Messes and cleaning

UMy house is bigger. Much bigger than the shoebox in Nebraska.

So yeah, it does get messy but the mess is spread out so it's honestly not as bad which makes it so much better. I can have a mountain of dishes next to the sink but the rest of the kitchen can still be clean and functional. It's incredible!

Someone posted on Facebook that they should use a rake to clean up a toy mess. And with me being pregnant and already hating to bend over and pick everything up i was like "YES. I am so doing this"

literally the pile I made the first day I did this, it was THAT bad, ha

I now have an indoor rake I use to clean up the upstairs family room and kitchen and it makes clean up so much easier. Then all I have to do is clean up one pile! So I can take all the shoes to the shoe closet at once. All the toys to the playroom at once. All the kitchen items that go in the sink to the sink at once. And it all gets done so much faster.

Bonus, when I'm feeling like there's too much to do and the kids will just make cleaning up worse we play the "M&M game". Essentially I give them a task or something to put away, they do it they get an M&M! And my lazy bum stays on the stairs the whole time. We all love it. You should try it.

As I've watched my children over the past few weeks I look at them make messes sometimes knowing and sometimes purposefully and I"m just like "Oh my gosh, that's all you guys do is make messes" In a matter of 5 minutes they can have 30+ items strewn over the kitchen and family room easily. The babies love trying on shoes and walking around the house with them, so just like that 5 new paris of shoes are all over the floor that no one even used! They pull down the kitchen towels on the oven just because they don't play with them, it's just something they can pull down so they do. I watched Max pull out 5 books off the kids bookshelf and just walk away. I've seen them put their hands on the counter and just start pulling random crap down in hopes that there might be something cool up there like markers or candy. I got a new chair cover for our rocking chair (bc it was HIDEOUSLY ravaged by spills stains and pen marks and could never be cleaned) the first week I put it on there were new permanent marker scribbles on the side, and then 2 weeks later someone added pen scribbles to it too. Thanks goodness I bought a machine washable one, not the absolute cutest but so much more realistic and functional for our family of savages. 

The messes continue everyday without slowing down.  There are so many more in my head but I'm too tired to write them, ha. The other day I started cry-whining to Casey while cleaning up that the twins NEVER STOP. They literally are like little tornadoes that just go from one place to the next without a break. It's exhausting cleaning up after them constantly but it's life and we're pushing forward.

I've found myself every time someone makes a mess I think in my head or sometimes even say out loud "I am patient, I am kind, I am loving" I have to remember these are just little kids still. The twins aren't even 2, Max not yet 4, they're just learning when they make a mess or break something it is NEVER to purposefully make you upset or mad, they're just learning not to be clumsy and results of their actions. A mess can just be cleaned up, really, not that big of a deal. Even Max is 1,000,000 times cleaner and more helpful than the twins. So in just 2 years the twins will be there as well!

I always feel like I need to vacuum our carpet, being whitish it shows everything. The kids love vacuuming, I hate that they love it because they make it last about 15 minutes longer than needed with crying to hold my vacuum, fighting over the kid vacuum, unplugging the vacuum, or just standing in front of me, ugh.

laundry forever

In an attempt to make my life more organized and cleaned but not feel like I get behind on tasks or wear myself out and do it all in one day I've made a cleaning schedule specifically to my family and home's needs. First I'm going to see how well it works (if I'm lacking in any areas around the house, if stuff needs to be done more often or not as often) and then hopefully I'll get around to making it cute on the computer and printing it out. I got the bones of my cleaning chart from littlegreennotebook but how I made my list was write down a list of things that needed to be done daily, weekly, monthly. The weekly ones I just started going through and assigning them to a random day trying to keep it even. Friday is when I rotate through the swing day list getting to each item once a month.

All in a mornings work

Clean laundry dumped everywhere (this was after I got it all off the stairs and put half of it away)

Shoe box explosion as Max tried to find the ONE pair he wanted

5 minutes of unsupervised entertainment of my 3 is our closet = shoes exploding.

I thought they were bounce housing but really they were just making a disaster of my cans.

Not pictured, the box of 9 puzzles strewn everywhere 

I kid you not, all those messes were made in the span of less than 2  hours. Sigh.

