Controlled Chaos

Need to start posting more.

2010-03-01T12:59:00.001-08:00

Yikes with all the craziness of life I have yet again neglected my blog.

I need to share more and post more pictures of the youngins, I know friends and family would really appreciate it.

Yes, I know, these are pictures from December but ya get whatcha get right now :)

No stories today, just pictures, enjoy.

So sorry for lack of posting!

2009-06-05T11:41:00.000-07:00

First of I want to say, so sorry for neglecting the blog.

Please forgive me, there has been a TON going on.

First off I had my third steroid injection for my back. I really hope this helps because at this point, without surgery, there are not any more options unless I want narcotics (yeah, that is a good idea with 5 young kids, NOT).

I am also having another medical issue, going to the doctor on Tuesday hope to get something in the way of answers or at least testing to see what is going on. (thanks grandma and great grandpa for the wonderful genetics :) )

Then we had Brian's bday party and celebrations. He chose to go see UP for his family activity!! What a great movie, it is definitely an adult movie that was made for kids to enjoy as well, everyone should see it, it is spectacular. Brian, being the sensitve one chose to have a 1/2 chocolate and 1/2 white cake and cupcakes of both kinds to make sure that Steven (who HATES chocolate wasn't left out) He also chose to make everyone pizza for dinner, what a great time.

Brian decided that Madison should have a cupcake for herself. I think she really enjoyed it but you have a look and judge for yourself. :)

Now to what Brian spent his birthday money on.........well, bakugan of course but also.....MAX.

Here is Max, he is a black lab mix.......not sure what his is mixed with but we adopted him on the weekend after Brian's birthday. He is pretty calm except at this point around other dogs. He is very tolerant of Ben and Madison laying on him and pulling his ears. He is also great at going potty outside, what a great thing that is. He is just over a year old. We knew he was the right dog when we saw on the way home that his birthday is 5-21-08 the same date as Brian's.

Here is Max.

Madison loves Max too. Actually they have a pretty symbiotic relationshop. He cleans up after she eats and she chews on his toys and bones, YUCK.

Madison is growing too fast. Here she is holding onto my leg while I am trying to fix dinner. She is getting so strong. Hard to believe she is almost 8 months old!!!

Mark and Steven have been doing wonderfully. Mark has just had his field day and got a 2nd, 3 3rds, and a 4th place!! Way to go Mark!! What an athlete he has become already!!!

Steven is spending most of his down time playing DS, computer, Wii, you name it. He will do other things will his brothers as well, but these are spectacular standbys :)

Benjamin is well too, he is still getting into things but he is really enjoying playing with his little sister as much as he can.

That is just a quick update, I hope to keep up better now.

Miss everyone!!!

--The Meier Clan

Just some random pics of everyone!

2009-03-27T07:06:00.000-07:00

Today I thought since I haven't updated in a bit I will just put up some pics of everyone for some viewing pleasure :)

Enjoy.

The CUTEST thing you have ever seen!!

2009-03-14T07:42:00.000-07:00

Madison is working hard on moving. She gets up on her hands and knees and rocks. Then she will slip and slide or roll, anything she can do to move. Well, last night she did the cutest thing that I have ever seen. I will try to upload a quick video. Watch it and see if you agree!!

This is just a short clip but she was doing this over and over to move.

I have NEVER seen a baby do this before and I have seen lots of babies. She is absolutely adorable!!!

Madison on the Move

2009-03-12T09:25:00.001-07:00

Madison is on the Move!

2009-03-12T09:09:00.000-07:00

Oh my oh my, Miss Madison is moving and grooving.

The pictures above are showing how Madison gets out of her bouncer, watch out!! She now must be buckled in to anything that is not on the floor. Crazy little girl!!

