The Booker Post

Well, I've gone and done it. I made a deadline this year! (Gasps from the audience) I know, I know, it's pretty spectacular . . . And there are very few who probably believe me at this point. But I made it! I now present to you - A selection of Gabe's 4-year photo shoot. A selection because this child is so photogenic that I have about 50+ more pictures I could have added as well, but I haven't had time to get them all off the camera and saved to the computer yet. Hope you enjoy! Seriously, there are so many more good ones, I'll be sharing them forever if I don't cut myself off! Gabriel's Illinois birthday party is here on Sunday and then we're having a second party on his birthday in Texas. He's very excited about having his cousins there to celebrate with him! Well, that's what I've been working on today. Hope you liked them. God bless you and  yours!

Ok, guys, I had this genius idea on our last trip of making a "hotel kit" and keeping it in the car or with our travel stuff for trips. The problem is, I didn't write down all the items I was thinking about. I'm stuck at these three things: 1.) Clothes pins (for those pesky curtains that don't meet in the middle and let in the massive amounts of light and for hanging up wet clothing if needed) 2.) Travel Size Dish detergent (because of course the kids want milk in their cups while we're traveling and it NEEDS to be washed immediately) 3.) Travel Size Laundry detergent (because I have children and a husband . . . need I say more??) What about you? Do you have any genius ideas for what to bring to a hotel room that makes your stay go even more smoothly? Let me know!

We were watching a movie the other night and Gabriel was sitting next to Philip on the couch. It was warm enough here at that time that Philip was wearing shorts. Gabe decided to start pulling some of the hair on Philip's leg which led to this conversation. Philip: Ouch! Gabe, you can't pull the hair on my leg, that doesn't feel good. Gabriel: Ok . . . Daddy, you should get a no-no. (Commence Mommy keeling over in tears of laughter) For those of you who may not know: https://www.trynono.com/PS_AR3/index.aspx

Well, officially tomorrow, but we have a 30-year-old living with us now! Daddy's big 3-0 birthday! We had to surprise him, so we celebrated with the kids the day before and they help me put together some gifts for their Daddy. Tomorrow, I have arranged for Daddy and Mommy to take a special and extremely rare date night so it worked out for the best that we celebrated tonight anyway.  Daddy came home to some of his favorite sodas, each bottle has a note saying why we "cheer" him! Daddy's been a touch apprehensive about the number 30 so Gabe helped me pick up this gift to show him that 30 is going to be really cool too! Mommy and Callie showed him that 30 is going to be pretty sweet with his favorite treat -- homemade brownies. And they made him this awesome card, because he needs an extra hand or two to show his age on his fingers from now on! (Nolan's balled fists did not show as well as the other two cooperative kids, but Philip got t...

So tonight, Callie and I had to go to an appointment at the ENT office. I gave her a choice of two restaurants where I could get her a free meal, because I'm cheap like that. She picked Culver's. Now, you have to understand that there are three Culver's in our typical shopping areas and I was torn as to which one to go to. Two suited my needs rather well as far as other stops I needed to make and as I mulled over the choices, I thought "It's six of one, half a dozen of the other . . . " I turned and went to the one that was closest to my location at that point. Wrong choice. That Culver's was having a school fundraiser and was completely packed. There were two booths available. One two-seater and the awkward one-seater where you sit down and stare at the wall. The lovely volunteers and teachers from the unnamed school district had commandeered the two-seater for their coats and paperwork.  So Callie and big pregnant mama shared a single bench because...

So I rarely share information like this because I certainly don't feel like I'm an expert and I don't want to come across that way. But I've found a handy tip and I find myself using it more and more with the boys . . . :-/ I always, always, always(!) have some sort of frozen fruit treat in my freezer. Now you may think, 'I don't want that kind of stuff in my house, tempting me all the time' and that's true for me as well -- which is why I purposefully keep ones on hand that I don't like as well. But anyway, back to the tip. If your kids are like mine, you go along well for awhile and then, boom! Somebody has a busted lip. Now, these things bleed and bleed and it's hard to see right away if there's any damage that actually needs special attention. The first time this happened to Callie, I did the typical thing which I've always seen, get an ice pack, put a rag around it and stick it in her mouth while trying to see what's going on. ...

