The Days are Long but the Years are Short.

On Colin's first day of Kindergarten my hope for him this year was simple. I prayed that he'd love going to school each day, that he'd feel a sense of belonging in the classroom, that he'd make friends and that he'd continue developing a curiosity about the world.

Don't get me wrong, we care about "academics" too, but ultimately we feel that one of the most important things you can gain from formal school is falling in love with the process of learning. Because if you love to learn, then you never stop. If you don't love to learn and are only striving for good grades or the finish line, then I think you miss out, really. Because with learning, there is no finish line.

In a town of many great schooling options, we ultimately chose our neighborhood school purposefully. We hope that our boys will get a great beginning to a lifetime of learning there. We also hope that they develop a sense of community and begin to understand what it means to be part of a community of people who care deeply about you and whom you care about too.

With the exception of a rough few days at the beginning of the year, Colin woke up every day excited to go to school. He was excited about everything he was learning/ experiencing and we'd hear all about it in great detail each night at the dinner table! He made great friends. He felt comfortable in the classroom and even referred to it as, "kind of like a family there".

At the end of the year school celebration, we brought our picnic blankets and sat in the field by the playground, surrounded by neighbors and friends. Our village.

(Photo credit: It's from the parent community group of our school)

On the last day of school, students and parents lined the hallways and clapped as the fifth graders walked out of there for the last time. It was really special to watch and quite a tear jerker even for this kindergarten mom! 

In short, we end this first year of school with such a grateful heart! Grateful for creative teachers that care so deeply and make learning fun, grateful for a child who loved school and fell more in love with the process of learning, grateful that there's an amazing school two minutes from our house, and for our community of neighbors and friends who make the experience all the more meaningful.

Last day pictures:

Owen was not impressed! He's all, "Ok I'll sit here, but I won't like it!"

Then I made them all sit in the same order as the first day of kindergarten picture.... because I'm crazy like that.

First Day

 Last Day

When I look at these pictures side by side I can't help but think of that saying, "The days are long but the years are short." 

So. True. 

Grassroots Christmas Program

Our church puts on a grassroots Christmas program, which shares the Christmas story in a relaxed way,  no dress rehearsals :) All the children are encouraged to come dressed as any nativity character they want and then they have the chance to participate as the story is told. 

I thought it sounded lovely... but the thought of coming up with five homemade costumes.... seemed daunting! You know those moms who can sew and whip up stuff like Halloween costumes? Yeah.... that's not me! People who can sew amaze me though!

But we did our best! On Saturday Finn, Colin and I headed over to Joanne fabrics, gathered up our materials and spent the rest of the afternoon with all the boys, assembling the costumes.   

and BOOM! We did it! We were there, we were on time (barely but it counts! ha!), and the boys were in costume! It was no easy feat, but worth it because the night was so fun!

The boys knew exactly what/ who they wanted to be. Colin was the star, Everett was an angel, Carter was Mary, and Finn was a shepperd. Owen was supposed to be his sheep, but refused to wear the costume. If anyone is looking for a toddler sized t-shirt with cotton balls glue gunned everywhere on it, let me know. 

Everett and Colin. 

 Owen, very happy to eat cookies, get chocolate everywhere and watch! Just don't ask him to put on a sheep costume.  

Carter, listening carefully. 

Finn. The poor kid must have asked me ten times to fix the fabric around his head. 

Trust me though, the boys were having more fun than their faces show in these pictures! They were just getting into character....

It's almost Halloween!!......

as Carter has been cryptically saying lately..... although it sounds more like,

"It's allllmost Halloweeeeeennnn!"


First though, I should tell you that I'm a sleep deprived hot mess right now. I cannot be responsible for any spelling errors or tangential thoughts. Fun fact about me: As a child, I used to have my mom pick me up from sleepovers before midnight, just so I wouldn't be tired the next day. Staying up all night was never my cup of tea. Even in college, I never, ever, pulled an all nighter. I hate to be tired and have always required at least 8 hours of sleep. Oh the irony!! I feel like I haven't sleep in years, really. I've got five wonderful reasons to not have had a good night sleep but still.... what I wouldn't give for 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep!

So, this last week has not been good in the sleep department. But we still managed to enjoy a few pre-Halloween festivities this weekend and those were really fun!

First up was a costume parade at Colin's school.

Our attempt at a family picture.

It was a really fun night and what made it even more fun, was that my parents could be there with us.

