Unwanted Purchase

Sadly we are now a crib-free house. Last Thursday morning Drew woke up crying - it was the "I've lost my pacifier" cry. It was early so I went in, gave him back the binky, and left. He was irate. The next thing I know I hear the door open and he storms down the hall to my room to tell me that he did not appreciate my dismissal of his needs (I needed to sleep til 7 - what about my needs?). Dane promptly followed suit so now every morning between 5:30 and 6:15 they are up and ready for the day. We are trying the gate at the door and toys in the room. Still waiting for them to catch on to "please play quietly in your room until 7am" but we will keep trying. Today it took an hour to get them to nap for 50 lousy minutes. The cribs are gone and I suspect the naps are next. Just when we get in a great routine...

Quarterly Update??

Well I guess its come to life being so "busy" that I can only document our life every quarter.  The term "busy" I use loosely since I seem to find plenty of time to watch TV etc.  July was pretty rote - pool, gym, etc. (except for my patriotic July 4th kids)

but August was a whole different story!

Gulf Shores:  A nice long weekend right before school started.  I had envisioned these two awesome pictures of my four angellic children on the beach.  The first shot with them sitting facing me and the next shot of their backs.  My sister took 50 shots of some version of:

School Started for Caden AND Claire! So I'm the big dork mom who put Caden on the bus and then raced the bus to school so i could walk him to his classroom.  He was publicly mortified but secretly glad I was there (or that's my story...)

Amanda and Bill's weekend away with NO KIDS!  We didn't document us laying by a pool for 8+ hours that Saturday, but we do have photographic evidence of our kids with their awesome babysitters.  Thanks Aunt Lauren and Uncle Mike!

And finally, my cute babies who are just cute.



A new pattern

When the twins are put to bed:

When the twins wake up: 

 oy vey!

Evidence...

...for when they're teenagers. We will remind them what a good Daddy they have.

Spring 2011

Since the twins arrived life is a blur.  The last two months have been no exception!  Here's a recap:

 

• We bought and installed a gate for the back porch.  Since we have no deck furniture it has become a massive playpen.  I'm not complaining - we can get deck furniture any old time.  For now, a safe outdoor space for the twins is priceless.  I have even been able to mop the floor in the middle of the day instead of after bedtime...it's the little things...

• I love holidays like Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day.  The expectations are so low.  I got Caden all dressed up because he had school on March 17.  He wore the hat for photos but refused to wear it at school. 

     

• The twins have discovered the cabinets.

 

• We sort of went nuts for Spring Break.  A trip that had the potential to be 100% miserable for all involved actually turned out to be pretty great.  My aunt lives 15 minutes from the Tampa Bay Rays Spring Training Complex.  Guess who is a big Tampa Bay Fan??  Nick!!!  Spring Break this year happened to be in March (usually its in April) and the rest of the stars aligned for us to make the 13+ hour trip down there.  Nick and Bill attended 4 games and we were able to fill the days with beach outings. 

 

• The twins LOVED the beach which makes me so happy.  The beach is always our family's preferred choice of vacation and I was really worried that they would not like the sand and the water.  They couldn't have been happier with so much free space to roam.  They didn't love the water - probably because it was on the cool side, but they would go up to the edge and let the waves touch their toes.  They loved to eat sand - probably because of my "YUCK" reaction.  In case you're wondering I did not doctor the pictures of the water to cause jealousy.  The water was actually that color.  In about 20 years when Bill and I disappear you can find us in Boca Grande, Florida.  You can come visit, too!  It was a great trip.  We were glad to be able to do that for Nick before he goes off to college.

 

• Caden has started karate.  He LOVES it.  It really suits him and his teacher calls him a natural (I'm so glad that my son is a natural at hitting and kicking things - hmmm).  He's only been at it for 2 months but has already moved from his white belt to his gold (NOT yellow) belt. 
• The middle picture is him on the day of the kindergarten preview.  Thanks to a good friend I was able to leave the younger 3 at home and go with Caden to this special event.  We toured the school, got a snack in the cafeteria line and were taken on a bus ride.  Caden was on cloud 9 on that bus.  August will bring a flood of mixed emotions.  Caden (MOMMY) is ready for kindergarten. It has become very evident over the last couple of months that he is bored and ready for a new challenge. 
• Next up - Claire turns 3 and Nick turns 15!!

Snow, part 7

7 snowstorms so far this winter! With all 4 kids at home this was not the winter to be stuck indoors day after day. (Not that it would have mattered since we are at school snow day #9 or #10 - lost count). Fortunately SuperDAD came home yesterday before the snow melted to take the older two outside to play. Since we live in the south we do not own snow attire. Caden is wearing hand-me-down boots (thanks C) along with mismatched gloves, SHORTS over long pants, soccer socks pulled up to the thighs and a couple of t-shirts. Claire is sporting tights, leggings, pants, another pair of socks, short sleeve tee, long sleeve t, and sweater and yellow rain boots (not pictured). They say layers are the key to keeping warm, right? At least I had the sense to buy them each winter coats! Next week 50's and 60's. Can't wait.