IN other unhappy news my children are the terrorizers of everyone else's children. When with friends I can be watching my children like a hawk, turn to tell a friend something, and 4 seconds later my friend's child is crying because one of mine is doing something awful to them in the brief second I looked away, I AM NOT EXAGGERATING. It's awful and I can't keep up on all of them and I feel so bad and I'm trying to keep them all under control but it doesn't work and I probably seem like that neglectful parent who let's their children hurt others but between my 3 kids my time is filled with stopping them to stop tormenting another child. And as always, I SWEAR MINE ARE THE MAIN ONES WHO ARE CAUSING THE TROUBLE. It doesn't matter what age the other kids are, younger, older, baby, my children can always figure something out a way to get them to cry: stand by them, take a toy, hit them, look at them, touch them, push them, take their food/drink. It's exhausting being THAT mom of THOSE kids no one else wants their kids around.

Rant over.

Pity Party over

Hope it's going better for you.

Breaking glass at 4 am. That'll wake you up.

This boy. Oh my goodness gracious, this boy. He sure pushes me and life to its limits. I love him so much it hurts. And he is so naughty and disobedient at times it hurts.

Lately he's been taking 4 am adventures downstairs by himself to see what he can get his hands on. The stuff I've known about thus far, and only because he's come into our room while eating these things: a breadstick, oreos, chocolate milk, and juice. All separate nights. I don't know what to do about him! He's probably waking up hungry at that time in the night because he barely eats any of the food the food I give him during the day except meat and any sugar he can scavenge. He's seriously been awful lately. So he wakes up for his midnight snack and i just don't like it/he makes a huge mess sometimes.

Well last night I made sure to put ALL food away and cabinets locked. At 4 am I frantically woke up to the sound of a bunch of stuff falling and glass breaking. I shake Casey awake saying "Maxson! Maxson! Downstaris! Go!"

Casey, that wonderful man he is, BOLTED out of bed and ran downstairs. I laid in bed for a just a minute more sighing can't believing it's gotten this far.

I go downstairs to find Casey comforting Maxson telling him "Did it scare you?" Maxson fell off a chair or counter somehow and luckily only had a little bit of blood coming from his mouth, maybe  bitten tongue or cheek, nothing serious. And only 1 glass bowl broke which was easy to clean up.

But seriously. This is a problem we need to fix...

MUDfest 2015 // On being the mom

Give them an inch, they go a mile.

 They first began just squishing their feet in the mud. No big deal, I said. It's just a little mud, I said.

 Next they began squishing their hands in the mud. No big deal, I said. It's just mud, I said.

 Quinn be like "I'm coming guys!"

 Next was this video: smooshing his face in the mud, so he could go wash it off in the hose and do it all over again. No big deal, I said. It's just mud and water, I said.
MVI_1509 from Kimber Cutler on Vimeo.

Let's take a closer look at this dirtiness.

No big deal, I said. They're having so much fun, I said.

Picking your battles. Defining the boundaries. Trusting you child. It's all so very hard.

This instance of mud fun was literally no big deal to me. I remember loving playing in the mud growing up. It just made sense that there was a bunch of mud on our sidewalk and Max was playing outside, that meant he was going to play in the mud that day. It was calling his name and that was completely fine by me. Some parents ask their kids not to play in water, mud, sand, get dirty, whatever, it doesn't bother me a bit 99% of the time (Unless he's gone outside once he has his PJ's on ready for bed. NO WAY am I going to let bed time slip through my tired fingers when I'm that close to getting him to bed, ha, we all have our limits).

At times I worry I'm too relaxed of a parent. Who am I to tell Max the way he's playing is wrong. He's just 2 and he's playing, is that so bad? Ya, he loves to dump the WHOLE toy box out to play, that's ok. He's just playing.

When it comes to hurting others while playing that is of course different. But that's not what I'm talking about.

I want to step back and give this boy space. The world is constantly telling us how to do EVERYTHING. It's only going to get worse for this little boy over the next 10 years. So much more worse than I can imagine. So why not let him be little?

I love Maxson's spunkiness, thrill, energy, and excitement for life. He is passionate about life. Want to go swing? YAAAAA!!!!!!!!! I want to be as excited about swinging as Max is.

Dear little Maxson loves this beautiful life Heavenly Father has given us here on this earth, even down to those ugly bugs (BUG!!!!!!!!!!) he loves them!

Am I as appreciative as Maxson about life?

Maximus lately

Super Max, just doing his business.

 At the children's museum, hoarding all the trucks.

