The last few months have flown by!

Henry in his big bed for the first night- we're on the verge of moving him into Eli's room now, the boys are excited to share a room!

Fall isn't complete without a trip to the pumpkin patch! We went with Uncle Eric, Papa and Grandma Jackie and had an awesome time!

Searching for the perfect pumpkin...

Here is Eli after the first night with no Mimi, his comfort item from birth. He's really growing up! He hardly ever asks for them anymore!

The cousins enjoying the fall weather at our swing set cafe- what a crew!

Pumpkin carving the night we came home from our Disney trip. It was a good thing we had Halloween to look forward to when our visit with Mickey was over!

Birthday hugs for Daddy on Halloween!

Getting ready to trick-or-treat! Henry was a dragon.....

....and Eli was Darth Vader! Everyone had fun, maybe Daddy most of all!

This is my little gamer, he settled in to play his DS under the play mat and I couldn't resist a picture!

Camera Clean-Off

I recently cleaned off my camera (earlier today) and it was fun to look at the span of pictures that were there! I thought I would post some of the highlights, starting with October 2011....

I went on my very first girls-only trip to Las Vegas with my 2 best gals in October- it was beyond fun!!

Here are my sweet boys, this is in November 2011.

 Here is Eli modeling an outfit of his own design in January 2012.

 Here is Eli in one of the first and only snows we had last winter in January- not much to play in but it made him smile!

 Here are the brothers again, buddies then and buddies today! This was also in early January 2012.

 Here is my big birthday boy in February 2012, he's reading his card first like a good present opener!

 Here is Mr. Henry on Eli's birthday playing in his room. It must have been a lazy day because this was an 'Eli' photo and he also took a lot of me in my pj's talking on my phone (didn't feel those needed to be included!)

Here is a picture of Eli post-leg break. We were doing a little kitchen dancing, he danced from his wheelchair!

 Eli's view from his chair of me and my dancing partner Henry- look at that long baby hair!

 Eli's view of himself from his chair, this was after he had to have extra cast material added, his choice was green of course!

 

And finally, here is a picture of our Eli all recovered and playing in his first soccer game on Saturday. Check out that action shot! 

My heart is all warm and fuzzy because looking back over these pictures makes me feel like my boys haven't changed THAT much and for that I am grateful! They are both at ages that if I could I'd keep them at because they are so much fun and together have a great time playing!

The Verdict

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I"ve started a new job as of July. While some might not think of it as a true "job" that is really what I'd been equating it to. It has all the earmarks of a real job, even more so than my nursing job had, such as 7-5pm hours 5 days a week. This is a new schedule for me and I entered into this with a little trepidation about a number of things, schedule included. I also wondered about the impact this would have on my family and how our budget would feel about me only working occasionally as a nurse. 

After about a month on the job, with a little time-off for vacation, I can say that the verdict is in and the truth is, I just love it! I have lots of time to marvel at how well things are going and what the things are that are really selling me on this new career path I'm on since these two baby boys I get to hang out with are such good babies. These are just a few things that have made me already love my new week:

1. Spending 5 days a week at home has done wonders for our budget. I probably didn't realize how much all the trips through the drive-thru, walks through Target or the mall, and extra grocery store trips added up in terms of money out. Now we stay home for 90% of meals and there are no impromptu trips anywhere which means that as I make money I'm also saving quite a bit!

2. Spending 5 days a week at home has also done wonders for my housekeeping! As I'm home all day, I keep up on dishes, laundry, toy pick-up, and vacuuming. Sounds dreamy, right? When I worked at the hospital, it was just tougher to get the motivation to do all that on days after I worked. Who feels like unloading the dishwasher when you've been up for the last 44 or 48 hours? Not me! But the babies don't begrudge me a few household chores while they're sleeping!

3. Having babies in the house has brought out lots of independence in my own 2 boys. Eli is just the biggest helper and is almost always willing to fetch things or do silly dances to keep one baby happy while the other is being tended to. And Henry is just growing up before my eyes. He demonstrates moments of sharing that I know his brother hadn't grasped at that age! This doesn't mean that Henry doesn't struggle occasionally when his mommy is busy with another little one, but he's so genuinely excited to see the babies in the mornings when he gets up, I know that he'd be having some 'struggles' without any extra kiddos around- that's just a 2-year-old.

 

4. The best thing I have discovered since staying home with my kids like this is that I am spending so much more quality time with them! As the babies are young, we do a lot of sitting on the floor and playing, or swinging or quilt-play in the yard. Because this is my "job" I don't have any guilt about just playing instead of doing something like reorganizing closets or tackling my massive picture printing project. This means I'm not only playing with the babies, I'm also playing so much more with my own boys and I think we're all loving it!

Come September, I am adding one final full-time baby and I know he will fit right in to our crew of boys just perfectly! Now those of you with kids realize that the days are not all sharing and sugar and light! There are definite moments of craziness and tears (although not mine.....yet!) But these have been few and far between. At the end of the day, I really feel like all 4 of the boys under my roof have great days with lots of fun, lots of hugs, and in return I get lots of slobbery kisses and gummy grins!! What's not to love in that?

Annual Post...?

With any luck, maybe I'll make blogging a more than annual event. And in any case, I missed my June window so I technically can't even call this my annual update....but let's not dwell on all that!

The wee welch boys had an eventful year in some respects but not too eventful in others. To begin, my oldest son Eli had his first broken bone. He fell and broke his femur in February. The accompanying hospital stay, body cast, police investigation, and medical bills have all faded away in the warmth of summer like a bad dream but his limp remains evidence of the traumatic event! He will follow-up in December with the MD and his bum leg will hopefully have grown enough for some length equality.

My little Henry remains peanut-ish. He was less than 10% in both weight and height for his age at his appointment this month! Prior to his older brother's medical issues in February we had been fairly concerned about his complete lack of teeth at 18 months old. However, a body cast supersedes a gummy grin any day, and with our attention focused elsewhere he has since sprouted 8 teeth with 4 more on their way! Apparently the old adage "A watched pot never boils" applies to so much in life.

At 4-1/2 and 2 years old these boys rarely sit, constantly talk, and occasionally test their parents' patience but all in a good-natured way! We just returned from our favorite vacation in the North woods and being able to spend a solid 2 weeks of pure playing with the kids was a treat for both me and their dad!

As we move into August, we are embarking on a new endeavor as a family and this is really why I think I must start blogging again. In an effort to be home with the boys more I've taken in some little ones and you really can't watch 4-6 kids a day (including my own mind you) and not have some perfect bloggable moments! Day one was yesterday, an 8-month-old and a 10-month-old joined us for the first time together. Not much to report aside from 2 things:

1. I'm apparently woefully out of practice with baby feeding as I sent both children home looking as if I had just flung their baby food at them in hopes of hitting their mouths instead of carefully sitting them down with bibs on in a highchair and slowly spoon-feeding them which is what I actually did. Sorry for upping the stain-spray usage!

2. You should never, ever gloat about having all the children sleeping at the same time. This brings karma down on you hardcore and even if your house is completely silent and even if said children have been laid down in the perfect napping condition (fed,dry,snuggled), one of them will wake up to teach you this valuable lesson. I should know because I just learned it yesterday!

So look for more to come on both my 2 boys and their fall adventures as well as any more babysitting tales! With any luck, or maybe just better planning, I can continue to blog at least twice this year. (I'm big into setting realistic goals for myself....)  And if I'm really good, I might even post a picture or 2 instead of relying on my awesome sister for putting photo proof of my kids' existence on her own blog :)