Lately in Windom (May 2017)

The weather finally improved enough to pull out the hammock!

First meal of 2017 on the deck!

Mornings are rough sometimes ;)

When I saw this sign this past fall, I knew I had to have it. This was one of the songs my brother played during my Dad's funeral almost 10 years ago now. Every time I hear it, it brings tears, but reading it just helps me remember him and puts a smile on my face.

Probably way TMI here, but I'm finally starting to really get good at NOT peeing on my hand at my appointments. I guess by this point in pregnancy #4 I should be a pro, huh?

Failed my 1 hour glucose test, and as a result, my attitude was BAD the rest of the day. Thankfully,
a few days I had zero issues passing the 3 hour glucose test.

It never really ends. #truth

Cashel just giggles and giggles and giggles when I read the last 3 lines of this story lol

I'm (much too) slowly making it through this Priscilla Shirer study, and finding it extremely convicting.

Reminder to self: Don't wear sweatshirts when you're pregnant. My friend B looks fabulous, though,
so that's what matters ;)

I just so happened to come across this adorable little dresser for the new baby's room at a yard sale on the way to meet B for coffee, shopping and lunch in Sheldon one day. I can't wait to work on it!

Breakfast picnic with doughnuts and juice at the park with my boys :)

Cashel and I were there, too ;)

Scavenger hunt!

By the end of most days, I feel a bit like Mrs. McCave, except instead of 23 sons, I only have 3 (so far...let's see come the end of July if I'll have 4, or still just 3)

We got this new storage bin for all the outside toys this month. It didn't take long for it to get disgustingly dirty already.

I absolutely adore watching my big kids and little guy interact. They were laughing and giggling long enough for me to go find my phone (which is a task around our house on the evenings and weekends) and snatch something like 5 minutes of adorable video :)

I feel like somewhere I just woke up and now have 3 big kids. When baby #4 comes, I think it's going to blow my mind just how big Ryan really is!

Cashel asked me for days after this to see this picture again, and then would proceed to laugh uncontrollably. He's so silly :)

I ran into one of my old co-worker buddies while doing my 3 hour gestational diabetes test, and we had to get our 4th (and hopefully final) belly comparison shot. We randomly did this jokingly when I was pregnant with Cashel, and have gotten one with each baby since then lol

After passing (woohooo!) I had to get a celebratory choco cherry love blizzard :)

Ryan is big into dragging around the broom lately lol

My sweet Cashel's 4K preschool picture!

"Get Well" and "Mother's Day" flowers for my Mama, who had another trip to the hospital :(

I love this woman so much!

I got to spend a lot of time while visiting my Mama in the hospital hanging out with my adorable niece. She had the nurses wrapped right around her little finger lol #AllTheGoodies #YesPlease #SnackTime

My sister is just the most selfless person I know. She spent pretty much all day every day at the hospital with my Mama while she was there, bringing her special treats, keeping her anxiety at bay, and just generally loving on her.
Where would we be without my sweet sister?

Cashel REALLLY wanted "strawberry pancakes" and got mad when I took the whole strawberries out of the pancakes. Little did I know that THIS was what he had been hoping for lol

Even Mark, who tends to be not at all on board with buying anything not on sale, doesn't complain when I pay full price for these every week. SO.GOOD. I will never buy regular sausage again.

I know it's only going to be a few more years before they are legitimately driving this 4-wheeler around, and that kinda scares me.

First tractor rides of the spring!

The four kiddos who make me a Mama :)

3/6 of the kiddos who call this sweet woman Mama ;)

Kendrick kinda has a passion for his food, you could say lol

I want to capture these older girl cousins for a while to help me manage the crazy lol Miss Kaleigh Mae willingly (and passionately) entertained Ryan all afternoon.

Meanwhile, these guys were having a fun time swiping eggs from the chicken coop.

