Babies, Brownies and Blessings

I joined a club a few weeks ago. A Bridge club. We meet every Tuesday night from 6:30-9 p.m. I love playing games and jumped at the chance to have a night away from my delightful, yet exhausting children. So when my father-in-law offered to watch the kids so I could go learn Bridge from his mom (Grandma) I jumped up and down and said YESSSS!!! :) Do you know anything about the game of Bridge? I didn't know a darn thing. We've been playing for 4 weeks now and I can honestly say I know a little more than "not a darn thing". It's a deliciously complicated game. There's bidding, trump, conventions, tricks, game, book... Grandma is an excellent teacher and has been patient with her pupils. I'm not the only beginner in this club. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law are also part of the bridge club and they've never played before either. You have to have 4 people to play the game so that rounds out our little group. And because we're pret...

 Norman Rockwell gets a lot of lip service in our house. Whenever we talk about our ideals we wonder: how would this look in a Norman Rockwell painting? Maybe we should get new bracelets made: WWNRP (What Would Norman Rockwell Paint). Ok, that may be taking it just a step too far. :) We both came into our marriage with different paintings. My painting reflected the practices and traditions of my youth. Bri's centered around his family's way of celebrating and relating. We discovered early on that there were a lot of differences. Most of which, when meshed together, created a beautiful new picture. We've just had to learn to share the canvas. Over the last ten years we've had a few "Rockwell" moments of our own. Children provide many without any intentionality. Sam, looking all too thrilled with the traditional Luke 2 Bible reading  before opening gifts at the Melby Christmas. The boys shoveling in shorts and boots...  The reason I go...

Every year I struggle with stocking stuffer ideas. I just can't think of anything good. I sound just like my mom when I say that... My mom knit these stockings, isn't she amazing?! And yes, we do now have one for Claire, too. This year I came up with a few ideas and I'm excited to go get them. Better yet, the boys will be thrilled when they pull out the following items: Bandaids (what kid doesn't LOVE bandaids!) Gum Toothpaste (the boys are always asking to get the "Diego" toothpaste so now I will!) Flashlight Hot Wheels cars Underwear One more thing checked off the mental list! What's in your kids' stockings this year?

Vacation days are a hot commodity around here. Bri only gets ten days of vacation (and 2 personal days) a year. His company doesn't allow him time off without pay. His attendance is monitored. Our budget doesn't allow many "mental health" days. Much planning goes into the cashing in of those beloved free days. Deer hunting is a must so a day or two for that. Occassionally a holiday requires a vacation day for travel. October is so beautiful, a vacation day or two so he can enjoy a fall evening. And so on... Each day is maximized. Nice weather: fish in the morning and again in the late day. It's great to have no concern for time. It's a vacation day. Make it count. Now, Bri is great about giving up some of his days for us. He takes some of his time just to be a family. And to give me a hand on a particularily difficult day. But there's something quite sacred about those vacation days. I've never worked a 9-5, 5 days a week job. I...

Sometimes it's the unusual moments that make the biggest impact. That tell me how blessed I am. I'm not talking about the "I just had a new baby" moments, or the "lost a loved one too soon" moments. More random. Like yesterday. While discussing how preschool went for BigBoy #1 he mentioned that some boys saw his butt in the bathroom and laughed at him. Red flag, but nothing to truly be concerned about. More questions revealed that he was using the urinal and some 1st or 2nd graders came in. Even at the urinal, his pants tend to be down around his ankles. Hence the butt-sighting and the laughing. (Right about now you're probably getting concerned that I'm going to go into way too much detail about yet another bodily function . I assure you I'm going a different direction, hang in there!) Relieved that it was not a huge deal and that he wasn't traumatized, I went back to making lunch. Down the hall I overhear Bri... "Do you...

It's 5:45 am. I hear a light flick on downstairs as I'm getting ready for work. Listen to see who and why... A little grunting. Hmm, guess BigBoy #1 had to poop. I went down to help him wipe and tell him to get back to bed. And to take a look. You can tell a lot about a kid by their poop. Now, I haven't always been into poop. In fact, growing up, I wasn't even allowed to say poop, let alone talk about it. We Melbys went "Big Job" or "#2". And in case you were wondering, fart was a four letter word, too. We tooted. I will say that I'm not too big on my 3 year old saying fart. I call it gas. He yells "I farted, hahahahaha". I think Grandma just about has a heart attack every time she hears it (and I still cringe). ANYWAY... Back to Big Job aka #2 aka poop aka stool, etc. My in-laws are the ones who clued me into the merits of having healthy bowel movements. I had never heard of colon blow (psyllium husk) until I b...

