A month of status updates

For those of you who don't facebook (seriously???) I thought it might be fun to give you a taste of the every day glimpse into the Stoda life that the rest of the world gets. Be warned, there are always updates that deal with poop. Hey it's a part of our life around here.

Sept. 2 @ 7:22 am:

Heading to Spain today (!!!) to celebrate six years with my most loved one. These have been the happiest, hardest, scariest, funnest, crazyest, most challenging and most rewarding six years of my life.

Sept. 2 @ 8:09 am:

Because it's not hard enough to leave my kiddos, my baby woke up this morning with a fever and lots of tears. This is going to be harder than I thought.
And Anna, if you're reading this, Payton's totally fine, no worries, I'm it's just a weird fluke and she'll be fine by the time you guys get them this afternoon :)

*It actually was not a fluke, all three kids kids ended up getting some weird virus while we were gone. Thank you to everyone who distributed drugs, took temps, and cleaned up vomit and diarrhea, while I laid by the pool. We REALLY appreciated it!!

Sept. 8 @ 1:16 pm:

Having a really hard time coming back to reality today.

Sept. 13 @ 9:16 am:

Went in to load the breakfast dished in the dishwasher and was thinking how today I felt rested, and I was already being productive, and I was ready to take on the day staying home with three kids. Then I went back into the living room to find one of my kids had spilled my full mug of coffee all over my desk, keyboard, desk chair and floor. And it was full of sugar, so everything is sticky. Dang.

Sept. 15 @ 3:41 pm:

A little bit ago, Payton had a nasty diaper, the kind where I had to walk around the house after I changed it to make sure it hadn't gotten anywhere else in the house. Just now I discovered something crusty on the side of my face, and when I went to scrape it off I realized, yup, it was poop. Dried on my face. This is disturbing to me on several levels, but mostly, how did I not notice that happen????

Sept. 17 @ 8:48 am:

Thanks, everyone, for all the birthday wishes! Jesse had surprised me by taking the day off, and he had the whole day planned out for us with lots of fun stuff. I definitely felt spoiled, and loved :)

Sept. 17 @ 11:22 am:

Cooper just came in and told me that she and Zeke were "falling in love, but now we're only falling apart". She is now learning the lyrics to songs we listen to, and she also keeps asking what they mean. Lets hear it for only ever listening to kids music for the next ten years!

Sept. 19 @ 8:40 am:

Decided that I would change up my look a little bit to surprise my hubbs while he is gone this week. It's a bit more dramatic than I was thinking...

Sept. 22 @ 7:55 am:

Emotions are running high here at the Stoda household: Cooper and I were both in tears before 7am. But after some snuggle time on the couch, and now some breakfast, I think we're both feeling a bit more stable :)

Sept. 24 @ 7:52 am:

Cooper (getting into the van while Payton is screaming and Zeke is whining about Payton's screaming): "Does anyone else think it's annoying in here?". You have no idea, little one. But at least you made mommy laugh.

Sept. 24 @ 3:54 pm:

Um...how am I supposed to continue avoiding housework when bubble shooter is not working??

Sept. 27 @ 3:27 pm:

Apparently Zeke can now unlock doors, as I just walked into the kitchen and he and Payton were outside, and Mali (our outside dog) was inside.

Sisters

I am blessed to have two little girls. They have already made me so much more girly than I ever thought possible, and they are only four and one. I'm not quite sure when I went from thinking Barbie movies were pretty much the lamest thing I had ever seen, to sitting down to watch the newest one with Cooper Paige, because I had missed how Ken breaking up with Barbie was a misunderstanding, and I had to know if the Flairies (not fairies, Flairies...no wings) were going to have their magical flair saved. Oh my.

Every now and then I look at my girls, at how darling they are together, and I can't believe how much more wise God is than me (I prayed for a boy while I was first pregnant with each of my girls. Oh, the foolishness.) You really can't beat matching piggies.


Don't let Mommy's picture taking interrupt your tv viewing, girls, I know how intriguing Pooh is.

And intense, apparently!

I really must start dressing the two of them in matching outfits more often, I suppose matching hair AND matching outfits would be better.

Ode to Zeke

Okay, I apologizing ahead of time, this is not my best post. The pictures are scanned, as I no longer know where the digital versions of them are, and for some reason, even though I rotated it on my computer, the first one still came up with Zeke on his head. I am deeply sorry, but if you don't think you can deal with those issues, you may want to skip this post. :)

Today my young son is three years old! Half of my thinks, "really, three years? That's it?!" While the other half thinks, "he's still a baby, how can he possibly be three? That's like, a kid!" But either way, it's been three years.

