The Best Bath...

Hello all! Thanks for dropping by to check out the best way to an oatmeal bath. As I have mentioned before I have 3 amazing little boys. Unfortunately two of them (Chris and Ki- "The Twins") suffer from Eczema. Eczema is a long term (chronic) skin disorder that involves itchy and scaly rashes. Often times their skin is extremely dry. It can get so bad that sometimes it will feel like sand paper. It is really uncomfortable for them.  :(  I have to be very careful with which lotions I use on them and how much water exposure they can have, which kind of fabrics they can wear and even how to dry them off after a bath. Sometimes despite my efforts, the rash gets unmanageable. Today we played outside on the slip n slide for awhile so their skin got kinda bad. One thing that can help alleviate the dryness is an oatmeal bath. As many of you know Oatmeal baths can be extremely soothing especially to dry skin. Bath time in my house is already a disastrous event. It requires the amusement park sign "YOU WILL GET WET ON THIS RIDE." I am always completely drenched. With their skin condition they should really only bath every other day but they LOVE their baths so it is a complete fight to get them out. I am soaked and all the towels are wet. The bathroom is trashed. It makes matters much worse when there is oatmeal involved.  It is great but it leaves a DISASTER.  So I came up with an pretty great solution with a few different uses.  I take the oatmeal and place it in a sock. I attach the sock to the faucet and let the water run through the now "oatmeal sock." (patent pending lol ) I know this will sound weird but I actually use the cream oatmeal. Yes, I put "strawberries n cream" oatmeal in my babies' bath. The milk and oatmeal make the bath water so silky. When their skin is really bad I also add a tablespoon of Coconut oil to the sock as well. It really works so well. After the bath is filled up I removed the sock and twist it so none of the contents fall out. I use the oatmeal sock as the loofah. It is so soft and doesn't agitate the skin at all! It is amazing. And afterwards the tub is pretty clean!. (of course you still gotta rinse it down as usual, but you don't have hundreds of little oats stuck to the sides. When you are all done you can dump the sock contents into the garbage and wash the sock. I hope you try this out and thanks for reading. 

Summer Shakedown...Murphy's Law Strikes Again!

        Do you remember in my first blog when I told you how no matter how much planning I do something almost always goes wrong? Well I figured I would give a fine example while also giving some fun ideas for welcoming your school aged student to summer break! As a surprise I decided I would ambush my son with water balloons as he came stepping off the bus from his last day of school. I filled up water balloons for a half hour and decorated the back of my car to say "Welcome To Summer!" Chris and Ki were more than willing to help with the task of filling the balloons with water to prepare for their big brother's ambush. We filled A LOT. I could not wait to arrive up the hill at his bus stop with the back of my vehicle facing the road for him to read. I had the bin full of balloons sitting in the seat ready for attack. Chris and Ki were in their swimming trucks waiting for the water balloon fight. Everything was perfect. As I was about to get in the car to drive up to the bus stop I received a phone call....

Chris and Ki helping fill balloons.

 

Ok, So here is where Murphy's Law is always rearing its ugly face in my direction. As I said, I got a phone call. It was the school. My son missed the bus and he was waiting up at the office. The secretary informed  me that they had already tried calling about  15 minutes earlier but since I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off I left the phone inside and missed the call. My heart sank. At that moment all that was in my head was my poor baby is up at the school by himself waiting. What a horrible mother I am. I threw Chris and Ki in the car. I buckled them all up (including the patiently waiting bin of water balloons) and headed up to the school. Luckily the school is only about 1 1/2 miles away so I was there fairly quickly. As soon as I arrived at the school I realized Chris and Ki were still only in their swim trunks. No shirts. No shoes. Just wet swimming trunks. Crap. Obviously I can't leave my babies in the car so I unbuckled my half nude boys and the three of us walked proudly into Topsail Elementary School...soaking wet. Now at this point embarrassment took a backseat to retrieving my sweet baby who was waiting patiently for us in the office. I do not think I will ever forget the look on his face when his brothers and his mom walked into school in their bathing suits. He looked confused. So confused. As soon as I knew I had him and he was safe I was wondering how I could possibly make up for not being able to ambush him. I mean the surprise is going to be blown as soon as he sees the car, hops in and wonders why there is a bin of water balloons buckled safely in his seat. Luckily, I parked close to the entrance so as soon as we made it out the door I booked it to the car. Looking back now Isaiah probably thought his mother was crazy. I made it to the car and grabbed a balloon, I turned around and whipped it at his feet. He cracked up immediately and asked where I got it. I showed him the entire bin of balloons and told him that we were to have a water balloon fight when he got home. He was so excited. We got home and the war started. Even though things certainly did not pan out the way it did in my head I still think this will be a memorable last day of school for Isaiah. From missing the bus and waiting in the office, to family arriving at school in drenching wet bathing suits with a major water balloon fight at the end--this certainly will be something I will never forget. It would be nice for things to work out how I plan them... but if they did it wouldn't be MY life. My life is full of quirks, imperfections and at times catastrophes but it also adds come color and some definite lasting memories. Below is a list of ideas you can do to surprise your little one on their last day of school! Happy Summer Everyone!