On Saturday, we went to Treats and Trails at our local Outdoor Discovery Center. This is the second year that we've gone and I think it will be a tradition that continues. Think nature trails at sunset, trick or treating, hot chocolate, s'mores, and other kid centered activities.  It's so much fun!

Ready to hit the trails!

S'more pit stop!

Yummmm....

Also, it seems like only yesterday when Colin wore this giraffe costume. When I went back to see if their was a picture of Colin in this outfit, I couldn't believe the resemblance.

Lately

I'm here. Just busy, and I was sick for a few days. I've said before that the hardest part about parenting triplets plus two is when they all get sick. But I may revise this. The hardest might be when Mom is sick, but all the children are healthy and full of energy. I found myself saying things like, "If you go play nicely with each other in the basement and let mommy rest on the couch, I'll give you lollipops...."

Other than that bump in the road, we've been busy doing some fun stuff. The biggest event this week, was that the boys had their last soccer game of the season.

It has been so special to watch them grow through this experience, each in their own way. Finley, who had quietly watched from the sidelines all season, decided to play, for a few minutes, during the last game. He even kicked the ball. I was so proud that in his own way and in his own time, he gave it a go. He was proud of himself too!

Another memory that will stick out in my mind about this season is how whenever one of the boys would score a goal, they'd follow it up by hugging/ tackling each other on the field. They are brothers through and through!

I'll also remember how desperate Owen was to get out there and play with them! My time was spent constantly trying to prevent Owen from rushing the field while trying to watch the game and cheering for the older boys.

Your time will come, Owen. Don't you worry...

Team Michigan! Chris was the coach.

Everett, Colin, Finn, Carter

Apple picking

This afternoon we went apple picking with the boys. It was HOT and Finn forgot to bring shoes. Other than that, it was super fun.

We love "You Pick" opportunities because the cost is usually less, it's more fun and also because over the last year or so, we've gotten more into freezing and/or canning what we can for winter. Today we hoped to pick a good amount of apples so that we can make apple sauce and can it.

Okay, seriously?! Our boys are machines. Apple picking machines. Not to stereotype all boys but speaking for my boys and my experience as a boy mom, boys like tasks and today, our boys saw their job as "Must pick apples. Big, red, unbruised apples." And boy did they deliver! In about 15-20 minutes they had 100 lbs. picked. They didn't want to stop even though we had PLENTY for today. Chris and I laughed and laughed. We couldn't believe it!

Yeah, so, raising a whole crew of boys? Makes bedtime very difficult..... But also makes picking your own fruit, very fast and efficient!

Of course, we couldn't visit the apple orchard without going on a hay ride.

This could be either titled, "Family Hayride Picture " or "The picture that reminds Mommy to call her colorist" ASAP. Yikes.

Also, this brings back memories from doing these same activities fall of 2012. I was newly pregnant with Owen and felt SO SICK. Amazing how much the boys have grown and changed in just two years time.

Thoughts on Blogging and Our Week in Review

This post was written on Saturday but in the midst of life, I didn't have a chance to hit the publish button until now :) 

I've been struggling a little with this blog lately. There are weeks that I want to recommit to writing more regularly and then there are times when I think about closing this chapter and shutting the blog down completely. The "keep writing" part of me is the part that loves to write and document pieces of our life in this way. But it used to be easier, both the finding the time to write and the what to write about parts.

The boys are getting older and there are no more times when everyone is napping and no more super early bedtimes. Those used to be the times when I'd get on my computer and blog away. The boys are up and active as ever, morning until night. They eat more. This means that I'm cooking more, which takes up a lot of time (at least for me, I'm not the fasted cook in the world). Most evenings, you can find me cooking in our kitchen, preparing for the next days inhale of food. I refuse to feed my family crap and in turn, meal planning and prep takes time. Time I used to spend blogging.

Also there seems to be SO MUCH going on day to day. There's so much good, so much busy, and yes, there is still so much that's challenging about parenting five young children. Teasing out what to put on paper (err, computer) seems overwhelming at times, especially when I'm not writing regularly.