Supper on the way home for Mother's Day at The Green Mill in Fairmont. I just realized why I end up posting so few pictures of Mark these days: A good chunk of the photos I take of him happen to not be super flattering lol I mean, it's not his fault that I just randomly don't ask him to smile for a picture that often, but more times than not when I'm snapping one of those "be in the essence" types of photos, he is either in a strange position, in the middle of saying something or in the middle of eating. Or he's squinting (as he does in the sun) which makes him contort his face a bit.
This particular day I just thought he looked so sexy! I kinda love the shirt he has on. He makes even just a t-shirt look good :)

It's starting to get harder and harder to catch my breath for walks and such.

This did NOT bruise up like I thought it would, hallelujah! Let's just say...Cashel has a hard, HARD head. He accidentally was trying to climb up on a counter as I was trying to get the potatoes out from under the same counter, and BAM. I actually cried.

The construction crew starting on the road work out in front of our parking lot. We may or may not have to re-locate for a monthish. So far, it hasn't really affected our parking space, and we're not really sure if it's going to or not, but we're kinda hoping not. I get winded even just going up and down the stairs at home, so walking 3 blocks just to get to the parking lot would be "fun".

I still don't feel like Ryan has quite reached that age where I can tell what he's REALLY going to look like down the road. I feel like by their 2nd birthday, the look has stuck, but it's definitely not before about 18 months before we can really see.

One thing is for sure: This kid LOVES slides!

Still trailing majorly behind with my digital scrapbooks these days. I'm finally into September for Kendrick's 2016 book, then I've got to go back and finish my 2016 family book from July-December as well. And our Alexandria book (which is almost done) and then finish our San Diego 2017 book (which is almost done as well).

The boys got cool new shades for the summer, and were pretty impressed.

I miss the days of just getting to sit, visit with friends and watch Mark play softball in the summer. These days, it's getting sneak peeks when the boys aren't running off. Thank goodness for a zoom lens on my DSLR or I'd never get to capture him playing anymore.

Go, baby, go!

Apparently the annual pic with Daddy is going to turn out like this every year from here on out lol

And just like that...It's SUMMER!!!

Cleaning Lady and Does It Even Matter?

Wednesdays are becoming my favorite days of the week. Wednesdays are when I get to walk into my home at lunch and find it clean. The entryway, the stairs, the bathrooms, the kitchen, the living room floors: All of it. It's magical. I've been surprised at just exactly HOW much stress it takes off my shoulders at the end of the day. It's all those little things you just don't think about that need to be done that, if I do it myself, I become a cranky, frustrated wife and Mama. However, writing a check and making a list once a week has lifted that burden substantially.

That being said, sometimes I wonder if we're just throwing our money away for a few moments of sanity. That's not to say that our cleaning lady doesn't do a phenomenal job, because she does, but because having 3 little boys, it doesn't stay clean for very long. However, I do know that if we didn't have her coming to clean, it'd probably be RIDICULOUSLY worse.

My goal for the week is to have the craziest stuff out of the way by Tuesday evening, whether that means haircuts or baths for the kids, one heck of a messy prep meal for the week (with leftovers, so I don't have to cook right away in my clean kitchen), any messy crafting projects, etc. This way, even if the house is a little dirtier than usual, it'll be clean when I come home from work. And really, this works great! It really is wonderful to come home on Wednesdays and look around with nothing I really need to do when I get home. But then...then the reality sets in.

This past Tuesday evening, I opened the fridge door and a jar of pickles fell out. Cashel had gotten into them, but not screwed the top closed on them, and then set them on a full shelf, so we had pickles and pickle juice EVERYWHERE. I was irritated to say the least, but in the back of my head, I told myself it'd be okay, because Wednesdays are cleaning days! So I wiped up what I could, and made a note for our cleaning lady to clean it better in the morning. Lo and behold, on Wednesday morning, it didn't smell like pickles in our kitchen anymore! (High praise, our sweet cleaning lady - HIGH praise!)