I'm a water girl. And a water snob. I like spring water, not water that is purified by reverse osmosis (Aquafina, Dasani). There is a difference and I can totally tell! I've never been into pop. Not big on carbonation. And it makes this girl belch like you wouldn't believe. The last few years I've taken to  tea in the morning. I love a warm drink when I wake. I just discovered two new favorite warm drinks that are so delish! Trader Joes makes both and they are to die for. I love Chai Tea and the Trader Joes version is awesome! At $4 a can, that saves me a ton over Starbucks and it tastes just as good. They are also carrying a new mint hot chocolate for Christmas. It has little bits of bittersweet chocolate in it. OH YUM!!! If you have a chance to check it out, it's worth every penny of $5 a can. I bought a few for teacher gifts this year. Now, any warm drink just isn't complete without a squirt of whipped cream. I have a half pint isi...

How can one thing bring so much joy and misery at the same time? And no, I'm not talking about my children. For years I worked the night shift. Leave for work at 10pm when the world was slowing down, everyone tucked into their beds. No traffic. And a snowstorm made little difference in my commute time. I've been working mostly day shifts for the last year. It's not bad and my body appreciates the normalcy of sleeping at night. My children don't suffer from the short-fuse that characterizes my parenting when I'm sleep-deprived. But I drive into the city with everyone else. And I drive out of the city with everyone else. I spent 2 hours of quality time with my fellow commuters on my way home yesterday. Because of a snowstorm. It was slow-go from the start. At stoplights I rifled through my purse to make sure I had snacks, just in case I got stranded. Or hungry. Salt water taffy and animal crackers. Drive another 10 minutes, made it two blocks. Sa...

My birthday is coming up soon. Bri and I don't usually do too much for birthdays and Christmas between the two us. More typically we each have something we've been pining for and we give each other permission to purchase our respective wishes. It's not romantic but I've come to appreciate the practicality of it. This year he did get me a gift. And I guess it. Early. Because of a few abnormal things that, combined, gave me all the info I needed! Bri took cash out and didn't explain where it went. Knowing that my birthday and Christmas were coming I didn't question him about it (just yet...but it wasn't in the budget so eventually I'd have asked). I started my van and the doors automatically locked. That's kind of a problem because I started the van to heat it up and the doors locked on me. I noticed it before I got locked out but thought that was odd. I told Bri about the locking problem and his solution was to carry my spare key. No...

We have several rules in our house. One that I'm the most stickler on is no toys in the kitchen. No toys in MY kitchen. Over and over again I remind the boys to keep their toys out of my space. Off the hot stovetop. Don't scratch the stainless steel! There has been an exception to this rule the last few days. It's a lizard. Multicolored. Missing it's tail. Sitting on my kitchen floor. I've almost picked it up several times but can't bring myself to. Because every time I look at it I realize that one day there will be no offending critters on my floor. I won't be yelling at the boys to remove their toys. One day they will grow out of plastic lizards. And I'm going to miss it...

Ahh, I feel like a new woman. Finally, a night without hourly wakings, or a few hours of watching cartoons during the night. No, that's not a usual part of our sleeping routine but we've been fighting a bug. One that's kept our whole family up too many nights with coughing that won't stop (hence the "Curious George" marathons during the wee hours) and fevers that burned long into the night. The virus moved through our house, toppling us like a row of dominoes. One after the other until it knocked us all down. I'm not sure who it started with because Caleb and Claire had another little bug a couple weeks ago. About a week ago Bri and Caleb started with the sniffling, snorting, coughing, cranking cold. Add aches to Bri's symptoms, fever to Caleb's. I joined in the mix with sinus pressure and most of their symptoms along with a kickin' case of the orneries. Next in line was Sam. His most significant symptom was...wait for it...laying on the co...

Our lives changed. "We" went from two to three. A lifelong dream was fulfilled. 9 months of misery was finally over. Deer hunting opener was missed. And every cliche I'd ever heard about children rang true. You haven't known love until you've known the love a parent has for their child. It's like an extension of you, outside your body. You hurt when they hurt, you laugh when they laugh... You're going to miss this. This, too, shall pass. 5 years of growing...  5 years of unparalleled joy love challenge humility excitement learning adapting frustration achievement happiness wonder (oh, did I mention LOVE?!) Happy 5th birthday, Sammy Boy. We are so blessed that God gave us you. *In the usual nature of my day, I yelled at Sam all the way through this accolade for him (to GO TO SLEEP). Isn't parenting something?? 

