Our cyclist sleeper

All I can say is she comes by it honestly.

Sleeping with a treasure

Don't ask me what was inside the jewelry box, but it was important enough to sleep with.

No room in the bed

Just in case you run into Jim or I and we look a little worn, tired, sleep-deprived or ragged, this will explain it...

How, just how, is anybody supposed to get descent sleep here with these two cuddle bunnies around?

p.s. Katherine is here sitting next to me and as she read me typing the title of this post, "No room in the bed" she aptly pointed out, "Well there's actually room there for you to sleep?"

There's no tired like Mama tired

You know the self-proclaimed Princess and the Pea is tired when she falls asleep sitting up, holding a remote, with a baby spread across her legs.

Super sleepy

On the way to school to pick up sissy, this is what Nathan would do about half the time.  The 12:30-2:30  time span apparently wasn't enough for his little body, so the trip there filled in the sleepy gap.

What the little tyke didn't know when he innocently fell asleep in the back seat, was that his mother thinks people sleeping is HILARIOUS!  And she takes pictures!  She used to get in trouble in high school and college when another student would fall asleep in class.  The head-bobbing, gaping mouth, drooling on the desk was too much for her to handle and the giggles would set in and wouldn't go away no matter how hard she tried.

So fast forward a hundred years or so, 3 children in, and this ole' mom can't resist the temptation to snap a shot of my sleeping prince.  Sissy seems to think it's entertaining also.

Sleepy Head

Pure & simple comfort

Is there anything more comforting than falling asleep next to your baby?  Feeling the slight rise and fall of his breathing, the warmth of his body, the smell of his head and listening to his shorter breaths coupled with intermittent whimpers.  It's one thing I will miss, terribly, when my babies grow up.

Sleeping down under

I'm convinced that this kid's main goal, some days, is to surprise me every chance he gets.  He's never slept half under the bed before, and he hasn't done it since.

Trucky Love

This boy doesn't have Puppy Love, he has Trucky Love.

Kind of OCD-ish cute, if you ask me.

And reminds me of my friend's boy, "I".  Hi "M", you know I'm talking 'bout you!

Have I mentioned how fabulous this child has been lately?  There was an extremely rough patch him and I went through for 2 solid months, where we were both ready to trade each other in.  It wasn't pretty.  It wasn't worth trying to blog about.  It was painful, ugly and felt like it lasted forever.  But, thankfully, we've settled into a groove.  I wish I could type a blog entitled How Kelle Got Her Groove Back, but I have no idea what happened.  All I know is that the good Lord smiled down on our havoc-wreaked household and relationships and we have felt His peace since.

Nathan is a lot of fun to be around.  I hope the pictures of him and I playing with trucks shows how much I truly enjoy playing with him, because I really do.

He has a very soft side.  Lately, he's been saying, "Momma, I done like to go to work.  I like to stay home wif you, and Kaffwin and Bwandon.  I like it when Kaffwin comes home to pway wif me, when she's all done at school.  Are we going to pick her up soon?  How about dis is the pwan, Momma.  How about after we pway wif all these Monster Twucks, we go pick up Kaffwin?  Dat sounds good.  Ok, Bweak!"

That last part is something he's learned from me.  Many times I feel like either a drill sargent or a football coach.  So, after I gather the "troops" or "team", and give them the pwan (plan), I'll have them all put their hands in the middle of our huddle and declare, "Ok, BREAK! Now Go, Go, Go!"

One other thing he's started doing is reciting bad words.  He really likes to point out when the Beast in Beauty and the Beast says, "I look stupid."  Nathan yells across the house, "Momma, he just said the word stoopid and dats not bery nice.  Some uder bad words are Ho-we Cow and Oh my God.  None of dose words are bery nice are they Momma?  Nooooo, they'we not so we don't say Stupid, Ho-we Cow or Oh my God."

Any amount of reciting the "bad words" without using them in context is fun and acceptable for him.

He's polite to me and strangers and loves to gently run his hands through my hair, all the while asking, "Dat feel good Momma?  I wike to touch your hair, it's soft.  I trywing to be bery careful, Momma."

He's started wanting to play and talk gently to Brandon.  Occasionally, I'll walk in the room and Nathan is giving Brandon a side-head-hug with one arm with the other arm gently caressing Brandon's mohawk.  His hugging hand usually lands somewhere on top of Brandon's eye-range while he's talking soft and sweet to his little brother.

I adore this newly-turned 3-year-old and wouldn't trade him for the world.  He is absolutely precious.

Full tummy

Solid foods are a hit in our house.  With everybody!

This particular feeding left the youngest Boyer feeling a little lethargic.

And some of the sleep fairy's sprinkle dust got in his eyes.

The feeding station was no match for the bowling balls weighing down his eyelids.

That's what oatmeal does to me too, Bubby.

