When you have Hamberger's you make Happy Meals!

This little boy rocked our world =) He has always been on his own schedule (from the beginning: he came 3 weeks early to now when he is the only early bird in the house) But he is such a blessing! I really can’t believe he is already 3! Alex is certainly not a baby any more. In fact he will tell you emphatically “I am a BIG BOY!”

He is developing lots of independence. He loves to get everything out for breakfast including climbing into the cupboard to get the cereal, and the milk from the fridge. He surprises me with his strength, he has helped daddy move some wood for the fire pit, and can lug a full gallon of milk. He does pretty well in the store walking beside me instead of in the cart.

We haven’t quite mastered getting himself dressed yet, but he does so much else on his own that I am happy to help.

Sleep always has been an issue with Alex, and I think some of that is just him. I have resigned myself to the fact that somehow Jason and I (who pre-kid loved to stay up till 1-2am and sleep till 10) had this little guy who is ready for bed by 8 and up at 6 happily every morning.  That being said, when he was still waking up 1-2 times a night 5 nights out of the week we kinda wondered if something else was wrong, we noticed large tonsils and he never ever breaths through his nose. So next week he is getting his tonsils and adenoids out. That *should* help him to sleep through the night, and more sleep might even help him grow a bit more.

Speaking of growth, he is still between 5-10% on the growth charts. Wearing size 3T and size 9 shoes. He and Kalea are about the same size and now that she is talking a lot I can finally see why people think they are twins =) He is right around 30 lbs, but he is still the perfect size to cuddle up on my lap.

Despite being on the smaller side, he is really pretty smart. I am amazed at what he can comprehend and memorize. He memorized all his Puggles verses for AWANA this year, and with the pre-school program we are using he memorizes verses. The longest one he memorized was Matt 5:16 (Let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven) He is very into Memory games, and matching things up. Playing pretend has become quite the hit around here too.

Just in the last month or so he has started playing really really well by himself. I will often walk by the toy room and here him talking to his cars as they drive over the large roads he has built.  And he talks ALL THE TIME. It is a constant running monologue, often full of funny facebook status material. We are also in a self identification stage, and we must use the full name. He isn’t silly, or goofy, or little or big he is in fact “Alexander Jayce Hamsher!” and he will tell you that over and over and over again!

He and Kalea play fairly well together, Kalea is developing a bit of the “terrific twos” and so I usually break up several fights a day. Alex and Michael pretty much love each other tons. Alex constantly will be giving him hugs and kisses and tickling him. Its pretty sweet. I am definitley noticing an empathetic and sweet little boy on my hands. It is hard not to be super excited to see what God is going to do with this sweet, independant smart little boy.

A few hours old

1st birthday

Alex 2nd Birthday

Alex's 3rd Birthday

This year we decided to do Alex and Kalea’s birthday parties together. With their birthday’s being only 2 weeks apart, trying to do 2 parties, is a little too much stress on mommy. We will likely do seperate once they are old enough to do friend parties, but in the meantime together it is! This year the theme was Veggie Tales. There aren’t a lot of things out there on veggie tales for birthday’s so I kinda pieced stuff together. Here are some of the pics:

Alex AKA Bob the Tomato

Kalea AKA Larry the Cucumber

I made these shirts for the kids, it has their Birthday age on the back as well. Super easy and fun to make. Ill do a blog post on it, but each shirt cost under $5 =)

We set up some shade on our patio and ate outside on this gorgeous day!

Veggie faces for center pieces

cantelope turtle table decor

Bob drawn on the kids table cloth

Larry on the kids table

I had a lot of fun decorating this cake, but I totally used a box mix and had the fondant too thick. It looked cool, but the flavor was lacking. Guess next time Ill have to focus on that instead of just the fun stuff =)

Singing Happy Birthday to them, Kalea loved it!

Blowing the candles out

Chowing down!