And then there's this. Those times when I consider closing this chapter in our lives stems from the fact that our boys are getting older, and as they get older I become less comfortable putting their stories and pictures on the Internet. The boys might grow up and appreciate the fact that I've blogged parts of their lives and stories here. They may enjoy reading it. That's my hope. Or, and this is my fear, they might grow up and resent it. I'm trying to find a balance between not putting too much out there (in all forms of social media), yet wanting to document our days together. I'm trying to balance wanting to write honestly from my heart about my experience of motherhood (the good and the hard) but at the same time, not putting too much out there in this medium. I'll always write but which outlet is best at this point in my life, I'm not sure. I am not a mom who is great about creating baby books or even hanging pictures. Only my oldest has a semi thrown together baby book. So blogging works well for me as a way to capture our days. And when I look back over posts, I personally enjoy remembering days spent together, days that I'd almost forgotten. But it's not about only me and in turn, I'm thinking through where to go with this blog.

Bear with me as I sort through my thoughts about this.....

In the meantime, here is our week in review!

I mentioned in a previous post, that we do not have as much help with the boys anymore. In fact, I think that we have the least amount of help we've had since the triplets were very young. We still have our nanny and she's like family to us by now and phenomenal with the boys, so we're so thankful that we were able to work out a schedule that keeps her in our life and yet fits with the level of help we need right now.

Being able to parent my boys without help has given me renewed confidence and enjoyment in parenting. There was a period of time when the triplets were younger, I was pregnant with Owen and Colin was no more than 3 or 4, where felt impossible (and unsafe) to go anywhere with my children alone. That was hard and again, thank God we found wonderful help to get us through. But we're through that period now and on the other side! I can take all of the boys to drop Colin at school and then the triplets, Owen and I can go have adventures and then pick Colin up again at the end of the day, all together. The triplets can now follow directions, put on their own shoes, and almost buckle themselves into their car seats. When we're out, they stay by me. They can tell me with words how they're feeling and what they need. This all makes life a lot easier!

The boys started soccer this past week! Chris is the coach and on a six kid team, we take up four of the slots!

Colin in the red pants, Everett to the right, then Carter

Finn decided to watch, this time. Owen, reluctantly watched, but wanted to play in the worst way!

Finn, Carter and Everett attended Nature School on Thursday morning. It's a once a month program put on by our local nature center. I decided not to send the boys to preschool this year so it's nice to have these little school type experiences every now and again. They loved it!

 Art, art, art!

The triplets love doing artwork and so we do a lot of it these days. As soon as Owen goes down for nap, the art supplies come out and they create, create, create for hours. It's becoming one of my favorite times of the day.

And today, kind of on a whim, we headed up to Grand Rapids to check out the West Michigan RV outlet show. Basically, lots and lots of RVs, pop-ups and Motor Homes were lined up and ready to be viewed. The boys thought it was so fun to run from camper to camper checking them out. "Let's get this one!" they'd say, after every single one. We'd love to buy a camper so it's fun to see what's out there and dream about adventures we'll have together camping as a family. Hopefully someday!

Afterwards, we hit up Potbelly's. Yummmmm.

Letting Go

Today Colin said that he wants to ride his bike to school for the first day of Kindergarten.

"Okay, sure."

"Hey, do you want to try and learn how to ride without your training wheels today?" I asked, secretly fearing that all the other bike riders would be arriving without training wheels.

"Sure!"

And so we all headed over to Colin's new school where we had the parking lot to ourselves. We'd had a sense for a while now that Colin could probably give it a go without his training wheels, but in the busyness of day to day life in our family, we just hadn't gotten around to trying it. Plus, Carter also loves riding Colin's bike and for sure he still needs some extra support when riding.

Chris played on the playground with the younger boys and Colin and I got to it.

We started out by having him peddle while I ran next to him holding the handle bars and his shirt, tightly. Gradually I began to loosen my hold and give him the reigns. Slowly but surely he found his sense of balance, control and confidence. At one point he said, "You know, I think the faster I peddle, the more stability I have." 

Umm, okay, what grade are you going into?? Stability?? I didn't know that was in his vocabulary, haha. He was right though. :-)

Eventually, when I was only ever so slightly holding onto his shirt, he said that I could let go but, "Stay close Mom!"

Round and round the parking lot we cruised. Him peddling and me running beside him, ready to catch him if he fell.

And then, kind of suddenly it seemed, he said, "Mommy, you don't need to run beside me anymore."

Colin, although I was so out of breath from running that I felt like I was going to collapse, I wasn't ready to let you go! I wasn't sure you were ready. I mean, what if you fell? But I kept my mouth shut, stopped running next to you and let you go.....

And you took off flying. With confidence, with a smile, and yelling, "Hey Carter, you see THIS?!"