Within the last two weeks she has gotten really good at rolling but has also started wiggling her way everywhere. The cutest (but most frustrating) thing is she gets up on her hands and knees and rocks........she is trying sooooo hard to go someplace but then usually just flops down on her belly. Poor little thing, she get so frustrated sometimes. Many times she will go up on her knees then goes down but slides backwards. You put her in the middle of the floor and before you know it she needs to be reset in the middle because she has reached a wall of some sort. The good thing is she wants to be on the floor playing and needs less one on one in lap time which makes it much easier to care for everyone else's needs.

Go Madie Go!!!

Steve and Kobi's Visit!

2009-03-09T07:35:00.001-07:00

Visitors!

2009-03-09T07:11:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we were so lucky to have Steve and Kobi over to visit!
The boys had a blast, they sure loved Kobi and at first she really loved the attention. They had fun playing the Wii, going to play basketball with Uncle Steve and David, playing catch.There are a lot of boys to share Kobi, towards the end of the weekend I think Kobi was hoping for some downtime from the boys but they are pretty persistent. LOL. Uncle Steve had a great time with Madison and Madison loved being held and having Uncle Steve's attention! We cannot wait for another fun weekend with the Meiers. Here are some pictures from our weekend together below!

Just how many?

2009-03-06T07:50:00.001-08:00

Just how many different things can our beautiful opportunistic 2 year old get into??
Wowza! I decided to make a list just so everyone else can have a taste of my world without the mess. I know, Mom, you have already had your taste with me and this is my end of the mom curse, you know, the one that goes....."I hope you have a child just like you one day"

Just in the last 2 weeks or so........
(usually while I am taking care of a Madison need)
Ben has.......

Made his own chocolate milk

spread uncooked spaghetti all over the living room

made his own concoction of Trix and garlic salt on the kitchen counter

got his own Wii game (from the kitchen upper cabinet) out and played

got out potatoes and a butter knife and had the knife almost completely through the potato

made his own cereal with a full gallon of milk (ended with 1/2 a gallon) :(

played with chilli powder and tabasco (luckily he couldn't get the tabasco lid open)

scaled the game shelf to get a game on my eye level

got into Mark's pokemon cards and spread them all around the lower level

sat on the edge of the counter (still not sure how he got there) and played with the things in the sink and on the microwave

made his own cinnamon sugar toast...this was after I made him cinnamon sugar toast he decided there wasn't enough butter or cinnamon sugar

got extra bbq sauce for his chicken at dinner and filled his plate

on David's bday while we were getting plates he just had to taste the pie and ran two fingers across the whole thing for a taste

I am sure there are more but those are the ones I can think of.......
yikes, wears me out just thinking about it.

Just a window into the life of our wonderful 2 year old. He definitely keeps things fresh and us ready to clean up messes :) And, keep in mind these are the messes that happened, not included all the many many messes that we prevented :)

I would love to be able to read his mind for one day.......wouldn't you???

Love you all!
Miss you all!
--Martha

How NOT to make chocolate milk

2009-02-23T07:49:00.000-08:00

Ok, so as the story goes, Benjamin earned chocolate syrup by going potty in the toilet!!!! YEAH! He is doing wonderfully!!! So I run out and buy chocolate syrup Friday night. No problem. He got his chocolate milk, he was a very happy boy.

Saturday, he had some in the morning, again, very happy. Saturday afternoon, Ben decided he wanted some more. So as is his normal routine, he brought me the milk and chocolate and his cup........great, except I didn't see him and yes he was about oh....a foot away from me.............

so......
Ben decides to make his own chocolate milk........(I will let the pictures tell the rest of the story)

Needless to say it took quite a bit to clean the carpet. What a yucky sticky mess. And to clarify for David, it was RIGHT UNDER MY NOSE. Oops.

Crazy Days

2009-02-16T07:48:00.000-08:00

So has it been crazy where you are?
It has been a bit crazy here starting with passing around this silly cold, yuck. Madison got sick then had shots and now is not sleeping as well. Benjamin is sleeping well, but during the day he is working hard at being 2. He is very independent which is a great thing but that also means that he is getting into many things that are dangerous, or high, or messy :)

The older boys are definitely showing signs of being cooped up in the house too long. Apartment living is very challenging. I need to figure out a way for them to play outside safely and on a regular basis. Also it seems that they have an allergy for homework lately and that is a challenge.

