriously exhausted.

I am probably the only one that is still awake, and it’s only 10:40 pm!!!  It’s been a busy, busy week.

The biggest and most exciting news–and I have several bits of news!–was Joshua’s great success today!!

Joshua ran his very first 5K race, and when I say that the boy ran to win, you’d better believe it.  He took off like a shot, zipped through his first mile like it was nothing, and thoroughly impressed Alan, who happily ran the race with him.

Joshua completed the race in 30 minutes!!!  That’s faster than I could do!!  We are so proud.  He didn’t slow down a bit until he cut his leg up on a thorny bush, during the last stretch.  Our little hare came in 3rd place for kids 10 and under, earning his very first bronze medal!  WAY TO GO, JOSHUA!!!!!  We are so proud!

Joshua’s buddy, Xavier, also ran and placed 2nd!!  They were so cute together, with their medals.  Yes, Alan took photos!  Unfortunately, they are on his phone, so those are coming soon!

Oh, and Alan placed too!  Way to go, Daddy!!!

Here’s the scoop on what’s been going on:

This is Dan, playing planes on the aircraft carrier he got from Nana and Granddaddy, inside the tent he got from us.  Thank you, Granddaddy and Nana!  This is a serious hit!  It came like the day after you ordered it too–amazing!

Dan opted for these cupcakes, rather than a cake.  We didn’t do a party because our life has just been so hectic.  Dan still had a great time, as did his brothers.

This little fella is being weaned this weekend, or at least we are beginning the process.  Nonna is here, and she has been giving him bottles while I have been leaving the house as much as possible so that he knows that breastfeeding is not an option.

He’s made a lot of headway, as long as you put juice or breast milk in the bottle.  We still haven’t convinced him to drink formula.  He’s standing his ground on that, but I’m just happy to at least have progress.

What I didn’t expect is how much I miss breastfeeding and taking care of him.  Oh, JD, I miss you sooooo much!!!  I’m okay with not breastfeeding, and it’s been so weird to be out and about rather than at home with the baby, but I miss cuddling him all day long (and sometimes all night) way more than I realized I would!!!

GIANT thank you to Nonna, who has worked extremely hard to get this boy to drink, plus done the laundry, plus bathed the boys!!

This is like a vacation.  When JD was born, my mom was doing all of this for me, but I was too much of an invalid to enjoy it.

This weekend I was able to take advantage of it and go touring with our guests:  Alan’s grandparents!

It’s hard to tell in the photo, but this was Batman and another Lego figure, sitting on a sofa, watching t.v.  One of them has a remote control.

Dan got a doctor kit from Uncle Greg and Aunt Amy and a transformer dino/car from Allen and Emily.  He has played the fool out of all of it!  Thank you so much!

Dan loves to get all the remote control trains going on the track, but then JD waits for them to ride by and SNATCHES them. It’s a pretty fun game.

Oh, the cuteness!!!!!!!!!

A little of the tourism fun:

It was COLD! We found good, handicapped spaces in a parking garage near the museum.

Ha!!!!

It was extra neat doing the museum with Alan’s grandparents.  This is the Smithsonian American History Museum.

Granddaddy and Grandmother said things like, “Oh, I used to ride in one of those.”  and “Janet had a van just like that one.”  Grandmother told a story about the first time her father saw an automobile.  It really added to the experience!

We also went to the Holocaust museum with them the day before.

Then tonight they took Alan and me out to eat at Bonefish Grill.  What an exciting weekend!  This never happens, ya’ll.  I can’t tell you how strange I felt without little boys tugging on me:  no diaper bags, no babies to carry around.  I felt like I was doing something very wrong. I just had to keep reminding myself, “They are FINE.  Nonna and DaddyO are there with them.  JD will eat food and drink a little from a bottle.  This HAS to be done.  I can’t breastfeed this boy forever.”

In this photo, I was having a teary-eyed moment–I can’t tell you how strange it felt to have this much freedom–I am an emotional mess.  I was in the museum, and I spotted a spot where we took Joshua and Caleb’s picture just four years ago.  I remember them running all over the Transportation floor of the museum and how much they loved it, and this time they had not even wanted to come.   “Nah, that’s boring,” they said.  Tears!  Tears in my eyes!  They will never be those sweet, rowdy little babies again!!!

Joshua was almost 4, and Caleb was 2!!!  Oh, I miss them!!!  I know I still have them, but I miss that preschool version of them!!!  I’d forgotten that their hair used to be that blonde.

We saw this guy propose to this girl.  I couldn’t not watch!!!

LOVE these blue dishes!!!!

Alan, the professional DC tour guide, driving us around.  It’s always such a  relief when Alan is at the helm and not me!!  I always end up driving down some “Do Not Enter” street or ending up hopelessly lost.  DC streets, I will not miss you!!!!

Tomorrow is Sunday.  Ah, sigh of relief!!!  My day of rest, and I love it so.  It seems like more and more events are being scheduled for Sunday afternoons, as people are afraid to compete with other Saturdays.  I’m trying to stand strong and not get sucked in to another day of running around like a chicken with my head cut off!!  Sundays are my easy.  God commanded that we take a day to rest.  Literally–the sabbath is one of the 10 commandments.  Yes, I know, the Sabbath is really Saturday; let’s not get technical.  The Lord arose on Sunday, so Christians call Sunday the Lord’s Day.  I suppose either of those days is a perfectly good one to rest on!  Thank you, God, for Sundays!!

The post Touring the Smithsonian American History Museum with Alan’s Grandparents appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.