Picture Perfect..... and Behind the Scenes

I've been thinking lately about our stories and our pictures and what we choose to share or not share with others. I notice that many pictures out there in social media portray the most beautiful parts of life. And that's okay. It's nice to highlight the lovely and focus on what is beautiful. But sometimes, I look at those pictures and wonder if there's more to the story.

In a small example, I love that Olivia Wilde chose to take a picture for Glamour Magazine of herself breastfeeding her son, because I feel that any public display of breastfeeding is great. I also love when she admits that really, her baby peed all over the beautiful dress she was wearing in the shot! Motherhood is beautiful... and messy and chaotic and sometimes terribly overwhelming. At least that's my experience.

So I might start a series here, and I'll show to you a lovely picture where all is wonderful and calm. Then I'll share with you the real story of what happened just before or after the picture was taken.

The boys and I spent a lovely afternoon and evening together at the pool. We are once again visiting my parents this weekend while Chris finishes up a project. My mom and I drove with the boys over the the pool and my Dad followed in his car (because even in a mini van, we can't fit three adults, given all the car seats). We swam, we enjoyed the perfect weather and ate a picnic dinner by the pool.

It was SO nice.

And... this picture doesn't tell the full story.

Here is what unfolded behind the scenes:

As we pulled up to the pool in our minivan, one of the boys had a huge meltdown because his brother "saw the pool first" and you see, he "WANTED TO SEE THE POOL FIRST!!!" Oh it was all so devastating.... and tantrum inducing. (read: somebody could have really used a nap today but didn't get one!)

I also noticed that another kiddo had fallen asleep in the car. So first, I send Colin and another awake boy ahead to the pool with my mom. Colin is pushing the stroller, loaded with our stuff. The one who was tantruming wants to go too but I explain that while he's still so upset and screaming, "I wanted to see the pool FIRRRRRSST!" he needed to wait with me in the car. But as I'm trying to get him back into the car, so as not to cause a scene in the parking lot, the car alarm starts going off and I can't figure out how to stop it. 

And it all makes sense, because really we don't make enough of an entrance as it is. I felt like hanging out the car window and yelling, "WE'RE HEEEEEREEEEE!"

Then I see Colin racing back over across the lawn that separates the pool from the parking lot, with the stroller, ready to pick up another kid.

So I put Owen in the stroller next, and Colin rushes him over the the pool and to my mom, then he returns and we load up 'the tantruming one', who has let go of the fact he didn't see the pool first today, takes him over, drops him off and returns to finally pick up the one who is still fast asleep. I grab the rest of the stuff and together we head over! Colin thought this was so exciting (thank goodness)! By the end of it, I couldn't help but laugh at the chaos of it all. With five boys, the ages that they are, entrances like this one, are just inevitable sometimes. 

And really, truly, we had the best time, but you wouldn't know the whole story if you only saw the pictures. ;-)

Carter, Owen, Finn, Colin, Everett

Summer Fun

This past weekend I took the boys to visit my parents so that Chris could get some work done on the house. He painted and installed eight new doors which is great because 1. they look amazing and 2. the unpainted doors are now out of the garage!

The boys quickly put the old doors to use, haha.

It's a frog cage/ trap. Of course.

And yes, we let our three year olds use a power drill. :-)

So while we were at my parents house, we ended up taking the boys swimming. Not to just any pool, but to the pool I grew up swimming at myself. Well, that's partially true. Technically, they've rebuilt the pool since I was a kid. Still, it's the same place and it was so fun to watch them play in the water!

On Friday, I asked Colin if he wanted to jump off the diving board (for the first time ever). Here's how the conversation went:

Me: "Colin, do you want to try jumping off the diving board?"

Colin: "No, maybe tomorrow." 

Saturday's conversation:

Me: "Colin, what do you think? Do you want to jump off the diving board today?"

Colin: "No, it's too crowded. Maybe when the other kids leave."

Me: "Are you sure? I'll catch you if you want."

Colin: "Yeah, no, I don't think so. Maybe next time."

Me: "Okay, no problem."

Then I notice that Carter has been listening and watching me intently,

"Carter, do you want to jump off the diving board??"

Carter: "Yes!!"

To which Colin immediately says,

"Wait, me first! I do want to go! Me first!!"

And then picture Colin super fast walking (because you can't run on a pool deck, right?) over to the diving board, putting his arm out to make sure he is first before his little brother, then running and jumping off the end!

After that they must have jumped about 30 times that afternoon. It was fun to watch.

More fun pictures from our pool time: