The Hatter family

Snips and Snails....

2012-02-08T10:57:00.000-06:00

I'm so excited to have a little boy. (Of course, I love the two girls too....but I'm glad God decided to give me some of each!!)

This kid is hilarious, smart, and infuriating all in one. He's such a boy.

He loves on me all day, but tackles Daddy when he gets home.

He wants so badly to have someone to be rough with, and we make him "play nice" all day.

How boring.

What he really wants to do is knock people down, have someone to throw/kick/catch with, build stuff, and make airplane and explosion noises.

It's funny how he wants to be so rough and tough, but still wants to love on his mommy.

This morning, I told him, "I'm so proud that you get yourself dressed now. You aren't going to even need me anymore!!"

He answered so sweetly, "Mommy, I still need you for LOTS of stuff."

(Which is totally true, because when I came to get him, he was fully dressed with his jeans on inside out.)

He still wants to sleep with his light on every night. If we let him, he's have his overhead light, lamp, and closet light on.

He doesn't want me to hold his hand across the street.

He loves making "collections" of junk in our backyard. I found a pile of sticks, rocks, random plastic stuff, and a piece of old hose. He won't let me throw it out, and insists it's important.

He just started eating like a high school linebacker. Twice in the last two weeks, I had to order him TWO kids meals at lunch. Sheesh.

I love this kid.

P.S. He calls Elizabeth in his class "Haydie Beth" because that's what we call Sissy sometimes. It cracks me up.

My mini me

2012-02-01T23:21:00.000-06:00

Livi might look more like me, but this one is just like her mama. Case in point: she probably cried ten times today without any reason whatsoever. She's all about getting the laugh from whoever her audience is at the moment. She overanalyzes, and picks up on things the other two might not notice.....all those things make her so much like me.

But one example really, REALLY proves her to be my mini me...after spinning around and around at the playground, she dramatically doubles in half, bending over the dirt and hollering, "I'm about to barf! I'm going to barf! I'm going to die! I'm going to dieeeeeeeeeee!" whereupon I bent over next to her and said, "It's okay, if you need to throw up, just throw up."...with which my sweet child responded:

"Nope. I'm okay." and was off and on to the next source of entertainment.

I think those who know me well will concur, this kid is just like her momma.

Around here lately....

2012-01-18T18:29:00.000-06:00

I've got a girl big enough to work on the computer alone. (and a boy too, while I'm at it) These two are so smart, it kinda makes me think twice about waiting another year for kinder. (But not really, because I KNOW how great that extra year is going to be for them!!)

Sis acts so big sometimes it's scary. I really understand the phrase "Four going on forty" now. She's just really, really wise for her age....and it makes me proud, and really cracks me up. The things that come out of her mouth are hysterical. Case in point, car conversation the other day....

Me: "Let's pick up Wendy's for lunch."

Cale: "Can we play on the playground?"

Me: "No, Wendy's doesn't have a playground."

Cale: "Why not?"

Hayden: "They just don't. We should talk to the manager."

Cale: "Managers don't build playgrounds!! Workers do!!"

Hayden: "Where are the workers?"

Cale: "They live in their worker apartments! They do work, and then go to their apartments and come out again when they feel like it."

Hayden: "Mommy? Do workers live in apartments?"

Me: "I guess. Apartments, houses, wherever."

Hayden: "Hotels, too?"

Me: "Yeah, probably hotels too."

Hayden: "I'm never taking another bath again."

Um, okay. That might go down in the books as the most random discussion I've ever had with my children. THAT is hands down the funniest part about having kids.....the stuff they come up with!

Disregard general disarray of laundry/computer room...it looks much better now. Instead, look at adorable, loyal family dog. Cute, huh?

I called Cale to dinner the other night and found this little parade of animals on the floor where he'd been playing. I don't know why I thought this was so adorable it needed to be photographed, but I did. He is at the funniest stage.....very absorbed in the things he loves. He will get going doing something like this, and work at it for hours. His imagination is ridiculous.

And then there's this one. (Notice that she's messing up the adorable animal parade arranged by her older brother....sigh.) This baby is just a sweet blob of human perfection. I can't hardly stand it, she's so cute. She says crazy things all day, but refuses to use the potty. (still)

Today's discussion went like this:

Me: "Hey, if you'll start peeing and pooping on the potty, Mommy will buy you your own ride on."

(This has been in the works awhile because our John Deere thing is a two seater and that means someone is always standing alone in the yard screaming while two people cruise around laughing.)

Livi: "A pink one?"

Me: "Sure!! You can have what ever color you want if you poop on the pot...is it a deal?"

Livi: "Mommy, what does a goggie say?" (Total diversionary tactic!)

I guess she's just not ready to do it. Oh well. I made an attempt again this week.

And that's what's going on around here this week....

Watch out Dorothy Hamill!

2012-01-09T10:44:00.000-06:00

Last year my sweet uncle gave the twins gift certificates to go ice skating. I knew then that they were WAY too young to go, and there would just be a lot of falling down and crying, so we held off on skating and waited a while. A few weeks ago we decided to see how it went...

While Daddy and Uncle Clint skated with the twins, I sat in the lobby with the tiny one....

....who ate her weight in nachos. Hey, something had to be done to entertain this one for two hours!

When Daddy first got out on the ice with Bubby, I have to admit I laughed so hard I wet my pants a little. This was hysterical in a way that you would never understand had you not seen it firsthand.

He looked like a sack of potatoes being drug around an ice rink. What was even funnier was watching my husband try to ice skate while folding himself in half and drag the kid around by the armpits. Plus, you could see Cale hollering directions at Daddy while he flopped all over the place. Hilarity!

Finally, success! After a few trips around the rink, he caught on and had a great time! I think he'll do awesome next time we go...

Sis, on the other hand, gives Brian Boitano a run for his money. This kid was jumping on the ice, turning circles, and generally acting like she'd done it four hundred times. I'm getting some pressure from the family to sign her up for ice skating lessons, but the rink is at 1604 and 281 and I'll be honest....I hate that area and the traffic and that is what's holding me back. For now, she'll have to use her mad athletic skills at gymnastics class.

Christmas, 2011

2011-12-30T18:33:00.000-06:00

Man, I am really slacking on the blog front. The last few months are always the craziest ones of the year for photography, so I guess photographing/documenting my OWN kids gets pushed to the back burner.
I am really going to try to do this more often, since it serves as my only scrapbook-esque item for my kiddos!
This Christmas was really fun!! We started out the festivities this year with a little party and program at the twins' school.

My little angel got up to the risers and already started fiddling with her halo. I could tell by looking at her it was going to fixate her for the whole performance. She has hated anything itchy, loud or annoying since she was tiny. I love that she's always on the top riser because she's so tall....

Cale was the cutest little shepherd in the program. (He's the one in blue) He was so funny when he saw me sitting next to a pew trying to get pictures...he smiled and waved so big!

Hayden's sweet friend Abi from school. This is the second year they've been together, and they really enjoy each other...

Cale had lots to tell me while dressed as a shepherd....and showed me all around his classroom. My favorite part of their program was how he danced and sung so happily....he's still little enough not to be embarrassed to do stuff like that.

I attempted to take ONE, just ONE cute picture on Christmas Eve of all of my babies. This is the best I got. Fancy, huh? Nothing says "Classy Christmas" like a bag of hiney wipes on the floor, crazy faces, and a tiny belligerent cat curled up on the loveseat in the background. (Side note: I thought the twins were pretty much the same height now, but DANG. She is an amazon!!! Let's hope she likes volleyball...)

Bubby with his loot on Christmas morning. He is really into pirates, so his favorite gift was a giant pirate ship with teeny, tiny parts. It's really cool. I love that he's wearing feety jammies in this picture.....definitely the last year for those.

The baby was so sweet and excited on Christmas morning.....she would open one thing and just love on it and play with it forever. We kept having to tell her she had more presents, but REALLY, the way she was enjoying them was so much better. Not ripping through them at all, but spending time inspecting and enjoying each one. I love this picture, and the sweet look on her face.

Sissy loved all of her gifts, too. She loves tiny dolls and tiny parts, so she was gifted accordingly. Let's just say momma had to make a trip to Wal Mart on the 26th to get six new tubs to organize all this stuff!

Mixed in to the craziness was the Zunker's annual Christmas Party, Shawn's work Christmas party (where Livi stood on the stage with the guitarist, holding her dress up, hollering "I POOPING!" at me across the room) and lots more Christmas fun. Looking at lights, shopping, making Christmas cookies for our neighbors, having "Christmas Toddies" with some of our besties, Christmas dinner and gift exchange with the OTHER set of besties, and lots more. I stopped working earlier this year, which was so great!!! I really enjoyed slowing down and giving myself two weeks to enjoy the holiday with my family.

Now to "undecorate" this house....

Tougher than a two dollar steak....

2011-12-20T01:05:00.000-06:00

This kid really cracks me up. That's a good thing, because lately he's also been making me want to stab myself in the eye with a fork. He's just at a "stage" (dramatic sigh) and we're just muddling through it the best we know how. It's funny because the things he does that are stressing me out are SO HIS DAD. I shouldn't get bothered by these things, because clearly they're genetic and he has no control over them. For example, after being asked to put on his shoes forty six times, I find him standing in front of the television, HOLDING HIS SHOES. Dear Lord, is this a boy thing, or a boy-in-my-family thing?? Apply that same scenario to buckling his seat belt, coming when he's called, being told to eat his dinner, and hollering at the baby to "stop making noise". (Like that's even possible.)

Other than the stuff he's doing that is driving me nuts lately, he's pretty much the awesomest kid on the planet. (besides my other two of course)

He says hilarious things that make his daddy and I cry. Here are some recent ones:

"Mommy, I'm tougher than a two dollar steak." --spoken randomly from the backseat.

"JESUS! Don't jump!!"--hollered at the Jesus decoration on top of a roof when we were looking at lights.

Me: "CALE! ARE YOU KIDDING ME? How many times have I told you to stop???" followed immediately by him responding,

Cale: "Mommy, why do you think God gave me such good parents?"

And this little conversation with his daddy...

Daddy: "Buddy, you know Daddy used to be in the air force."

Cale: "What plane did you fly?"

Daddy: "I didn't fly a plane."

Cale: "Why not??"

Daddy: "I didn't want to. Instead, I was in finance."

Cale: "Where did you find ants?"

Yep, it's a good thing he says junk like this to offer some moments of hysterical laugher in the midst of difficult parenting. If ever I get bogged down about this "phase"....I just need to remember how great he is.... How he delivers these one liners that keep us rolling. How he wants me to lay with him at night and sing him Christmas songs. How he sung and danced with abandon at his school Christmas pageant.

How he creates amazing, detailed drawings that blow all of us away. How he immerses himself in airplanes, Legos, playing pretend, pirates....and becomes the resident expert on all of these topics. How his tiny little teeth all show when he's laughing really hard at something. How kind and thoughtful he is. How he tells me he's never going to grow a beard, never ride a motorcycle, and never move out of my house, all because he wants to make me happy. I really, really love this kid.

Halloween, 2011

2011-12-02T14:20:00.000-06:00

Boy, you're probably REALLY excited to read this blog post. I know everyone loves to hear about Halloween, right smack dab in the middle of the Christmas season. Oh well. This blog is my scrapbook, people....and I have the pics that need to be put somewhere, so here it is.
The twins had a little Halloween party at their school, and I took Liv up there with me. I realized while there, that I really needed to be an octopus with eight arms, because that baby was ALL. OVER. THE. PLACE. Luckily, Uncle Daniel was there for Davis, so he held her for a little bit, and kept her in one spot.

We did it up big time this year....the kiddos invited a few friends over for a "Halloween Playdate"...everyone wore their costumes (because who doesn't want to wear their costume more than twice?) and had cupcakes. We invited our friends the Pattisons over to watch baseball, eat pizza and carve pumpkins...which the kiddos loved. Somehow I ended up being the only adult in the kitchen carving pumpkins!! Livi decided she LOVED the Pattisons' son Preston, and let him hold her and give her her bottle, which is hilarious because she hasn't been held to get a bottle in over a year. In fact (don't judge) she shouldn't be even GETTING a bottle anymore!! We also celebrated October in true Halloween fashion by adopting Chewy Louise, who is conveniently black. We trick or treated around the neighborhood, and the babies LOVED their costumes this year. Livi was a LaLaLoopsie doll, and loved her blue wig. I'm sure no one else knew what she was, but my girls love lalaloopsie dolls so they got a kick out of it! Cale saw a knight costume at CostCo and had to have it....it seems really itchy, but he was a trooper and wore it four times! Sissy was ADAMENT that she wanted to be Ariel from the Little Mermaid, and it couldn't be the Ariel with the mermaid tail, it had to be "Ariel in the princess dress at the end". I obliged, and found her a dress at the Disney store, but was secretly a little disappointed. I loved that she was something more creative last year, and I don't want her to think she has to be a princess, just because that is a "girl" costume. Hopefully in the future she'll pick some more hilarious costumes....but I always want her to be what she wants to be, so I never try to push them into something I want. (Unless we get to the age where they want to be something really creepy, and then I'll intervene)
One last note....for Livi's costume, I drew on her face with Crayola washable markers, because I didn't have any face paint, and that stuff is disgusting and greasy anyway. Now, Livi thinks drawing all over yourself with markers is okay. The other day she covered herself in marker before I got to her, and when I took her shirt off for bath, I noticed she had colored her belly button blue.

The Photo Shoot Where No One Cried.

2011-11-14T22:22:00.001-06:00

This one has to go down in the history books. We set up a little no stress, one stop session for my mom's Christmas cards. At the last minute (no joke) I told the hubby to put on something that went with the kids outfits, and I took my hair out of a ponytail and put on matching gear. We literally jumped in ten pics with our kids, and I think we got some good ones!! They were happy and smiley, and no one needed a spanking. It's ironic that the shoots where I stress for weeks about what to wear, and how they'll behave end up turning out HORRIBLE, but the one where I throw on a brown cardigan six minutes before go time end up being my favorite.

We keep telling Livi she has "Justin Bieber Hair" or as Sissy puts it: Justin Beaver. She needs a hair clip, but won't hardly last four minutes with one on.

This girl. Sigh.....we're just at the sweetest phase with her right now. She's the best sister to Livi, and so sweet to me. Lately, it's been nothing but "Okay Mommy." She's been so agreeable and fun, and I have loved every second of being with my four and a half year old girl!! She is my mini me....she does so many things exactly the way I do them, and makes faces all the time that are like looking in a mirror. Plus, she over reacts, and Mommy knows all about that. :) She's wearing her first piece of big girl jewelry now...a necklace with three charms on it. She's so proud of it, and has been really careful not to break it or hurt it....just another way she's growing up, and becoming my big girl. She acts like mommy, but looks like Daddy (with a tiny bit of me mixed in).

These eyes!! Where did that color come from? I'm not sure, but I love it!

To be honest, we're not at the easiest phase with Bub. Luckily, he's adorable and hilarious, so even when he's being a toot, I can't help but laugh at him. He does things that are SO Shawn....he is stubborn just like his daddy, focused, and particular. Today he was picking tiny pieces of black grilled spots off his chicken, and my mom said, "Who does that??" I had to ask her if she remembered who Cale's father was! This kid is all Shawn!!! He blows us away with his drawing, coloring and writing lately. He's going to be an overachiever at school, this one. If my blog readers could be a fly on the wall in a "day in the life" of this kid, your side would hurt from laughing. He comes up with thoughts and phrases that you wouldn't believe.

And then there's my baby.....talking up a storm, not that interested in the potty, still wants a paci when she's in the car seat or tired. (or falls down and hurts herself)

Loves her sissy and bubby, and tries to show her momma who's boss. She remembers everything, and has the sweetest, kindest little heart. She's getting too big, and it's happening too fast. I guess that's why I'm not in a big rush to potty train, or get rid of the last five bottles in my house. She doesn't ask for one every day, but when she asks for one, she generally gets it. It's one of the last "baby things" she does....just today, I was thinking how big she seemed...getting her own snack out of the fridge, throwing her trash away, putting her cup in the sink.

And this is what I really love about pictures.

The fact that they capture these fleeting moments in time with such perfection, and with no words.

What they looked like with their baby teeth, or before their hair grew in.

When they still had "baby fat".

Before they were embarrassed to snuggle up close to their mommy and daddy in a picture and smile with no reservation.

I'm so thankful for these people....five years ago, these babies didn't even exist, and now they're my world. Each of them is SO half me/half Shawn....I can see us both in all three. Even though they're only four and two, I am so proud of the tiny people they are becoming. I can already see glimpses of the kind of big people they are going to become....they are the same characteristics they had when we brought them home from the hospital. It's funny how you parent the best you can, and teach them the things you think are important, but their core personality, who they really ARE on the inside, is just who they are.

From day one, Sissy was sweet, loved to sleep, and so smart.

Cale was particular, and unsatisfied with sitting still. He was silly, but hard to entertain....you'd have to be really ridiculous to get him to crack a smile.

Livi was content and happy, and knew when she was making us laugh.

I couldn't be happier about these babies, these blessings, this LIFE.

Busy, busy days...

2011-11-13T22:44:00.000-06:00

This is hands down the busiest time of the year for my photography business....things get pretty complicated around here, figuring out who has kids, who's watching who, who's picking whom up from school....luckily we still seem to find lots of time for nonsense....just listening to these babies play puts a smile on my face. For example, Shawn let me know what was going on this morning when I was working.
Cale: "Daddy? Can you walk by my door 1,000 times so I can try to kill you?"
Shawn: "Um, no."
Cale: "Please?"
Before you start thinking my four year old is a budding sociopath, let me explain. He loves to play rough with Shawn, and thinks it's HILARIOUS for Shawn to get hit with the foam hatchet and fall down on the floor theatrically. So what does Daddy do? Indulge the boy, and play hatchet fight all morning.

Today....

2011-10-25T15:54:00.000-05:00

I am obsessed with:

Candy corn. Seriously, this stuff needs to disappear from my kitchen island. If you call yourself my friend, please stage an intervention and dump the bowl into my trash.

My new camera.

This lotion. It's about this time of the year that my hands start looking and feeling like those of a four hundred year old. I've put this on four times today already.

My neutrogena at home microdermabrasion kit. Oh. My.

You want your face to feel like your baby's rear? Get yourself this thing!

My autumn scented BBW candle. I love it! It smells amazing....but I think this one is a bit of a dud because the last one I lit I could smell from my front yard.

I found a box of Mr. Sketch markers in my office stuff, and now I'm unnecessarily highlighting things in my planner just to smell them. If you see me in public with rainbow colored dots on my nose and upper lip, please refrain from pointing.

Sofia champagnes....tiny champagnes with a little straw attached. It's momma's Capri Sun!!

The tiny cat. She's always good for some laughs.

I'm obsessed with the idea of eating a double doozie from the cookie company at the mall. This all started on Saturday when I had to leave a birthday party to shoot a wedding, and realized the cake was a huge cookie cake. I'm not kidding, I thought about that thing at least twice while shooting the wedding...resenting that I didn't get any!

I've also decided I need:

Tall brown boots. I love tall boots, but they create quite the issue. For one, it's hardly ever cold enough here to warrant tall boots. Last year, I sweated my way through many an event because of camel colored sweater Uggs. I know they're impractical for south Texas, but I need them anyway.

New aviators. I had some at one point, but I'm not sure where they went. I know this aviator thing has been going on for awhile and is probably on it's way out, but I want some anyway.

A silhouette machine. I salivate thinking about the crafty amazing-ness I could create with this thing.

A flip video. I know I can take video with my iphone, (and I'm reminded of this all the time by the DH)

but I really want a camera ONLY for video, and one that will fit in my purse. I'm done with the video camera with the little tiny tapes that have to be transferred and burned (real time, no less) onto DVDs. Ugh.

A big brown bag. To match the aforementioned boots, of course. I love all the buckles on this thing.

A portable light kit. Looking at this set doesn't make me instantly think of "ease of transport" but it might not be that bad. I just need softboxes to use, especially with newborns.

To think, this whole blog post started with me googling the nutritional content of candy corn....

2011-10-23T09:45:00.000-05:00

Shawn and I were just talking about how much we love this time of year.....it feels so much cooler outside, and of course; there's football. My kiddos are all about Halloween, so for their benefit I've tried to decorate more for Halloween.

My instinct is to just do generic autumn decorations like pretty fall leaves everywhere....that just doesn't cut it for little ones. They want Halloween specific decor.

Cale even asked for a "big, sparkly skeleton" to hang in his room.

I said no.

Momma's gotta draw the line somewhere.

They are IN LOVE with the giant inflatable things they sell at Lowe's....since we have neither the storage, or inclination to own such a giant piece of Halloween fun, we compromised and let them pick out a small one. They get a huge kick out of seeing it lit in the front of the house when we come home at night. We also have three little jack o lanterns in the window, for our three tiny ones. They are the new school plug in variety, which are GENIUS....I like them much better than the old school variety that end up rotting on your front porch. (although we'll probably do one of those, too.) Fun times!! We have our Halloween costumes bought and ready, and have several activities lined up....

Presenting Chewy Louise...

2011-10-20T08:22:00.000-05:00

We weren't in the market for a kitten.

Sure, I like cats, but more of the grown variety...the kind that curl up somewhere in your house, and you never know where they are. The kind that stalk past you every three days or so, somehow managing to look irritated at you for letting them live in your house.

Like you're not doing THEM a favor.

I kind of get a kick out of that....how entitled and jerky a cat acts.

Don't get me wrong...I think tiny cats are adorable to look at.

They're just a lot of work.

But this one...well, she chose us.

We were putting out some Halloween decorations Monday night, and Shawn found her crying outside.

She looked SO pitiful.

No more than two pounds, and skinny as a rail.

I don't think she would have lived much longer had she not found us.

She came to us when we called her, (like a dog) and purred like crazy.

Hayden ran up and down the sidewalk outside, screaming "My heart is BREAKING!!"

So after THAT oscar winning performance, how could we NOT adopt the thing?

Hayden immediately decided her name was "Chewy". Not my particular style, but I am a huge fan of letting kids name animals, mainly because the choices are so random and irreverant they end up being hilarious.

We didn't know if she was a girl or boy at first.

Hayden's suggestion was to put a tutu on her, and if she left it on, she had to be a girl.

Despite the obvious scientific validity of such an experiment, I went ahead and took her to the vet anyway. The vet managed to determine she was a girl, (without a tutu)

So, "Chewy" it was. (I added Louise after we found out she was indeed a girl)

She's about ten weeks old, and healthy as a horse.

We are trying to feed her slowly, (per the vet's instructions) so she doesn't gorge herself.

Girl can eat.

She clears her little bowl in about four seconds, and then goes looking for the dog food.

I guess that's a good sign.

Tiny kittens aren't the easiest thing to take care of, but they're certainly not the hardest.

(Not like when Wyatt was a puppy, and I questioned my will to live on a daily basis)

She immediately knew how to go in her litter box.

She loves my kids.

She purrs like a machine, and makes biscuits on all of us.

She adores me, and follows me around everywhere.

My kids are obsessed with her, and want to bother her all day long.

Cale can't remember her name, and has called her "Chili Soliz", "Chewy Feliz", and "Chewy Sanderson" which confuses me a little, but entertains me a lot.

Of course, we've now continued the tradition of "over-naming" our animals, and today we decided she was to be called "Chewbacca Louise Hatter-hyphen-Sanderson".

Around here...

2011-10-08T09:41:00.000-05:00

We've been keeping busy, with stuff like:

trying on Bubby and Sissy's soccer gear....

licking queso off our plates.....

eating spaghetti....

getting in dog kennels....

getting the most miles we can out of our remaining pacis....

hanging out at some high school football games....

enjoying a church picnic...

and enjoying the sunset....

...dressing up like a knight....

....and getting some more miles off said pacis....

...taking our baby stuffed elephant to the doctor....

...and sleeping in the hallway because clearly it's a ton more comfortable than your own bed.

Fun with a moustache

2011-10-04T13:56:00.000-05:00

You wouldn't believe how funny they think a moustache on a stick is. Hilarious! The only thing better than a paper moustache on a stick is a chocolate moustache on a stick, and they still talk about the one time they've seen those. (Thanks, Dee!)
I love these people....everyone had to play with the moustache....and of course, my fourth child; "Zoolie" bear had to be photographed with the moustache, as well.

You'll notice the moustache is a little wrinkly, and wet on one end...there was some confusion at first about how to actually use a moustache on a stick, and the baby may or may not have tried to eat it.

Sleep Schmeep

2011-09-21T11:16:00.000-05:00

This kid needs no sleep. At least, he THINKS he doesn't. To him, there is just too much to do during the day (and night) to waste time on sleeping.

So, on the rare occasion he DOES sleep, I decide to bust out my camera and take pictures of this momentous occasion.

Plus, he looks really cute and angelic sleeping, and I love him so much.

Ironically, when I see him sleeping so sweetly like this, I want to kiss on his cheeks and wake him up, which is ridiculous, because at this point I probably told him to go lay down forty six times.

He does EVERYTHING he can to avoid falling asleep. He reads thirty books. (and leaves them all in his bed)

He gets out all his cars, dumps them in his bed, and leaves them there.

He gets out all the little Batman guys, and the giant batman castle, and piles them all up on the bed, too.

(Are you starting to see a pattern?)

Really, with all that stuff in his bed, it's no wonder he can't fall asleep.

Some days, I just KNOW he needs a nap.

You know those days...when there is a lot of whining and crying and pestering people.

On those days, I tell him I'm going to lay with him for a second.

He doesn't like this, because he knows I'll make him lay still, and if he lays still, he'll fall asleep and THAT is the worst thing he can think of.

The other day, I laid with him and he told me, "Mommy, I don't want you to lay with me."

I said, "You don't want your mommy in here?" (sad face)

He said, "Well, you can stay today. But I don't want you in here EVERYDAY."

Poor thing, he was so torn.

He loves me and didn't want me to feel bad, but he really wants to just fart around during nap and not have me in there telling him to shush and lay still.

It's funny how someone who needs sleep so badly decides to fight it so much.

If only he knew how awesome it is to be four and be TOLD to go lay down everyday.

I wish someone carved out three hours a day for ME to go rest, and then MADE me relax.

Nighttime isn't much better...

He does okay when we're doing a behavior sticker chart.

One of his "jobs" is always "Go right to bed"

That means he can't complain, or get out of bed and come find us.

When we're NOT doing a sticker chart, things are a lot harder.

He comes wandering out about ten minutes after we've put him down, and stands in the doorway to the living room looking pitiful.

We've tried ignoring him, but he'll literally stand there for forty five minutes.

Once we acknowledge him, he tries to snuggle on the couch with us....which is hard to say NO to, because we love his snuggles so much, and also because it's sort of fun to just have one kiddo to love on.

With his Daddy, he pulls this one: "Daddy? I just want to watch football with you." which Daddy can't resist because he loves football about as much as he loves the kid, and the idea that he can combine the two send him into a coma of happiness. (another story entirely)

Once we tell him he HAS TO GO BACK TO BED, he busts out this little trick that ALWAYS works on Mommy.

His little lip quivers and his eyes fill with tears, and he says in this little voice cracking with emotion,

"Mommy? When I'm in there alone, I'm very lonely."

and what do I do?

I tell him to go get in our bed, and he skips off happy as can be.

Sigh.

But he's not going to want to love on me forever like this, so I am enjoying these years where he lives under my eyelid.

And enjoy the four hours a week he DOES sleep.

Baby feet

2011-09-18T20:30:00.000-05:00

I love her little feet...and all her other tiny toddler parts. Before too long, she's going to look long and lean, and won't look like much of a baby anymore.

She's at such a hilarious age....she loves her baby doll and tells it, "I love you, baby!" and then makes a grumpy face at it and talks sternly like it's in trouble.

I love that most days, she still loves me best in all the world, although Daddy DOES win some days. This morning I asked her "Who's baby are you?" and she kept saying "Daddy's!!"

I asked her "Not Mommy's?" and she answered, "Yeah, Mommy's too."

I love her little curls as they grow in....especially when she's been playing outside and they're sweaty. Before too long, she'll have a full head of hair, and we'll miss her wispy little baby hair.

For now, I'm squeezing all the love out of these last months of babyhood....

I'm a soccer mom.

2011-09-17T16:25:00.001-05:00

Our first practice was Thursday. Cale was really, really excited...Sis was less so. Surprisingly, no crying happened at all! They had a really good time! Their coaches are Daddy and Uncle Daniel, and I'm sure that makes it easier for both of them. Cale was upset at first, because we were told to come to practice with team name suggestions. He was POSITIVE everyone was going to vote for his name "The Piranhas", but was seriously bummed when he found out the league had already named us "The Lions". We tried to tell him that lions are the king of the jungle, are really awesome, but he wasn't having it. More than once that night he said out of nowhere, "Mom? I didn't want to be the Lions." Oh well. If we were The Dirtballs, Livi could be their mascot. That kid really knows how to earn her bath. She was filthy by the time we left the field.

Today was the first game....I was a little worried about Sissy. She cried through breakfast, and the tears really started to fall when we put on her uniform. She kept saying she didn't want to do it, and being the awesome mom I am, I told her she could have a ring pop from the gas station after the game if she played. She dried up real quick, and actually had fun!

She has a ton of natural ability, but isn't aggressive at all. She just happily ran up and down the field, making contact a few times. She did run by me on the sideline and give me about forty high fives.

Bub, on the other hand, is in LOVE with soccer. He was so excited for the game, and wasn't nervous at all. He has never played anything even remotely labeled as "organized", but he caught on right away. He was making a mean face before the game, and told me it was his "mean soccer face".

He scored a goal in his first game!! He was so proud, and it almost makes me want to cry (what doesn't?) looking at this picture. He made a goal, and then ran across the field smiling, and looking for me on the sideline to see if I noticed.

I love that he's elbowing the kid out of the way in this picture!! He isn't scared at all to run into people or get knocked down.

We had enough kids to play two little games of three on three. Of course, I stayed put by the field where the twins were, but I heard that the other half of our team did great, too! We won our first game, in no small part to Luke, the MVP of our team. It was so fun, and I'm just hoping we keep enjoying the season and avoid crying....we might have a lot of trips to the gas station in our future, but I'll do what it takes!

First Day of Dayschool: a.k.a."Mommy gets a break"

2011-09-14T00:29:00.000-05:00

The first day of school snuck up on us right in the middle of a raging stomach bug. Lucky for us, Mimi swooped in and saved the day! Showed up early (with Cale's snack for the whole class) and took them to school. I had all sorts of plans for a cute back to school photo shoot, and "back to school" dinner of lasagna and hot fudge sundaes. Funny enough, in the middle of a stomach bug, even speaking the word "lasagna" was enough to send us running to a toilet, so plans changed. Babies were taken care of by Mimi, and Mommy and Daddy laid around all day competing for the title of "Sickest, most pititful Person in the House." (In case you were wondering, I won.)

Thoroughly unimpressed with the picture taking process. Actually, come to think of it, they are probably humiliated that they were having to be seen out of doors with their mom, who was in the same jammies she'd worn for 24 hours.

We always like to make sure we have a new tat on the first day. :)

I love the baby in the background in her jammies, holding her blanket. I wonder how many older siblings in the world have pictures like this....ones where a random tiny person is standing in the background?

Enjoying his sundae, and looking at the Halloween version of the "Oriental Trading" catalogue. This thing was good for at least three days of entertainment.

They love their teacher, love their class...we are so grateful to have them back at their same little dayschool from last year. Transitioning back to school was a snap (even with a barfy mom) because they were going back to something familiar.

On the first night of school, mom managed to bust out the waffle bowls and all the stuff to make hot fudge sundaes. Everyone wanted ice cream, with lots of sprinkles. No one wanted hot fudge, because it looked "gross". Everyone managed to take one bite of their sundae and then say they were done. Mommy had a hot fudge sundae for dinner.

Hello, age two.

2011-09-12T23:49:00.000-05:00

The baby is growing up, people. It's sad to say, but the days of her and I staring at each other while an imaginary soundtrack of "Close To You" plays in tandem with birds chirping are coming to a close. Fantasyland couldn't last forever. I love this kiddo more than my life, but she has stretched her tiny toes into "Two Year Old-Ville" and Mommy ain't too happy about it. I know my delusions of her and I living a totally conflict free life were just that: delusions. A little piece of me (maybe a medium sized piece of me) really hoped that this one baby was going to be my little kindred spirit that loved and adored me so much that she couldn't stand to defy me or make me unhappy.....and I have had to let that piece go. Case in point:

-she hollers "NO!" at me in completely random locations and for totally nonsensical reasons. (i.e. "Baby, I love you." Her: "NO!")

-she has mastered the art of tattling, but not the skill of doing it in any way that might actually get someone else in trouble. She just wants to holler at people. In the car the other day, she hollered, "Bubby push me! He knock me down!" while he looked out his window. This isn't the first time this has happened, but it might have been the most blatant in it's disregard for factual accuracy.

-she has a .35 second wait time on anything she requests. "Mommy, I need moke." Me: "Okay....let me find your cup-(Insert scream). Fast isn't fast enough for this one. Clearly I am going to have to make like Dion Warwick and look into the future to see when she might be needing milk and plan accordingly.

Good thing for her that she's so cute....sigh.

Hello, age two.

Fall Pictures of My babies....

2011-09-07T18:34:00.000-05:00

I wanted some new pics of my babies. I decided I wanted them to have a "fall" feel, so although it has been over 100 degrees most days around here, I stuffed them into long sleeved shirts and sweaters and herded them into Mimi's greenbelt for some photo fun. Luckily, it was really shady out there, and cooler at six thirty so it wasn't hot at all. We did get scraped up a bit, but they were such troopers!!

When we got home, I found a tick crawling on my jeans!! Luckily none of my little people had any on them....I guess that's the hazard of taking pictures in a wooded area....
I love these pictures! All three of them look so big....Hayden and Cale's eyes have totally turned new colors, and can't really be called blue at all anymore. Hayden's are bluish-gray, and Cale's are a really cool green/gray color. Livi is our only real blue eyed baby, now....and she doesn't even look much like a baby anymore!

This kid...

2011-08-30T00:39:00.000-05:00

...cracks me up for a million reasons. Today, two of those reasons are these:

1. This morning he told me, "Mommy, don't forget to remind me to kill some dragons after my nap."

2. When I went into his room to check on him tonight after he'd fallen asleep, I noticed his new notepad laying on his bed. He loves to color, so I got him several of the 20 cent spirals from Target last night to draw in. I picked up his new spiral to see if he'd drawn anything since I gave it to him this morning. There was something (usually just a circle or line) drawn on EVERY. SINGLE. PAGE. I'm not exaggerating. Every page! All 100 pages, front and back!!! I guess I know what he did for his whole rest time today!!

The tiny one likes to "help"....

2011-08-29T00:53:00.000-05:00

I was trying out some new photography equipment the other day, and the tiny one was all but under my eyelid the whole time. Anyone who has kids understands this phenomena....when you are screaming their name to come put their shoes on, they are no where to be found. When you are trying to open/set up/figure something out that requires no help whatsoever, they instantly have nothing better to do than "help". Since she was all up in my business, I made her be my model. These pictures crack me up...

I love that I have a tiny, shirtless chubster living with me, especially since she insists a princess wand is called a "sword" and makes hilarious faces that crack me and her daddy up.

Today, we laughed so hard at her, because she is such a two year old. We were talking to her in the car, and she would randomly holler out things like "I DON'T YIKE IT!" or "NO I DON'T!" at totally inappropriate times. She has a natural inclination to defy someone, it just makes no sense whatsoever.

Here are a few more of my silly girl....

Playdate....

2011-08-29T00:35:00.000-05:00

Logan came over for a playdate this week....within minutes, every dress up outfit we owned was on the floor, or on a person. It was mayhem (but good mayhem).

Cale told Logan "You are Sleeping Beauty. You have to lay here and be asleep until I kiss you and wake you up." He's a bossy prince, that one. I think in this picture, he is directing her (you can tell from the finger wagging) and she is trying to take him seriously.

All the "dresser uppers"....Cale looks unhappy, but he was having just as good a time as the girls!

After dress up, Snow White had a mini-meltdown and had to go down for nap. We headed outside because it was the only day in the past three months where I can remember something that remotely resembled a breeze happening outside. It was our lucky day, because it rained, too! (Not enough to go inside, but enough for it to cool down a bit)

My big girl hung out on the porch with me while Logan and Bub drove the John Deere around the backyard like crazy people. They had the best time pretending to "gas it up" with a piece of hose.

I kept telling Sis to go play with them, but I think she was ready to go lay down....it was all she could do to sit at the table and drink a juice (and stay awake.)

Before Logan went home, we got out some supplies to do a little project that we have been planning. My kiddos are so empathetic, and always worry about people they see on the street. We made up some "snack bags" to hand out, and they were very serious about filling the bags with a water bottle and something to eat. Logan took a bunch with her to put in their car, and we filled up a big basket to put in our car. We haven't had the opportunity to pass any out yet, but Cale asked me today when we were going to "sell our bags"....which we thought was funny. He also told us, "We need to go look for some people without homes. Maybe we should look at Ross." Shawn asked him why and he said "People who don't have homes shop at Ross." Well, okay. People without homes, plus your mother. And a bunch of people who don't supervise their kids....but that is another blog post altogether.

I'm proud of them for caring about those less fortunate, and although I know our little snack bags aren't going to solve San Antonio's homeless problem, I hope that it will show them that every little bit helps, and hopefully inspire in them a love of helping other people. So, although we do a lot of dressing up, mess making, playing in the back yard....it's nice to mix in something like this for a change...

Instagram art

2011-08-23T18:24:00.000-05:00

As I was scrolling through my phone one day, I was smiling at all the cute pictures of my kids that I had taken with the Instagram app. It's a fun little app that offers some funky little edits on your pictures, and I play around with it from time to time. I loved all the pictures I had accumulated, and the story they told. You know you can't haul your big camera around everywhere, so the phone ends up being the camera of choice most of the time.....all the little memories stored on there are so cute. Pics of my babies eating paletas at Fiesta, Liv's first time to sit on a potty, playing dress up, running on the beach, being cute at restaurants....there are so many! I'm not sure how much memory this phone of mine has, but I can't ever see myself deleting these sweet pictures. Instead of just enjoying them on my camera, I decided to make some art with them so that these cute little snapshots would be on our wall.

Using a little "picnik" magic, this was born:

I printed a 20X20 square print of all our little memories, and I love it!!! It's funky...not the best "quality" pictures of all time...but these are the images I love best...perfect in emotion, not just technically perfect.

LOVE!

2011-08-21T01:12:00.001-05:00

Bathtime. Sigh. Not my favorite time of the day.

In case anyone was wondering, it's hard bathing three people and getting them ready for bed. (Which I should make a note of when I get baby crazy).

I understand that I'm the one who filled the tub with these babies, and I adore them, but....

Bathing them is not my favorite activity.

Mostly I make Daddy do it, but sometimes it's my turn. It's not that I don't love time with them, it's just that by this point in the day, I'm usually at my wit's end. Not every day, but some days. Bathing them all together is a shenanigan, because really this tub isn't big enough for it...but bathing them all separately takes longer and that's not going to happen.

There's a lot of fighting over who gets to sit next to the faucet, who gets the cup to play with, and who gets to "soak" the longest. (They all want to be the last one out)

There's a lot of splashing, too....which bothers their daddy a lot but me, not so much. I figure if hot, soapy water is splashing on my bathroom floor and I mop it up, that sort of counts as cleaning my bathroom.

Some nights...bathtime is sweet. We sing, do a little lesson with the bathtub letters, and no one screams or talks so loud my ears bleed. Some nights, they all get along, and share the cup and play so nicely it almost makes me like bathing them. Plus, I love how their little hands and feet look all prune-y.

This is another one of those activities that fits into the "days are numbered" category....I know I won't be able to bathe them all together for long.....their little bodies won't be little enough anymore, plus, it's bound to get weird at some point....I'm sure first graders won't want to bathe together.

Anyway, I love this picture of them, even though no one is smiling...it was a good bathtub night. I love their pruney feet....and how they all still fit in there.

(Is it just me, or do my kids all manage to look like their father, even though they all look different?? How is that fair, or even possible?)

Baby buns....

2011-08-18T18:30:00.000-05:00

I saw these leg warmers last weekend and knew just what I needed to do with them....stick them on some chubby baby legs and get out my camera!

I love this tiny girl!

"Baby Wivi"

2011-08-17T19:18:00.000-05:00

At two, my baby is a hoot. She's a real jokester, this one. She:
-is obsessed with "po-meese-man" and thinks they are coming to get her. I think she must have seen the mailman on our front porch, because she keeps saying, "The po-meese-man come in my room!". We keep telling her policemen are nice, and they will help her. She's still a little wary.
-she only drinks milk and water. We gave her an Icee at Sea World and she literally scraped it off her tongue like it was liver. She told me, "Mommy, I no yike it."
-she's the best eater of all our kids.

-she still loves her paci....even though she tells me it will give her "wabbit teef"
-she looks the most like me of all my kids.
-she asks where her Daddy is every morning when I come get her out of her crib.
-she is happy almost all the time.
-she loves her brother and sister.
-she's tough as nails.
-she's not scared of much.
-she has pee pee'd on the potty twice, but that's it.
-she asks for a hairbow every morning.
-she can't ride in the car for two minutes without taking her shoes and socks off....she likes her feet bare, like Mommy!
-She loves to sing, and be read to.
-she loves baby dolls
-she has the bluest eyes of all my kids, which is hilarious because her eyes were the darkest at birth and I was sure that meant hers were going to be brown like mine.
-she's the only kid in our family with curly hair.
-she's really athletic....can climb, run, jump, hop on one leg like a champ.
-she can count to ten (even though no one can remember teaching her that)
-she recognizes some letters.
-she tells stories, and recounts things that have happened to us...and does it with such animation and facial expression that we crack up while she's telling us.
-she loves the water
-she wants to do everything by herself ("I DO IT!")
-she is so laid back and easy going....
-She wants a behavior sticker chart like her siblings....Hayden and Cale decided her chart should say: "No biting, No hitting, No climbing." I'm not sure she's ready for a chart yet. :)

Our mornings....

2011-08-17T18:52:00.000-05:00

Sometimes we're still in our jammies at lunchtime. Sometimes we're still in our jammies much later than that. This doesn't make me feel too much like a schlumpadink, because I know these days are numbered....not just because it's still summer for us, but because there isn't much time left where our days are just ours. Pretty soon, my babies will belong to the school system, and their extra curricular schedules, and we won't just be able to sit around in jammies all morning, or go play at the park when we want, or go walk around Central Market for an hour just to kill some time.
These days of having three tiny people are exhausting sometimes, I'm not going to lie. There are days when no one can manage to be nice, everyone talks back and has to be told thirty times to put their shoes on, and no one naps. But some days are much sweeter....the days where all three play together, with no peep of discontent.

"Zoolie Bear" and "Pink Zoolie" were set up to watch the action...

Sissy especially loves the hearts....

I love her crazy bedhead...and how the tiny one has to "supervise" everything.

I bought these little plastic things at the Dollar Store when I was teaching kindergarten, and my students always loved them....it seems like my kids love them, too. I'm not sure why they ask to play with these all the time, but it keeps them happy and quiet so it's okay with me. Yesterday morning they spent hours sorting them, making little piles, patterns, long lines of counters...it was pretty cute. Of course, the baby gets in the mix and messes up their piles every once in a while...and then I have to referee, but for the most part, the three of them play really well together.
School starts in a few weeks....so we're trying hard to fit in as much play as we can....

A party for the baby....

2011-08-13T23:11:00.000-05:00

Trying to keep it minimal is a big joke for me. TRY is the operative word, I guess. On Livi's birthday, we invited our family and a couple friends to my mom's for dinner and to swim. The tiny one was super excited, and talked up her party for weeks.

First picture of my baby as a TWO year old. Sigh. Where has time gone? Sidenote: you can tell Daddy put her in these jammies the night before.....mismatched top and bottoms. Hey, I'm not complaining. At least we have a daddy that helps! Sidenote number two: how many items are in this crib?? Sheesh. A pillow, a pillow pet, about four stuffed animals, a mini blankie, a big blanket....it's a wonder there is any room for a baby!

Owl cookies for the party....on the fifteen minute ride from my house to my mom's, the pink cookies bleached themselves. How weird is that? I just pretended like I tried to make pink, hombre owl cookies.

And "owl food" for the little ones....

Mommy's heroic attempt at "owl cupcakes"...we were laughing at how the position of the M&M's either made the owls look embarrassed or ashamed.

Sweet two year old girl!

Her candle....she carried this around Wal Mart the day we bought it, and got mad whenever one of us called it a "candle"...she kept insisting it was "my candy".

Sis and Logan in matching swim wear....

Swimmy swimming!

Our group of five.

Blowing out her candle...

Sissy providing party entertainment, a la Evil Kineval.

Opening her little presents....she was so excited to have a day all about her!!

Time is literally flying by at a rate that I can hardly stand....it feels like weeks ago that I was hoping for a baby, and now I have twin four year olds and a two year old. Ridiculous!!

Olivia turns two!

2011-08-08T21:29:00.000-05:00

The baby turned two last week. Her mommy feels like it is going by too fast! I love her at this age, and want her to stay tiny forever. She makes us laugh so much, and is so sweet and easy going.
At her checkup, she was perfect! She weighed 30 pounds, which was average. Her height was at the top of the charts, though. She's going to be tall! I looked back at Sis and Bub's stats from their two year checkup....she's taller than Bub was, and she's a little heavier than Sissy was. (But Sissy was TINY)
All of a sudden, she's not so much of a baby anymore. She tee-tee'd on the potty for the first time yesterday, and looked so proud as Shawn and I danced around like fools. I think the tee tee was an accident, but she was sure excited about it. She talks in full sentences all day long, and surprises everyone with how verbal she is. Today in HEB, she told me, "Mommy, I a silly girl. I a funny girl." and then two minutes later, was telling me, "Mommy, I a very fancy lady." We laugh at how she tries to copy everything her siblings do....she adores them. She loves animals, and points them out wherever we are. She keeps showing me her Eeyore tattoo and saying, "Look, Mommy! It's a goggie." So far, she's been the easiest baby to discipline....she just started being a little oppositional, which is normal. She had her first REAL moment last week when she refused to sit in her high chair in La Fonda, and told me NO when I asked her to sit down. She had to go sit with me in the car while the twins went to Baskin Robbins and got ice cream with Mimi. She doesn't like having a dirty diaper, and will take it off when there's poo in it. She knows she's not supposed to, and when you talk to her about it, she says, "I no take my diaper off. I get poo poo eeeeeevvvverywhere. I get poo poo in my hair!" She realizes it's a bad idea, but still does it from time to time. She is really, really funny, and does this whole schtick of pretending to be grumpy, or happy, or excited. She loves when we laugh at her, and it makes her act even sillier.

We are in love with this tiny girl, and can't believe she's not a tiny baby anymore. It feels like yesterday that I was spending my days in the big chair with her, holding her little newborn body and marveling at her perfect self. We still want to sit and love on her, but she's a lot busier now, and harder to snuggle....she lets us love on her, but squirms and wiggles when she's ready to move on....sigh. Isn't that just the way it always goes? Regular readers of this blog know about my ongoing battle with "baby having"...that is, I know three is "enough" for us, but I can't wrap my mind and emotions around the idea that I'll never be pregnant again....never hold a tiny newborn with frog legs again...never feel a baby kick me from the inside......I think I could go for one more.....especially since this one is speeding towards being a preschooler, and out of babyhood. I'm just scared I will turn around seven years from now, and wish I had another baby. It's now or never!! Who would have thought I would have turned out to be someone that LOVED tiny babies so much? I have always been a marathon sleeper, so you would have thought I wouldn't have liked being woken up and sleep deprived.....but in reality, I mind it so very little. Even with the twins, I was always blessed with the feeling of gratitude, and of knowing how short and precious these "hard times" were going to be. My sweet husband is looking forward to these babies being bigger, and more able to do "fun stuff" with us....he has nicely encouraged me to try to enjoy the next phase and try not to be sad about the "baby phase" being over, which I'm trying to do, really..I am! For now, I'm just trying to soak up these last months of having a tiny person...I know in a few months, she won't sound or look like a baby at all anymore, and I'm going to have to work really hard to wrap my brain around that.