BabyGirl has had a butt rash. Not just a little red. We're talking a MAJOR breakout. Her whole bottom was pretty mad looking. We are using cloth diapers this time around and I LOVE them. I'll have to do a posting on that one of these days. Anyways, we haven't had to deal with diaper rashes at all in the 5 months of BabyGirl's life. Isn't that something?? But I worked the weekend a few weeks back so we used disposables. I just knew I couldn't get the dipes washed up in a timely manner. Unfortunately between the disposables and a poop that I didn't know about for a few hours, we got a nasty rash. So I tried Desitin. It ALWAYS worked with the boys. I mean ALWAYS. Needless to say I was surprised and bummed to find that it wasn't healing up her bum. So I pulled out Aquaphor. And Boudreaux's Butt Paste. And Watkin's Salve. Heck, I even tried nipple cream! Her butt just wouldn't heal up. I ran low on my tube of Desitin so I grabbed an...

It's a good thing I don't write for a living. I have an amazing case of writer's block. (and a heck of a head cold) In light of that, I've decided to steal some material from my children. They are full of mentionable conversations. Just now I yelled at Caleb for saying to Sam, "Let's have a scissors fight!" Umm, let's not.   Yesterday Sam told Caleb to come and check out Claire. "I want to pet her, or smell her... she smells like...pretty. Come smell her, Caleb." Aww... Sam had a friend over the other day and here are snippets of their conversations: "When you die, you go to heaven" "I don't want to go to heaven alone" "Your whole family will go to heaven together!" (I walked downstairs for a minute and when I returned...) "You should just get a rocket pack!" "Or maybe just a leash." I can only speculate how the conversation went that direction but it certainly made me chu...

I did not forget that I promised to reveal more websites that sell quality baby/kid stuff at discounted prices. Most of the sites are similar in how they work. They have one or more discounted products per day. There is a limited quantity offered. So when they're gone, they're gone. One that I LOVE is http://www.zulily.com/ They offer at least five deals a day, 5 days a week. They have everything from baby clothes to mom clothes to toys to wall art. One day they even had Phil&Teds strollers on there! (You can imagine how fast those went.) Everything is discounted around 30-70% off retail. The only downside is you have to sign up to enter the site. I've been following this site for a few months now and have never received spam from them. I bought one of these hats for BabyGirl from Zulily. It's my fave! So, if you're intrigued, click here  and you'll get to a page saying that I invited you. From there you sign up and start browsing their...

A few weeks ago we were heading to the MN Zoo and I forgot my phone. After asking Bri to search my purse to make sure it wasn't in there I turned around to go get it. We were stopped at a stoplight when a big semi truck came zooming around the corner. He didn't take the corner wide enough. In a brief moment of clear thinking I put the van in reverse and started backing out of his way. If I hadn't he would have taken out the front end of our vehicle. He never slowed down. Didn't even notice. He was too busy making sure he didn't get stuck at a stoplight. I was FLAMING mad! My whole family was in that van and while he wasn't going at a speed that would have killed us, the potential for injury was there. It took everything in me not to follow him and tell him what he had almost done. What would have happened if I hadn't moved out of his way even though I was exactly where I should've been? My 3 month old baby could've been hurt. My boys ...

I'm a tea girl. Coffee...blech. LOVE the smell, the taste? Not so much. Tastes like burnt marshmellows to me. And I like my marshmellows a golden brown. In college I learned to like black tea with cream and sugar. Needed something that would keep me awake to study because Chemistry put me right to sleep . Bonus that I could get a bottomless cup at Perkins. Ten years later I still drink tea. With cream and sugar. In my fave tea cup. My folks got me a set of mugs for my HS graduation. I used to have four. I'm down to one. It's the perfect mug. Fits nicely in my hands. Holds the right amount of tea. It's yellow (which just makes me happy)... I've also found a black tea that I love. It's made by Good Earth and is called Tropical Peach Black Tea. I can't even taste the peach but I think it takes away some of the bitterness. It can be hard to find so I tend to hoard it. BUT if you come have tea with me, I'll share. :) Oh, and the world's BEST travel...

Trick or treating is getting to be big business around our house. The boys were so excited and have asked daily since if they can go again! Bri's folks have a great little neighborhood to walk around so every year we go there and get our fill of candy. It's great, the kids do all the work and I reap the benefits! (because I don't want my kids to get cavities, you know...) Looking over pictures I realized that I'm not good at taking the "usual" photos everyone does. Like a picture of everyone together in their costumes. A separate picture of each. When we had Claire we didn't even get the standard "family on the hospital bed with the new baby" picture. Or the "baby's going home in her carseat" picture. Oops. Anyways, we did get some pics and I thought I'd share. Sam and Caleb were "Octimus Brine" (Optimus Prime) the Transformer. Claire was a cute little butterfly! I went as "mom who worked all weekend and didn...