 Chocolate milk mess…I've seen something like this before...

Sunday activities: 

a. Train lover. Not so much playing with trains on the tracks, just lining them all up, but it's progress! The trains are out special Sunday activity only

b. Some little boy got too close to the pictures,, it dropped on his head and onto the table and then shattered everywhere. It's amazing how quick as a couple you can get things done when you know there's an urgency to it.

 a. Cutie peeling a cutie, definitely a favorite fruit of his and he peels mine for me too!

b. Cool cat.

 a. Loves wearing his church shoes a bunch of the time

b. Caught the munchkin downstairs chowing down on marshmallows. He got a huge smile on his face when I found him that stinker.

 Watching Cars!

 a. His new little hangout spot

b. Insists on having a million things in his bed with him at night. We call it Maxson's toy box/bed

 lining up trains.

 a. We came home from hutch at 4:30 and he fell asleep like this on the couch in less than 5 minutes while playing on my phone during dinner prep.

b. Good weather=happy momma. Wish our backyard was fenced in :(

 a. Wanted to take his nap in the kitchen. He didn't but he did lay there for quite awhile.

b. A gender reveal cake for our friends, it was a boy!

 Children's museum. His favorite things there would definitely be the apple tree, ambulance, and motorcycle.

 The water station and trying to dry off after the water station, ha.

 I am so so so so so glad we bought this big ol' bounce house at a garage sale. It's been so much fun and all the kids just love it.

a. I saw throughout he video monitor that Max was awake one morning looking out the window, so I ran outside to wave at him. He stared at me confused for awhile and then started yelling "OUT!" I thought it was comical.

b. Somehow this cute picture of Bryson got in here :)

"We do no doubt out mother's knew it" Alma 56

The official lowering of the standards day

The grandmothers are all gone.

Culture shock.

Baptism by Fire.

A buckets of cold ice.

Those phrases just briefly  describe what my day was like.

Casey got back from the airport with Maxson at 1 pm. Maxson decided to take his wonderful 2 hour nap during the whole car ride so he could be wide awake all day long to play with me aka make mischief and kiss babies.

This is all that went down during that first hour of home alone with 3 kids under 2.

-Changed Maxson's diaper 3 times, 2 being the not so easy ones.
-Changed 3 poopy diapers on the babies
-Max has a mini throw up
-Both babies screaming while I got set up to nurse them

-WHile sitting and nursing I can only barely see Max in the kitchen on a step stool very interested in something on the counter. His little finger begins rubbing something on his face. It's shiny. Finger disappears with more substance on finger and finger goes in mouth. I ask him to show me what he has, he shows me his finger and there is some gooey substance dripping off. Although I want to jump up and stop the madness I have 2 babies sucking away on my chest. He continues I continue. I chose to laugh instead of scream. I coax him to come over to me telling him "you can watch a movie on the iPad!" He eagerly comes to me and I slowly smell intoxicating yumminess from him. Bath and Body Works shower gel was the weapon. It could have been worse. Fr the next 15 minutes until the babies become drunk in milk Max watches Frozen and I hope that the shower gel bottle is not tipped over and still standing up right. *Update* It was upright hallelujah ;)
Max: 1
Kimber: 0

Funny moments during the rest of the evening.

-I thought sharing a bowl of pasta with Max would be easy (1 dish to clean instead of 2, not forcing him into his highchair etc). WRONG. It went well good awhile until I had to keep getting  up to coax babies to keep sleeping. Whilst I was up, Max decides to pour my (large) cup of milk into the bowl of pasta and all over the table.

I'm smiling like an idiot because I don't realize what the rest of the day bring. Said pasta below

Max: 2
Kimber: 0
-During a feeding session Max gets ahold of my hospital water cup (the HUGE kind with the straw) and dumps it all over the floor. Think flood during Noah's time in the kitchen. He begins to roll around in said water like a pig in a pile of mud laughing. He is in heaven. While I try to clean up the mess he runs away and runs back into said water pile gracefully falling like a penguin on ice (on his stomach) and sliding in said water. He is even happier than before. I may or may not have peed my pants from laughing so hard.
Max: 3
Kimber: 0
-Change AT LEAST 8 more poopy baby diapers
- Change twins outfits twice due to spit up
- Because the twins slept terribly the night before, I had a horrible night's rest therefore today's milk supply is low. Therefore after nearly every feeding they demand more meaning I either have to go unfreeze milk (which takes FOREVER while babies are crying) or grab some formula. We do both. Babies keep begging for more than they would normally eat I swear. It's exhausting.
- Babies cried a lot more than usual today since they didn't get their ideal "hold me" time :( Poor babies
- While changing baby diapers on the couch Max keeps bringing over baby bottles of soapy water in hopes to feed them said bottles. Water is nearly dumped on babies 3 times