Last Day Of School Celebration Ideas or Inspirations

• Water Balloon Ambush
• Silly String Ambush
• A Run Through Banner saying "Schools Out" , "Congrats" , "Welcome to Summer" or whatever you can think of!
• Place a banner and hook up all of your outdoor water toys for when they arrive.
• Go on a surprise trip as soon as they arrive.

I truly hope I gave you all a little laugh today and hopefully some inspiration on how to make the last day of school special. I spent $2.50 for supplies (balloons and car paint) so it didn't break the bank. Thanks again for reading! HAPPY SUMMER!!!

A Couple Quick Tips

            As some of you may expect cleaning in my household is a never ending battle. Laundry is probably the worst of the household chores. With three very active boys the laundry pile seems like an endless abyss. Then there is the joy, nay, the pleasure of putting it all away. But despite all my effort my nice neat drawers get destroyed when one of my little tornadoes decides he needs his favorite shirt. (sigh)  A few months ago I was looking on Pinterest (LOVE THAT SITE)and found this wonderful tip from Simple Organized Living


 She folded her clothes and set them sideways in the drawer so you could see each and every shirt. This has been a miracle in my children's  disaster area bedroom. I make one small change when it comes to folding the shirts though. I fold them like how they do in department stores so you can fully see the t-shirt design. Ultimately it looks like this:     

                       

                                              

  

See it works for jeans too!

     Another cool little money saving tip that some of you may already do involves your bathroom waste basket. I stopped wasting money years ago on the little garbage bags that fit those small waste paper baskets. Instead I use plastic grocery bags. Saves money and clean up is super easy.Well there you have it, here are just two tips for saving time and money while staying more organized. 

The Business of Boys

   As many of you already know I have 3 extremely crazy and rambunctious boys. The stuff they come up with on a daily basis, astounds me. At 4 and 6 years old they have already started to prank me...so not cool. From jumping around the corner and scaring the crap out of me to leaving fake poop on the toilet seat, my days are of endless wonder. 

Growing up I used to love the movie "Overboard" starring Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell. Now, I watch the movie and the similarities between that movie and my life scare me. I mean we even had the pet turtle and one of my kids sometimes sounds like Pee Wee Herman. But through them I also get constant amusement. They have yet to super glue my hands to plates but I fear one day that will come so I try to come up with activities to keep them busy thus hindering their ability to plot war against me. :)

                                                                               Today, I decided I would take Chris and Ki to the woods and resume construction on the fort. They love going there and usually it's a race to get there. I love going there because it provides a good amount of entertainment for them, it's great exercise moving all the tree logs and branches, and it is absolutely free! Since I am in no way an architect, I find myself trying to figure out ways to make the fort sturdy. Obviously, years of Lincoln Logs have provided no true experience but I found myself trying to stack all the logs that way anyway. After many failed attempts to build my giant fort lincoln log style, I knew I needed to figure out a different way of doing it and doesn't involve power tools. (not that I have any objection to power tools, I just don't think the extension cord would reach) So I decided to stack all the logs in between standing trees thus creating an armature for our fort. This worked out much better. The boys diligently followed me through the woods and did a fantastic job carrying sticks and informing me when there was a spider on one. They also got quite a bit of amusement sword fighting with the twigs and creating their very own imaginary fire. At one point ,to their dismay, I accidentally stepped on their "fire." To alleviate any rising tension and potential melt down, I immediately started screaming "AHHHHH..my feet they burn help help help." At that point Chris and Ki started blowing on my feet and laughing hysterically. Meltdown avoided.

