How to choose a President

Isaac, after watching several GOP debates with me and hearing many adults discuss the candidates, has decided that he would vote for Romney. According to Isaac, Romney's name fits best into the Presidents Song we sing for Classical Conversations (our homeschool curriculum). Romney is not who Kyle and I plan to vote for on Tuesday, so Isaac has not been influenced by our thoughts. His criteria is quite comical to me.

I hope you all take the opportunity to vote in your primary election in the coming days and months. Your vote counts!

A nick on the stairs

We love our new home. One of the luxuries of building your home is the ability to choose the layout and finishes. Kyle and I both really like the craftsman/bungalow style home. Two reasons I love the style is because it reminds me of the homes in downtown Madison that I always used to love walking past, and secondly because the stain wood finishes. Hence we chose to have hardwood floors in our new home. Some people may think that is a crazy choice given that we have very high energy boys and a very clumsy daughter. Our floors will certainly have imperfections as it is impossible to keep them from spilling, dropping or hitting something on the floors and trim. Today Isaac dropped a his toy gun on the stairs after being told the gun was not allowed in the house earlier in the morning. He obeyed the first time but his pretend play overruled his desire to thoroughly obey later. Although I would love for my new wood stairs to look perfect, the reality is that my stairs and floors tell the truth about our family. We are not perfect. Instead my stairs and floors tell the story of our life within the walls of our home, a story I will be grateful to still have when the children are grown and out of the house. I love the look of the wood and I also love the stories it tells. I am grateful for a piece of advice I learned when working through Reactive Attachment Therapy with Prema: the child is much more important than the furniture and house.

A few pictures of Isaac and his gun. The WWII replica gun and helmet, coon hat, and adventure vest were Christmas gifts this year. Eli also received a coon hat and adventure vest along with a cowboy hat with pistol. We are much safer now in the Cullum home.

Typical Weeknight

Third post in a short span of time. WOW!!! Don't get too used to it yet. I probably will find myself on a long hiatus here soon.
Here's a snippet of life in our house these days after dinner. The three oldest playing together loudly and energetically. Kyrie is 6 weeks old now and already cooing away. Today she even wouldn't continue nursing after a burp break until she "chatted" a bit. I don't ever remember the boys doing this at such a young age. I think we have a talker on our hands.



Just before this video we got the results of Eli's allergy tests from the doctor. He was tested for the most common food, and indoor and outdoor allergies. Test was negative for everything except for indoor dust and mold. He scored a 3 on a scale of 1-6. So now I need to keep on top of the dust in our house in order to keep Eli's reaction to a minimum. His allergy is probably the reason that he had a reoccurring cold the past month or more when the rest of us were remaining healthy or only having the cold once.

Happy New Year

This is how our family rung in the New Year.


We have not gone camping since Eli was 1 year old. That experience, although fun, included a tent filled with water by morning. The boys have been asking to camp again so we thought we would play it safe first and have them camp out in the backyard first.

Last night's camping experience included
- an extensive incense treatment to deodorize the tent
- a plethora of bathroom trips by Eli within the first hour (at least 5 or more)
- several reminders to calm down and go to sleep between 8:30 and 9:30 p.m.
- Kyle sleeping on the concrete porch with mats and sleeping bags just outside the tent since the sleeping quarters were a wee bit tight with 3 kids and 1 adult.
- Eli sneaking in the house sometime in the wee hours to get a banana to eat.
- Isaac determining they heard "something" outside the tent and therefore he needed to "cock his pistol" (pretend gun) to prepare for what may come. The pistol was in the tent with them for protection.
- Kyle moving inside and sleeping on the floor in the family room since his sleeping bag made him too hot and any body part not in the sleeping bag was too cold.
- Kyrie and I sleeping in our own beds in the comfort of our home. BLISS
- Joyful "campers" waking up asking "When can we go camping again?"

Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Cullum for lending us your camping gear and setting up the tent with the boys.

Happy New Year!!!

Kyrie Grace Cullum

Welcome to the world Kyrie Grace Cullum! Kyrie (KEE-ree-yay) is Greek for "Lord". Our little girl entered the world on November 22, 2011 at 7:48p.m. at Breath of Life birth center in Largo, Florida. She weighed 9lbs 0.5 oz.

It was a wonderful birth experience; our first at a birth center. Kyrie was 9 days late, so I decided (with the approval of my midwife) to take castor oil the morning of the birth. By 3:30 pm the first contractions started. By 6:30 we left for the birth center and 1 hour and 15 minutes later she was born. While at the birth center I was able to hang out in the birthing tub for majority of the time. I am not sure if the water actually reduces the pain that much but it certainly helped me to stay relaxed and let things happen. Kyrie was born in the water. Kyle was able to catch her which brought him great joy. Once Kyrie was born we hung out in the birth suite for 4 hours and then went home. During those 4 hours our children visited and we learned a lot about the natural instincts of a baby and ways to welcome baby into the world. It was a very relaxing and pleasant experience. We also were grateful to be able to come home so early and sleep in our own bed.

The next few days I stayed upstairs in our bedroom resting and taking care of Kyrie while Kyle took care of the older children and household needs. It was so great to be able to have everyone at home and the older children could come up stairs as they wished for short periods to say "hi" to Kyrie, smother her with kisses and see me. A much more pleasant experience than a hospital room setting.

Isaac, Eli and Prema have adjusted very well to having a baby sister. It is joy to see them rise to the occasion in terms of helping me out, being more independent in tasks I used to help them with, and loving Kyrie. There are clearly moments when you see each of them struggling or desiring more attention, but we are so relieved that all 3 are doing as well as they are doing.

Kyrie has been a joy as well. She is plumping up nicely. She didn't lose any baby weight and weighed 10 lbs 2 oz by her 2 week visit.

Isaac's 2nd Triathlon

Isaac completed his 2nd Triathlon this Father's Day weekend. I forgot to bring my camera, so I don't have any personal pictures. However Grandma Cullum had her camera and posted those on another blog. link here.

Play Ball!!!

This is how every Rocker game starts each day at the Cullum house. (Rockers are the imaginary baseball team the boys have. For their birthday they received "official" Rocker Jerseys and hats which they are not sporting at this time because they are in the wash. Every morning after breakfast the boys go outside to play the Rocker's 1st game of the day. The Rockers believe it or not have won the World Series about 3 times in the last month. Every game has very enthusiastic and loud commentating done by the boys.)



clearly we need to work on learning the words of the National Anthem :) Usually the words are just as jumbled each morning but there is no hesitation between them. Instead they sing the errors with confidence. The camera distracted them a bit