If I had my child to raise all over again,

I'd build self-esteem first, and the house later.

I'd finger-paint more, and point the finger less.

I would do less correcting and more connecting.

I'd take my eyes off my watch, and watch with my eyes.

I'd take more hikes and fly more kites.

I'd stop playing serious, and seriously play.

I would run through more fields and gaze at more stars.

I'd do more hugging and less tugging.

~Diane Loomans, from "If I Had My Child To Raise Over Again"

Like fish in the sea....

2011-08-08T13:52:00.000-05:00

My two big ones are swimmers. Really and Truly swimmers! It wasn't an easy battle, but one we fought valiantly and successfully.
I went ahead and signed them up for swimming lessons at the Heights Pool....despite my fears that supervising the tiny one at these lessons was going to be an epic horror. I was right-o about that prediction. You know that age where babies run amok, with no sense at all, but just enough independence and defiance to regularly threaten their own personal safety? Yeah, that's where we live right now. Livi was a hot, steaming mess at the pool every day. For one, the kid can't step into a swim diaper without going number two. It's some kind of mental thing. I tell her NOT to poop, she reassures me "I no poop in my diaper" and then proceeds to make it ten minutes before decimating her diaper. It wasn't helpful that she had a bit of a stomach bug which meant the poop hasn't been solid for around two weeks....(sorry for TMI) Fun times! Anyway, while the big ones were lesson-ing, I thought I could entertain her with snacks, playing with junk in my purse, and splashing in the baby pool. Nope! My tiny boss decided she wanted to be in the big pool (where the lessons were going on) and on the "playground" which is really a giant twisty slide that dumps into ten feet of water. I spend two weeks wrangling her away from all areas she wasn't supposed to be in....it was next to impossible. If you were at the pool the last two weeks, and wondered why no one was controlling the belligerent one year old splashing in the water fountain, sorry. That is the only thing that entertained her, besides pooping in her swim diaper.
On to the real stars of this show: the twins. They were really excited about swim lessons, and were SO excited the first day. By day two, Bub was still excited, and I was getting glowing reports of him putting his face in the water and not needing goggles to open his eyes under water. Sissy was another story. The crying hysterics started on day two, when I had to manhandle her to drop her off with her instructor. I (along with everyone else at the pool) had to endure her wailing for the full fifty minute class. The funny thing was, her instructor told me, "I don't know why she's crying. She can do everything I'm asking her to do." Every day the crying got worse....she said she didn't feel well enough to swim. She said she didn't want or need to learn to swim. She said she didn't like her instructor. (who was really nice) I held strong, and made her go every day. We tried bribery and being stern, but nothing made her stop freaking out at class. Finally, on day SEVEN of NINE, my mom took her and made her promise not to cry at lessons anymore, and it worked! She skipped right up to the pool with a smile on her face and jumped in. I'm not sure why she finally decided it was okay, but she did....which was great for me because for at least two lessons, I didn't have to worry that other people were looking around, wondering who the mom of the screamer was. The last day of lessons the kiddos did their diving board jumping, and I went down to the end of the pool to see what kind of progress they'd made. (I'd stayed away from them for two weeks in fear of Sis catching a glimpse of me and turning on the waterworks even more) As I watched them jump off the diving board, I was SHOCKED. They jumped in, and SWAM to the side. Really swam! It was amazing!! Nine days earlier they were still one hundred percent reliant on floaties. Our instructor Anne really knew what she was talking about. She banned the floaties and said they didn't need them anymore, and she is so right! For the last few days, my two peeps have been swimming fools at my mom's house. The are all over the place, doing so well! I just can't believe how much progress they've made in two weeks. We're going to keep practicing so that they don't lose their new skills, and we are DEFINITELY signing them up next year, along with Livi. By then, the era of the swim diaper will be over for us, and I am enjoying immensely the prospect of THAT.

Livi's bedroom....she finally gets one!

2011-07-23T22:05:00.000-05:00

I have long had a sense of "room confusion" at our house. Let me explain. Our house is technically a four bedroom home. When we first moved back in after the remodel, we had two guest rooms, our master, and the twins in the same room. Two guest rooms? Really?? Like anyone wants to spend the night with people that have twin babies. Anyway, I had nothing else to do with those rooms, so they were "guest" rooms. Then we found out we were expecting again. (surprise!) We decided that whatever sex the baby was, it would bunk with the same sex sibling. We found out we were having a girl, and so the crib went in Hayden's room, leaving Bub his own room (lucky duck). We made the last room a playroom, which I LOVED. Fast forward a few months....Hayden literally begged us to get the baby out of her room. Going to sleep was no problem...the baby laid down before her, so as long as she got in bed quietly, that part was okay. The a.m., not so fun for our big girl. By the time Livi was talking, Hayden was treated to "Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi." at five a.m. Being the sympathetic parents we are, we moved Livi's crib into the playroom, and I have been annoyed ever since. What IS that room now, anyway? Bedroom, playroom, dumping ground? I can't take it anymore. Using these adorable pics as inspiration, I am on my way to turning it into Livi's very own room.

I'm not sure EXACTLY what I'm doing to the room, but I know this much: She's getting the amazing black and white chevron rug. Her bedding will be all white, with aqua and persimmon as the accent colors. I think I'll do white curtains with her monogram in black, and I'm DEFINITELY doing the paper lantern/puff ball thing above the bed, as well as the frame/shadowbox/mirror collage. I am stuck on the wall color...white? I am loving the idea of all white walls lately, and I'm SO over the beige walls with white trim thing I did when we remodeled. I love the aqua walls in the second picture, but I am redoing the TV armoire and side tables in that color, so the walls can't be aqua too.
Suggestions?

Fourth of July....

2011-07-09T01:30:00.000-05:00

Our fourth of July holiday was pretty laid back....we started the morning off with the Schertz Parade. My parent's church had a float in the parade, so we decorated our wagon, and planned to walk with them. When we showed up, I realized this parade was the real deal...floats, horses, fire trucks, etc. I had pictured something much smaller, but seeing it in action made me realize the baby probably wasn't going to make it....so she and I loaded up in the car, and went to park it along the parade route to watch the festivities roll by. Daddy, Mimi and the twins decided to walk the parade.....

Popee drove his corvette in the parade, and Livi and I hollered at him as he drove by. He came to find us, and watched the rest of the parade with us. Apparently, the twins did well in the wagon...especially after their Daddy diverted from the parade route and ran into a donut shop to get them donuts!!
After the parade, we headed to Mimi and Pope's to swim....

We ate outside, and the babies wore themselves OUT. That might be the BEST thing about Mimi and Pope's new pool. We were sad not to have a fireworks show to watch, but enjoyed our day anyway.

Ponderings....

2011-06-30T16:57:00.000-05:00

I apologize for the prolific amounts of pictures uploaded from my phone.....it's just that getting pictures off my real camera and onto the computer is harder than hooking up my phone....it's just ironic since my camera costs more than my first car, and all my blog pictures are from a 49 dollar phone. Oh well.

Today I'm wondering why the baby refuses to nap when I want to lay down, but when I'm up doing stuff, (like today) she's taking a marathon nap. What in the world?

I'm wondering how my house goes from COMPLETELY and totally picked up, neat as a pin...to looking like a run down crack house in less than twelve hours.

I'm wondering if my husband expects me to make dinner tonight.

I'm wondering if the dude who is supposed to build our patio cover is actually going to start tomorrow like he said he would. He better.

I'm wondering what crappy house in my neighborhood is going to be awarded yard of the month tomorrow. I know our driveway needs to be replaced...but seriously?? Our yard looks better than 90 percent of the houses that get the stinking yard of the month award, and we never, ever have gotten it.
Can you tell I'm bitter about this?
I told my husband I'm making a "Yard of the Millenium" sign and put it in my own yard. He says they'd probably make me take it down.

I'm wondering who taught my baby to plug her ears and holler "Nanananananana I can't hear you!" Thanks for that, whoever did it.

I'm feeling a tiny bit grumpy right now...can you tell?

p.s. the picture above is my screen saver on my phone. I love it because...a: the big ones have their arms around the baby and b: it's taken in front of a restaurant, and Sis has a purse and Bub has his Zoolie bear with him. I love their accessories that go everywhere with us.
Looking at that picture makes me less grumpy.

What I'm loving today....

2011-06-29T14:04:00.000-05:00

I love these people.....

I love that they are still little enough that they want to be loved on. This morning, they all crawled into my lap like a bunch of puppies. I know that won't last forever, so when they do it, I'm grateful.

I love that the twins start sentences now with "Mom, I've got some good/bad news...."

That cracks me up.

I love that while I was getting dressed this morning, Hayden poked my stomach and said, "What happened there?"

I told her: "YOU happened there...."

I love that my little boy that typically only eats bread and tortillas has tried both shrimp AND a turkey and cheese sandwich in the last five days.

I love that both twins came home last night from being out with Daddy, and wanted to run and jump all over me and tell me what they did while they were away.

I love that I still have a baby in the house. She's still asking for (and getting) her bottle and paci, but I can't manage to tell her NO quite yet. She's still my tiny one....

I love that the tiny one LOVES her siblings....today she kept running to Hayden with her arms open for a hug. She loves me, but she REALLY loves her brother and sister.

I love that the polaris machine in my parents' pool has been renamed the "Wicky Bug" because Livi thought it was a "Yucky bug" when she first saw it, and said it was going to bite her.

I love days like today....

2011-06-18T22:45:00.000-05:00

Nothing we really HAD to do...just stuff we WANTED to do...a trip to Gruene Market days to buy plants for the back patio....it was 1000 degrees outside at ten in the morning, so we didn't last long there. We headed back to SA (after a quick trip through the Granzin's drive through for BBQ sandwich for the hungry husband) and hung out at home. Kids napped, we puttered around the house, and husband got to go off and wander around in Academy for a few hours. I'm not sure how he always manages to come home with nothing though. If I could do that, we'd be a lot more well off financially.
The kiddos woke up, and we headed to Lowe's for a quick errand. We went to a few other stores, one of them being Goodwill, because I need a wooden coffee table that I can make over for our back patio. Sadly, there were no cute tables there, but there was a HUGE buffet thing with drawers and two doors. It would have been AMAZING for our back patio, painted a cool color and antiqued. Too bad for me, it already had a SOLD tag on it, and it's no wonder...they only asked 9.99 for it. Can you believe that? I would have loved an outdoor buffet that I could tell people I got for less than ten bucks!
We had mexican food for dinner at one of our favorite spots, and the kids were really well behaved because we set up our tables right next to the fish tank, and that was entertaining enough to keep them focused.

After dinner, we ran by my friend's house to drop something off....we tried to make it super quick, because I knew they were about to bathe their kids. Anyway, our "super quick" trip turned into mojitos on their porch...our five combined kids had fun drawing all. over. their. bodies with crayola markers....my mojito was too yummy to worry about that. Let me tell you, it kept them busy and it came right off in the tub! Totally worth the mess.
Now, babies are all in bed, and I can hear the husband watching baseball in the other room...now I'm off to read in the tub!

**sidenote: the tiny one is starting to need some discipline. She hollered "NO" at her Daddy this afternoon, and ended up with her tiny hiney in time out.
***sidenote number two: I have plans for a little bit of this in the back yard...

No, this is not our house, just a photo I saved on my phone. I am still on my "must get shade" kick for my backyard. We're working on accomplishing this, soon hopefully!! Stay tuned!

She got her groove on....

2011-06-16T16:59:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, Sissy had her first ever dance class. She's been talking about his for WEEKS and has been so excited for this day to get here. Building up to yesterday, she kept wanting to try on her taps and ballet shoes, and kept asking where her dance bag was. She was so excited about her new leotards, tights and shoes....yesterday as we were getting ready, we had her practice putting her shoes on and taking them off, because I knew she would be in the studio without me and needed to know how to do it alone. We got her ready, and put her little hair in a bun. That ALONE made me want to cry because it was so adorable, and she looked so grown up. She was so sweet in the car on the way there, and tried not to mess up her bun. Her best friend Logan is in her class, too...but we coached her on the way there that they were NOT supposed to play, talk or act silly during class. She was to listen to her teacher, and do her best.

My little one did not disappoint! She tried so hard, and looked so cute doing all the dance moves. Her class is tap, ballet, and creative movement. I knew we had "creative movement" in the bag, right from the start. This tiny one has been all about creative movement, even in utero! The first class was a little bit crazy, but I guess that is to be expected from three and four year old girls. The main thing is, she had a good time, and can't wait to go back. It's too early to tell if this is going to be "her thing" or not, but she's certainly built like a dancer...she was the tallest one in the class, and she's certainly a string bean. I especially loved this milestone with my big girl...

Rockport weekend....

2011-06-14T22:27:00.000-05:00

Clearly, we are beach going fools this summer! This weekend marked our second trip to Rockport with the Zunkers. Every summer, they rent a house on the water, and we are lucky enough to spend a few days with them. We headed down there on Saturday, and quickly got our bathing suits on. First on the agenda: searching for hermit crabs, digging in the sand, and walking the pier.

Daddy found a crab, and caught it for everyone to look at. Livi wasn't too sure about this thing....

Other than worrying about my kids falling off the pier into the ocean, we had a pretty relaxing day. Shawn kept reminding me that they had life jackets on, but I know the experience would have been traumatic nevertheless, and wanted to avoid it at all costs. We just got these kids excited about the water! I didn't want to take fifteen steps back! We grilled fajitas, and got the kids washed up for bed. Once again, I was reminded how "fun" it is to try to get all my people to sleep in the same room. Ugh. Sissy and the baby would be fine, but for some reason, Cale is one of those kids that literally vibrate with energy when they are tired. He gets more ridiculous and bouncy, and can't be contained. I had to lay with him in bed, and physically hold him still to get him to settle down. I called this "snuggling" so that he wouldn't know he was being put in a human straight jacket.
The next day was more playing outside, more crab hunting, more pier walking, and more relaxing. That evening, we were invited on a boat ride and to dinner with another family and we were super excited about that.

My kids LOVED the boat, especially the cabin. They thought they were in a floating playhouse! Nevermind that there was no airflow to speak of and it was a veritable oven down in that thing....we had to convince them to come above deck and enjoy the ride. So fun! Reminds me how much I would love having a boat someday. We enjoyed looking at all the beautiful houses, and Livi ate her weight in watermelon.
Back at their house, we swam in the pool, and my sweet son, who JUST RECENTLY AGREED TO GET OFF THE STEPS OF THE POOL, asked me to take his life jacket off so he could "swim without it". Well, okay. I took it off, and stood up to follow him. He jumped right into the center of the hot tub, and sunk straight to the bottom. I jumped in after him, and he wasn't deterred at all. Back and forth, back and forth he went....sinking a little more than he was swimming, but still getting closer and closer to actual swimming. I was so proud of how brave he was, and how hard he was trying!!

The picture above is a horrible one of Livi, but I posted it because I'm pretty sure she's pooping in this picture, and that is the BEST part of this story.....the hostess noticed her standing by the side of the pool with POOP COMING OUT OF HER SWIM DIAPER, and pointed it out very nicely to me. In horror, I ran to her, noticed a tsunami of wet poop running down her leg and dripping onto their beautiful deck....it was one of those moments where you are looking around, frozen...because you can't grasp what is going on, and you don't know what to do first. Being the brilliant problem solver I am, I grabbed a bucket, filled it with pool water, and washed the poop off the deck and down the steps that lead to the ocean. All this really did was splatter the poo down the steps. I grabbed the baby and her bag, and headed down said steps, out of the general vicinity of other swimmers/party goers who were, at this point, probably gagging. I laid her on the dock next to the boat, and managed to tear her swim diaper in half while she tried to flip over like a fish. Because of all her hijinks, poop and RAISINS flopped out of her diaper, onto the deck and all over my leg. I hollered at Amy to tell Shawn to bring me an HEB bag, when what I really needed was a HazMat mask and a flamethrower. He came down just as I was finishing dangling my poop covered baby by the arms down into the ocean to wash her off, and we managed to clean up, re-diaper her, and ensure we never get another invite back to these nice people's house. They were SO gracious and sweet, but having your baby explode at a pool party still makes you feel like a Beverly Hillbilly. Sigh. I thought we were almost past this point, considering Livi says, "I no poop in my suit." every time I get her dressed for swimming. I guess she's just hoping for the best, not making any promises.

