It's getting scary...

How much my boys are consuming in food every day. Especially my seven year old he eats more than I do every day now usually more than his 11 year old brother to. Here's a sample of what he's eaten the past few days. One night last week at an away basketball game he ate for "dinner" a pb&j sandwich and some grapes in the car before the game. This was suppose to be his dinner and be enough until we got home. Oh no he was just starving an hour later so we bought him a BBQ and chips. An hour after that he was crying because his stomach hurt he was so hungry so Ben bought him a taco. About an hour after that we were on our way home and he ate another pb&J sandwich in the car and finished off the grapes. He reguarly eats two sandwiches for lunch and a piece of fruit. Sunday's we don't really cook so for breakfast he ate two bowls of cereal, lunch was two grilled ham sandwich's, dinner was a bowl of cereal and a bowl of oatmeal, along with various snacks he found. Me oh my I told him today he's already eating me out of house and home to which he just laughed and said "but mom I'm just always hungry". You'd think he'd be some obese kid but he's not he's very thin and muscular but come on he's only seven. He's been requesting three sandwich's every day for lunch but I think two is sufficient at this rate he'll be a giant in a few years:) Any ideas on how a seven year old can earn money for the grocery bill:)

Award.blogging with a purpose

I can't believe I've been given a blog award..little ol' me..I'm still in shock. Becky at boys rule my life has given me this blogging with a purpose award. I stumbled onto her blog awhile back in her quest of dairy free living. With Kaleb's allergy to dairy I've gotten some recipes from her. She also has three boys so it's quite fun to read her daily happenings with her little guys. Here are the rules of the award:


Blogging With a Purpose Award Rules:

1. Awarded parties must nominate five people who have not received the award.

2. The blogs that receive the award must serve some purpose.

3. In their post about the award they need to link back to this entry.

4. Awarded parties must post the award banner on their site. The banner must remain linked to the above linked site.

Here are the nominees from me in random order:

Esther: at To Every thing There is a Season talks about her daily struggles with multiple food allergies and how they're overcoming them. Think going dairy free is a challenge read how creative she gets with food and their rotation diet.

Sharon: at Mama's Loves shares pic's of her little beauties and just her daily life in general. I also enjoy reading about her good deals at CVS and other freebies she's finds.

Sarah: at Boys boys and more boys talks about her life with...well...can you guess?....ok boys :) Her and I get together with all of our boys and get quite the looks when we go out with seven little boys between the two of us. I enjoy reading about the things going on in her boys lives even though we live close it's sometimes hard to always stay connected. She's also a fellow homeschooling mom I can always rely on for some advice or just an ear.

Lori: at The Simple Life at Home is a blog I started reading awhile ago. Lori shares her faith through many posts. She is dealing with a move to Qatar right now. Her husband has already moved so it's been a struggle for her the last month without him. She is selling their houses here in the States and meeting him there in a few months time. She is also a homeschooling mom and I can really relate her sometimes.

Crystal: at Money Saving Mom Shares the many good deals she gets every week. Also teaches us how to live frugally and make the most of our hubby's hard earned money. I've learned so much from reading her blog and I really enjoy reading it. She also lists deals to several different stores such as CVS, Walgreens, Kroger etc. each week. She has helped and is helping so many people through her blog live more fugal.


Alright so there you have it thank you again Becky for nominating me!

Kaleb's Story

Today in language Kaleb had to write a story about a train here is what he wrote I thought it was cute.

The test results are in...

I had Kaleb tested for all kinds of food allergies,molds,fungi, and also toxins in his body. Being off dairy for almost 6 months has definitely helped but he still has been having intestinal problems. The test came back showing he is highly allergic to dairy and goat milk (yuck). He's also allergic to Salmon, Shrimp neither of which he's ever had and tuna fish. These two are great he's highly allergic to baby's breath, and hog hair I thought those were funny. A variety of other animal hair came up and a few other small things. He came up with Candida also not so high he can't have it at all but we definitely have to limit his sugar intake for the next six months or so. The lady said his body is very inflamed which I knew already from his regular doctor and he has high levels of fungi. So with the supplements she prescribed all being homeopathic or natural he should be much better in 6 weeks. His colon she said is very toxic so he's on a detox pill for his colon once that's better and we put the good "bugs" back in he should digest his food much better and his allergens to food should go down. This test was truly amazing and coincides so good with what his regular doctor has said. I'm hoping that in a few months my little one is feeling much better and his body is running as it should. The good news is he's not allergic to any grains I was scared he might have to go gluten free. It's so good to finally know what he's allergic to and how to fix the problems it really was very informative. I plan on having all our kids tested now not just for food allergies but for toxins and such to. It's good to know so we can rid ourselves of them.