Three years ago today I went to the doctor to get some cough medicine for a cold, and came home three days later with a baby :). We were in Pensacola, and at the Naval Hospital they did the whole triage thing, even though it was just a cold. Which ended up being a God thing, as they discovered that I was have major contractions brought on by dehydration, and as they were monitoring those while pumping me with fluids, they realized that Zeke was in fetal distress, meaning every time I had a contraction, his heart rate plummeted. They told me that I needed to stay and be induced immediately.

However, my husband was deployed to Iraq, and I had a 16 month old daughter at home, and didn't quite grasp the severity of the situation. I kept pleading with the docs, "Couldn't I just go home, and wait until my mom and dad can get here, and I'll come back in a couple days, and you can induce me then?" They kept looking at my like, poor, slow, teenage mother, and they would kindly respond, "No, you really need to stay and have this baby now."

So I called my husband in a teary panic, and he started calling our friends and family, from Iraq, and organizing a plan. He arranged for some good friends to take the next day off work to stay with Cooper, and for a couple of my girlfriends to come stay at the hospital with me. I had been in contact with my Mom and Dad, whom I kept telling, "no, I'm sure they'll let me go home, don't come tonight". So then I had to call them at dinner time and say, "Just kidding, they're inducing me now, get here (from WA to FL) as soon as possible!"

Which they did, they jumped on a red eye, and got in at 10 am, and Zeke was born at noon. Another little God touch :)

Zeke was struggling a bit at first, so they whisked him right down to the NICU and hooked him up to some fluids and some monitors, but the little guy rallied quickly, and was fine. My dad took this picture down in the nursery before I ever even saw him (sorry again he's on his head).

Meeting my little man for the first time (thinking "where the heck did this black hair come from?").

Meeting his big sis. She looks a little confused about what this is all about.

"Oh, I get it. A new toy!"

Talking to Daddy in Iraq, letting him know he's the Daddy of a perfect little boy.

What a comedian

One thing that we have discovered as we've gotten to watch three different kiddos grow into their distinct personalities, is how differently they are all funny. Every little kid is funny, as they all say random things, and think of creative ways to explore their world, and while each of our kids cracks us up in their own way, there are those kids that are born comedians. We have discovered that Payton is ours.

Cooper is funny in her sweetness and genuineness. She truly believes that she is a princess, and plays the part to it's fullest:

She loves all things princess, and it is so sweet and cute that it makes us giggle.

She also makes us laugh in her eager approach to life. She is interested in everything, loves to learn, and is incredibly smart, which translates into lots of conversations that end with Mommy and Daddy laughing. And she is eager to pass on her knowledge, to anyone that will sit and listen:

Now, she definitely has the flair for doing random things that make us laugh, like tying a balloon to her behind as a tail:
It's just that the way she is usually funny comes through in her sweetness and genuineness.

Zeke on the other hand, is funny in his extreme energy and how he channels it. He is like a whirlwind that even birds don't stand a chance against.
He is the kid that is constantly in trouble, and we laugh because the alternative is to cry:

Plus he's all boy, which leads to all kinds of disgusting things that we are sick enough to laugh at:

And then there's Payton. At only sixteen months old, she has emerged as the stand up comic, the class clown. Her favorite form of comedy at this point is the wide range of expressions she can make with her face, but every day we see that abundant sense of humor grow as she is able to do and say more and more, and she is quickly learning how easy it is to get the other four of us giggling And how much trouble she can get herself out of. When we are scolding her, she loves to frown back at us, and then quickly switch it into a huge, open eyed grin. It is really hard to continue scolding that. And the other day when she stood up in her high chair, I was in the middle of sternly telling her to sit down when she looked right at me, put her little chubby finger to her lips, and breathed out "shhhhhhhh." Either of the other kids would have really annoyed me with a shhhh, but she is so darn cute and charming, I had to try very hard not to laugh.

Here are a few of our pics that demonstrate the exuberance in her expressions, the same exuberance that she carries into every aspect of her life as a toddler, especially when she knows it will make Mommy and Daddy laugh and give her snuggles:



I know I posted a couple of these the other day, but this series of her facial expressions is so classic Payton, she is fun to just sit and watch. And so darn cute!



*Side note to all Payton's future teachers, babysitters, etc: she is cute and charming, and she uses that to distract from the mischief she is up to. Don't say I didn't warn you.