We headed back to SA Monday, and were a little sad to go....Shawn needed to get back for work, and we had a busy week ahead of us, but we were going to miss the lazy days of needing to be nowhere. I'm already trying to plan our next trip back!

Occupying our summer days....

2011-06-13T15:07:00.000-05:00

We are filling up these lazy days with fun, fun, FUN...as much of it as we can stand! We play in the backyard in the splash pool, we make a water slide out of our regular play ground slide, (which is probably critically unsafe and illegal in fourteen states), we have friends over...we swim, swim and SWIM until we can't take it anymore. Mimi's pool is the usual spot, but we are trying to create summer fun in other ways too. Last week our friends came over and one of my mommy friends, Sarah, brought along a giant inflatable water park for the kids to play in. Sarah deserves a mommy award of some kind (or at least a stiff cocktail) for setting up that thing....after losing some accessories and sweating like a champ, she had it up and running and the babies had a great morning playing in it. Sitting outside watching them play started me thinking about outdoor projects I need to start on....namely, some kind of stinkin patio cover for our back yard. If you had been there that morning, you would have seen four grown women basically all sitting in the same chair, trying to relax in the sixteen square inches of shade that our little umbrella provides. Not good enough. Not good enough, at all! What's the point of having stuff for the kids to do out in the backyard if I have to sweat like a wrestler to supervise? This week will include a visit from a carpenter guy, who will hopefully see my lack of shade and be so crippled with pity that he offers to build something beautiful and classic at little charge.
If setting up a waterpark in your backyard isn't crazy enough, I ventured to SEA WORLD alone, to meet Leni and her brood for a day at the waterpark area. I brought my double stroller, so one kiddo was going to have to walk. Of course, when we have three stroller seats available, no one wants to ride...but when there is only two, everyone wants to be in a stroller and be pushed.

I was a little nervous (okay, maybe more than a little) to be around water, with three kiddos four and under, none of which are independent swimmers yet. Luckily, there are life jackets there for them to use, and that made me feel a little better. After a little mishap involving Livi (she isn't used to a life jacket and ventured out over her head in the wave pool, only to realize it didn't hold her up the same way her puddle jumper does...causing her to tump onto her stomach, face in the water, or flip onto her back, flailing like a beached whale) we had a great time! The twins loved the wave pool, and stayed right by me. There was another little splash area they loved, and a pool with a water slide that only LIVI would ride with me. That one is a daredevil, and is going to cause me some gray hairs in the future. I thought she would be scared because the slide dumps you into the water at the end, but she was happy as can be. She told Leni afterwards, "I SIDE!" We left Leni and her kiddos at the wave pool, and headed back to our car. This was akin to climbing Mt. Everest. All three kiddos got in the double stroller, and I pushed the whole 100+ pound thing for what felt like ten hours to get to the car. Somehow, it was all uphill, and I had to bend myself in half to get it moving at a snail's pace. Having the twins walk would have been easier physically, but hollering "GET OVER HERE AND STAND BY ME" a thousand times might have been just as exhausting. Finally, FINALLY we made it to our car and headed home. Two thirds of them were asleep before we left the parking lot. (Cale, in true form, chattered the whole way home, never showing one sign of tiredness at all. The kid is a machine.)

Livi's favorite part of Sea World is the refillable popcorn bucket.

Despite slathering on SPF at every turn, and making my tiny ones wear their rash guards, they are still turning into brown bunnies, and June isn't even over yet!

Livi-isms....

2011-06-06T18:03:00.000-05:00

I just know I'm going to forget the way her tiny voice sounds right now....someday I'll try to remember how she talked/laughed at this age, and it won't come to me. I already can hardly remember the twins at this age...until I get out the home movies and watch their adorable little selves in action.
I need to get better at video–ing all of them! The days just seem to happen, one after the other...filled with activities that I should be taping but I forget....I'm resolving to change that! I know someday, I will really treasure the movies I make of them....until then, I blog. At least I'll have this!
I love, LOVE the age Livi is at right now. She is full of hilarious commentary all day long. Today, I heard her telling her baby, "Hiiiiiii, sugar!" At least her "mommy voice" is nice, huh? If she hollered in her baby's face, I would know where THAT was coming from!
She is still telling us that everything bit her...from the killer whale at Sea World, to the little girl walking down the road. I guess that is the third kid in her....she has figured out how to tattle, but hasn't yet figured out believable ways to pin things on people.
She is a swimming fool at this age!! She's still wearing her water wings, but I am willing to bet she'll be my earliest swimmer. She has. no. fear. This is a good thing and a bad thing. She is so fun! Laughing and happy all day long, unless she's asking for a bottle or paci, both of which I am trying to ween her off of. I tried saying "No, paci's are only for sleeping." but she literally screams until my eardrums bleed in the car, and I give in just because I CAN NOT TAKE IT. I guess I'll try weaning her again in a few months.

She's super interested in the potty, and wants to sit on it all the time, but nothing has happened on the pot yet. She grunts and says, "I'm done!" so we still have a way to go. She likes to talk about pottying (she's her mother's child!) and tell me who uses the potty, but no luck with training yet. We were sitting on the potty at my mom's house the other day, and I was telling her to toot. I thought that might make something happen, so I was encouraging tooting, and she was performing quite well. Her sister came in to see what was going on, and my baby made the grumpiest face at her sister, and hollered, "HEY! Yet me toot!" That baby cracks me up!
She is really, really verbal for her age, so she loves to play with bigger kids. Luckily, they indulge her, because she actually plays pretend, and follows directions...it's funny how much OLDER she seems at this age than the twins did...I know it's because she is the third baby and has to keep up with them all the time.

She is IN LOVE with Hayden and Cale, and does most everything they tell her to. If they are trying to push her around, though....watch out! She'll holler and defend herself, which cracks me up to no end. She mostly adores them, though....and brings them up in every conversation. Here are some examples:
Me: "Livi, you want to start going on the potty?"
Livi: "Bubby potty. Sissy potty."
or this one...
Me: "Hey, what is your name?"
Livi: "Bubby name Cale. Sissy name Hayden."
Me: "Yeah, but what is YOUR name?"
Livi: "Bubby name Cale."
If they are somewhere without her, she has to talk about where they are the whole time...."Bubby at Mimi's? Sissy at Mimi's?" It won't be long before she is doing everything they are doing....she doesn't want to be left out! Sissy was asking Mimi when she could spend the night again, and the tiny one heard the conversation and hollered, "I pend the night, too!" You can't sneak much past my tiny one....
I can't believe she'll be two in less than two months? Where did the time go?? This one flew by even faster than the first two....

Photo Shoot Rejects

2011-06-02T21:09:00.000-05:00

I think I've lamented before about the impossibility of getting more than one kid to look normal in a picture. I'm not picky! I don't even care about smiles and happiness anymore. I just don't want looks of constipation, or someone slapping the back of someone else's head. During a recent attempt to get ONE good picture of my three chicklets, I had to laugh at these horrible rejects.

Dad's arm in the picture, trying to fix baby's hairbow (at my request of course)

Sissy trying to squeeze baby's head off.

Cale's "what the hell is going on?" face. At this point in the photo session, I think I might have been wondering what the hell was going on, too.

And baby has had enough! Off the step she goes! And now, for some adorable single shots...

Either growling or trying to gleek on me. Not sure which one.

This is what I'm talking about with the constipation. This kid looks like he hasn't had a BM in a month.

And maybe my all time favorite reject. Bubby FINALLY looks sweet and happy, but Sis has to look like she's trying to recreate a Stones album, while covertly shoving baby off the step onto the pavement below.

Fourth Birthday Party....

2011-05-19T22:08:00.000-05:00

The day before the twins party, we had a little shindig in our backyard to commemorate the event. I say "little" but it's all about perspective, I guess. There were a TON of people there...mostly family, but some of our friends, too. This is probably the last year where I got to create the guest list for them.....if I had it my way, it would be a friend reunion for ME.
I told myself I was going to calm it down this year....after all, they are turning four. They don't care about anything other than having their friends over and a cake. I tried, and I think I did okay. I didn't stress out about it, even though the dude at HEB smashed his forearm into Cale's cake, making a big wonky dent in the side. Or that Hayden's cake looked like it was decorated by a 200 year old...Whatev. My children couldn't have cared less! They were both excited to splash outside and have an excuse to eat whatever they wanted for the day....

Nice visual of Cale's smooshed cake...ugh.

SOMEONE enjoyed their cake. Can you tell who?

Back to the Beach....

2011-05-18T10:12:00.000-05:00

Last weekend, we found ourselves back at the beach for what is hopefully the second trip of several planned for this summer. Mommy doesn't like being sandy and sweaty, but babies (and their daddy) love every second, every sand granule of the beach, so Mommy just has to overcome.
We went with the McGinnis', and stayed at Cinnamon Shore, in an adorable house! So clean and contemporary....both Kelly and I have the decorating bug after staying in that cute house. We have both decided we want to come home, throw out everything we own, and start over. The boys wanted us to stop noticing how cute the house was.

Thursday it was black, dark clouds and rain the WHOLE drive to the coast.....we were hoping that the storm was moving through, and not parking itself right over Port Aransas. Lucky for us, it was beautiful by the time we got there. We unpacked, and the babies played while we opened all the doors and let the air blow in....before dinner, we walked around the neighborhood to check it out.

All the kiddos (minus Finley) had a fit when they saw the swimming pool, and ran right into it with their clothes on! No swimsuits needed for these peeps...After soaking ourselves, we walked down to the beach. The website for this house claims it is a three minute walk to the beach...which is probably true if you aren't herding preschoolers. A "three minute walk" to the beach turns into twenty five when you have to stop and look at everything on the way there. Sadly, there were several nests on the ground with dying baby seagulls in them. I guess the storm and high winds knocked them from their trees. Being the bleeding heart that I am, it made me sick that there was nothing we could do to help them, short of adopting them and bottle feeding them. Ugh.

We didn't head to the beach with the intention of getting in, but you can tell in this picture from Cale's clothes that we went ahead and did it anyway!

Poor baby Livi was just standing at the water's edge, enjoying the view...when a giant wave (giant if you are two feet tall) came and crashed right over her! She was a trooper, though, and only fussed a little bit.

Baby Livi showing us how cold she is. :)

Running away from the waves...

Over three days, we spent time at the pool and the beach, and just hanging around our cute little house. We were treated to another one of Ronny's shrimp boils which was YUMM-O. We will definitely stay at Cinnamon Shore again, but next time we are renting a golf cart to transport this herd of kiddos and their gear down to the beach and back.

The big FOUR!

2011-05-11T16:52:00.000-05:00

My tiny ones are four. FOUR. When did this happen? It wasn't four minutes ago that they were born, much less four YEARS....
On Thursday of last week (three days before their actual birthday) they were honored at school. Daddy and I came along to celebrate...we went with them to chapel, where they had "Happy Birthday" sung to them, and the director of the preschool called them up to the front and gave them each four hugs. They were asked which song they wanted to sing in honor of their birthdays, and they both chose "Jesus Loves Me". I got moderately emotional during chapel, and had to pull myself together. When did my tiny babies become big preschoolers? It happened in the blink of an eye.

Bub doesn't often smile so big for pictures....he was just SO happy we were at school for his big day.

While Miss Jane was giving them birthday hugs, Cale told her "That's enough". He's not a big hugger, unless it's on HIS terms.

On Friday, Daddy took off work so that we could go on a Birthday Adventure. In the past, their birthday adventures included the zoo and the museum. This time, we decided to brave Sea World. Shawn's mom, (Nana) was so generous and bought our family season passes, so we had the luxury of not having to pack it all in one day. We saw two shows, and visited the indoor aquarium, the seals, and the dolphins, and then left at lunch time. We are so excited to go back and do everything there is to do....but Mommy is not looking forward to doing Sea World in 114 degree heat. Let's just say we'll be making lots of morning and evening visits!

Sometimes love from your siblings "hurts so good"....

So happy about being at Sea World!!

I'm not sure what this face is, but I'm pretty sure it involves the sentiment "Stop already with the camera."

Baby Livi wasn't too sure that the seals weren't going to bust through this glass and come get her.

We LOVED trying to pet a dolphin....and got SO close! Hopefully next time!

Easter 2011

2011-05-04T14:44:00.000-05:00

The day before Easter, we headed to Devine to visit with Shawn's family at his mom and stepdad's property. The big attraction this time were the cows! They have started their own little herd of longhorns (three mommas, all who are expecting) and we loved checking them out. The kiddos were interested, but didn't want to get TOO close.

We visited the chicken coop, and Cale even found an egg!

Enjoying chocolate ice cream outside....

Being in the country makes us sleepy....

Easter morning was spent at our house. The babies got up early to see what the Easter bunny brought them, and then we headed to church. Livi had a runny nose (again) so we kept her out of childcare and took her in the sanctuary with us....let's just say she doesn't sit still for long.

We came back home, and my family came over for lunch, and the Easter Egg hunt.

The Easter bunny overdid it again, I'm afraid. Seventy five candy filled eggs are fun, and make the hunt last longer....but it just creates more candy for the Easter bunny to eat later. Ugh. Remind the easter bunny to put just ONE piece of candy in each egg next year.....or money. That makes them happy, too!
The best part of this easter was the Resurrection boxes the twins made at day school. They were tiny wooden boxes, filled with little items to remind them of the easter story. Those kiddos are so great at telling the story!! Their retelling is hilarious, too. Some of my favorite comments included, "Mommy, they spanked Jesus 39 times." (Cale) and "Mommy, Judas was a really, really, really bad friend. And a weirdo." (Hayden). Cale also told me that Jesus hung around with "The 12 Psychos." (Disciples)
They retold the story over and over, and carried their little boxes around with them everywhere.....I think they loved the boxes a little TOO much, because I have found toothpicks in their room (the spears that Jesus was pierced with) and other tiny items strewed all around. I guess it was a far fetched desire that the items stayed in the boxes. Too tempting to not play with!
I am so proud of them for knowing the real meaning of Easter, and for their little day school for being a place that helps teach them about Jesus!!

Fiesta Fun

2011-04-21T14:12:00.001-05:00

Let's just be honest here and start this post out by stating something. I don't usually "do" Fiesta. There. I said it! I have always liked the "idea" of Fiesta, but I haven't been a big event go-er. My husband, on the other hand, LOVES Fiesta. He would have no problem going to the sweatiest, most crowded event ever. He might even camp out under the freeway with all the people who were out there for over a week waiting for the Battle of Flowers parade. (Can not understand that, for the life of me)
This year, in the spirit of festivity, and not being a turd in the proverbial punchbowl, I decided to try to "fiesta" a little bit. We were careful and selective in the events we chose to attend. First, Alamo Heights night! This one was a no brainer because it was held half a mile from our house. Good times! We had some yummy food, and the babies loved the bounce houses. There were a few incidences involving fighting over a sprite can, (Hayden and Cale) and then being forcibly pulled from a bounce house (Livi) but overall, it was a good time!

The River Parade was another one we attempted....Shawn's work hosted a party at the Hotel Contessa, and it was really nice. Catered dinner, drinks, and seats set up on a patio overlooking the river (and away from the crowd!) The babies enjoyed the floats and the music....again, there was a Sprite incident, but 50,000 napkins later we were in the clear.

The twins had a little fiesta event at their school....complete with homemade parade floats! Cale's was a dinosaur theme, complete with a clay volcano (that he calls a "footballcano" for some reason) that he made and painted. Sissy's was a "Tangled" theme, with a tower made from our old oatmeal box. Mommy definitely did the lion's share of the work on these things, but really, what three year old can make their own float? If I left them to their own devices, their floats would have come out looking like Shawn made them. Kidding, kidding, although there have been some jokes made about what the floats would have looked like were daddy in charge of creative direction. (Think spray painted shoebox with a plastic toy glued to the top)

The little float box parade was so sweet. Bubby is still little enough to want to participate in stuff like this without feeling shame, (boys!) and Sissy thought she was Miss America in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. She waved and smiled to her public, and looked so proud. Of course, it made me a little teary eyed. (What doesn't, though?) After the parade they school hosted a little Fiesta carnival in the gym with booths and treats. We stayed and played until Livi started screaming because we wouldn't let her walk around with a full drink (sans lid) by herself...
We also went to the Fiesta Arts Fair downtown, because: a: this was a day time activity and involved no drunken crowds, b: we got free tickets and c: I love art! It was too hot, but we liked looking at all the amazing booths and the babies loved their paleta.