At a mother daughter banquet this past weekend, a friend shared that you just have to choose to laugh rather than cry at some of the things our kids do. I constantly remind myself of the need to laugh.  Somehow, the phrase “there is no sense in crying over spilled milk” gets put into constant practice literally at our house. (Unless its breastmilk, then I really do cry.) Our house is always full of noise  excitement   tears  laughter   life.

Here are a few of the things that we have laughed at lately

Alex emptied the ENTIRE newly organized  toy/book shelf (Including actually pulling the shelves off). When I asked him what happened he said “the big giant tomatoes did it!”.  Hmmmm maybe I should reconsider veggie tales.

I set the kids up to do some water colors. I even had them take their shirts off, and still Kalea turned them into finger paints and made me wish I had taken her shorts off too.

Not to be outdone, Alex did the same

Alex (trying to save me from extra work) poured himself an extra bowl of Cheerios… all over the floor.

This was pretty classic of Kalea’s look and mood most of the week 😛

This little guy became mobile:

Which led to this guy getting upset

Because “MOM! Michael is playing with my STUFF!”

When I would ask Michael about it, he merely looked at me, grinned and showed me his new trick: Clapping =)

Welcome to life at the HamHouse! =) I <3 my life!

Kids have a way of really humbling you. Not gonna lie, my kids are great, but they are 2, 1 and baby. So, we have our moments. Well I don’t know what got into them this week but they were pretty well rotten  whiny normal kids. And they were stepping on my last nerve. A. Lot.  I was that mom this week that everyone looks at and says “I won’t be like that”. I lost my temper, put off reading books, snapped, and mumbled under my breath. Which in turn caused them to act even more like 2,1 and baby.  I think you get the picture that it was just a bad week.

But despite my shortfalls as the mommy I should be, I was so blessed by this little girl 

When I went to go get her up in the morning, I could hear little cries coming from her crib. I would walk in with my pleasant “good morning Beautiful!” and then ask what was wrong. “oh *little sigh*, I just tryin.” “why are you crying?” “Tuz, I just missin you”.

Gulp. I wouldn’t be missin me, I would be hanging out in my bedroom to avoid me as much as possible. But my sweet Kalea, had a way of showing me just how I should be loving her. Even when I’m in a bad mood, even when she is in a bad mood. She still loves me unconditionally. She still wanted to spend time with grouchy mom.  After that I kinda shaped up, and tried not to get so aggravated when Kalea shreaked because Alex took the toy sweeper out of her hand, or Alex whined about not having honey on his cheerios, or Michael simply could not be put down and the dog wanted to go out at the most inconvenient time.

So often we look at the parenting relationship as a mirror of us and God, with the children being similar to us. This week, I realized that my kids can give me a pretty good look at the character of God. He loves us unconditionally. We can throw a fit, scream and yell because God isn’t doing things our way, in our time (seriously, do you know how slow a 1 year old can move?) And doesn’t God know that I have dishes to wash and laundry to fold? I just don’t have time to sit and read with Him. We can grumble under our breath about how it just isn’t going as smoothly as it should be. And yet after my fits, He still wants to come up and give me a big hug like my Alex and out of the blue say “I love you so much!”  He still cries just because he is “missing me”.

Now, Jason and I are still working on our three displaying all of the character of God, but they pretty much have the displaying unconditional love thing down.

Today in church we heard a great message about how rules without relationship will lead to rebellion. Right now I can get away with just rules. They pretty much have to listen to me, they are all under 3. But now is the time to really foster the relationship, so when they are teenagers we have a good foundation. Thankfully, as I muddle through this whole mommy thing, they are in a very forgiving stage of their life. And we can kinda learn this together.  I have to keep reminding myself, I only have one shot with these kids, I can either keep beating myself up whenever I have a failure moment, or I can learn from it and learn from them and move on, apologize to my kiddos and do it better the next time.

Now, here is praying I remember this post when the inevitable whining and shrieking start in the morning.