18 Clues That You Live in a House Full of Boys

It's one of THOSE days. You know the kind--the kids are super hyped up after being down with colds for the past few days. The chaos of having chores fall by the wayside while everyone held down the couches has resulted in a crazy build up of mess. (How DO they make such messes while holding down the couches?!?!?) "Let's work together to get the house back in order" is met with blank looks as if you're speaking a foreign language.

On days like this I figure I can either throw up my hands in despair while sending everyone to their rooms for the rest of the day, or I can laugh and move on. I'm choosing to laugh! So here, in no particular order, are some of the things that I experience on a regular basis thanks to my house full of boys.

18 clues that you live in a house full of boys:

• Dirty socks randomly appear in every room, and they are usually full of holes despite the fact that you Just. Replaced. Them. less than 2 months ago.
  

• While you can certainly HEAR your children, usually all you can see is a blur as they run by.

• Your family owns more toy guns, swords, and light sabers than silverware.

• Part of the reason you have no silverware is because your spoons have become shovels, and your good forks get mysteriously thrown away with the paper plates when the boys clear the table.
  

• You can call their names til you're blue in the face, and they can't hear you...until you walk out into the garage and turn on the 4-wheeler, then they show up from every corner of the house wanting to go for a ride. This holds true for any vehicle or power tool.
  

• "Making their beds" is defined as picking up all pillows, sheets, blankets, and stuffed animals that were knocked onto the floor overnight and piling them on top of the mattress in one giant lump.

• You have 4 bathrooms but the chances of finding a toilet that is both flushed AND has the seat down is slim to none.

• You wash more clean clothes than dirty clothes because it is apparently easier to throw the clean clothes back in the hamper than to put them away.

• It's not unusual to have at least one child dressed as a superhero at any given time.
  

• Toothpaste is an acceptable medium for decorating the bathroom.

• The kids' bathroom can be the site of more than a dozen showers/baths a week, yet the shampoo and soap never seem to run out...

• ...unless it's the 3-year-old's nap time and he sneaks into the bathroom...then the shampoo is likely to be poured down the drain.
  

• Spontaneous wrestling matches can occur at any time, usually without warning.

• You can't keep enough food in the house, and no matter how "full" they are after a meal, someone will be complaining that they are starving within 15 minutes of finishing a meal.
  

• Even the most mundane, harmless object will be used as a projectile of some sort. Stuff is flying constantly!

• At any given time, there is at least one jar laying around that contains a living creature with 6 or 8 legs.

• Checking pockets before doing laundry is a hazardous endeavor.

• If it's quiet, you KNOW someone is up to something they shouldn't be!

You know, raising 6 boys is a loud, messy, CRAZY job...but when I really stop and think about it, I wouldn't have it any other way!!

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go vacuum the playroom...assuming I can find the vacuum. And the playroom! ;)

Happy Birthday, Josiah!!

Look who's FOUR!! It's hard to believe my little guy is getting so BIG!

His birthday was actually yesterday, but he wasn't feeling well so we put off celebrating until today. Poor baby. He was so excited about having cake and presents last night, but just couldn't keep his eyes open. He's feeling better today, although he still isn't at 100%. I think our plans to take him to our local bouncy/inflatables place will have to wait until later in the week.

Jonathan made his cake, from a mix that Josiah picked out himself. Joshua decorated it with red sugar and Spider-man figures. Yes, he put the Green Goblin up on Erector Set pieces so it would look like he's flying. I'm trying not to think about how unsanitary that probably was!



On a totally unrelated subject, I'm at the 1-month mark on my weight-loss endeavor. I'm down exactly 6 lbs., out of a total 20 I want to lose by the end of May. I'm happy with my progress so far. Now I just need to keep it up! I'm sure birthday cake doesn't help much. :)

Minute To Win It -- J-Boys Edition

What do you get when you combine a tray full of random craft supplies and household objects, 4 very active boys, and a little bit of imagination? Well, you get "Minute to Win It," J-boys style!

We took most of the day off on Valentine's Day. Even Jeremy took time off since he had a business engagement in the city that evening, so wanted to take time during the day to hang out with the kids. We played a few board games, but I could tell the boys needed something to do that was fun and ACTIVE!



So I ran around the house and started gathering items, many from our extensive collection of kids' craft supplies. I put instructions on index cards for each activity, then we all sat in the living room while the little ones napped and did silly things like:



Transferring pom poms from one bowl to another one a couple feet away using spoons held in our mouths...



Stringing colored noodles onto yarn using only one hand...






Stacking paper cup towers...











Using rubber bands to "shoot" down toilet paper tubes...






Flipping pennies from a craft stick onto a plate below...






Sorting foam shapes into bowls--blindfolded...









Throwing marshmallows into the air and catching them in our mouths...






Balancing a bunch of pennies on the end of a craft stick...






Catching giant pom poms in styrofoam bowls tied to our heads...









Keeping a feather in the air by blowing on it...












And rolling little styrofoam balls through a paper towel tube into a container on the floor.










We didn't play by the official TV show rules. Instead we divided into teams and did face-offs, with the winner being the one to stack/string/catch/sort/shoot the most in 1 minute's time. We pulled out our iPhones to use as timers. (Yes, I use my apps far FAR more often than I actually use the phone part, ha ha!)