I'm pretty bad about getting photos taken on time. Add in school this year, winter weather keeping us inside, and little to no natural light after Philip gets home to watch the other two and yeah, procrastination wins . . . So, Callie and I finally got outside to take some photos for her 6 year photo shoot. Here's some of my favorites. Hope you like them!

Had a baby check today. Skylar must have been excited that we were listening in because her heartbeat was 160, nice and strong! I've gained about 7 pounds in my 23 weeks, so I'm feeling really good about my health and progress. I've started having a really weird numbness in a rectangular shape on the back of my leg, so we talked about some ways to deal with that. And of course, since I started the birthing class, I've got all these ideas in my head that I wanted to speak to him about. I started off with "I know this is crazy early and we probably can't make any decisions on this right now . . . " So, he eased my mind with some of that as well. We ran a couple errands then, and I took the boys and Granny to get our tomato and pepper plants for our garden this year. Excited about our garden again this year! Hope we have a good crop this year. We ate at Steak N Shake per Gabriel's request. It's one of his favorite places to eat and especially at t...

So Philip and I are taking a childbirth class for the second time. Our main decision in taking the class again is because we now have an option in the hospital we use and we are thinking about changing birthing locations. The main motivation of that decision is that my doctor works in that building, but we want to make sure that their facilities are as comfortable as our former hospital. Anyway, it doesn't hurt to review and we get a nice in depth tour of the facility so I see it as a win-win. Philip sees it as enduring more birthing videos than he ever thought he would have to . . . :-P We have technically 3, but will only make it to 2 due to vacation, more classes and I'm hoping to find something useful other than the tour, but if that's all I get, I'll be alright! I did want to show off something that Philip did for me. I meant it to be my blog post yesterday, but I was really lazy about getting things posted yesterday. It involved getting out the camera, compute...

Daddy dug a hole in the backyard today to set a post for our fence. Apparently, it was the most fun thing that has ever happened in our backyard . . . EVER! The kids begged him to set them into the hole over and over. Patient Daddy! Mommy would have just been ready to get done!!  We were afraid Nolan might get lost down in the hole, so he and I had fun on the swing instead. :-) He was having fun despite being left out of the "hole" ordeal. So that was our day. Daddy worked most of the day outside while I worked inside. Got a lot accomplished! God bless you and yours!

Callie is my little fashionista! Here she is showing off one of her scarves that I made for her. She is starting to have very specific requests as far as what she wears. The other day, I was realizing that Callie's clothes were not fitting as well on the children's hangers. Kinda perfect since I was about to need a whole bunch more children's hangers. I had this feeling of . . . I guess nostalgia is the best word . . . as I switched my firstborn's clothing to adult hangers and pulled out her old clothes and put them on the children's hangers to hang up in the nursery for our new addition. It was a little bittersweet really. Remembering when Callie wore the different outfits or the people that bought them for her. And now that little girl who's clothes used to fit tightly over the baby hangers now has clothes big enough that they need to be on adult size hangers . . . I've heard it a lot lately, and I've been realizing more and more how much it ...

(Nolan thinks it's a lot of fun to crawl underneath our chairs -- Problem is he has trouble getting back out! ) Yesterday was Nolan's 15 month check-up. The doctor was very pleased with how far he had come from his seeming inability to gain weight early on. He is now in the 68% for height at 32 inches tall. He is nearly 24 pounds which puts him in the 36% for weight. We were excited to get such a great report! Of course, we all know that "Hoss" is thriving now, as evidenced by him pushing his brother all over the exam room on the wheeled stool. They're right around 10 lbs and exactly two clothing sizes apart now, which seems insane to me! The best part is no more storing boys clothes in tubs in the attic. They're either in the closet for Nolan to wear next or in the garage sale pile! We worked very hard this last month on combining their closets so I could start organizing Skylar's tiny clothes. It was really amazing to see the boys clothing side ...