Juggling Our Way Through Life

Being intentional as a parent is hard stuff!  It's sometimes mentally exhausting for me as a mom.  To be on my a-game, to be consistent with things, to be one step ahead of the kiddos, to be able to give answers quickly and all the time, and in all of this just to love my children well.  I know I fail all the time too.  Not getting down on myself, just know that I mess up.  Some days I am just so exhausted it's just easier to give in and not be consistent, not think of a consequence or deal with attitude or a kiddo not listening, or even just to lose patience quickly when I am exhausted. 

This holiday season we wanted to be intentional in our focus on Christ being born.  My best friend Erin has an advent that she does with her family with daily scripture and sometimes crafts, books or outings that go along with the scriptures.  She was wonderful and sent me a copy and I took a look at it and used it as a base for our advent calendar.  It's great!  Thank you Erin.  Every night we have a time together to read scripture or a story and do what we are going to do that day-if there is something like a craft.  I can say that we have already missed a few days and it's not perfect, but I like it.  And Cale gets it.  He understands the story of Jesus and I pray that as time continues to go on he understands more and more the love that God has for him and the sacrifice he made with sending his son. 

I have to remember as a mom, that I am not perfect and that God loves me regardless, whether I mess up as a parent or whether I am not perfect in getting all the advent days in.  My hope is that I can remember that with my children and have that kind of gracious love with them in living out God's grace and mercy in my everyday.  So while being intentional is not always easy-it takes a little work, it's worth it to me.  And when I mess up, I get back up and try again tomorrow.  For no matter what the day, I am loved and so is my family!

You know that song that says "and all she wants to do is dance."  Well for Aiden I would substitute and say "and all he wants to do is talk."   He is starting to put words together little by little and man can he have a conversation.  He will talk and monologue for 1-2 minutes and be looking at us as if he is telling the best story ever.  Now, while I can't understand what he is saying, I can say that by his facial expressions and energy he puts into his stories, I have to believe he is telling me something very exciting.  He's our little daredevil-loves to climb stairs, climb on tables, stand up on things, pull him self up on the kitchen chairs, and so much more.  Let's just say that he has heard the word no quite a bit lately!  He is seriously one of the happiest kids I know.  You rarely find him crying.  Most always you find him laughing or smiling.  And oh man does he have those dimples when he smiles.  I cannot stop kissing his sweet little face!  That's the truth.  He has a "blankie" that he sleeps with at naps and night time now.  It's pretty much a must.  His fine motor skills are developing. Just today my mom said he is putting pieces of train tracks together now.  He is also stacking things well and feeding himself with a fork or spoon.  We just love having him in our sweet family! 

Cale turned 4 on December 2nd.  We celebrated his birthday in Branson and then on December 8th with a train themed party for friends and family at the condo.  It was lots of fun!  I wrote this as a reminder of where he is at at this time in his life. 

 The first weekend in December we went to ride the Polar Express again in Branson.  What a beautiful weekend-weather again in the upper 60's lower 70's.  We didn't even wear coats when we rode the train the night of December 1.  We also celebrated Cale's 4th birthday there by hanging out outside all day on the 2nd and just chilling as a family. It was a great trip! Here are some pictures from the Polar Express. 

We had a pretty low key Thanksgiving this year.  We actually spent it with my family this year.  We went over to the lakehouse Thanksgiving morning and had lunch with Grandma Benz (Gigi as Cale calls her), Bill, Lisa, Jodie, Dale, Diane, and Michelle.  It was nice to see everyone and hang out.  Then Jeff had to head back to St. Louis to work the rest of the weekend so me and the kiddos stayed with my parents.  The Caubles came over that Saturday and we enjoyed our time with them.  Cale cooked hotdogs in the firepit and made us smores!  He also went fishing, even though it was pretty cold outside.  Didn't catch anything, but he sure does love to fish with his PaPa!

If you haven't figured out by now-Cale loves trains and Aiden is quite into them too.  We have been to Kirkwood station many of times.  Here's some pictures from a November visit to the train station.