 After awhile they were ready to call it a day and let me know how "starving" they were. On our walk back to the house Christian wanted to race Malachi. Both boys suffer asthma, but Malachi definitely has a bit of a tougher time so he wasn't really up for the challenge. Christian was upset so I asked Christian's left foot to race Christian's right foot. Both feet accepted the challenge and ran off. Malachi and I kept a steady pace and made it home, where we were met by Chris. He was lying in the grass panting and building up to his climactic death(he is my dramatic child.) All in all, I think they had a pretty fun morning. 

Malachi (red shirt) and Christian (blue shirt) showing off the construction masterpiece.

   

Thanks for reading <3 Christina <3

The Introduction

Hello all and welcome to my blog! I guess here is where I tell you a little about myself so I can try to spark your interest. Well, my name is Christina. I am 24 years old, am married and have three children. In fact, I have been with my husband for almost 10 years now and we don't just have three children. We have three boys! They certainly live up to every definition of a boy, too. My oldest Isaiah is six years old and our youngest are TWINS, Christian and Malachi who are four. Our life seems rather hectic and I am always wondering what little surprise life is going to throw at us next! There is never a dull moment around here even when there is nothing planned. For a fairly young couple, my husband and I have been through a lot. My husband served in the US Army, during which time he deployed. That was a tough time in my life for sure- I was moved away from any home I ever knew then was DROPPED into the military lifestyle. There was no easing my way in. I was like a fish out of water. We moved to Ft. Campbell KY in January 2010. By that March, my husband was gone. He was deployed to Afghanistan and I was alone. Completely alone with three children. I probably could have gone mad but I kept my cool. I learned a lot about myself at that time. I learned that I was stronger than I thought; that I could do so much by myself that I never dreamt possible. Of course during all of this self realization I was missing my husband something crazy- like ziploc-ing all his clothes so they wouldn't lose their scent crazy. I got to talk to him some which made things seem better but I just felt something was wrong. I was busy but couldn't figure out why I was SO completely drained all the time and just not feeling well. Then in August, we found out some bad news. I had been diagnosed with Thyroid Cancer the year prior and it appeared that I was having a recurrence. That was a bit of a downer in my life. The doctors put me on anti depressants. I really didn't think I was depressed. A bit stressed- absolutely, but no I really wasn't depressed. Well I decided to take the prescription to humor the doctor. About three weeks into taking these meds, I decided to quit taking them. You see I have never had more suicidal thoughts in my life than when I was taking the "anti-depression" pills. I found myself eyeing up my wrists as I was cutting vegetables. I WAS NUTS and I am not nuts. ( at least I don't think I am)  SO I stopped with the crazy pills and felt way better. I still was dealing with the cancer crap but no worries, I recovered. After a couple doses of Radioactive Iodine, some lifelong hormone replacement therapy, and quite a few months of feeling like death, I am back on my feet and feeling much better. After that fun time my husband decided to get out  of the military, so he discharged and now we are back home in Wilmington, NC. I love being near the beach and so does my family. My family is everything. If any of you met any of my friends I think the first thing they would tell you is how much my kids mean to me. I mean, they are my life to the point where I am considering that perhaps I may have separation anxiety. With that being said, we do quite a lot of activities together. Since there are five of us, we are pretty broke so most of our activities are either free or of barely any cost. We make a lot of crafts, have a lot of picnics and play outdoors a lot. We have even broke ground on constructing our Fort in the woods behind our house. Through being somewhat poor I have had to be extremely thrifty. So that is what this blog brings you. I want to share with you different projects I have done or activities I do. I want to show you the ropes on living with four guys (to any of you wondering, Yes I lost the battle and the toilet seat remains up) . I want to let you know what life with multiples is like. I want to share my personal triumphs and ALL of my failures. Trust me, if you life is anything like mine, others would label you tragic! Seriously. No matter how much I may plan and plan and plan something ALWAYS goes wrong- so I want to share how I rebound from these experiences and how you may be able to also. I sincerely hope that with this blog I can share some tips and at the very least hopefully add some humor to your day. I hope you enjoy reading it and thank you so much for your time!                                                           <3 Christina <3