Other then normal crazies, we are all doing well. Still trying to get over the colds, poor Stevie has it now. Hopefully once he gets rid of it then we won't send it around again.

I need to get pictures or video up of Madison's new trick :) Hopefully I will get to that really soon, she is sooo cute (as are all of the boys too)

Have a great day! Today is president's day which means the boys are home from school. We will have a great day too I hope!!

WOWOWOW

2009-01-30T07:21:00.000-08:00

Last night, Benjamin went poop and potty in the toilet!!
I want to shout from the mountain tops!!
WOO HOO!!
So knowing Ben.......what was the perfect bribe???

Yup, chocolate for his milk!!!
He was very eager to try on his own then when it didn't work so well for him and he was about to give up, I told him I would get him some chocolate for his milk if he was able to pee or poo in the toilet, he got very excited and tried really hard and it worked!!!
YIPPEE!!

We are so proud of him.
Not sure if this will happen again anytime too soon, but who knows, just happy he did it once!!

Crazy Kiddos!

2009-01-19T07:55:00.000-08:00

Do you see something out of place in this picture?
Yup, it is the Benjamin on the counter. Crafty little Ben realized he could climb up the chair and onto the counter and reach all those things that we have told him not to touch. YIKES

David put Madison down on the Spiderman couch to hang out. Well, next thing you know, Benjamin sat down beside her and was looking at her, touching her, etc. Too cute! Madison then did the funniest thing......I wish I could read her mind.....

We think she was trying to get closer to her big brother.......she started out leaning then ended up falling onto Benjamin. She actually did this 2-3 different times. Too cute!

Things are well here at the Meier house today. The kids are out of school for the holiday and are just enjoying their time. I am just trying to stay ahead of the mess :).

What a night!!!

2009-01-15T11:15:00.000-08:00

Wow, our little 2 year old Benjamin has some amazing LUNGS!!!
Luckily all the other kiddos sleep like ROCKS!
We decided that we need to get Ben to stay in his own bed at night again. He was doing very well with this in Columbia but he was in the crib and couldn't get out. He learned that he could grab his cup of water if needed then lay back down and go to bed. It only took a couple nights this summer to get to that point.....

well, then came the move

I figured that with the move came the time to be a big boy, give up the crib and that becomes Madison's. Ok......sounds great right, wrong......now he has nothing to physically keep him in bed.....so at the temporary places starting with the motels then the furnished apartment, I laid down with him in his bed until he fell asleep then I retreated to my bed (if I was still awake). Ok, not too bad, but now that my back is hurting, AGAIN (gotta get to a chiropractor but that is another story), we need to get him back to sleeping on his own. I bought a baby gate that only gets locked shut at bedtime.

Tuesday night, no problem, he slept through the night without waking up.....YEAH!! We praised him and told him what to expect the next bedtime.

Wednesday night.....oh my goodness........the boy can scream....He was MAD. He also realized that he could turn on the fan and lights in the room......grrr.......going to have David turn them off on the fan that is 9 feet in the air tonight so the switch won't work. After about 45 min he tired himself out (David fell asleep after about 25 min of the episode, man I wish I could sleep as well as the rest of the family but that changed when I had Mark, it's a mommy-thing I suppose.

Hoping that tonight is better.......if it plays out as it did this summer, tonight should be at least half the time or less hopefully.

Sorry no pictures today, I think that taking pictures in that situation would have made it worse. Though being a scrapbooker, don't think that it didn't cross my mind :)

Love you all!
Miss you.

OH MY GOODNESS!!