Surprisingly, I really loved all the Fiesta stuff we did this year. I even put a Fiesta wreath outside and decorated our front porch....I am actually looking forward to doing this stuff again next year!

My Beach Babies...

2011-04-21T00:47:00.000-05:00

Last weekend we headed to the beach for the first of several planned trips this summer. We stayed with our sweet friends from high school, and their kiddos (who are all the same ages as OUR kids) so it was wonderful!! The little ones loved playing in the sand, visiting Sandfest (the sand castle competition) in Port Aransas, and (mostly) getting in the hot tub at the hotel next door to the condos. The grown ups loved visiting and doing a whole lot of nothing.
Hayden runs all up and down the beach like a wild woman. Cale adores Caleb, and wants to be wherever he is at all times. Livi wasn't as adventurous as she typically is, but has a bit of a cough and fever so that might have been why. Yeah for digging in the sand, swimming, eating seafood, and taking it easy....

Hopefully the first (and last) time we'll have to holler at them, "Girls! Quit dancing on the table!!"

Fun at the Lake...

2011-04-04T16:38:00.000-05:00

We made a quick one night trip to the lake this last weekend...we thought the water would be too cold to get in, but it was just right! Everyone EASED their way slowly into the water, but Ronny promised me that if I just dove in, he'd eat the whole pan of Buffalo Chicken Dip by himself. Let's just say this: I dove in, but he didn't end up holding up HIS end of the bargain. (And it was SHOCKING to get in that fast!!)
All of us (minus Bub) enjoyed getting in the water....he actually GOT in once, but not on purpose. He was throwing sticks to the dogs, and managed to fall in on the slimy steps. He was standing up, but you would have thought the kiddo was in 50 feet of water the way he was flailing and hollering. Sigh. Not the most adventurous of our bunch, but loved being by the water nonetheless.
The girls loved being in the water, and floated next to me in a chair thing for the better part of an hour....later, Livi told me "I wimmin!" (I'm swimming)

The boat was in the shop, so we just hung out in the water and the yard, had a shrimp boil and toasted "smarshmallows". Of course, the kiddos won't eat the "black" ones, so they just ate them plain out of the bag! Little do they know!! After the little ones went to bed, we sat by the fire until midnight....so much fun! Hopefully we can squeeze in some more trips before the McGinnis' sell the house....It makes me sad to think of it, because we have so many great memories there...from being in college to being married without kids, and now with all our tiny ones.

Ramblings from the mind of a desperate home redecorator...

2011-03-30T14:30:00.000-05:00

Bear with me people. I've got a lot going on in my tiny mind, and it's driving me nuts.
For starters....

You know it's springtime when you have a bush trimmer on your coffee table. I promise, I'm in the process of using it....this is the kind of thing that happens when you are dumb enough to buy a house sans garage.
I am obsessed with the idea of recovering my dining room chairs. Actually, I am obsessed with the idea of getting rid of everything I have that is olive green, red and beige and replacing it all with turquoise, yellow and white.....maybe even orange! Since I can't buy all new stuff (dang it!) I need to just tackle projects one at a time.
I love these fabrics, but can't see paying 34.99 a yard....especially since I would probably need two yards per chair, for eight chairs. The sad thing is, 34.99 is on the LOW end. Ugh. If anyone has ideas on where to buy amazing, super cheap fabric...please send those ideas my way!

In the meantime, I satisfy my urge to redecorate with smaller (more realistic) projects. In Sissy's room was the rocking chair from hell...I may or may not have discussed this chair in the past....long story short: I found this vintage chair when I was pregnant with the twins, and snapped it up for 25 bucks. I went to the fabric store and bought LAVENDER fabric (Why?????? Shaking fists at sky!) and proceeded to pay 475 stinkin' bucks to have it recovered. I could have bought a NEW pottery barn rocker for that much....but I didn't, so I was stuck with this rocker. The fabric, although a designer name, was junk. It started fraying and fading as soon as the chair got back from the upholsterer. The "guts" of the chair were in TERRIBLE shape. The rocking mechanism was totally jacked, and it tried to dump you on the floor every time you so much as reclined one degree. Gone were my rockwellian visions of rocking my two infants in a precious, recovered vintage chair. Every time I sat in that thing I cursed....so to put it mildly, I hate that chair. I hate the chair so much I am not even posting a picture of it. In my utopian "I-have-all-the-money-in-the-world-to-decorate-my-house" universe, I would custom order a chair with amazingly chic/little girl appropriate fabric. Since I live in the real world, with a husband who would throw me out on the street if I attempted half the stuff I want to try.....I came up with this:

A nine dollar papasan frame, (from Goodwill) painted crisp white, with a brand new papasan pad from Pier One that just happened to be on clearance AND matched Sissy's room. Yippee!! It looks adorable, and Sissy thinks she's a "little bird in a nest" (her words). Now Bub wants a "bird's nest chair" too, but I don't have the heart to tell him we won't be having two papasan chairs in our house. One is cute and kitschy...two is a 1968 hippie love shack.
I am in LOVE with these prints for Sissy's room....but what to do? Order one and incorporate it into a wall of random stuff? Order three and frame them all in a row? Hmmm.......
I really, really, REALLY want to do this to Cale's room, but I think that might get me thrown out of my house, too. Gray and yellow? Yes, please!! Maybe in the next house.....I would definitely do TWO twin hanging beds, too....one for him, and one for a friend!
Also, I hate what I've got going on above my bed.
I don't hate the frames or arrangement as much as I dislike the picture quality of most of the images. I took them WAY before I knew anything at all about a camera, so they irritate me. I am thinking I would like something like this above the bed, especially since there is no window on that wall, and all those mirrors would have to create the illusion of light. (or something)
Next on the list....the backsplash we are contemplating....

My taste is definitely veering more towards clean and contemporary lately, but the countertops and cabinets are more traditional...I am thinking this backsplash works because it's travertine-ish, matches the rest of the kitchen and is more interesting than the other ones I looked at because it's rectangular rather than square.
Finally, THIS makes me happy today....

I love looking at the little flowers in my windowsill that Cale brings me every day. The kid can't pass by a dandelion without running to pick it for his mommy. This emotion is almost sweet enough to make up for the fact that I need a new kitchen window OR (judging from this picture) I need to clean the one I have.

Ride a horsie, go to town!

2011-03-29T08:20:00.000-05:00

Saturday I had a senior session at a ranch. Besides getting some really cool pictures of Cooper with his horse, my kids got to get up close and personal with "Kid". Cooper's mom had thought my kids would enjoy riding the horse, so she told me to bring them along for the shoot....well, she was two thirds right. My girls agreed to get on the horse, albeit reluctantly. Livi is too little to really know what is going on, so we just threw her up there before she could decide how she felt about it. Sissy was unsure, until I told her I would get her a milkshake if she would ride him. (Works every time!) Once they realized how far off the ground they were, there was a little hesitation.....

Once Kid got going, they really enjoyed themselves! I was a little worried about Livi staying put, but she hung on and rode like a pro.

After they got a chance to ride, Sissy asked to get back on Kid over and over and over. She REALLY wanted to keep riding that horse....maybe some riding lessons are in the future for this little one!
During all the excitement, Cale did his best to distract me from the horse. I think he thought if he talked about something else, I'd quit asking him if he wanted to ride it....

Livi's sentences

2011-03-12T15:35:00.000-06:00

I know I thought the twins were brilliant at this age too....I just can't seem to remember that far back. Livi shocks us every day with the stuff she says! All of a sudden, she can label EVERYTHING. She's so much of a talker now, I couldn't even do a blog post with words she knows, because she says EVERYTHING. I feel like she turned into a talker overnight. You can actually carry on a conversation with this one!! Just recently, she started putting two, three, four words together. She's been saying "Thank You" and "Bless You" for awhile now, and "Uh OH paci/bottle/whatever falls on the floor". Now, we are surprised to hear some new ones. She also says:
"Daddy working"
"Daddy working building"
"Sissy Bubby Mimi" (Translated: "Sissy and Bubby are at Mimi's")
"My want it"
"I did it!" and "I got it!"
"I do!" (when asked, "Who's pretty?"....this answer doesn't really make sense, but I love it!!)
"Read it"
"Hose You" (Hold you)
"Mommy coming peese?"
"No No Wy-eee!" (when he's barking)
"Tee-ya pees" (Tortilla please)
"Tee Tee ouch. Keem." (Translated: "I have a diaper rash and need cream" (desitin)
She also cracks us up because she pronounces "Yes", "Wes". We ask her stuff all day just to hear "Wes".
She still hits playfully to get a reaction out of the hit-ee. She's switched it up a bit now in that she has started saying "Sow-ee" and THEN hitting you. We get a pre-emptive "Sorry" before the smack! After being whacked one too many times in the face, I had a little talk with her about not hitting. It went a little like this:
Me: "Livi, we don't hit people. We love people. We give hugs and kisses. Daddy doesn't hit you. Mommy doesn't hit you. No hitting, okay?"
Livi: "Daddy no hit you. Daddy kiss you." LONGEST GROUP OF WORDS STRUNG TOGETHER TO DATE...I was flabbergasted. Not only did she TOTALLY get what I was trying to say to her, she said nearly the same thing back to me! Not that it stopped the smacking, however. Good thing she's a cute one....

I love this little thing...crusty, slobbery face and all!

Fun Sunday...

2011-03-11T21:29:00.000-06:00

Last Sunday after church, we were supposed to head right out the doors and go eat at Texas Pride BBQ....we had a groupon burning a hole in our pocket! We had forgotten that the church chili cookoff and carnival was planned for that day. All during Sunday school, the twins watched them set up all the bounce houses and booths, so when the service was over, we determined that we would be considered the world's meanest parents if we made them walk past all that fun stuff without enjoying it just a little.
We bought some tickets, and they were in hog heaven! In fact, they were so excited they ran off a few times and had to be chased down.....they LOVED the bounce house with the slide, and the bouncy obstacle course. I talked them into doing the inflatable slide, but as you view my pictures you will see the looks of abject terror on their faces and realize how much they enjoyed THAT suggestion. We had a plethora of tickets, so they got to do all their favorites several times.....and then it was snack time! Mimi and Popo got there, and we all sat down to have a drink...the twins got snowcones, which was great except we were all starving and ready to go to lunch and they were vying for the award of world's slowest snow cone eater. We would have literally been there all day at that rate, so we made them abandon snow cone and load up in the car, which I still think was mean of us. I am worried that having your beloved snow cone ripped out of your hands and thrown away before you're done is bound to be psychologically scarring. Oh well.
We headed to Texas Pride, and they spent some time on the playground.....the twins decided to go home with Mimi and Pope, so we got to make a rare "one baby" trip to Costco, which is EASY PEASY...let me tell you!
I can't wait for more of these fun, relaxing, beautiful weather Sundays....

The bouncy slide might have been a little TOO advanced.

Watch out! It's bounce house hair!

Ever cautious...he's probably weighing his desire to do something with it's obvious risks. This kid is just like his dad.

If you can't get IN the bounce house, you can at least lean up against it.

Snowcones!!

As previously mentioned on this blog, this baby is obsessed with bottled waters. You can't even walk past a display of them in the store without hearing "Mommy! WAH-NER! BOTTLE! WAH-NER"

Of course, she ends up dumping half the bottle on herself, but throws a fit if you try to take it away from her.

2011-02-24T10:03:00.000-06:00

There are no words to express how glad I am that springtime is here!! I hate, hate, HATE cold weather....so I am so excited that it is pretty outside. The grass is turning green again, and the weather is so great all day long. The babies love being outside, so we are spending lots of our playtime in the backyard. We've started eating our meals again outside.....sigh. I love it!

Livi: 19 months old

2011-02-18T22:55:00.000-06:00

This past month was a big one for my tiny girl....she has turned into a BIG talker....(was there any doubt, seeing as I am her mother??) She repeats EVERYTHING, and voluntarily talks all day long now.
Just off the top of my head, here is some stuff she can say:
Mommy, Daddy, Bubby, Sissy, Mimi, Bop-o (Popo), no, okay, moka (milk), waner (water), bottle, paci, shoes, boots, baby, car, beep-beep, hi, whoa, book, more, uh-oh, bucket, ball, cookie, cracker, shies (fries), watty (wyatt), dickie (dixie), slide, poop, stinky, book, truck, light, Mickey, pees (please), snoopy (her alligator toy), cow, bow, elmo, duck, out, down, jump, boat, cup, kee-cat (kitty cat), Snow White (random!)....She'll also try to repeat anything I tell her to say, which is SO cute.
In addition to making all her animal noises, she also has attempted a few sentences, like:
"Daddy working", "My cookie", "Uh-oh, paci!" (when it falls on the floor), and the longest one yet:
"Mommy coming pees (please)?" when she wanted me to come get her out of her crib
She understands EVERYTHING now, and amazes us every day with the connections she is making. She is a big time comedienne, too. She knows she is funny, and will do almost anything for a laugh. She is going to be a spit fire, just like her sissy....she likes what she likes when she likes it, and doesn't like people standing in her way. I don't see her being a "typical" third child...passive and content. This one is determined, stubborn, smart, and full of emotion. Somehow I managed to give birth to three firstborns. :)
Livi loves to be read to, and have her head scratched or hair brushed. She still loves to eat, but has slowed down on the amount she can put away at one sitting. She loves her people, but doesn't melt down around strangers. She thinks she is big, and wants to do/have whatever the older ones are doing/having. We call her our little billy goat because she can CLIMB. You have to watch her, or you'll leave a room and come back to find her perched on the highest thing she can get up on. If she's hungry, she'll just go climb up into her high chair and we'll find her waiting there to be fed. She loves to dance, and busts a move whenever music comes on....even if it's cheesy elevator music. (She doesn't discriminate) She loves carrying stuffed animals and baby dolls, and loves pushing them in her little baby stroller. The stroller is falling apart, but I can't bear to get rid of it because she uses it every day. She also loves to push the little toy grocery cart, and wants SO badly to drive the John Deere ride on. When the twins drive off without her, she stands there bawling like her world is falling apart. She LOVES the slide, and can book it to the top of the playscape before we even know where she went. She is sweet, and tenderhearted....if she finds something she knows is Bubby or Sissy's, she will take the item to them and hand it over. Of course, they usually end up hollering "That's mine!!" and jerking it out of her hand so they end up getting a "talking to" about how she was trying to be sweet.

Since she's been on the go so much lately, she's thinned out a little bit. She's still our chunky monkey, but you can tell she's headed towards that leaner, "big kid" look. (sigh)
She's got more than one little curl in the back now, which we love! Her eyes are still really blue, but I think they are going to have a little more gray in them then we first thought. She still has tons of nicknames, and answers to them all.....Pipkin, Popkin, Schmipkin, Schmopkin, Pibs, Piblet, Schmiblet, Schmibs, Livatini, Livatini Helene-y....the list goes on and on.
It's so hard to believe that nineteen months ago, she wasn't even HERE yet and now she's such a huge part of our little world. She was our little "homemade surprise" and I can't even fathom what we would have done without her!!

Day One: Magic Kingdom!