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These pictures have nothing to do with oatmeal, solid foods, sleep or high chairs.  They're just great pictoral documentations of The LadyKiller Mohawk.

(I know he's going to want to strangle me one day)

New buddy

Nathan has been spending a little too much time with the spanking spoon.

3am Shuffle

Do you ever wonder if what is "normal" for your household is considered really weird to the rest of the world? Well, I do. There are some things we've accomplished in parenting that I'm pretty proud of, and others, I'm not so proud of. But thankfully, there are TV shows out there that highlight the idiosyncrasies of parenting and enable me to feel a little more normal.

ABC has a show called The Middle. Ever heard of it? Well, I happened to be channel surfing the other night, watched 5 minutes of this show and immediately felt "normal."

The mom, played by Patrician Heaton, narrates the show and for this particular one explains the 3am Shuffle. Paraphrased, she says: "The 3am Shuffle. You know, all you parents out there who do it but don't admit it to anyone. It's the time of night when at least one child sleepily makes his way to the side of your bed, begs to get in, and one parent decides to sleep elsewhere." Then it showed their youngest child, a 3rd grader, standing next to the bed and the dad getting up to go lie on the couch.

I immediately felt justified because a fictional TV show family has the same problem. Except our problem is more like the 1am Cramp that soon leads to the 3am Shuffle. Our kids start heading to our room around 1am, and because we have a King-size bed (and I'm insulated by pillows), the first one who makes it there usually stays. By 3am one of us is having to move the first invader back to his/her room to make room for the 2nd invader because our bed is NOT big enough for 4 of us to sleep comfortably.

Now Jim, will tell you that my pillows cross over the mid-point of the bed and cause him to be cramped with whichever child has claimed our bed for their own. WHATEVER, is what I have to say. Thankfully, my pillows do insulate me from the bicyclist (Katherine) and the acrobat (Nathan) causing me to loose any sleep. I first needed the "wall of pillows" around my body when pregnant, now it's a requirement for the Princess and the Pea to sleep. I am still nursing all hours of the night also, so they are also doubling as protection for the baby.

One night after a late night of blogging, I came back to find this...
We can't seem to convince him to use the pillows for his head. He'd rather them cushion his feet. Go figure.

Deadliest Catch Die-hards

They had the best of intentions to stay up and watch his favorite show, Deadliest Catch. Unfortunately, a hard day's work, play and no naps got the best of them both. I think they made it into about 10 minutes of the show.

Practical Angels

I'll admit it, there was about a 2-week period I was ready to send my children back to where they came from. It seemed the arguing, fighting, cattiness, kicking, biting, hair-pulling, whining, not-sleeping and crankiness would never end. But thankfully, the good Lord stepped in and decided to give me a sabbatical in real tough kid-raising by transforming our children into practical angels. I'm sure ALL the work was done on them, not me or my attitude by any means; regardless they have been pure joys to be around.

I know, I'm not supposed to say anything, much less write it out, for fear of jinxing the good-behavior streak working on our behalf but, too many times I feel I write about how they're not behaving the way they should. Their actions have been so remarkably different, I feel a lovingly/motherly duty to not only praise them in person (which I have been doing A LOT), but to also write it down for the Blog Book.

So, you heard it straight from the horse's mouth: our children have been marvelous little creatures to be around and I've enjoyed every minute with them. Even when one of them gets a little sideways, I seem to have crazy amounts of patience to deal with it and help them work through it. Like I said, I'm sure it's all them, and nothing was being worked on in my heart.

I know my friends and family members sure heard enough of my mouth during our rough patch and I'm sure a majority of them were praying for my sanity and our kid's well-being. Whatever the answer, because I'll truly never know the extent of my loved ones' prayers for my family, I am thankful.

And I am reminded: "We know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God..." Romans 8:28 NLT

Sleeping Beauty

Sometimes she is overcome with sleep, no matter where she is.

The Boyer Frat House

Back when we updated our bedroom, one of our splurge purchases was a bed frame. It was a "splurge" because I picked one out at the used furniture place, delivered it home in the back of Jim's truck, and we assembled it ourselves. One minor important detail that was not noticeable while on the "showroom" floor, was it's short cross-beam that ran the length of the bed.

Why would a cross-beam be so important Kel, you might ask? Well, with a King-sized bed, the box frame is actually two twin bed box frames and that cross-beam holds both of them up.

Oh, so why bring up it being short? It's length is important because it essentially holds the bed up. We learned early on that if the fan was on too high and the wind was just right, that short cross-beam would slip out of position and the bed ended up half on the floor, half still intact. Fun times.

The last time our bed "broke" was because one of our children came running in and did the 30-pound pile drive on it. Thirty pounds really isn't a big deal, but when you're dealing with a short cross-beam, it is all of a sudden. So, minutes before bedtime, our bed half falls down and wouldn't you know it, the man who is capable of falling asleep on an airboat WHILE IT IS RUNNING (no really, he did), fell asleep on the half up, half down bed.