2009-01-13T09:13:00.000-08:00

Wow, I think it is done!!
The move that is......did I say that I HATE moving!! All the unpacking, figuring out where in the world to put things, not finding everything. YUCK.
The kiddos did wonderful, except the first day when I didn't get the computers set up by the time they were home from school. The movers were 3 hours late and didn't get started bringing things in until 1:00pm.
Now we are hoping to get the house sold to move again.........is that just insane to think about or what????

The only bad thing is I didn't get pictures taken of the move because I misplaced the camera. Found it now, but didn't have it then.

Here are some fun pictures of the boys playing a fun game with Benjamin!

New Do!

2009-01-05T18:09:00.001-08:00

Sorry, this post is not about the kiddos, but about my sanity. :)
David was kind enough to give me time Sunday after church to get my hair done. It has been well over a year since I have had a hair cut and almost a year since I last did my hair color from a box. I felt like I got the royal treatment!! It was wonderful.
Here is the result......

Poor Madison :(

2009-01-04T21:42:00.000-08:00

What a sad sad face.........poor little Madison is teething. Not sure when her little teeth will come in but hopefully it is sooner than later, she is miserable. Luckily it is not all day, it has been hitting her mostly in the late afternoon and evening.

At least she has those little fists to chew on to help sometimes. Poor little girl.

On a positive note, the boys start school tomorrow!!! YEAH!!!!
I am so excited for this week, it will be a hectic one but hopefully one of getting back into routines. School will start Monday. Tuesday we will get the keys to the apartment. Wednesday our stuff will be delivered and cable set up. Thursday should begin some type of regular days (whatever that might mean)

Miss you all, love you all!!!

Christmas!!

2009-01-01T18:45:00.001-08:00

Wow, what a whirlwind we have been in since Christmas. So sorry that I haven't blogged our Christmas pictures. The kiddos have been sooooo thankful for all their booty. The Christmas presents have definitely provided hours of entertainment and some peace for mommy :)

Madison is soooo thankful for her new clothes, she looks soooo cute in all of them and it is wonderful that they are the correct size!! Thanks sooo much!

Steven has already eaten through most of his candy, YIKES!! Definitely a joy for him to have candy that he doesn't have to share with this brothers (even though he did) He has also spent much time creating with all his art goodies and loves his whack-a-mole game especially the hammers :)

Benjamin was happy with all the great gifts he got, between hammering and pulling and noise making, he is loving it!! Ben definitely got delight in racing the cars down the ramps, he just giggled and giggled!!

Brian was a happy camper with his gifts! He loves playing Bolt on the Wii, especially after we watched it in the theater. He has been drawing up a storm. Brian especially loves his rubik's cube. He is working to solve it but he has the most fun mixing it up and having daddy solve it. Of course this last week has been spent with David learning how to solve it with online tutorials and videos. Now the rest of us are trying to get the hang of solving it too.

The laser tag game is a hit for all the boys, not just Mark. Even Benjamin will strap on the target and run around and start shooting anything that even looks like a target. Mark is having a blast with Crash on the Wii. He has also set up his spy gear stations around the house, this works great in combination with the laser tag so he has a heads up where his opponents are.

These are just a sampling of all the great things the Meier kiddos got......they love everything! I don't think there is anything that was not a hit. They all love their new shoes, I know, shoes, but they love them and Shel thought the practical gift wouldn't fare well, but they sure did!! The joke books also were wonderful, though you would think we could listen to more that the same 5 jokes when the books are not in hand :)

We love you all and miss you very much!!
Thanks for a WONDERFUL Christmas!

On another note..........
We will be moving into our apartment on Wednesday, January 6th. We will hopefully have it Monday or Tuesday but we are having the movers come Wednesday. With any luck we will get our cable and internet hooked up too by then.
Here is our new address.....oh wait, not the best idea........I will email you our new address.

Happy New Year!!!!

Holiday Fun!!!

2008-12-26T08:19:00.001-08:00

Eventhough we are in a new state, far away from family, certain things hold true. (Especially when you have a 9 year old that will remind you of everything that needs to be done for the holiday) We had tons of fun spending our time doing some of these great holiday activities.