Max: 4
Kimber: 0
- During bottle feeding, diaper changing and baby soothing, Maxson continually brings a stool into kitchen to get into a certain cupboard he never has before. In said cupboard he finds food coloring drops, sprinkles, Casey's deodorant, a bag of Halloween candy, containers of salt. Let your imagination run wild, dear readers
Max: 5
Kimber: 0

Tears shed by babies: A billion (babies this young don't actually shed tears yet but if they did…you get the point)

Tantrums thrown down by Maxson: probably 5

Prayers said by Kimber: 2 (there should have been more, only while writing this do I realize that)

Picture below is a calm between the storms

We made it. Only 2 1/2 weeks until my mom comes back (cue ugly cry face)

BTW- Casey was around to help out during some of this. He has a big fat ugly test tomorrow that he might fail because I needed him to help us 4 helpless/mischievous/begging/needy should out this evening. The tear count would have been upped via Kimber if he had not been around.

Here's to hoping the babies sleep better tonight.

Muah.

PS- Andy, tonight I scheduled my massage after reflecting on how much fun I had today. I love you.

A little of life lately

Here's a few small cute/funny moments I actually caught on camera recently. It's so hard for me to a) get my lazy bum up and actually take a picture of the situation b) my phone is usually much more convenient c) catching the cute moment before he becomes more interested in my phone or the camera is getting difficult. I digress, he are the cute moments:

We have this little duck game, the water moves in a circle moving the ducks around, he decided to put goldfish on it one day, very entertaining for him and I

a) Cute messy boy eating yogurt, he loves  yogurt

b) his very serious intent face while playing on my phone. I'd say about 90% of the time when he gets ahold of a phone he goes straight for the photo album and just wants to watch videos of himself and point out people he recognizes in pictures. His favorite thing to watch by far is the little videos I make of our family. 

 Pedal training. He loves riding this bike around so much. As soon as we walk out our back door he jumps on it, rides it down the driveway, onto the street, around the corner, down that sidewalk. It's definitely one of his favorite activities.

 Casey's first day of his 3rd Dental school year! This was lunch time on his way back and he didn't want to take a picture, but somehow I got him to jump in excitement for me. He is enjoying his 3rd year  a BILLION times better already than his 1st and 2nd years. He's in the clinic actually doing stuff 60-70% of the time finally doing real dental work. I'm happy that he's happier.

 I've dealt with this mess before…I should have been smarter...

 He loves the song "Let it Go" along with every other child in America. When I start singing it to encourage him to sing it (he does and it's freaking adorable) he starts searching for the actual movie within our DVD's to watch the whole movie, ha. At this point. I don't feel like I need him entertained by movies (he'll probably get enough of that while I nurse in the coming months, let's be honest) so instead I've gotten in the habit of letting him watch a you tube clip of that song part of the movie to appease his wishes. He watches it with full attention and then goes around the house singing "Dohhhhhh! (pause) Dohhhhhhh!" it's one of my favorite things.

 Being woken up up by mom and dad from his nap. Such a sweetie. I love his glazed eyes and sleep marks all over his face.

 Nose picking and snuggling usually ensue post naps too

I'm trying so hard to slow down the days I have with just Maxson. I know my attention and time with just Max is coming to and end real quick. I find myself reading more books to him at each going to bed moment when he literally has a pile of 8 to read. When he begs for more and more songs at bedtimes I oblige and keep singing and rocking and snuggling him not at all wanting to disagree with him (except after like 6 songs). Although it's really uncomfortable to sit on the ground and bend and reach for things, I stay for longer periods than I used to building towers for him to knock down and making other random toys come to life (granted his attention span and play time is getting longer too). I just find myself lingering longer at all my activities with Maxson. I'm sad for our time together, just him and I, to be ending so soon, but I'm so excited to be adding more babies to our family too. It will be hard, but it will get easier with time and everything will feel right again 3 kids.