I tried to sleep on it. I really did. But this self-proclaimed Princess and the Pea just was not capable of sleeping on a crooked bed. So, I packed up ALL of my pillows and set up camp in Katherine's bed.

The next morning I approached the I-can-sleep-anywhere man and asked him why he didn't fix the bed before falling asleep. (It takes strong arms, stomach muscles and a strong back to lift the mattress and box springs to fix it and I'm officially out of commission in the heavy-lifting department).

His response...

"I was tired."

Can you believe that? For one, he's capable of answering a question in three measly words, that most women would turn into a dissertation, and two, it really was that simple in his world.

Well, I stifled the disgust and jealousy and calmly replied, "James Boyer, this is no frat house, and I'd rather not have it be treated as such."

This is when I sometimes say things that I'm not quite sure of how they will be received. Because sometimes my frankness comes across as a bit, "witchy" and other times, he thinks it's hilarious. Like the time soon after we were married, he was berating me about finances and spending $2.11 each day on lunch at Subway. I had had enough and I angrily called him a Communist Tyrant. It easily could have gone either way: spur him on into a good argument, or as it ended up, he burst out in laughter and wore his new title with much pride.

So as the frat house comment easily flowed from my mouth, the anticipation of waiting for his reaction was short-lived because he again: burst out into laughter. He has very fond memories of the filthy, college-male dominated giant keg he called home for years. Me, not so much. He was by far the cleanest one that lived there, but it did have an odor and all the men admitted that each year it was just easier to paint the walls rather than clean them.

It wasn't much longer into the day that I walked back toward the bedroom and found this on our door, with a daddy and two giggling kids hiding under the covers of the repaired bed:
Very cute. I had a good laugh along with the kiddos who were oblivious to its meaning, but the wiser owl of the two started asking questions and when she realized it said no Mommys were allowed, she decided to fix it, on her own, with no assistance. The next day, the sign looked like this:
There might not be any free-flowing booze around here, but we are most certainly drunk on love.

I'll be on hold until the sleep fairy backs up the moving van at our house

I'm still here.

I haven't left.

If anything, even if I wanted to leave, I couldn't. But I don't, so no worries there.

My blogging, unfortunately, has taken a back-burner to the ever-so-present every single waking moment of the day reality of INSOMNIA.

I've constantly got that worn-out I'm a mom of small children mixed in with a little is she aware of concealer look. Those "bags under the eyes" make-up commercials would turn me away for fear of being able to show anything positive with the end result. Tylenol PM worked for about 10 days. What's next that is fetus-friendly and won't leave me in a drug-induced morning stupor unable to hear my toddler screaming, "I got poop in my pants, mama" before he spreads it ALL OVER the bed and walls. (Experience has taught me that poop in the bed usually takes about 3 days to fully recover from)

(I feel your pain, Hill)

I am a self-diagnosed Princess & the Pea when it comes to sleeping. Everything must be just right for productive sleep to occur. The temperature, wind-speed, weight of the covers, pillow numbers/placement and sounds must be on a 9 out of 10 scale for optimum-sleeping-conditions to occur. Anything less is null and void, I'm up like I've downed 3 Red Bulls ready to discuss which part of Trigonometry I enjoy the best.

Something about this pregnancy has sparked my body's insatiable desire to produce nightmares that are every parent's worst, well uh, nightmare. There's always some type of conflict and most of the time someone is dying or is close to it. Boring infomercials don't even put me back to sleep, I just pick back up where the nightmare left off, because I'm OCD like that.

So, since I'm already very sensitive to little sleep (without a growing fetus in my womb), adding normal stresses of raising two very active children into the mix of a body I feel is borderline too old to be birthin' anytime soon, has broken me of blogging. To put it honestly, this pregnancy is kicking my butt.

Blogging has been my outlet. It was my answer to not developing pictures for the last 3 years or not keeping up a memory book. I would get the blog printed at the end of the year and felt good about solving both motherly inadequacies.

But, my need for sleep has trumped. As it should.

Little people are depending on me each day to be loving, provide food and be a bearable human in the house. Notice I haven't thrown in "extras" because there's no time for extras. Most of our friends are sick half the time and potty-training mixed in with cold weather makes a good excuse for the park to be put on hold until Spring.

There are so many things I wish to write about: us seeing the Rockettes, our budding ballerina, our low-key Christmas, Monster Jam tickets, my wonderful birthday-week, potty training successes and even the oddly opposite ways Jim and I handle our illnesses (I could write on and on about that one), but they'll have to wait until I can get sleep back into a more normal routine.