SuperDAD and MediocreMOM

MediocreMOM

• Stays inside
• Stays in pajamas until 2pm
• Stays inside

 SuperDAD:

• Takes children outside in 30 degree snow
• Pulls said children in the sled
• Takes said children to not one, but two sledding locations
• Stays outside with said children for over an hour
• Does this in the morning and afternoon
• Has snowball fight with children
• Builds collegiate snowmen in his yard AND the neighbor's. Appropriate teams in both yards.
• Enjoys this enough that MediocreMOM worries Carribean retirement might be changed to Aspen.

What a difference a year makes!

This was me on December 7, 2009 right before we left for the hospital.  No wonder people stopped me regularly at Kroger to gawk. 

24 hours later we had this...

And 365 days later we have this...

Happy Birthday to my sweet boys.  I love you so much.  I wish life had a pause button so that I could freeze you guys, your brother and your sister right where we are now so that you all would stay sweet and cuddly and would never have to grow up.  But I can't, so I will quit sobbing about how fast time goes and try to enjoy every minute.  I have a feeling the next 365 days are going to be quite a ride.

Fall in Review

Claire is pacifier free and is thrilled ;). She is also about 50% potty trained - mommy is thrilled to be on the verge of only having to purchase diapers for half of her children.

Caden went fishing with Nana and caught his first fish. He brought it home, watched daddy gut it, had daddy cook it, and then ATE the whole thing.

Halloween: Caden was a white GI Joe ninja, Claire was a ladybug and the twins were skeletons.

Happy Birthday Caden!

I can't believe it's been 5 years since Caden was born (I also can't believe I have 3 other children younger than him, but that's for another time...). What to say about Caden? He's a bundle of energy and has a vivid imagination. He loves to play with his "men" (action figures). He can't wait to start kindergarten next year and ride the bus with all his buddies. This past year he played on two different baseball teams. It was fun, but we are turning our sights towards football next fall. Major milestones: he's learned how to swim and ride a bike without training wheels. I love my boy!

Two Steps

10 months old

Dane: 21.5 pounds, 1.5 teeth, stands, crawls, adorable! He was the first to stand but hasn't yet ventured towards walking.

Drew: 22 pounds, 2 teeth, stands, crawls, took 2 steps last night - unbelievable! We were all in the playroom together - all 7 of us - when Drew pulled himself up on the ottoman and walked to the couch. Only two steps but he was extremely proud of himself. He spent the rest of the night trying to do it again.

Labor Day Weekend

Hiking and rafting and bears, oh my
A nice spacious cabin way up in the sky
Good food, family, friends
The fun didn't end
'Til next year, can we beat it? We'll try!

Williamson County Fair 2010

Even though this summer has been hot, hot, hot we still took our annual trip to the county fair. It was a blast as usual - my favorite exhibit is Little One's Farming. The kids get to walk through planting their crops, gathering their crops, tending the animals, selling their crops and then receiving a "dollar" to spend in the store on something produced at the farm or using farm products. Claire rode some rides, Caden went on the Ferris Wheel with Nick, and Caden is the proud owner of a monkey prize. Daddy was kind enough to help Caden be ripped off, I mean win, a prize. It was a game where Caden threw darts at balloons. Mommy was annoyed at the wasteful spending but got over it - eventually. Thanks to Aunt Lauren for being our photographer.

8 months old

Due to my continued lack of a camera (thanks Claire, February) I have relied on the kindness of others for my pictures - thus no 6 or 7 month pictures of the babies. Not that people weren't kind in months 6 and 7...just no photo opps. So here they are - 8 months old last week. This is a perfect picture of them - Dane is the finger sucker and Drew prefers the pacifier. They can both sit up and do the army crawl. Drew sometimes will crawl properly but is so much faster army style that he will change mid-adventure. We've noticed that Drew is about a month faster in physical fitness tasks - he is also pulling up to a standing position with regularity. Dane is just a bit more laid back. I think he's my sensitive, calm child. 1 out of 4 isn't bad I guess! They're both over 19 pounds and are eating solid food 2x a day. Sweet, sweet boys.

How We Survived Summer

Fairly consistently whenever I leave the house with all 4 kids at least 3 people make the comment "you sure have your hands full." The other question I receive regularly is "are you surviving?" The short answer to both questions is YES! We're surviving and managing to have some fun at the same time. Much of this is thanks to my beloved Longview Rec Center. We spent many summer mornings enjoying the outdoor pool. It is an awesome pool - zero entry, water slides, fountains, the "deep" (all of 4.5 feet but to the little ones it's an abyss). Some days I take a babysitter to help and on other days (which are my favorite) I take the twins to the child care inside and then swim with Caden and Claire. The babies like the pool, but they are just as happy inside and quite frankly don't need to be in the sun all that often. This summer Caden has learned to swim. He's not ready for the swim team, but he's making progress every time we go. He's also taking swim lessons. Claire thinks she can swim - big surprise. We started the summer with the swim jacket and wings but now we're minus the wings. Occasionally we're even minus the jacket. I predict full on swimming by next summer for that one.

That's Our Girl!

Although apparently she thinks she's a boy...

Letter #511

Things to think about:

http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2010/06/14/letter-to-the-president-511-a-graduation-speech-what-not-to-learn/

Claire's New Trick

Twice now Claire has dressed herself...in Caden's clothes. She's officially crazy.