ahem, father's day

Look! Look! I did something crafty!

Holidays have become so sad around here... I have seriously woken up surprised on the day of any given holiday in the last year and felt so badly because, as it turns out I'M THE MOM and it's my job to make holidays special and I didn't do it! Again! And father's day was really no exception, though I did take my sleepy self to the kitchen and make waffles and green chile chicken sausage for my children's father and Benson and I whipped up the above little shirt on Sunday afternoon while Daddy napped. And again, I swore that next year I'll do better. I'm sorry dear, my lack of planning is not reflective of your fatherlyness because we all know you are the best dad on Earth. It's true. I'd stake my life on that claim. And now for something completely different:

I have this song

playing over and over in my head this morning, which would normally be very annoying but today I'm just exciiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiited because it's in there cause I'm going on a trip to Mormon Mecca soon! I've never been so excited to embrace my Utah roots! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

mini x 3

I kid you not, my mind has been blown by my status as mom to three at least 300 times this week. I even went all the way back to I can't believe I'm married mind-blowingness. Seriously, how. did. i. get here?! Madness I tell you! Anyway...

The yearly reminder of my children's tininess was today and I'm happy to report they are as skinny as ever. Benson was a whopping 36 pounds, Banks a whopping 25, and Roman tipped the scales at 9lb 14oz. The best part of it all was that in trying to assure me that my kids were fine, my doctor (who I love) told me a story of a patient he recently saw who weighed 27 pounds at 9 months. All I could think was, "I gotta get that mom's phone number!" If I could get my kids to eat half of what that one does we'd be set! My poor little skinny kids.

Speaking of skinny kids, have you seen More Than a Game? That little Dru gave hope to my husband that maybe even our tiny kids will be awesome at basketball. And I have to say, it was a great documentary. Definitely worth a watch if you are even remotely interested in basketball, and it will make you love LeBron. I found him to be cute and witty and all around a nice guy, and if nothing else you'll see he is, as Ben says, "a beast of a man."

Guess who slept till 5 am yesterday?

Wahooooooooooooooooo!

life is a bowl of berries

This is the very face we all had as we strolled through the market today. Blueberries and raspberries were on super sale and consequently we bought a whole cart full of them. We are the easiest bunch in the world to make giddy with excitement. Give us some good fruit and we are all pleased as punch.

And after we scarfed our bowl full of berries, we spent the afternoon making origami monsters. Well, Benson and I did as poor Banks fell asleep right on the table waiting for me to finish with my "What the!?'s" and "Seriously now what the!'s" and fold his little vampire bat. It took faaaaar to long to figure out, but eventually we conquered the monsters! Benson's is some sort of flying thingymajig that I'd probably know the name of if I read comics.

The thing that's so fun about doing stuff like this is that Benson is usually so amazed at my skills that he spends the whole time saying, "Mom, I feel sooooooo lucky to have such a good mom. You are so talented at making monsters." And will often even though in a "You look so pretty when you are folding the paper like that." He knows how to win me over every time.

life on the farm

A few days ago, Ben and I were talking with a friend and he remarked (having also recently moved from the west side to the east side of our fair city) that really there are two different Albuquerques. The west side can best be described as this:


(source)

But since moving to the east side we've seen life! We have already sort of adopted some critters that just wandered into our yard. Meet ninja:






Notice the grass!!

And here is LooShoo (named and even spelled by Benson) and her new kittens, which we just happened upon one day in our shed.

Here is where we do not mention that with all of this life we also discovered that our dirt moves at night with an unmentionable amount of cockroaches. I'm seriously shivering just thinking about it. Is this normal? Should I stop worrying if they are just outside (which they mostly are, thank goodness)? Or should I go out and mercilessly destroy like I want to?

And just so you don't have to end this post thinking about all those cockroaches, here's a little something else.

Sometimes baby Roman cries, even though he's laying on the softest blanket ever, so lovingly made by his mommy...

but most of the time he looks like this. Which is to say milk-drunk and pretty pleased with life.

carry on

We are in full swing family-of-five-mode now. It's pretty crazy to be mom to three boys, and that is noted pretty much wherever we go. I get a lot of "you don't look old enough to have 3 kids!" which is funny because I'm never sure what to say... I'm really not old enough I suppose!

Roman has started to sleep more *hooRAY* so neglected hobbies are beginning to resurface and find a place in the daily schedule. Knitted blankets will be finished, and dresses will be sewn. Ben bought a peony plant for me this weekend and I planted it right outside my dining room window so I can look at it 1.5 million times a day. I love it so much I want to marry it. Seriously my heart is actually swelling right now just thinking about it. And a friend divided her irises and gave me a bunch so now I'm going to have a forest of irises. I'm stooooked. I can't wait to be a master gardener so I don't kill all my plants.

Anyway life is good and having a newborn (and two other kids) is craaazy. But at least Benson never ever tires of holding and loving Roman, so it's nice to have help. And it's about the sweetest thing in the world to watch big brother bounce and shush baby brother to soothe his cries.

sleepy time

By the looks of our last few imports, you'd think we are getting a lot of sleep around here. Well one of is:



and he is one month old today. Happy 1 month little Roman noodle. Time is flying.