I love bacon. It is the perfect food. Crunchy. Salty. A bit greasy. It brings out the potential in other foods. Take brocolli for example. I don't like it unless it's well-hidden in something else. But throw it in with some grapes, green onion, almonds, a little mayo, sugar and BACON and you get an AWESOME salad! I do need bacon in every bite, though. Brunch is my favorite meal. Because of bacon. It's perfect; someone else makes the mess and I get to eat all of the salty little strips of pig that I want. Have you ever had deviled eggs with bacon in them? Mmm, it's the perfect combo. I like bacon-wrapped steak. Bacon in my salad. Any sandwich that's made with bacon. Ooo, ooo, ooo, bacon on pizza is to die for! AND just plain old bacon can't be beat. (and now that I've typed "bacon" about 20 times the word itself is starting to look weird. Ever experience that?) Jim Gaffigan did a little comedy spot on bacon. It's hilarious. And OH...

Or is it a Poopin' Party? Sometimes I like going to the store by myself. Minus 3 children. Or at least without 2. I even find that I get a bit whiney about it. I really just need to go get the grocery shopping done...ALONE! Occassionally I stop and think about it and wonder what the big deal is. Then I'll have a trip like this. A trip that leaves no question as to why I'd rather not  spend my afternoon shopping with the kids. At Sam's Club, back of the store when Boy #2 has to go #2. We run for the front of the store, cart careening (quite literally because he's my accident boy- by the time he tells me it's usually too late!), stuff falling out of the cart. Aha! A family restroom! That is the greatest invention. Where else can you find two toilets in one room? I stand in the doorway with my cart because BabyGirl along is in it along with all our groceries and no merchandise is allowed in the bathroom. Boy #1 decides he needs to do #2, too . So there I am, d...

I love fresh starts. A chance to erase all record of short-comings. A new day to try and get 3-5 kernels of corn   vegetables in my kids. That's why I LOVE baths. All the markings of the weeks  days before are gone. No more smelly behinds. Gone are the dirty noses. Goodbye sand, dirt and grime. And it doesn't matter when they were last bathed. Because the kids are pristine and nobody will ever know that you didn't get around to bathing them for many  a few days. Caleb, all spit and shined! Every one of us needs to hit the restart button sometimes... 

When we were on our anniversary weekend away I found my new favorite accessory. The Len Druskin Clearance store had these adorable headwraps. Aren't they great?? While I'm not wishing for the cold, I am excited to get some use out of my latest purchase! Here are two of my lovely nieces, Maddie and Alyssa. Aren't they adorable? We all have matching headwraps and couldn't wait to show them off! Maddie is big on army green these days so I was able to find one for her with some green in it. Alyssa is so darn cute in any color so I went with blue! And see Sam in the background? He was supposed to be sitting on the couch so we could get a picture and he "conveniently" decided he needed to check out the TV so he would "accidently" end up in the shot. What a little Sneaky-Sneakerson!  These are just couple of blackmail photos for later in life. I'm sure the boys will appreciate my forethought. :) What do you think? Cute, practical for the cold ...

...Is no gift at all. I heard that phrase today and it struck me at my core. It was a line in a VeggieTales movie, of all things! As I was putting away the boys' laundry today I overheard part of the movie they were watching. It's called "A Snoodle's Tale" and tells the story of a "snoodle" who is weighed down by the impressions and pictures others have of him. Ultimately it directs you to look to God to find your worth, not others. I certainly struggle with this in my own life and was stunned to find so perfect a depiction of this battle with ourselves and others in a children's video! The dialogue at the end of the show was so impacting that I included it. Dear boy ," ...Said the man, " these look nothing like you! Then into the fire the pictures he threw And rose from his chair, saying , " Wait there - you'll see That what you need most is a picture from me !" The Snoodle sat patiently, sipping his tea. Then ...

I'm a country girl, born and raised. I'm often told by others they can tell I'm from a small town. I always take that as a compliment whether it was inteded to be or not. I also LOVE country music. I'm talking real country music. George Strait. Johnny Cash. Tracy Lawrence. Shania Twain. Brad Paisley. So I'm having a hard time embracing one of the latest pop-to-country crossovers. Hootie and the Blowfish, I mean, Darius Rucker. There's just nothing country about the man! Whenever I hear him singing a country song I can't get this picture out of my head. And I hear "Tiiiiiiimmmme, why you punish me?" He's loved by many in the country realm and has even unsuccessfully tried his hand at a cowboy hat. Hmmm.... More often he is seen in a baseball cap which I appreciate. Let's not work too hard to be someone we're not! While his songs may be great and have a message that would usually make my heart melt, all I can think about when I he...