Back From the Dead

Kind of a fitting title after being gone so long and with Halloween coming up, no? :)

I'm still reading other's blogs just as often as I can. I have found recently that I've been wondering about so many people since they seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth in the blogging world. I pretty quickly realized that I am one of those people.

I wish that I was coming back with one of those fun announcements that others always seem to be making like "Guess what! I'm having a baby!" or "Hubby got a new job and it's in Hawaii!" But, that is NOT me.

We are just still here living our little lives! We are all up to our necks in football games for Grady, soccer for Graham and Griffin being drug hither and yon.

Grady got to try his hand at being the quarterback on this play. He has LOVED playing flag football this year!

Grady's league even had a night where they were able to run out onto the field with the high school football players that coach them! 

Graham is still playing Falcon's soccer and loving it. I can't even tell you how many years now he's played both Fall and Spring. We wouldn't change this craziness for the world though. He loves it and is getting so good!

Thank goodness we have Mimi around to help chase Griffin. Like I said earlier, he gets drug around to almost every game and practice. Bless his little heart. Just one more year though and he can play soccer too! (Lord help me...)

I hope that everyone is having a great week so far. I can't wait to update on our Halloween. It's going to be soo much fun!!

Because That's How We Roll

Sometimes I think my family and myself thrive on having way too many irons in the fire. Things are all sorts of crazy up in here. That's the excuse I tell myself for why I've not been blogging :). This whole raising 3 boys (4 if you count the dog - and I do) has turned into crazy = normal.

Here are some recent recaps of the Crazy Mueller Family. :)

• Our new puppy Gunnar is a one way trip to Crazy Town. I say that in the sweetest way though. We love him soo much! The boys adore being met at the door by him when they get home from school and I can tell that he misses them too. But, this whole potty training a dog when its cold outside is just nuts!! He is finally getting better but I really can't wait until he 100%.

The last picture cracks me up. He was sleeping on some dirty clothes (don't judge...) that were laying on our bathroom floor. I went to get them to start the wash (so of course he had to move) and he got mad and went and curled up BEHIND THE TOILET to go back to sleep. 

• While doing laundry I discovered the most disgusting pair of jeans that I've ever seen in my life. I started the cleaning process and then just gave up all together. They are going in the trash! Hopefully the trash guys don't report us to the police for suspicious behavior...

(now no one get all hepped up...my husband was field dressing among other things a deer he had shot. If the police do show up I'll just show them the hot mess of an outside freezer that just fills me with pride...

Frozen deer scalp/skull a la Charles Manson anyone?? :)

• I pulled a Coprolite out of my washing machine this morning. How many of you can say you've ever washed fossilized dinosaur poop before?? Anyone or is just me??  The crap that comes out of my kids pocket never ceases to amaze me.
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•  I still have ONE last Christmas card to mail. My friend who's getting it is a total sweetheart though and will understand.

• We had Graham and Griffin switch bedrooms recently. We came to the realization that our oldest really needed his own bathroom. Griffin's bedroom had one that we really never used. It just made sense. We also did a lot of work in our upstairs hallway and had our walls around our stairs finally!! painted. 

Graham's new room!

Girffin's new room!

Parts and pieces of the boys upstairs hallway (and a tiny portion of the painted stairs). We tried to put mostly fun and inspirations sayings on the wall. 

• OMG. Did I also tell you that I've been redoing the boys jack and jill bathroom upstairs?? I forgot to take before picture (because, duh, I've been busy... :). It was a super hot mess of 1980's wallpaper and just overall yuck. Here it is now! (well mostly, I'm not quite done with all of it yet...) 

Its a narrow jack/jill bathroom so I could never quit get in there for you to see the whole thing. I tried to take pictures of each little aspect though. I like to call it "mature pirate". HA! It turned out really great and I'm super proud of it!

• Lest everyone rush out to purchase Mother Of The Year awards, here is a picture of what I saved in my computer as "Reality.png"... :)

Griffin is crying because he is two and longer wants to hold my hand OR wear pants. He and a little girl I watch tore up Grady's room while Grady was at school today. This is a fairly usual occurrence. :)  

Like I said before, we seem to live in swirling day to day choas. That's how we roll and I wouldn't have it any other way! :)

God, Let Me Be a Blessing

Recently our family heard of another family in need. Like all the stories you might hear of out there at this time of year they are struggling.

I don't want to get into all the details of how and why as I think that things like that should be kept hush. They have enough on their plates without worrying about others speaking of their personal business.

Suffice to say they have more to worry about than just presents under their tree. At the top of their list was "space heaters with long extension cords". Break.my.heart.

I have been sitting here worrying about what new Xbox game to get Graham (hello $59.95 that I'll never see again) and another family can't get warm this Christmas. I feel both shame and thankfulness for the giant slap in the face that God has just given me. My own worries are nothing compared to what others are facing. My stress is just a drop in the bucket compared to that other family's.

I look at our wrapped presents under our tree in our warm home and realize that none of those things matter at.all. How I wish I could just go and pluck items up that I've already purchased and pass them on to this family (Sadly, the children of this family are a 6 year old girl and a 14 year old boy. Nothing that I've gotten for my kids would really match up at all with what their other kiddos might want or need.)

This is the season for our family to give back. We've been blessed in the past and we need to start paying that forward. We have started getting some things together for the family. Some of our really good friends and family (Love you Melanie!) are helping out as well.