"School"

We made the decision this year to not put Cooper into Asilo (Italian preschool) for several reasons. She will be doing a couple other things throughout the year, soccer right now, which I am sure you will eventually see pictures of, but she is so smart, and loves learning so much, that when I ran across a magazine article about "home preschooling" it sounded like a great idea. So once a week we will have a school day, and I will be teaching the kiddos about a different subject each time.

We started with money, partly because we have been working with both Zeke and Cooper on counting, and partly because we had a ton of change that I've been meaning to get rid of, and I already had a trip to the bank planned for later in the day to pay a bill :).

Here we are, ready to start. Notice that we have two Buzz Lightyears joining us as well. We don't really do much around here without at least one Buzz in tow.


Counting quarters into piles of four:

Sorting a pile of coins:

Payton is so helpful :) :

Each of the kids had a coloring page:


(I know that picture is a little dark, but the look on her face is so funny!)

Cooper sorting all the money into piles. We then talked about how many of each one it takes to equal one dollar, and then counted them into piles of one dollar.

And finally we bagged them and took them to the bank. We talked about how many dollars were in each bag, and then the teller gave us a bill that was that same amount. Cooper got to carry the bills and pay for our dinner at the food court with them, which gave us the opportunity to talk about getting change back.

I gotta say, the first day went really well, Zeke surprised me with his sharp little mind, and Cooper has been begging every day since then to learn about more stuff.

Life as a SERE wife

Living life with a SERE (Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape) Instructor provides all kinds of special entertainment that I don't think most typical households get to enjoy. Things like lessons on eating bugs during a "normal" day out with the kids. Things like having my husband come home from work in the wee hours of the morning dressed/painted to look like a bush. Things like being proposed to at gunpoint with flares going off around you, by a man you barely recognize (see above about being painted to look like a bush). And things like going outside to find a C9 canopy being erected as a shelter in your front yard.


After a trek into the woods with our young daughter to cut down a tree to use as a pole, the entire SERE crew based in Italy showed up at our house to turn our yard into a training area.
Okay, there's only two of them, but they are really close. Really close. Seriously, what's going on in there?
Tying it off.

It was taking too long, so I resorted instead to taking pictures of my eldest monkey, who's hair looked darling after Mommy and Me time in the bathroom with Mommy's new hair straightener.
And she was definitely still interested.
Isn't he handsome?
Cooper gets a lesson from Claude on how to tie a knot. Just what we need around here.
I'm telling you, life does not ever get boring around here. Plus we're building relationships with all the local Italians! We do weird things, and they stare!
"I sure love this pole we cut down."
Even sitting around in chairs is more fun when there's a parachute in your yard!
Unless you're one, and then sitting still in a chair is never fun, parachute or not. Helmets, on the other hand, always fun.
"Wait...what is that? Is that a...parachute?!?"
Jesse and the kids had spent the night before in the backyard in a tent (another SERE bonus: continually obtaining new tents that then need to be used and compared to all our other tents). Payton and I slept inside, because I like the finer things in life. And also because this is how Payton reacts to tents:
Apparently they are not safe, even when wearing head protection.

3F195FA4-81AA-4CA1-04A7-AAAF6DCB6D43

1.03.01

Last day...sigh...

Our last day in paradise (could that really have been less than a week ago???). I of course set my alarm so that I could get up early (and ended up dragging Jess up with me) and suck every second of sunlight out of our last day as possible. Luckily I had brought my camera down to the pool area, as now I have pictures to look at and day dream about how relaxed we were by that last day:


We were getting settled in at the pool, and I had to run to the bathroom, so Jesse ran up to our room and grabbed a bottle of wine we had purchased at the grocery store (for three euro, instead of the thirty the hotel was charging) that we hadn't gotten around to drinking. He tipped the pool boy to bring us a bucket of ice, and set up our little station for us:



It was really, REALLY hard for me to leave that pool, and that hotel, and that country. Luckily for Jesse, some clouds rolled in later in the day as we were leaving, and also there were those three little people to get back home to. Otherwise, it would have been iffy if I would have come home or not, I might have just stayed and slept on the pool chairs.

But finally we were headed back to the airport in our darling little Mini.

We had a perfect trip where everything worked out better than we could have hoped, and so, of course, everything had to go wrong when we were leaving, as leaving isn't hard enough already. We got the runaround at the check in counter, conflict with the security people, and then our flight was delayed because of strikes in France, and we couldn't fly home without flying over French airspace.

But now we are home, still trying to bring myself back to reality, but happy to be with my Love and my little monkeys. I do sometimes still have to remind myself though that I like them better than that hotel...

3F195FA4-81AA-4CA1-04A7-AAAF6DCB6D43

1.03.01