New Title

We need a new title for the blog...we are now Five Martins!

Baby Harper Elizabeth joined our family on March 20th. She's beautiful and getting pretty used to the abuses of her big brother and sister.

Here are all three of my cute little babies! I'll be done working outside the home for the forseeable future in two weeks (who can afford daycare for three???) and I plan on returning to blogging more with all my spare time...yeah, right!

New Job

Well....it happened. I'm now the new Kindergarten teacher at Liberty Christian School.

The Lord's timing is amazing! I started looking for a job in the Spring and went on several interviews back in May. I had pretty much given up all hope of finding a teaching job for this year and I was hoping we could get by with just subbing. The Lord has truly blessed me with this new position. It will much less stressful than teaching special education in a public school. No paper work for me this year! YAY! I'll have 6 students in my class and I'll be teaching A Beka home school curriculum, so that will cut down some of the planning time. I'll also be in town, so I won't have a 50 mile commute each day which means more time to spend with my babies and hubby. God is good.

Big Eater

Wyatt has recently decided that he loves to eat. He'll eat anything...tomatoes, black beans, cheerios, avocado, bugs....the list goes on. He just loves to eat. The other day I heard him screeching. I walked into the kitchen only to find him stuck under the china cabinet trying to get to a cheerio. I thought about taking a picture, but since he was so distressed I rescued him first.














I'm also adding a video of the kids at dinner one night. Wyatt is saying "mamamama" and Taylor is singing her ABC's. Just some general cuteness from my two little sugar peas!

Its not easy being the little brother...

Sometimes your big sister puts a laundry basket on top you and laughs...


and sometimes she wrestles you to the ground when you don't want her to....sometimes its not easy to be Wyatt.


We just recently returned from a week in Seagrove, FL. Both kids loved the ocean and the sand. Taylor loved putting sand in her bucket and Wyatt loved eating it. Taylor was fearless of the water the first day, but after she fell in and her face went under she was afraid of it. She would run to the edge and let the waves barely touch her toes and then run back up the beach. By the last day she had worked her courage up enough to go in up to her knees. We had a wonderful time and can't wait to go back again.

Your Gonna Miss This

Big sigh......

This week has been rough in our household. I look back and I can't believe Monday was only 5 days ago. I think Taylor and Wyatt got together and devised a plan to drive their momma insane this week.

It worked.

I can definitely tell that Taylor is almost two. A few of her naughty highlights of the week include a full box of cheerios dumped on the floor, taking her diaper off and letting the poop fall on the floor (three times), writing on the wall with a pen, pulling all the dish towels out of the drawer, and taking the china out of the china cabinet to play with in her toy kitchen. By today, I needed a time out more than she did.

And there's the younger little monster. I think he's turned into a teething monster. My typically sweet and mild mannered little boy turned into a crabby, fussy mess. He crawled after me all week and cried. He'd stop crying as soon as I looked at him, but as soon as I looked away , he was back to fussing. He also developed a lovely habit of crawling under the coffee table and getting stuck.

It was just one of those weeks where everything I picked up or cleaned up was immediately drug back out or dirtied up again as soon as I turned back around. I complained to Michael how frustrating it was to do pick up or clean something and for it only to be undone minutes later. I immediately felt like I sounded like my mom.

By today, I'd had it. We needed some sausage for a casserole to bring to church tomorrow, so I told Michael I was going to the store to get it. I also said, I might not be coming back. Before stopping at Kroger, I stopped at Sonic and ordered a huge ole Diet Coke and sat in the parking lot and read a book. In my prekids life I never would have thought that would have felt like an escape from prison. While sitting there I heard Track Atkins song Your Gonna Miss This. Have you heard it? I've heard this song lots of times before, but today its message especially rang true for me. Here's the lyrics to the last verse.

Five years later there's a plumber workin' on the water heater
Dog's barkin', phone's ringin' One kid's cryin', one kid's screamin'
And she keeps apologizin' He says "They don't bother me.
I've got 2 babies of my own.
One's 36, one's 23.
Huh, it's hard to believe, but...You're gonna miss this
You're gonna want this back You're gonna wish these days hadn't gone by so fast
These are some good times So take a good look around
You may not know it now But you're gonna miss this"

The words made me reflect on how fleeting these days are with my children. They will only be this little for such a short time. Someday the towels I just folded will stay folded and the floor I just vaccumed will stay cheerio free. Someday my halls will be silent with no sounds of playing or whining children to echo off them. Someday I will look back and wish for just one day my children could be little again. So, I vow to not worry so much about the little things and just embrace the days I have to enjoy my children and all the joy and happiness they bring to my life.

Long time, no blogging

I haven't kept up my blogging like I wanted to. When I started this blog I set out to post an entry at least once a week. Oh well, I have two small children so I think I can be excused. Right?

Things have been great in the Martin household. My babies just keep getting bigger and bigger each day. I tell both of them at least once everyday to stop growing, but they don't listen to their momma. Here's some thing that have been going on with us.

1. Wyatt is crawling....EVERYWHERE!!!! I find that boy in the funniest places like the hall closet or under Taylor's crib. Sunday I set him on the floor at church to grab something for Taylor and he crawled back two pews. That boy is fast! He loves to crawl into Taylor's room and play with all her toys. Taylor isn't too pleased with that.

2. I've started cloth diapering both children. I LOVE it and its saving us a lot of money. Thanks Karen for all your help. My next big plan is to build a clothesline in the backyard.

3. Taylor is talking up a storm and has started having a preference for her clothing choices. The other day we went to run errands and she HAD to have her panda hat and her halloween pumpkin (she used it as a purse) before we could leave.

4.I took the kids yesterday to get their pictures taken yesterday at Penny's. Oh man, that was an ordeal. Wyatt would not cooperate. He kept rolling and crawling off the table. There were several times where I had to catch him before he fell to the floor. He also would not smile, but instead kept sticking out his tongue. The girl working there was so patient and we kept trying to good pictures. In the end we got some pretty good ones of him. Taylor on the other hand was a little ham in front of the camera. She's my little beauty queen in training. I wonder where she gets that from????

5. Michael got the job at Capstone!!!! YAY, we are both so excited. He will be starting after we get back from the beach in July. I'm so proud of him.

Here's a few pictures of my two precious little bits of sweetness.

Blowing kisses to Daddy
Brusha, brusha, brusha
Peek-a-boo
Could he be any cuter????

The Grocery Game

Since I became a stay at home mom last September I've been playing the grocery game every week. I feel like its my job as the stay at home parent to make Michael's hard-earned paycheck go the farthest. I scour the paper for coupons and store flyers for good deals. I drag out my cookbooks and plan a weekly menu....trying to cut the costs wherever I can. I've noticed (at least around here) that as gas prices increase so do the grocery prices. It's frustrating to see my total creep up little by little each week. Well, last thursday I went as my mom would say "big time" grocery shopping. I planned to buy enough to last us about two and half weeks. I loaded up Taylor and Wyatt and off we went. Taylor got the seat in the cart and Wyatt was strapped in the the Bjorn baby carrier. Who needs to go the gym....just grocery shop with a 15lb baby strapped to you. Two hours later with both kids cranky and ready for naps I proceded to check out. My total rang up for 204.58 but went down to 191.33 after coupons. Whoohoo! I've finally feel like I've become an expert at the grocery game.

In fact, I was so proud of my deals that when I got home I decided to set it all out of the table and take pictures of the momentous occasion. I know, I'm a huge dork!

Since then we've had a few invites for dinner, so I'll probably be able to stretch these groceries out for a total of three weeks with a little shopping trip for milk and other staples. I'm so pround of myself!!!