2011-02-07T10:38:00.000-06:00

Disney is amazing.....really, I was almost more excited for Shawn to see it than my kids. It just blows my mind how you NEVER see trash, or gum, or smell barf. It is literally the cleanest place on earth. The bathrooms are so clean you could eat your lunch in there! I am not sure why I felt the need to start this post with overwhelming comments on cleanliness, but there you have it.
The babies LOVED the Magic Kingdom. We rode almost everything, and the big ones were pretty good riders. A few times Hayden would quietly ride something (Pirates of the Carribean) and then burst into tears the minute we got off the ride. I guess she was holding it in the whole time....meanwhile, we think she's enjoying the whole thing!! She said she didn't like things that were "dark" and had "mist"...She didn't like the Thunder Mountain railroad, either....but Cale did! He was screaming in the beginning, but we quickly realized it was because Shawn had his arm around him and he wanted Daddy to "stop holding me!". At the end of the ride, he laughed and laughed and said he liked that one because it made his ding ding hurt. Okay, whatever it takes to get him to have a good trip, right?
We made dinner reservations, but cancelled them when we realized the place we were supposed to eat at was a buffet. Now, I had geared myself up to pay the 31.99 for the adult buffet, but they were going to charge us 17.99 PER KID to eat. My kids eat four bites and then say they are done, so there is no way in HELL I was going to pay that for them to eat nothing. Livi eats more than they do, and she was going to be free! We learned our lesson, and figured out how to solve this little conundrum later in the week....
We stayed all day....and watched the fireworks show from Main Street, (with two billion other people...I don't know where they all came from, because throughout the day it was thouroghly uncrowded....) My kiddos had a great view of the castle, until some childless old people in Disney garb came and stood right in front of us....I later found out that this would be a recurring theme throughout the week. I was so excited for my kids to see everything, and enjoy the trip....but apparently there is a HUGE group of people on this planet that are grown adults who are PSYCHO about Disney. I mean, like run to get in front of kids psycho. Like stand in front of a tiny three year old girl at the parade psycho. It was nuts!!

Popee and Bub waiting for our shuttle...

Our family...right when we got there! (notice my hair is still down....I think it went into a clip six minutes after this picture was taken)

Sissy's first view of the castle...

Mid day parade....I love this picture because Sissy is breaking it down to the music.

Bub and Sis in Minnie's house. We laughed because there is no bedroom in Minnie's house....but there is a bed at Mickey's. Hmm....I wonder where she spends the night!

Thanks to Popee, we discovered the "chocolate Mickey" and had to hear about him all week long.

Cale's first view of the castle from the monorail. He would never, EVER sit on the monorail. He had to stand and hold a pole like a big boy. Even if there were a hundred people in our section, he had to stand up.

Heading to Orlando....

2011-02-06T21:40:00.001-06:00

Last week, we took our first big family vacation as a family of five. The last time we flew the twins weren't yet two, and I was pregnant with Livi. We were a little worried about flying with so many little kids, but my parents went with us so we figured we at least outnumbered the kids with the amount of adults we had. We headed to the airport Saturday morning....

And our resident grump of late decided he wasn't going to make this a day of happy air travel. Breakfast at the airport was thwarted twice for "breaks" to the restroom where he had to get a good talking to. The girls were happy and ready to go!

I should have known I'd be traveling with Meryl Streep.....

After killing some time at the breakfast table, we headed to the gate to board our plane. The babies thought that taking off was the most amazing thing they had ever seen, which was so adorable it helped me forget that I hate flying. They were a little busier than the average adult traveler, so we tried everything in our bag of tricks to keep them busy and happy on the plane. For the most part, it worked. Or, at least I didn't notice anyone on the plane giving us the stink eye so I HOPE it worked. We landed in Florida, and headed to the hotel. We had some lunch at the golf course grille, and tried in vain to get people to take naps. Adjusting their schedule in a hotel room took some getting used to, but by the end of the week they were pros.
The first night we took the shuttle to Downtown Disney. This is a new area of the resort for me. I haven't been to Disney in sixteen years, so it was neat to see so many new and updated things. The first restaurant we saw upon walking in was T-Rex. Imagine a restaurant that is sort of like Rainforest Cafe, but SO much better and dinosaur themed, and there you have it. We decided to eat there without seeing any other restaurants, just because we knew that nothing was going to entertain our kiddos more than T-Rex. We had a 45 minute wait in front of us, so we got a chance to walk around Downtown Disney and see all the restaurants and shops. As always, there were amazingly talented street performers, and everything was so over the top....and CLEAN. We headed back to the restaurant, and had our first of many, many overpriced meals.....that's one thing I just had to get over. Food is NOT cheap at Disney, and I had to stop caring about it and just enjoy myself. The kiddos loved their first day on vacation, and hadn't even SEEN a park yet!

Stay tuned for the rest of the trip....

Monster Truck Jam

2011-01-18T13:53:00.000-06:00

This event created a really, REALLY close call for me....in that I almost had to take the babies to this event! I am all about creating memories for my kids, but the idea of sitting in a seat for two hours while loud trucks drive around in a circle sounds like hell on earth to me.
Shawn had bought tickets and arranged everything for this splendiferous event.....and then decided to get horribly ill the day of. I prepared myself to go, but at the last minute he rallied and said he felt good enough to take them. Thank. You. Jesus.
Anywho, he said they loved every minute of it. Even Sissy, who we were positive wasn't going to like it. The paid rapt attention, and kept their "ear pluckers" (Sissy's term) on the whole time.

Please excuse the horrible picture quality. Daddy wouldn't take the camera with him, so these are from his phone. I started texting and harassing him when they got there to take pictures of my babies...partially because I wanted documentation of their outing, but mostly because I wanted proof that they were still with him and that he hadn't let them wander off into a crowd of strangers. He had made some (bad) jokes a week earlier saying he hoped there was a nice lady sitting next to them who would offer to take Hayden to the bathroom if she needed to go. He says these sort of things to get my goat, but just in case he thought that was an okay idea, I made sure to remind him that only HE was to take her to the restroom, and they were to take Cale with them, too. (Instead of leaving him in the seats, holding the spit cup for some random man seated next to them)
The high points were "the munster truck that looked like a puppy", when they played the "who-let-the-dogs-out-song" and getting to eat BOTH popcorn and peanut M&M's.
The low point (and this is according to Daddy) was the 1.5 mile trek back to the car at the end of the night. In the rain. Holding both babies, one who was thrashing around because he wanted to walk on his own like a big boy and not be carried.
Yep, I think I dodged a bullet on this one.

This baby....

2011-01-06T11:10:00.001-06:00

....is really something else. All day, every day, she keeps us laughing, and on our toes! She is three and a half, but it's easy to forget that because she speaks like she's eleven. She comes up with words and phrases that make us shake our heads...she remembers EVERYTHING!

At this moment in time:
-she loves books and being read to.
-she hates having her hair brushed, but never balks at letting me fix it.
-She likes knowing what is going to happen next...loves her "routine".
-she loves breakfast and pasta.
-She is the tiny "Meryl Streep" of our family....dramatic, and so good at acting, pretending and performing.
-Says "moka" for milk, and "yesternight" for anything that happened yesterday when it was dark outside.
-She has a HUGE sweet tooth, and even wanted to know what her dessert was going to be after BREAKFAST the other day.
-She is pretty easy going at this age, and isn't hard to discipline, UNLESS she has low blood sugar....then WATCH OUT. She's just like her momma in this regard. She can throw a massive fit over a tiny thing if she hasn't eaten. (Maybe this is more of a girl thing than a blood sugar thing...)
-She still lets me dress her in whatever I pick out in the mornings.
-She loves to be told stories at bedtime...."baby stories" (about when she was little), "Chico stories" (Shawn's stories about Chico the bird who always learns a life lesson the end) and now "Sparkle The Princess Unicorn Stories". You've got to be on your toes coming up with new material for this one, because she asks for stories all the time! She loves repeats though, and will request one that I can't even remember telling. She LOVES to hear about the time a scorpion bit me in the arm....I can't begin to remember how many times I've had to tell THAT one.
-She always asks for us to "lay down with me...for just a little bit" at night. It's really hard to say no to that one!
-She isn't always affectionate, but gets in moods where she wants to be snuggled, and hugged on.
-She totally marches to the beat of her own drum. I love this about her...she has such a good sense of self: of what she likes and doesn't. She is confident in her choices, and doesn't care yet what other people think.
-She has a fabulous imagination.
-She can be hard across the ~~planet~~ house when she's mad. The other day, I heard her say, "I don't like you! You are a.....stupid dang it!" Of course she was disciplined for speaking that way to her brother, but I giggled a little bit at her rant. I love that calling someone a stupid dang it was the absolute WORST thing she could think of.
-She loves her bath, and stretches out, taking up the entire tub. This makes it hard to bathe another kid in there with her!
-She loves going to Mimi and Popo's, and asks about going every day. She loves that they coddle her, and that they let her dictate the routine. Mimi says that she gets over there and says, "First we will watch a movie with popcorn, and then I will take a bath. Then I will sleep in the cradle." Mimi has a crib at her house, and Sis calls it her "cradle" and insists on sleeping in it every time she's over there.
-She's obsessed right now with "staying little". She tells me every day, "Mommy, I don't want to grow! I just want to stay little!" I want her to stay little, too!
-She can wear 3T tops, but has to wear size five or six pants because she is so long!!!
This little girl is empathetic and smart and hysterically funny! I look at pictures of her from when she was a baby, and I can't believe what a hilarious, fun, precocious, imaginative little girl she's turned into. Who knew that little six pound, eleven ounce thing would someday make me laugh so hard, or fill up my heart so much?

Christmas Story: Part 2 (the end you were waiting for)

2011-01-01T15:38:00.001-06:00

Christmas Eve found us driving three very tired babies back home to San Antonio, quickly reading them "The Night Before Christmas" (which the baby could only handle until about page three) and getting them quickly into bed so that we could finish assembling all the stuff that needed putting together. It didn't take us too long to get set up....we put the baby gate up in the kitchen (the one with the kid proof latch) so that no sneakers could get up in the middle of the night and head out to the living room without us. At about 2 a.m. we heard screaming from the kitchen...Bubby was scared and wanted to come to our room...Daddy made him close his eyes while he carried him to our bed so that the surprise wouldn't be spoiled. Fastforward a few hours and imagine us being awakened to the distinct aroma of poop. My first words to Shawn were, "Did one of the dogs s*&% on the carpet?" (not remembering that my sweet baby was in bed with us) and I heard in response, "No, Mommy! It was me! I pooped my pants!" Yippee! My first gift of the day involved a load of laundry and scrubbing a three year old in the tub. I refrain from further details, but let's just say it will be forever known as "The Christmas Mudslide". My poor baby has been so sick with this stomach virus that he's had a little lapse in potty control...he is FINALLY feeling better so we are hoping for no more repeats of this special event.

Long story short: ran a load of laundry, bathed little boy, made him lay back down for a little longer (while we begged him to wait until it was light outside), and listened to his cute commentary in the dark. "Mommy! I think I just saw Rudolph!" and "Mommy! MOMMY! I just saw Santa walking past our window!!" Finally we decided to put him out of his misery and we got up. He was the first one to see the presents, and laughed out loud when he saw their "BIG ONE"...the John Deere ride on tractor! He immediately had to sit on it and try to drive it inside the house. Sissy and little one were up by this time and they both had the same reaction to the tractor. That thing was a HUGE hit. They spent all morning fighting over who got to sit in the driver's seat. (Even the baby, who said "CAR" every time she looked at it) We tried not to go too crazy with their gifts, but by the time the whole thing was said and done I feared they were over indulged yet again. Even if everyone that loves them just buys them ONE thing, it seems like SO MUCH STUFF. Oh well, I guess they could have worse problems.

My family came over for the day and the babies spent all day forcing one adult or another to go outside with them and watch them ride the tractor. That thing isn't the easiest to steer, and it goes faster than you'd think....at one point Bubby drove it straight through the mountain laurel and they got beat upside the head with branches. I kept looking out the window to see Daddy running behind them as they rammed into one of my patio plants or drove into a tree. Fun times!

Crazy Christmas morning hair....

She has her paci in her mouth, but if she didn't, she'd be saying "CAR"

Loving his Hot Wheels track

Watch out flora and fauna....these two haven't figured out the art of steering yet!

Grandma and Livi...with the baby doll Grandma gave her. (She loves it)

Picking up her baby doll from Popo. (I think he was babysitting)

Do you think this baby loves her CAR?

Mimi, Sissy, and some of her loot.

Christmas just keeps getting better and better because of these babies in our lives. I know I loved the holidays before, but I can't imagine ever having loved them as much as I do now...seeing everything through their eyes!

Livi at 17 months...

2010-12-31T00:06:00.000-06:00

This baby continues to make our lives sweeter, fuller, and more fun! We love everything about her, even the little inkling of attitude we can see coming out of her. She is so full of life, and happiness...and every day is better because of her!
At 17 months, she:
-can say Daddy, Mommy, Mama (Mimi), Popo, Bubba, Sissy, Hi, Uh-oh, shoes, boat, car, Wy-eee (Wyatt, the dog), waner (water), whoa, day-dee (baby), truck, ball, house
-makes duck, lion, dog and (sometimes) kitty cat noises.
-waves her arms around if she doesn't like something or wants someone to stop doing something.
-dances every time she hears music.
-points out all her body parts.
-squints her eyes and smiles when you ask "Where's Livi?"
-waves and says "HI!" to every random stranger in public.
-takes her shoes and socks off the minute you put them on her....hence the pile of shoes and socks in the back of my car.
-points out all her family members.
-throws all her food on the floor when she's full, and then says, "Wy-eee?" because she wants us to call Wyatt inside to eat the food she's dropped.
-calls ALL dogs Wy-eee, even Dixie. If you ask her to say "Dixie" she answers "Wy-eee".
-tries to sing in her loudest voice when other people are singing.
-points and laughs at the big Christmas tree on Broadway every time we drive by it.
-wants to do everything that everyone else can do...drink out of a water bottle, play Wii, play on the playground at school with the big kids....
-just learned how to drink out of a straw, and makes you help her with a water and straw EVERY time we go out to dinner. The WHOLE dinner.
-hollers "MAMA!" if she wants something. We've decided "MAMA" doesn't necessarily mean Mommy or Mimi, but "Do something for me!" It's a verb, not a noun.
-goes into the kitchen and gets her bottle parts out of the cabinet and brings them to us, hollering "MAMA!" when she wants a milk.
-loves, LOVES books and being read to. She wants to sit in your lap, and if you try to read it to her while she is standing in front of you by the couch she throws herself on the floor in a fit of frustration because we're not doing it right.
-points and cries at Costco when she sees the flats of water bottles...that's how much she loves water bottles.
-cries at Costco if you try to walk past a "sample" station without getting her one.
-loves hats and pretending things are hats that aren't.
-thinks she is funny, and loves to make us laugh. If you ask if she is funny, she laughs out loud.
-fake coughs when we say, "Baby has a BAD cough!"
-is the most agile, coordinated baby we know.
-climbs the playscape by herself and wants to slide by herself. This gives her Momma a heart attack!
-kisses and hugs her baby dolls.
-loves to throw her paci out of her crib, scream "MAMA!" and make you come in and retrieve it for her before she'll finally settle down and sleep.
-is just starting to pay attention to TV....this morning she laughed and laughed at Elmo.
-is a pretty good eater, unless something happens to be green and then it's a little harder. Every once in a while she surprises us and eats a ton of avocado or a whole salad (just to keep us guessing, I think!)
-still puts weird things in her mouth, but almost always "tells" on herself by walking up to you and making it obvious that she's got something in there.
-is SO proud of herself naked. This cracks us up to no end! She loves her fat little gut and pats it in satisfaction every time we take her clothes off.
-is starting to stick up for herself....the twins are having a harder time making her do what THEY want to do....
-still won't wear a headband or bow, much to her mommy's dismay. (Daddy thinks her head is prettier without one anyway!)
-walks to the bathroom and bangs on the door when we ask "Do you want to pee pee in the potty?" NOT that I am anywhere near wanting to potty train her....it's just funny that she already seems to show interest. I hope I'm not missing my window of interest by ignoring this....
-still has super blue eyes...if anything, I think they are getting MORE blue, not less. This is funny since she had the darkest eyes of all my babies when she was born, so I was SURE she would be the one who had brown eyes like me!
-still has barely any hair, except for a tiny little curl at the nape of her neck. We LOVE that little curl!!

Christmas Eve 2010 (The unnecessarily long Christmas post: part 1)

2010-12-29T00:44:00.000-06:00

I feel like Christmas just came and went in fourteen seconds! Part of my problem was NOT limiting my photography schedule, and trying to accommodate everyone that wanted a session before Christmas.....I enjoyed every shoot, but was running around like a chicken with my head cut off until about three days before Christmas. Next year, I'll do things a little differently, and allow myself a little more breathing room before the holidays. It's hard to complain TOO much, because I am so grateful for how many new clients that have come my way this year!
The buildup to Christmas was immense this year....with Sissy asking every day if "tomorrow" was the day she got to open her presents. I am SHOCKED that all three of my babies left their wrapped presents alone until Christmas morning. Even the tiny one only tried to tear off a tag once.
We spent Christmas Eve in Devine with Shawn's mom and stepdad and his whole side of the family....it was tons of fun! The babies ran around the house like banshees (sorry Nana!) and thought the spiral staircase was the best thing ever invented. Of course, I couldn't stop imagining them sliding down the whole thing head first. Shawn's sweet family always picks the best presents for my kiddos, and this year was no different. They LOVE all the things they received....especially these little backpacks with sleeping bags in them that came with a head lamp for camping. I have rolled and unrolled those sleeping bags about a thousand times in the last few days! Cale even had to take his nap in his sleeping bag yesterday, even though it made him super sweaty.