Snow Fort Time...

Here is what my boys have been busy doing for the last week or so. Every day we keep getting dumped with more snow so out they go to the "fort" and borrow and dig. The made several tunnels in it and were sliding down one side of it. They just starting adding these bricks of snow to make it into a castle. Such imagination they've been busy for hours and days doing this and had a good time doing it. I finally had to take some pictures of it because I knew on Sunday it would all start to melt. Which it did. However, we are getting more..drum roll...... snow today so they plan on fixing it or remaking it. I love how creative boys can be to take a pile of snow and turn it into this.

Lucas in one of the tunnels.
The fort itself you can see the holes in the top of the fort which led to several tunnels that I couldn't capture on film. It was really cool how they constructed it all. I may have a couple of engineers in the making.

cookies everywhere.....

Thank the Lord for the sunshine it was so good to see it today after several cloudy very snowy days. This afternoon the boys and I made Valentine's day cookies. I started doing this with Lucas when he was two and we've done it every year since. We put a few to a plate and go visit some elderly people and pass them out to them. They always enjoy seeing the children and receiving cookies as well.
Here are the boys decorating away.

Roman's first time doing this with us I think he was sleeping last year. Can you tell he really likes it. Take a close look at his cookies they have a heaping pile of candy on them. He had a blast.
The end result the frosting has to dry before we package them but they sure look yummy! They are to I'll post the recipe on here soon.

Get to know me...

I received this email a few weeks ago and deleted it thinking I didn't have time to do it then. Then it resurfaced on a few friends blogs and I thought what a great idea. So here is my "get to know me" I hope you enjoy it. Thank you Sarah for the idea!:)

1. What is your occupation? Wife, Mom, Teacher

2. What color are your socks right now? White

3. What are you listening to right now? Lucas playing with match box cars.

4. What was the last thing that you ate? Peanut butter/Jelly sandwich

5. Can you drive a stick shift? Yes.

6. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Purple my favorite color.

7. Last person you spoke to on the phone? My friend Kathy

8. Do you like the person who sent this to you? Yes although I did copy it from Sarah..:)

9. How old are you today? 31

10. Favorite drink? Water, I know boring but true. Coffee comes in a very close second.

11. What is your favorite sport to watch? Lucas' b-ball games, b-ball in general

12. Have you ever dyed your hair? Yes.

13. Pets? No, although Kaleb keeps asking for a dog.

14. Favorite food? Eggs,PB&J sandwich, chicken, wow, hard to name just one I like so many!

16. Favorite Day of the Year? Thanksgiving. I love seeing all my extended family.

17. What do you do to vent anger? I run or workout it always works. Of course I never yell:)

18. What was your favorite toy as a child? Probably my bear I slept with every night or my bike.

19. What is your favorite, fall or spring? Summer oops not on the list:) ok spring is a close second.

20. Hugs or kisses? Hugs

21. Cherry or Blueberry? Cherry

22. Who are you living with? Ben,Lucas,Kaleb,& Roman

23. When was the last time you cried? Maybe a month ago? I can't remember.

24. What is on the floor of your closet? Shoes

25. Favorite smell? Lilac's I have a bush planted by my front door and it smells my house up in the spring when it blooms.

26. What inspires you? A good sermon, my friends, my family.

27. What are you afraid of? I'm so claustrophobic it's not even funny, also elevator I got stuck in one as a kid at my grandma's apartment complex.

