Brothers

Owen is a lucky little guy. He has two older brothers that look out for him. They are like his own personal superheroes. It is coincidence that they dressed the part this particular day.



I love that Dallin and Adam are so interested in their baby brother. They are always wanting to hold him and hug him and kiss him. Dallin even cried the other day when I told him he couldn't touch or kiss Owen because he had a cold. Poor guy.

Work/Play

This is my new idea, maybe it was inspired, because I don't feel like I am on the top of my mental game these days to come up with great ideas, or even speak coherently for that matter.



The work bag has slips of paper with rooms of the house or other chores written on them, like "family room" or "wash mirrors." The other bag has activities. I have a couple of books with activity ideas but we don't always get around to flipping through a book or looking online and coming up with something to do. It takes too much time to research something new to do all the time. So instead, I do the research all at once and write down several activities on these slips of paper. Or when I hear of or think of a new thing to do I just write it down and drop it in the bag.



When the boys are looking for something to do, Dallin will often ask, "Can we do work/play?" We will draw a slip from each bag. The work gets done first then we move on to play. It is great because we are spending time together doing the things that I know I should be doing with my kids, but we are also getting some jobs done. The jobs are small and only last five to ten minutes, and the activities are generally much longer but when I am playing with my kids I feel less pressure to be doing other things because we already got something accomplished around the house. Dallin especially loves it and it teaches the boys that there is a time for work and a time for play.



Today we picked up then vacuumed the living room and hall. For an activity, we did collages with stickers and pictures from old magazines. By the time I took this photo Dallin had moved on to drawing a picture of a pretty intense water gun.



This is my new trick. How do make time to do productive things with your kids and get them to clean up around the house?

Fun Times at the Smith House

What else am I going to do at 12:30 am when Owen is refusing to go to sleep? At least he's happy, just chilling out with me while I do some blogging. Actually, he's falling asleep for about two minutes at a time, waking up, and then falling asleep again. The normal routine is to have him fall asleep in his bed, but there are times when he falls asleep just fine on his own only to wake up 20 minutes later. Over and over. It's been one of those nights.

And, it's about time I get that big picture of myself off of the top of my blog.

So, I happened to turn on the last 15 minutes of the Rachael Ray Show while I nursed Owen the other day. Dallin came and joined me as Rachael did her cooking segment. She announced what she was making: mac and cheese cheeseburgers. I grimaced. Dallin perked up.

"Maybe we can watch how she makes them and then we can make them?" he asked excitedly. And of course, that is what we did.



Another picture of me on the top of the post?



Strange idea, mixing cooked pasta and cheese cubes into the burgers, but they were better than expected. But anything tastes better when your sous chefs are this cute.



Also cute, Adam has long outgrown the trampoline we make him sleep on:


Or actually, Mark humored him the other night when Adam asked if he could sleep on it. Why not?

One Month

Kind of hard to believe it's been a month, but then again, this little guy is looking huge to me! He's getting some meat on his bones and cross-my-fingers he is getting the hang of sleeping at night (not through the night of course). It is so fun to have a baby--I think I forgot how awesome they are.

I love that Dallin and Adam are so interested in Owen. They love him so much--it's great. When I get Owen from his naps Dallin and Adam will come up to us and ask to see him. I lower Owen to their level so they can hug him and kiss him and I smile and grimace at the same time because they are not perfectly oh so gentle though they are trying to be.

A few days ago I was doing dishes and the boys were hanging out next to Owen who was propped up lying on the couch. Adam and Dallin were both saying, "Look at me! Look at me!" to Owen. Owen started crying and I realize it's because his brothers are forcing him to look in their direction by moving his head one way and then another. His poor little newborn neck.

I told myself I was going to put my tennis shoes on today and get a little more done around the house. Somehow that didn't happen until 5:30 pm when I realized Mark was going to be home soon and I needed to do dinner and clean up the house at least a little. I think I transitioned from "taking it easy" to being a little lazy. Oh well. Maybe tomorrow I'll do better. Tennis shoes at 4:30 pm perhaps?