Madison is a bit to young to particpate in many of our activities but I thought she deserved recognition of her great behavior allowing us to do these fun thing. Plus, she was great eye candy to look at and smile any time we needed it.

One of our first holiday activities was making Christmas Cookies. Every year the boys get to roll out, cut out, and frost sugar cookies. The kitchen here is pretty small so I had to do it in shifts and the dining room table is over carpet and that sounded like a recipe for disaster so turn taking in the kitchen sounded much more workable.

Another tradition that began last year was making a gingerbread house. We started again this year with a kit due to limited kitchen items, but the thing that did change was Mommy was in charge and decided that the "glue" in the kit last year didn't work right so I made royal icing. This was also a challenge with our little kitchen supplies, the largest bowl was pretty shallow and it was hard trying to keep the powdered sugar in the bowl.

Mark, Brian, and Steven decorated this lovely house with tons of candies, or at least all the candies that they did not eat first :). What a great time!

Tomorrow I will post more holiday happenings, stay tuned!!!

Merry Christmas!!

Meier Fun!

2008-12-22T08:36:00.000-08:00

The great thing about our LONG journey out to the northwest was being able to see family. We stopped in Clarkston , WA, a few hours from our destination and we saw Uncle Steve and cousins Tori and Kobe!!

We also stopped in Cedar Rapids and had fun with Grandma Meier, Uncle Charlie, and Uncle Robert. The boys definitely got some wiggles out as the "played" with their uncles. What a great time!

I hope we will able to get back to the central part of the U.S. to see family again sooner than later. I know that now we are so close to Uncle Steve that we will be able to visit Clarkston again when the weather clears up.

Car!

2008-12-20T16:37:00.001-08:00

Yeah, we got the Protege from the shipping people yesterday. That means that Mommy was able to get out a bit without having frozen solid toes, YEAH!!

This was after the family went out searching for homes that I got addresses to that are rentals. Not great luck, but we did find one that is right next to an elementary. It is a duplex and it is two stories and has a privacy fenced back yard. It is not new by any means, but that is probably best. It is empty right now which is a HUGE plus! We tried calling but they didn't answer, it would be nice if it worked out. I would LOVE the boys to be able to walk to school, the school yard is literally right across a side street, I could watch them walking/running on the way home.

We will see. The only problem with our search this morning is our heat is not working so by the time we got home all of our toes and hands were ice cubes. Hope we can get some moolah this week so we can get our car fixed. We got an estimate.......apparently this is a design flaw in the Ford Windstar, it is a hole in the pipe leading to the heater unit......yikes....a $400 fix. Luckily David has some great people he works with that are willing to share their good connections and we found a trustworthy mechanic.

I guess we are back bunkering down this weekend, hopefully we will get a call about the rental so we can get a peek at the inside of the duplex.

Hope you all have great weekends!

What a CUTIE!!

2008-12-18T11:55:00.000-08:00

Okey dokey, now today is just some cute pictures of Madison to warm the heart!!

We miss you all terribly but we are doing okay. Hopefully we will get the van fixed soon and hopefully get our Protege so we can do more to check out the area.

Take care all and know that we are thinking about you.

Getting Settled

2008-12-16T15:30:00.000-08:00

I have spent the last couple days trying to get settled and trying to get the house Christmasy with just the few things we brought and the Christmas tree we bought at Wally's. Oh, I love the command hooks, gives us a place to hang our stockings in this temporary apartment. We are getting there....wow, I forgot how much money it would cost to get the essentials for the house to eat, clean, wash clothes, etc.......yikes it adds up quickly.

I have been searching the classifieds and found a few places to look at hopefully in the next couple days....two are houses for rent and one is a duplex. One is in Kennewick, one in West Richland, and the other in Richland. Hopefully we can get it all worked out so that after Christmas we can get a more permanent place to live.