Wednesday, the stairs were clean, the entryway was spotless, the floors throughout the upstairs were as sparkling as they get when you're dealing with engineered hard wood. The night before, however, we'd had one heck of a storm, and our mailbox (which is in desperate need of replacing, and we're working on making a decision as to what we want to replace it with) got thrown down, so while we were trying to at least get it upright to the point where we could wait until the weekend to make it to Menards to find another one, we all got some pretty dirty hands. Kendrick also thought it great fun to stomp around in the mud, so even though I had him stomp his feet off outside first, when I walked into the house, dirt all over the spotless entryway and halfway down the stairs going downstairs (at which point, it appears he had the wisdom to take his boots off and throw them back up the stairs, making an even bigger mess at the top of the stairs). The downstairs bathroom had dirt all over the counter. The soap pump was covered in dirt, and since 3 year olds don't really do a super awesome job every time of getting ridiculously muddy hands spotlessly clean, the fresh hand towel was now dirty.

The good part, however, is that we have two bathrooms, and the other one...totally spotless still, right? I hollar up to my 5 year old and tell him to come on down and also wash his hands in the bathroom, and he assures me he has already washed his hands...in the spotless upstairs bathroom, which now has dirt all over the counter. However...on the upside (we're looking for positives here, right?), he DID remember to shake his boots off in the entryway first and take them off, so at least we don't have a trail of dirt leading up the stairs as well. And 5 year olds are significantly better at actually getting their hands clean when they wash them (better than 3 year olds, anyways), so the fresh hand towel was not decimated.

I sit down for a few minutes, because it has just been a long day (one of those days where I needed a 3 hour nap all day but it's just never in the cards), when I see the 3 year old opening the fridge. Usually he's just going for a string cheese or apple or something along those lines, but a few seconds later, I hear a big crash, and see that he was actually going after the huge glass container of 2 day old (and thus, super watery) watermelon. Thankfully, the bowl didn't crash, but unfortunately, it meant a huge mess to clean up once again.

Randomly, although they've had zero interest in helping in the kitchen for pretty much the last month, last night both the 5 and 3 year old decided they wanted to help me prep the pot roast for supper that night, which meant even bigger messes. Water all over the floor, spilled potato peels, oats all over the floor, messy counter all over again.

The 3 year old, while sitting on the kitchen counter, decided to look up in the cabinet and found some sprinkles, which he then dropped in the living room on the floor all over.

In a sum total of about 30 minutes upon arriving home, the place looked extremely lived in, and you couldn't even hardly tell there had been a cleaning lady there. Of course, by the end of the night, most of it had been tidied back up to looking pretty good, but my goodness, for a while that night, I just sat and wondered how on earth little people could make such a disastrous mess of a perfectly clean house.

I'm trying to get better about not letting it bother me so much, but man. I'm trying to not let my knee-jerk reaction be to yell, "KENDRICK!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" and instead just take a deep breath and say, "Uh oh! Let's clean that up."

I always think to myself that winter is the worst season for messes, but I'm beginning to come to grasp with the fact that spring and summer are probably equally as dirty.

I certainly do think that having a cleaning lady has been worth it - she has done a phenomenal job, and even if it's undone 30 minutes after we get home, knowing that I won't have to deal with the clean up by myself each week really gives me peace of mind. It also keeps me accountable to encourage my family to pick up after themselves (I used to let that slide), since I know that by Wednesday morning, the house needs to be at least picked up so she can clean surfaces and floors. Just knowing that even if they've messed it up, it's not after I've been exhausted and worn out from doing it myself makes me a lot less crabby.

Mother's Day (May 14)

I keep thinking about starting this post and then get too emotional and don't really know where to start. The pregnancy hormones certainly aren't helping these days.

I feel like when you become a Mama of your own, it's almost confusing. I mean, not at first, but certainly down the road. I have a really hard time balancing the, "Life is so hard when you're a Mama" thoughts and, "I should be pampered, and everyone should make the day entirely about ME" feelings, and the, "I never really did much for my Mom on Mother's Day even though she means the whole world to me" thoughts. So then the tides turn, and you get those feelings all jumbled up, and it feels confusing. Add in social media, and a few unicorn husbands who bring out the big guns and that's all it takes to put ya in a funk.