28. Plain, cheese or spicy hamburgers? Cheese

29. Favorite car? Lincoln Navigator we sold the gas guzzler and bought a mini van.

30. Number of keys on your key ring? 2

31. How many years at your current job? 12

32. Favorite day of the week? Saturday

33. How many states have you lived in? 1, MI.

34.. How many countries have you been to? 7 I think. USA, Canada, Antiqua, Netherlands, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. My dad is from The Netherlands so we made a trip to Europe when I was 8.

35. What is your favorite tv show? Grey's Anatomy, CSI, Women's Murder Club

Reusing Leftovers...Frugal Friday

One of my favorite ways to use leftovers especially sauces is in soups. If I have left over taco meat or spaghetti sauce I will quite often use it as a base for vegetable soup. My kids devour this vegetable soup. All I do is take a large pot put my leftover meat/sauce in the pan with enough water to make a nice soup base. I bring this to a boil and add whatever vegetables I need to use up in my crisper. If I don't have enough I will add frozen veggies whatever you wish. After those are cooked I will add some kind of noodles. My kids like the alphabet noodles in it. I also add seasonings to taste like garlic, garlic pepper, salt and a little bit of Italian seasoning. This makes a large pot of soup and also a great way to use leftovers from dinner as well as veggies that need to be eaten up. For more great ideas on how to use up leftovers head over to Crystals blog for Frugal Friday.

Roman's hand problems...

Here is my little Roman all full of smiles and such..not so when he's been waking up this week. It seems as he's napping he sleeps on his hand the exact same way. He wakes up screaming and crying because his hand hurts. I quickly realized he keeps waking up and his hand is asleep it's really quite funny actually. I know my poor baby. His mama has so much sympathy I did the first two days by today I was almost laughing. He cracks me up here's what he says.

Roman: "mommy, I need a band aide my hand hurts".
Me: " your hand hurts"?
Roman: "yes it's pickly"...hahaha love it.

Walgreens..free photo's

I've been wanting to get new pictures of the kids taken and just haven't done it. Lo and behold over at Money saving mom Crystal had posted about a Walgreen's deal. It works!! I ordered three packages of pictures one of each of the kids from our vacation pictures. I knew I took over a 100 pic's on vacation for a reason:) Best part it all the pictures are free yipeee I just love deals like these.

Warning..picture overload:)

Alright I'll try and make these the last of our vacation pictures:) The first ones are at the beach the second time we went. Everytime we go to the beach Lucas digs a hole a hole why you ask well looky here...
Prepping the hole..

Digging....digging....digging....some more.

Buried he loves to get buried in the sand. I will say he dug a huge hole by himself and then his brothers proceeded to bury him which they thought was great fun. We actually had to dig him out a bit.

I just thought this picture of Ben and roman was so cute. One day we went to the zoo which is where I took this.

This tree was at the zoo and it's called a West African Rubber Tree a.k.a. a fig tree. all the kids were so fascinated by it and played in it's branches for quite awhile.

Kaleb in the Tree isn't he just so handsome my little bug is growing up to fast.

Roman in the tree boys love to climb trees they thought we should have this in our backyard. I will admit it would entertain them for hours at a time.

more pool pic's

Lucas and Roman lounging...

This is a picture of Roman and his cousin who is also three. These two were so cute the entire time they acted like twins. They got along really well all week. Here they were making soup by the pool. They were inseperable it really was adorable. I just had to share this conversation with Roman on the way home from church on Sunday when we were in Florida. Acutally Roman was talking to himself and I was butting in:) His cousin shown here in the pic was in another van with her parents right in front of us.

Roman: "I'n(I'm) a working man"

Roman: "And my working girl is in the other ban(van)" "yup, I'n(I'm) a working man".

Ben and I were laughing so hard it was just so cute. Roman would go around the condo with pretend tools and "fix" things while his cousin would follow him around with her barbie backpack. She must've been his sidekick. He called her his working girl the whole week it was just priceless.

Home and resting..

We got home yesterday around 9:00 in the morning we had good driving conditions and the kids did really well again on the drive. Most days we spent by the pool just relaxing and having fun. Here are a few pic's of our days by the pool.

Here is Roman sporting sunglasses.

Kaleb and Lucas posing for a picture.

There are two slides going into the main family pool this is the one the kids liked the best. Here is Kaleb going down.

Lucas ain't he cute:)