The boys are surprisingly not bored. I brought a few toys with us and including their DS's they have been mostly relaxing and getting used to things. Unfortunately our Wii decided to eat a game the first time we tried to put one in and would not let it go...grrr. But after about an hour on the phone with Ninetendo, we ended up with not having to pay for the repair and they will expedite the shipping of our Wii back to them if I sent it UPS today since they are out of WA we could have a much better chance to have it by Christmas. Of course today of all days is the coldest...... -1 this morning..brrr......and with only one vehicle right now we all had to take David to work then we all (me and 5 kiddos) went to ship the Wii out. So this morning, all the kiddos had on two shirts, two pants, two pairs of socks, winter coats, gloves, hand warmers, etc.....Benjamin still managed to take off his shoes and mittens in the car (silly boy). They were all very well behaved (of course they were working towards their candy bribe :) ) With any luck we will have it back by Christmas.

I thought I would share a couple pretty pictures from our trip here. The mountains were just beautiful. Too bad the weather wasn't better, we might have been able to enjoy them more.

Here are some cute pics of the kiddos enjoying the pools where they had a chance to swim. Funny thing......at the motel 6 in Clarkston, they had to walk outside to get to the indoor pool, BRRRRRRrrrr.

Hope everyone has a great day!!!

We Made it to Washington!!!

2008-12-13T21:43:00.000-08:00

Wowza, what crazy day we have had, but we beat the BLIZZARD!!

Had to share some things from our adventure......first of all, we drove through South Dakota. We found out that there is NOTHING in South Dakota!!! We only found 2 Mickey D's in SD and neither one of them had a play place. YIKES, 4 boys in the car for HOURS and no play place....not good. We made it to Rapid City and the boys were able to enjoy seeing the HUGE dinosaurs in 20 degree weather.....Madison and I stayed in the car :)

The boys spent much cuddle time in the van (whether they liked it or not :) ) Mostly they didn't kill each other, but we had to break up some altercations of course.

The mountains through Idaho were beautiful, though we saw them going 40 miles an hour down hwy 12, well at least the passengers who could see out the front window could see them since the others were iced over on the INSIDE and of course we didn't let David look since he was driving......oh, did I tell you it is BUTT COLD in South Dakota and Montana.....oh and when we had a conversation with people from Montana about the cold.......they just laughed, nothing else, just laughed.

One thing that was unique about South Dakota and Montana was there were casinos EVERYWHERE. The picture shows an example of that.....a gas station, fast food, casino in the same building at a corner stop off the highway. Too crazy.....hundreds of casinos....of course only when there was a town.

After many hours on the road, we are now just about 3 hours from our destination. We spent a great afternoon at Uncle Steve's house with him, Tori and Kobe and her friend Madison then they came over to our hotel to swim and have fun. After drying off and getting into jammies, the boys laid down as I got the movie ready and 5 minutes into Wall-E, ALL 3 of them were out!!

We are going to take it slow in the morning but then run by Uncle Steve's and head to Richland after lunch. Hopefully I can post again tomorrow and share more pictures.

Packing Day Is Upon Us

2008-12-07T06:59:00.001-08:00

Can you believe that it is already packing day and the movers will be here tomorrow? Yikes!! Even though we have been planning for this it seems like it should still be weeks off. We will miss everyone dearly but I am sooo glad that we have technology like blogs and web cams to keep in touch.

I better get off the computer so that I can get everything organized and packed and give the boys one last goodbye to the computers before shutting them down for probably about a MONTH.......they will go through some major withdrawl...LOL

Thinking about all of you as we are packing to move to the NW!

So Sweet!!

2008-11-25T07:13:00.000-08:00

Benjamin loves rubbing his hair for comfort when he is tired, mad, etc. Well, the other day he was cuddling with Mommy on the couch and Daddy had just set Madison down beside us. Next thing you know, Ben was rubbing Madie's hair for comfort and fell asleep beside her. How sweet is that. All the boys, even Benjamin already are in love with their little sister and will do anything for her. Let's hope that stays that way as she grows up!!