Ty Finds A New Friend!

The mother guilt has set in BIG time. I just cannot seem to find enough time in my day for a GOOD consecutive hour alone with TY. At most, I get 25 minutes or so. Lately, Ty has made several comments that Darren and I are always too busy to play because we are always feeding babies or changing diapers. Some of that is just Ty playing the violin for himself, but I have to say, my have times changed. I'm sure once brother and sister are a lot less needy, Ty will be so thankful he has not one, but two siblings to play with.

To pacify his loneliness/boredom, Darren spotted a stray kitty, on his lunch break, just hanging out in our garage, so Ty decided to take him under his wing. There is something about the presence of a cat... that seems to take the bite out of being alone . :(

Ty convinced me to feed him milk and cheese in our garage. He went as far as asking me if we could get rid of Ninja (our 14 year old, lovable and very sweet family dog). I told him no. He begged and pleaded. I never gave in to that one. :)

Anyway, enjoy a few pictures of him feeding the kitty and a hilarious video clip of Ty asking me if he could keep BOTH Ninja and the kitty. Is he crazy? I have enough things to take care of.

Material World!

This post is NOT a post about Madonna's song, "Material Girl". Okay, well maybe in a sense it is. Darren and I are trying really hard to instill good values into Ty's life, but sometimes, a four year old can be the most selfish thing in the world. Well, let's say 99% of the day.

Lately, since one of Ty's daily chores consists of getting the mail, he is well acquainted with the abundance of "kids catalogs" (as he likes to call them) that we receive daily. He runs to the mailbox looking for either a package from Gram, as she sends him little trinkets in the mail weekly, or kids catalogs. If he doesn't receive a package from Gram, those catalogs are the next best thing to him AND honestly, for me too! Let me explain:

If a kids catalog comes in the mail, Ty runs indoors, grabs a pen and a pair of scissors. He immediately begins to circle and cut everything out of the catalog that he wants for Christmas. It takes a good 45 minutes for him to go through an entire catalog and cut everything out, which helps me during that stressful time in my day when the babies have to be fed (both bottles and baby food) and I have dinner on the stove/in the oven.

I've tried to explain to Ty that he has WAY too much stuff picked out and that if he's greedy, Santa will bring him nothing. I'm not sure he gets that as you can see from the picture above.

"God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame." ~Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Halloween Brings Out the Fun In Our Home!

Being a christian, you have to be careful how you celebrate Halloween. I'm good at staying away from the wicked stuff, but I do enjoy decorating the house a bit and watching Ty "dress up" and have a little fun being in "costume".

I'm sure Darren would agree, that all these extra pressures I put on myself cause the sign below to usually say, "The Witch Is In" instead of "The Witch Is Out!"

Isn't this mummy so cool! He lives inside Ty's bedroom. If you're out on the town one night, drive by and take a peak. The kids will get a huge kick out of it. Just be sure you visit before 7:45 pm. The lights have to be on in order to view this mummy and lights are out in Ty's room by then.

She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not!

On Sunday, I took the kids to the park. On the walk home, Ty decided to pick some flowers. He proceeded to tell me that he wanted to give them to Cami. She is our pastor's ONLY daughter of 5 kids. Oh BOY! He sure does have his work cut out for him. How will he ever WIN her love while trying to fight off 4 brothers and a VERY strict daddy? I guess now is the best time to start. And flowers are a great place to start. After all, what girl doesn't enjoy fresh cut flowers hand picked from her man! We can always train Ty to fit Nick's standards. :) He also colored her 3 pictures. On Monday, after I brought the flowers to Bible study so her mommy could bring them to her, he came home from school, waited a few hours and said, "Do you think Cami is off the bus yet? Do you think she liked my flowers?" Too Sweet.