Here's where I get selfish: to the 3 people who might still be reading this blog, please keep me and my sleep-needs in your prayers. I appreciate any and all you have to offer. Maybe even some bible verses for me to read at 2am or even explain what's going on.

Know this, I LOVE blogging. I hope to get back to it soon. I love writing about our children, telling funny stories, taking pictures while thinking of interesting ways to explain them, all the while knowing that one day they'll have their mother's crazy thoughts in a bound book to read over one day when they're old enough to be interested. It breaks my heart, but I must have a self-appointed time-out, regroup, and hopefully return sooner than I think I will.

Until.....whenever mi amigos.

Hidden sleeper

For some reason, Katherine took it upon herself to get all nice and cozy in our bed before we made it back to the bedroom. But, pillows covering herself? Did she think we wouldn't find her? Oh, the picture was there to warn us there might be a human under those covers.

Sweet dreams

Weeks worth of updates

I've been jotting down "events" that have happened in our household over the past 2 weeks. Here's the run-down...

The GREAT news: Nathan has started letting me hold him to sleep. It's not something I do every night, but sometimes I just need the cuddling. Also new, he was fussy in the middle of the night last week and did the unthinkable. When I brought him into our bed to calm him down, which usually doesn't work, he fell right asleep. He usually thinks it's time to play, bonk Daddy's head while he's sleeping, do the back-arch-baby-roll out of my grip, and I end up putting him back in his bed to let him cry it out. Rocking him in the chair and sometimes even walking around with him wouldn't do it. But that night, dare I say it for fear of jinxing any chance it might happen again, he cuddled. And I ate up every second of it. He nestled right in between my arm and side and fell asleep with no resistance. It has been the only time in his life he's ever slept in our bed, and I loved cuddling with my baby.

The NOT-SO-GREAT news: Nathan has found one of my weaknesses and last week decided to take full advantage of the situation. My weakness: paying attention to our children when people first come into our house. I feel it is my duty as the hostess to at least open the door, say hi with a smile (which means no raising my voice at children), have a small conversation with them when they come inside (and I mean small, "Hey, come on in. Have a seat. You find it okay? Want a drink?, etc.), get them situated (seated or at least comfortable) and then go back to paying attention to children. This is usually a 5-minute process. Not long, by any means, but the little stinker found it out and exploited the situation. The first incident happened when I was letting the babysitter in the door. She had been here before, but only once, and I was trying to show her the food set out for the kiddos' lunches, etc.

Mistake #1: I left the door open to the animal's food. ('Animals' being the dog & cat, not my children). Not one minute into my hostessing duties, I run back to the room and notice my son hunched over the dog food and water bowl. He was holding a couple pieces in his hand and making a yucky-fied face while sticking out his tongue. The front of his shirt was covered in water, along with the floor underneath him, because he had been violently splashing the water in the bowl. So, within a minute he did all this. I should have locked him up then.

Mistake #2: I left the door open to the bathroom. After cleaning his hands from the dog food incident, I mistakenly put him down and assumed the worst had passed. Oh no, dude made a bee-line straight for the bathroom, when he saw me opening the door to let in Aunt N and J. My time, again, was occupied with something other than watching children. Within minutes, the house was eerily quiet, so I went looking for the little monster. This time he was playing in the toilet. Thankfully (I say sarcastically), his sister forgot to flush. Without going into details, I know Nathan prefers solids that float and disintegrating toilet paper is fascinating when he tries to pick it up and it falls apart in his fingers.

Sigh!

On to Katherine: Jim was talking to her one day about how beautiful he thought she and myself were. He asked, "Do you think your mommy is beautiful?" (Does he not understand the significance of 'loaded questions'?)
Her response, "No, I'm the most beautiful."
I guess that's what happens when you hear over and over again how beautiful you are.

She's wearing a hat with a gator on it and Daddy's hat says, "Life's Too Short to be Dancing With Ugly Women."

My beautiful little lady showed her 'rougher' side the other day. Us 3 were outside picking up magnolia seed pods for brother's birthday party. She was sitting right next to me, chatting away like usual, then next thing I know it's quiet. I looked to my right and about 15 feet away, IN THE FRONT YARD, she had hiked up her skirt, pulled down her panties and was peeing in the grass! Uh, okay. It's not like she's ever seen one of us peeing in the yard.

There must be something about being able to pee right there, without having to bother yourself with going inside. I have a nephew that helped himself right outside of his school, in front of a mess-load of people. Half of them didn't even notice but the few that did thought it was cute and totally understood.

I actually got a picture of them playing in their tent this time. And they played together so nicely for about 15 minutes.
Katherine and her best bud, AC, watching Tinkerbell. This was Nathan's actual birthday. We 3 made cupcakes and decorated them together.
Some quality outside-time with Daddy. I'm so glad his schooling is over.
Some of the "finer" moments for Mommy and Daddy...

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com