The J-boys best events? Here's the recap:

Joshua could keep a feather aloft with only his breath longer than anyone else.
Jonathan sorted shapes blindfolded in record time.
Jordan was a pro at catching pom poms in a bowl on his head.
Joseph could stack cups higher than any of the other boys...

I emphasize boys because the overall champion cup-stacker was Jeremy. And I was the best at throwing marshmallows up into the air and catching them in my mouth--I only missed twice in 1 minute...I think I caught 10. Bet ya didn't know I was so talented!! :)

My Sweet Valentines

I have not 1, but 8 Valentines to spoil on Valentine's Day! Some years I get more creative with their treats than others...namely the years I'm NOT pregnant, haha! This year I made my sweeties sugar cookies. I was trying to make them look like conversation hearts.

This was my first time to try royal icing on cookies. I've made it before, but only to use as cement for gingerbread houses at Christmas. I colored it with Wilton gel colors. I think they turned out pretty cute, although the icing dried funny on some of them. They look wet around the edges, but they're not. Hmmmm.....



My lettering skills need some practice!




I also followed our tradition of giving everyone a box of actual conversation hearts. Candy always goes over well around here! It's okay to eat cookies and candy for breakfast if it's a holiday, right?? (We did follow up with scrambled eggs about an hour later!)


A little darling (with a bad case of bed head!) inspects her candy.



Mmmmm.....yummy!



Joseph enjoying a cookie.



Jordan

Just in case this helps someone else...

I cut out my cookie dough with a heart-shaped cookie cutter, but they spread out just enough to look kind of weird and misshapen in the oven. I just re-cut them out with the cookie cutter while they were still warm, and voila!--perfect heart shapes again! Now, those of you who bake a lot have probably already figured that out, but it was new to me, so I'm sharing. :) I had lots of eager tasters waiting around to eat the edges that were cut off, so nothing was wasted. (As if cookies could EVER go to waste in a house with 7 kiddos!)



The cookies were enjoyed by all. And I got a sweet card AND a box of chocolates from my honey...Yum!!

Valentine's Day totally sneaked up on me this year! I mean, I knew it was coming and all, but not so quickly. I'm not ready! This is not a holiday that I make a huge deal out of, but I have several things I've been working on for the loves in my life, and they're not done yet! I still have this evening, right?

This is my lone Valentine's Day decoration this year:


A heart garland made out of red and white felt. It was inspired by something I saw posted on Pinterest, which is my new internet obsession. Like I have time for any more internet obsessions. Anyway, the original is here. I thought hers was cute, but since I didn't have the bead-looking things to put between them, I thought I'd add dimension by making the individual hearts multi-layered. I started with 3, but my sewing machine totally balked at that. Two it is, then.

We had a super-cold weekend, so we spent lots of time sitting around playing games and drinking hot chocolate. Jeremy found us a new Mille Bornes game, since our old one had too many cards missing to really play it.

It is.....Cars themed! The little boys were thrilled.


The draw/discard decks sit in a plastic Lightning McQueen. How cute is that?



And the cards all feature characters from the Cars 2 movie.


For some reason, several of my children weren't allowing me to take their pictures...


It might have something to do with the iPhone app I downloaded recently that makes the subjects of your photos have cool facial hair or bald heads. I thought they would find that amusing. You never can tell with these guys, though. Apparently Josh, Jordan, and Joseph don't trust me with a camera at the moment.

But Jon let me take his picture:



And so did Josiah:



Well, I've got Valentines to prepare and very little time left. Got to get to work!!

Fun After the Storm!

When we moved to New York 3 years ago, we knew it was going to be an adventure. I never dreamed, however, that our adventures here would include a major hurricane! We were extremely blessed not to have any damage on our property. I kept peering out into the darkness throughout the night to see if our travel trailer and chicken coop were still standing--they were. Even our garden, which I was sure would either be uprooted or drowned, survived! We lost power twice, once for about 7 hours and later for about 2 hours, but that was it.

After all our preparing, it was almost anti-climatic. But I'm good with that. The boys, however, were extremely disappointed when the power came back on. I guess they were looking forward to "roughing it!"

We did have all sorts of fun playing in the wind Sunday afternoon, once the rain stopped and the sun came out. And of course I took pictures!


Jordan trying to make a sail out of a kite



The sun finally peeking through the storm clouds



Daddy swinging the little ones











Looking towards the northeast, the sky still looks pretty ominous!







Josiah is just happy to be outside!



Sweet brothers...















Walking with Daddy



Jordan gave up on the kite and used our Longhorns flag to make a sail.

I thought it was funny that the first thing the older 3 boys did when they got outside was to try to harness the wind to pull/push their scooters. I remember when I was a kid and hurricane Gilbert just missed us in Corpus Christi. We stood in our front yard in rain ponchos, holding the sides out to catch the wind. I think we were trying to see how far we could lean into the wind without falling over. Maybe we were trying to fly.

Joshua hypothesized that he could jump off the master bedroom balcony (basically 3 stories up) and the wind would help him "fly" down instead of just falling like a rock. He wanted to try it.

I vetoed that idea. I'm such a spoil-sport.







Josiah

The boys soon moved from creating wind sails to an impromptu football game.












Joanna just ran around checking everything out.


Busy girl



Taking a break to lie in the grass



Joshua's broom/trash bag sail. He ended up successfully using this to "power" Josiah's Little Tykes car down the driveway.

Now we are back to business as usual--school, chores, the daily routine. The boys want to know when the next hurricane is coming. Ha!