So when, on the week before Mother's Day, I ended up getting a text that your dear, sweet Mama is laying in a hospital bed once again, and the doctors say things aren't looking good from an overall perspective, it all hits even harder.

It's hard to imagine life without my Mom. It has been rough the past couple years not being able to share life with her, really. I mean, I see her, and I spend time with her, but she only has moments where she remembers clearly, and even fewer of those moments when she can handle even the slightest bit of controversy. If we tell her even little things like, "Oh, I've just had a few years of bad sleep with the kids." or "I'm just so busy all the time trying to manage work and home life," she worries about us to the point of having anxiety attacks. So...we have to filter. She can't handle bad (or even marginal) news, and she can't handle even the slightest controversy or she loses sleep. So when we see her, it has to be rainbows and puppy dogs, pretty much. And ya know...that has just never really been my Mama. I mean, not that she isn't a generally happy person, but she's always been very real with us kids, and the her that used to be there, she'd be upset to think that we weren't always being real with her.

So...Mother's Day 2017...

We were up early and got ready to head down to see my Mom, who was still in the hospital. We made it down to see her around 10am. My only long-standing request for Mother's Day is to get a nice picture of me with the kiddos who make me their Mama, and this year, it was about as good as we could get haha :) Usually, we're dressed up for church, but today was an exception, as we were on the road to see my Mama and all.

Dan had driven out from Indiana, and Josh and Tiff were there with their boys. I'm not really sure how in the WORLD she managed to have twice as many kids as are pictured here. Crazy! This is me with my brother Dan (a couple years older than me) and my brother Josh (a couple years younger than me).

Amanda had just been there, but we missed her. We managed to keep everyone somewhat busy and out of trouble until around 11:30am, and then we left her to enjoy her lunch while we grabbed some Hardee's together, and then made our way out to the farm for a bit.

The boys had a blast playing with their cousins :)

Around 1pm, I headed back in by myself to the hospital to spend a few hours with my Mama, as well as my oldest brother, Dave, who had driven down from Des Moines to see Mom. He kept her busy showing her sweet videos of his kiddos ;)

My Mother's Day gift this year from Mark was the gift of time. He kept up with the kiddos at the farm until I got back there to pick them up around 4:30pm. It was a sweet time with her, and it was so nice to be able to have the one-on-one time. It was also really hard, obviously, as hospital visits go. My beautiful Mama is just getting so weak, and that's really a hard reality.

We hit the road around 5pm, and stopped halfway home for a Mother's Day supper at The Green Mill. The boys were begging for spaghetti and meatballs, and we obliged :)

It was certainly a different Mother's Day for me. I feel like it was a crazy look at the past, present and future, and that's kinda sobering. Mark and I often talk about how we really hope that neither of us end up with a disease like Parkinson's that leaves our future looking so bleak.

I've certainly grown in the past ten years, as I spent significantly less time moping about the fact that Mother's Day was not all about me this year. In the past, I get to do whatever I feel like doing on that day, which tends to be equal parts snuggles, a nice nap, and some planting flowers. This year, it was sobering. It was, truthfully, a little exhausting. And at the end of the day, there were no flowers, no pomp and circumstance. I don't even recall any of my kids even telling me "Happy Mother's Day". There were no homemade cards, and I hardly got the chance to even spend time with them. But then I think about it, and I realize that that sorta sums up motherhood. God didn't put me in this position as a mother to be praised and worshiped and fawned all over. He put me in this position to do the hard, selfless work of motherhood. It's the job my Mom did for all those years. With SIX KIDS! And ya know what? I don't sing her praises nearly often enough. Being a mom yourself, you just hit the tip of the iceberg as far as what your own Mom must have gone through back in those days.

So yeah. That was my Mother's Day this year. I could keep going on, but I don't know that I'd have much more to say than what I already have. I love my kids and I love my Mama :)