Cale is to a age where he is fully capable of dressing himself, putting his socks on and putting his shoes on.  In the past few weeks though it's a huge battle-we are talking 30 minutes temper tantrums!  It's been exhausting.  We created a sticker chart a while back for behavior and listening so I decided to create another sticker chart for putting on clothes.  If he puts on his clothes, shoes and socks in the morning by himself with no whining or crying he gets a sticker.  Then if he puts on his underwear and PJs he gets a sticker.  If he gets 7 stickers he gets a prize.  Well the first few days went great.  Now it's like he doesn't even care.  Tonight he told Jeff he doesn't even want a sticker.  His prize right now is $2 to spend at the Dollar store on anything that he wants.  He was so excited when I first told him about his prize when we started this and now it's like he could care less.  So we go back to the drawing board-maybe a different type of prize-he does like food or candy-maybe he would do better with that.  It stinks sometimes being the parent when you think you have something figured out and then you realize that you really don't.  We will keep trying.  This is not the last battle we will have with him I am sure.  We will keep trying to come up with positive rewards for positive behaviors!  This parenting stuff is awesome, but so hard sometimes-wish you could just figure your kids out, have all the answers, and know the best way to handle your kiddos in every situation.  Then we would be in a perfect world, and to be honest, I wouldn't want that.  Parenting has grown me a lot in the past 4 years and while I am sure it will cause me some gray hairs as the boys continue to get older, I wouldn't trade it for the world.  I adore and love them so very much and the smiles, hugs, kisses, laughter far outweigh the battles!

Aiden's vocabulary is starting to really pick up!  he is not saying baby, duck, moo, baa, neigh, fish, belly button.  He is totally into books-he will sit for 20-30 minutes and just let you read book after book to him. He is really into anything with animals and pictures of babies.  I just love when he brings one of us a book with this looks of just excitement and joy-huge smile, ready for us to read to him.  The only problem is that we better not be in the middle or cooking or doing something around the house because if we don't read to him right when he brings us a book-then he gets pretty upset!  He is also into pointing to his nose, ears, eyes, mouth, belly button, fingers and toes.  You can ask him about each of those parts and he points right to them.  He absolutely loves when you tickle his belly button!  He loves to wrestle with daddy and Cale.  You better watch out if you are playing on the floor-he will just come over and lay on top of you!  He has a little blanket that he is totally into.  He sleeps with it for naps and at night and has started to carry it all over the house.  We only have one of them so I asked my friend Erin to make us a few more and she did and they turned out adorable.

Cale is totally into playing games right now.  He likes Hi Ho Cherrio, Hungry Hungry Hippos, Candyland, Let's Go Fishin, Memory, and Life (ok so for this game he really just rolls the dice and moves the cars).  It's neat to see him actually understand and grasp a game.  He gets it. For instance with Candyland, he quickly got that you look at the cards and move your piece to the color it shows and if it has 2 colors on it then you move twice.  It is just neat to see him think about and understand things.  He is growing up way too fast!  I look forward to the nights when both are kiddos are old enough and we can have family game nights together. 

 We went pumpkin picking with the Salvatierra's on the 7th this month.  We went to Rombach's and I think this is our 7th or 8th year in a row that we have done this and I truly look forward to many more years of it! 

 We have had quite a few busy months here at the Koziatek household!  Here are some pics from what we have been up to.
 First it was the Greentree Festival Parade in Kirkwood on September 15th.  We watched from the Denkhoff's house and that was lots of fun!

Cale was very into collecting candy this year!

Apple Picking on 9/29/12
Jeff had to work this Saturday so I took the kiddos to pick apples at Braeutigam's Orchards.  We had a great time and I even made 2 apple pies from all the delicious apple. 

Aiden would rather climb the slide at the Magic House than go down it!

 

Cale had a blast at the City Museum.  Jeff took him everywhere, they went on the roof and rode the Ferris Wheel and climbed in the crazy bus and went down lots of fun slides.

Our conductor Cale

Go little caboose go!