I'm still worried though. I'm done Christmas shopping (and so is my budget :) and there is just a little bit money that my family can contribute. My prayers are that it is enough and that Gods blessing is placed on the items that we can give them!

When thinking and praying over this situation this morning my mind stayed to on of my favorite stories from the bible.

Matthew 14:13-21

New International Version (NIV)

Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand

13 When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. 14 When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.
15 As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.”
16 Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”
17 “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered.
18 “Bring them here to me,” he said. 19 And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. 20 They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. 21 The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.

I hope and pray that when I head out to the store later that my money mysteriously multiplies :) and that there are some insane sales!

God, please bless this family. Gentle their financial worries and let these items be just what they need. Let the children that are opening these gifts on Christmas morning ooh and ahh over what they receive. May the blessing of my family be passed onto this family as well. Amen. 

Shhh.... Don't Tell The Boys :)

The boys are getting something a little extra special under the tree this year...

Meet our newest "baby", Gunnar. 

Yes, his name starts with a G just like our other boys. :) 

He is a Golden Retriever and will be ready to pick up on Christmas Eve. I hope there is not too much crying for his Momma (that would totally wake my boys)  because I'd LOVE to be able to have my boys walk in to our living room on Christmas morning and see him in his doggie bed!

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What Graham's Reading

I love how much Graham is into reading these day! Now, don't let me totally fool you... there are still plenty of times where there is some grumbling and pre-teen eye rolling going on when it's "required reading". But for the most part he's really getting into what he's got open in front of him!

As a book worm myself I just LOVE this about him! When I was his age I could devour a book in less than a day. This used to drive my dad banana's always asking to be taken to the book store. :)

I know I have mentioned in the past that Graham has learning disabilities. Specifically dyslexia (or so we pretty sure. It's a long, boring, and pissy story in regards to his testing and the school district that I just won't get into now...).Graham puts in 110% to stay at grade level reading. I usually hang pretty close when he's reading to re-read a paragraph to double check for comprehension but almost always he's on target.

Recently our school had a book fair and Graham chose 3 different book!

I know that Graham picked well because I can easily see all of his interests represented right here! The one of top is about the Revolutionary war, the one in the middle is a spooky mystery, and the one of bottom is about service animals in WWII.

He is really ready to get started reading all of these but I'm making him finish his school library book first :).

He's reading Smells Like Dog. The parts I've read with him (yes, he still asks to be "read a story" at night :) ) are super cute!

My heart sings when I see his bedside table and it looks like this...

I just love my sweet reader! 

The Last Saturday of Soccer

Both my older two boys played their last soccer games of the year. They are both sad and happy all in one. Two practices a week and games on Saturday was getting a little tiring for them (and me). They will miss their soccer friends until next season.

They both played amazingly well today!

Grady played first at 12:00.

Grady did a wonderful job and played his best game yet!

Graham played next at 2:00. We stayed up at the fields in between games for Graham to get some extra goalie practice in with his coach before the game (more on that later).

Graham was chosen to play 1st half goalie for the last game! We were so proud of him! He really began to enjoy playing this position last year and has really bloomed at it this year. He did an amazing job and out of all the shots made on him he only let one ball through (the final score was 5-1 with our team winning!). The rest of the game he played both offensive and defensive positions.

This is what Griffin did for the 19 hours we out today...

Bless this sweet baby's heart. He slept, ate, and picked his nose right here the entire time. :)

Both my boys had amazing coaches who just did wonderful with the kiddos. There was nothing but positive encouragement and awesome training.

I have to brag on both Graham and his coach though. I got a couple of emails from him that just made my heart smile. I tried to explain to Graham when I read them aloud that this was not a coach that just throws around praise. I can't wait to see what next season brings!

"1 will be great. I don't want to tire him out too much before the game. I appreciate his determination to feel prepared and be as good as possible."

and...

"We'll play our final game of the Fall Season tomorrow at 2 PM on Field 8A. Unfortunately JT has another commitment so Sela's mom and I will be running the sideline. For anybody who wants an extended warmup, we'll be somewhere around one of the goals any time after 1 since Graham is dedicated to doing his absolute best in the goal, and he wants some extra practice."

The Rest Of Halloween

Basically this sums up our Halloween night...

This was not even one of those "stock Google images" photos. This was from our dining room table. I had everything spread out looking for needle holes and razor blades. Not one Butterfinger appeared to be safe. It all had to be safely stored in a Ziploc bag in my bedside table.

My kids were one gigantic blur last night. I got about 4 dark/blurry pictures of them while they appeared to be running for their lives (or the house next door to the one they just trick or treated at because "they might run out").

They all had an awesome time and I'll add some updated pictures of just them if I can steal some from my SIL. :)

Griffin had a blast on the Hay Ride that we did. By the end of the night he really had the candy collection process down pat. For the last two or three houses he even managed to say "Trick or Treat" in his Ijustturnedtwoandsoundadorable voice.

We had the best time hanging out with the cousins, grandparents, aunts, and uncle (and numerous school friends).

I thought I'd include just a couple of pictures of some household Halloween things before it all comes down later today...

I free-handed that M yo...

I painted the pumpkins and made the wreath myself! (do you think it's Etsy shop material?)

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Halloween night too!