A little nervous at first....

Headlamps for kids! One of the favorite gifts!

This might be trip number four thousand up and down the stairs.

In the loft with Nana...

Our little family...If I look bedraggled, it's because I WAS.

Making morose faces again....like we torture them or something!!

Reading "The Night Before Christmas" before bed. No, that is not a member of The Village People reading to my children. It's my husband in a very fashionable black tank top. (Eye roll)

Here is a little something about our Christmas Eve that will give you goosebumps....Shawn's grandma passed away two months ago, and Mary (Shawn's mom) inherited all of Grandma's prized Christmas decorations. Mary has helped Grandma put up and take down her tree every year for about the past thirty years, so she knows each and every decoration like the back of her hand....where Grandma got them, and where she wanted them displayed in her home. This year, after Grandma passed away, Mary was taking inventory of all the decorations and found this ornament that she had never seen before:

It says: "I love you all dearly, now don't shed a tear, I'm spending my Christmas with Jesus this year." ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? I literally can't type that story without getting goosebumps. Mary has NEVER seen this ornament before, even though she has been the one to handle all the ornaments for so many years. Where this ornament came from, none of us know. It's just our own little Christmas miracle.

Stay tuned for the rest of our Christmas story.....and NO, it doesn't involve anyone shooting their eye out....but it does involve someone almost poking their eye out with a stick.

One crazy week....

2010-12-24T00:20:00.001-06:00

We were lucky enough (insert eye roll) to welcome a raging stomach virus in our house this week. The baby might have gotten off the easiest of us all, with it hitting me the hardest. It definitely put a crimp in my "getting ready for Christmas" goings on. On day three of feeling horrible, I broke down and cried to Shawn about all I had to do, so he was sweet enough to spend part of his day being my gopher. Luckily, we are all feeling much better, just in time for Christmas!!
What's been going on with us (besides vomiting) you might ask? Well, the baby is thisclose to needing some beginning discipline. She thinks its funny to smack us, and only feels bad some of the time. We let her get away with it because mostly she is doing it to be funny...never to be mean. She is all about turning the TV off while we are watching it, and does this about forty times a day. The twins howl and fuss when she does it, like she just ran over their dog or something....and since THEY expect me to do something about her, I have been putting her in time out. This is what the world's sweetest cream puff looks like in time out:

Does she look sorry to you?? Nope, not a bit! She thinks going to time out is hilarious, and has no problem with it. In fact, the minute she turns the TV off, she pivots and heads right to the time out spot. I know, I know.....this is bad parenting. Clearly she doesn't care about time out.....and I know I need to be more firm...but how HILARIOUS is this? Smiling and laughing in time out like she is on vacation in the Caribbean.
She is loving hats right now.....or anything she can make into a hat. She thinks it is super funny to put random items on her head and then see if we laugh. Sometimes we look into the back seat and she is waiting patiently for someone to see her pacifier balanced carefully on her head.

This baby is starting to wear me out....but in the most fun way there is. If she isn't playing in the toilet, she is usually climbing something precarious. Shawn found her like this yesterday in the play room:

Just standing two feet off the ground, hanging out ON TOP of the play kitchen. The best part of this story is how incredulous we were at how she can get herself down with such agility. It's a wonder she hasn't figured out how to crawl out of her crib yet. (Knock on wood!!)
We are finally ready for Christmas...and can't wait to see what the babies think of it....of course, we bought more for them than we intended to....but when the stuff they love is so cheap, it's hard not to! Several of their toys took some major assembly, which I am going to remember next year when shopping. Of course, we want them to get the real meaning of Christmas....and hope we are doing a good job at communicating the message to them. They were so proud to put money in the Salvation Army bucket today...and that made their mommy proud of them. Tonight as we were trying (in futility) to get them rounded into the bath and ready for bed, they were acting so silly....they wanted me to take pictures of them (as Cale said, "Mommy, take pictures of me making crazy faces.") so I did.

They are busy, and wild, and silly and lots of work....but they are my favorite things on the planet. THIS is the place I want to be more than anywhere else in the world.....I can't wait to share Christmas with them!!

Out of the mouths of babes...

2010-12-03T22:09:00.000-06:00

After spending a good fifteen minutes in the car discussing the meaning of Christmas, we had a little debriefing at the end.
Cale: "Mommy, but why do we celebrate Jesus?"
Me: "Because we love him."
Cale: "Why?"
Me: "Because he died to save us."
Cale: "To save us?"
Me: "Yes."
Cale: "Like save us from being stuck in the mud?"

Um....sure. I mean, Jesus could definitely get you out of the mud, but I don't think he always works in ways that are that obvious. Unless he sends along a tow truck at just the right moment, driven by a benevolent do gooder.
We spend a lot of time (in short bursts) trying to impress on these babies of ours the meaning of Jesus in our lives....sometimes they crack us up with their funny, literal comments on the subject, and other times they come up with some pretty deep, philosophical stuff.
Tonight at Alamo Cafe, we threw coins into the fountain and made a wish (like we always do). In the past, the wishes ranged from things like "cookies" to "my purse"....but tonight after throwing in their coins I asked Cale what he wished for, and he said "For the families", and I knew right away what he was talking about. He is so empathetic, and hearing about families that don't have anywhere to live or enough food to eat seems to really bother him. On his own, he was worried about those families....yippee! All my jabbering might finally be doing some good....

This is an OLD picture of my tiny guy...I don't even think he was walking yet in this picture....I love how little he looks! I hoped then that he would turn out to be sensitive and kind...and he is. Yesterday I bought a "job chart" of sorts...a visual aid to help them in working on little tasks. One of Cale's "jobs" for the week is "Being Respectful". He is taking his little jobs VERY seriously. Today I called to him, and he really, REALLY wanted to run back to the playground, but I saw him make a very conscious decision to turn back towards me and walk my direction. It melted my heart....especially when later, he asked me if he was doing a good job of "being respectable"....I love this age!

A little bit of this....a little bit of that...

2010-11-28T17:25:00.000-06:00

This update is about nothing, really. Just an update because I know people are growing tired of checking the page and seeing my kids in Halloween attire. What's been going on around here? (I am sure you are asking yourself)...Well, let me tell you!
-Baby is starting to talk up a storm. All day long, we are treated to animal noises (a duck, a lion and a dog so far) and cute utterances such as "WHOA!" and "Dat?" (Her way of asking "What's that?")
-Baby LOVES to be read to, so if you are at our house let it be known that you aren't safe once you are seated. She will go find a book and bring it to you and back her little hiney into your lap every time.
-Cale pooped outside. I am not sure why it is newsworthy, but the husband thought I should blog about it. It gave us a good laugh, that's for sure. When we asked him why he did it, he said "I was camping." Well, there you have it. Now it makes total sense.
-Our house is halfway decorated for Christmas. I don't ever remember it taking this long to get all my stuff out and hung. I guess it has to do with the fact that my holiday decor mysteriously multiplies every year....
-We attempted a family Christmas Card shoot at Lost Maples last weekend, which will forever be referred to as "The Disaster on the Sabinal". Little boys who want to go adventuring are not too excited about getting corralled and photographed. We managed to get a few cute ones, but not without some threats, tears, bribery..you parents know what I am talking about!
-Now that it's cold enough, we are turning on our gas fireplace all the time now. My definition of "cold enough" is seventy degrees. My husband's definition is when your eyelids freeze shut. Let's just say we are using my method for determining the cold, NOT his.
-I think I am done Christmas shopping for my kids. Before you gag with disgust, let me clarify....for MY KIDS only. I am not one of those people who get their shopping done in August. I still have a ton to do.....just not for tiny people.
Besides being hugely busy with photography, not too much else is going on around here....trying to enjoy the beginning of the season and make time for little moments like driving around looking at lights on houses and eating our cookies by the fire....And just because a post stinks without pics, here are a few:

My Halloweeners

2010-11-08T11:32:00.000-06:00

We did our usual thing this Halloween....party at our house on Saturday night, complete with grown ups in self deprecating costumes. Sunday we headed to "Ma's" house (Kelly's mom) for a night of trick or treating. Everyone was (thankfully) healthy and in a good mood, so it was an easy, fun weekend. The twins LOVED having their friends over at their party, and were playing in the backyard late into the night. They really enjoyed trick or treating, and said "Thank you" and "Happy Halloween!" at every house. Even baby Livi enjoyed trick or treating....holding her little bag open and watching as the treats went down into her bag. She was so proud of her little bag....it either didn't occur to her or didn't matter to her that she was a candy mercenary, used only for her cuteness and employed by her daddy and I for some free loot, seeing how she is still too tiny to eat ANYTHING in the bag.

A good time was had by all.....my only regret is the candy that I am being forced to eat since it still occupies a giant bowl on my kitchen island. I think my favorite thing about this Halloween was that Sissy wanted to be Buzz Lightyear. It didn't matter ONE BIT to her that Buzz is a boy costume...she just knows that she loves Toy Story, and loves Buzz. She felt no pressure at all to be something "girly", although I know that day is coming soon.....I love the innocence of this age...no peer pressure, no worry at all about what you look like. Such a sweet and easy time!

Does this make me crazy?

2010-11-04T22:47:00.000-05:00

One of the things I miss most about teaching (besides my sweet teacher friends) is the morning commute. Don't get me wrong, I HATED the getting up early part, and the getting ready part. The commute, however short or long, I loved. I loved listening to my favorite morning radio show: Kidd Kraddick in the morning. Most radio personalities are cheesy or borderline idiots, but these people, I get. They are funny, and share WAY too much information. My kinda people. Anyway, for the last three and a half years, my mornings have mostly consisted of changing poop diapers, refilling milk cups forty thousand times, trying to find Elmo on TV, and attempting to stuff a banana or something else moderately healthy into the mouths of my tiny people (besides an Eggo waffle). We typically aren't in the car driving somewhere between 6 and 10 a.m...until now. The twins go to day school Tuesday and Thursday mornings, so I have a reason to listen to my old "friends". Today, they did a segment called "Does that make me crazy?" where they talk about the weird stuff they do, and then they talk about whether or not they are headed for the nuthouse. That got me thinking.....I wonder if people would think I was weird if they knew all the strange little things I do? I'll let you judge:
1. I always, ALWAYS buy new shampoo and conditioner before the old bottle gets even half way done. Invariably, I have to open the new bottles before the old ones are done, so I end up with anywhere between 4 and eight shampoo bottles in my shower at any given time.
2. I am weirdly sentimental about anything to do with my babies. I have a MISERABLE time giving away baby clothes. I have tubs and tubs of them stuffed in closets and in my parents' attic. I have all of my favorite tiny outfits of theirs in ziploc bags in their closets.....I feel horrible putting new pictures of them over old pictures of them, so I just end up buying more frames. I can't get rid of the pink plastic bathtub things that they gave us in the hospital, so I use them for kitchen storage. I am panicked that they are growing up too fast.
3. I wake up in a panic at least three times a night, slapping Shawn in the arm or chest. (I know: poor, tormented Shawn...if he did that to ME, I'd be ticked!) I have to get out of bed, look out my windows and go check on my kids. This habit really confounds me, because I was an all american sleeper growing up. I literally took a nap every day from birth to college, and still could get in at least 12 good hours at night if I needed to.
4. I can't throw away icing tubs or sour cream tubs. I guess it's the retired kindergarten teacher in me...I have about fifteen of each. I know, ridiculous!! (But they are made of really good plastic, people!)
5. I will not kill a roach. I can't step on one, and I certainly can't chase one down with a paper towel like my husband does...(thank GOD for that man!) I hate that they are crunchy, and that they run fast. One even tried to fly in my mouth once...I could tell what he was thinking. My roach management system goes like this: See roach. Scream. Run for a cup to cover him up. Leave him covered until husband can deal with horrible roach situation.
Cannot. Handle. Roaches. Too many stories about their love of burrowing in your ear and their inability to go backwards, meaning all their wiggling just makes them burrow further into your head until you need surgical intervention.
6. I make up new, ridiculous names for everyone I know, especially my kids. They literally have 25 nicknames apiece. Back when I talked to my dogs (sad, I know) they had a bunch of names, too. Everyone else in my peripheral world has nicknames as well. There was "Blinky James" who ate lunch with us for a semester in college and blinked entirely too much, "Ear Wax Girl" who sat next to me in physics and dug in her ear with her pen cap, "Ask for a Ride Girl" who asked my roommate for a ride home from class literally every day (Alison, do you remember her??) ....also mixed in there were "Saggy Boobs", (don't ask) "Psycho", "HELLOOOOO!" (yep, that's someone's "name"), "Tea Bag" (these are really inappropriate now that I am thinking about it), "www.d-bag.com" (another classy one).....there are a whole bunch more but I will stop now at the risk of making myself appear even more idiotic. This naming thing is less about criticism (because Lord knows I'M not perfect) but more about noticing details. I have always been overly observant....and this applies to people as well as surroundings.
7. I cannot listen to the radio without changing the words to songs. "Heart" always turns into "fart"....and then I am amused by my kindergarten humor.
8. I cannot stand being read to. I have to read it myself, or fight the urge to cover my ears.
9. I hate meetings. Any and all meetings....this is going to be a problem when my PTA years come around. If I am expected to sit in a chair and listen, my legs get antsy and I want to run screaming from the room.
10. I love watching "Hoarders"....seeing people's horrible, filthy, cat infested homes is comforting to me somehow. Mine is like a sterile operating room in comparison.
11. I am obsessed with weird religions. I don't want to JOIN them, but I am fascinated with how they get OTHER people to join....the group psychological dynamic is so interesting to me.
12. I still gag every time I have to swallow a pill. For this reason, I take Flintstone's Vitamins every day.
13. Every time I ride an escalator, I think about my foot getting sucked into the joint at the end. I know this is because I read an article in one of my mom's "Reader's Digests" when I was little about this very thing happening.....Escalator Attacks, people! It's a real problem.
14. I love Chap Sticks. At any given time, I own at least eight of them. They are in my purse, in the drawer in my bathroom, next to my bed, and in the little compartments in my car. (Which has caused some interesting issues in August when it is 114 degrees outside)
15. I cannot throw away old leftovers. Opening an old container of food makes me gag every time. I would literally rather throw away ALL my tupperware and buy new stuff than stuff old food into the trash. Again, this is where the husband comes in super handy.
16. I am a horrible gift giver. I agonize about what I am going to get, and then criticize it in my own head ad infinitum.
The sad part is, I think I could keep going with this list....for my own sanity I will stop. (But also because I am feeling the need for some Chapstick application after typing about it. Weird, I know.)
"Does this make me crazy?" is starting to look better phrased as a rhetorical question.....

My baby is fifteen months old! (almost)

2010-10-25T23:17:00.000-05:00

Today I took a few pictures of my little Livi....she was in a perfect mood, and cooperated the whole time. I must note: photographing ONE kid is much easier than photographing THREE kids. She was a piece of cake! All I had to do was make animal noises at her, and she laughed and smiled like I was doing "Eddie Murphy Live".
At fifteen months, this baby is:
-walking all over the place like a tiny orangutan. She can spin in circles, change direction, jump, (which is weird....I don't think she should be doing this yet) and almost run.
-talking and repeating more words now. "Dada" and "uh oh" are still her favorites, but she is working some other words in there, too.
-eating everything she can fit in her mouth. Girl can eat.
-loving her brother and (especially) her sister. She thinks everything they do is hilarious and repeat worthy. If they jump, she jumps...if they are singing, she hollers real loud....if they are yelling, she yells, too. It is hysterical.
-making adorable faces and doing lots of tricks like "stinky face", straining real hard when we ask "Are you strong?", pointing to body parts....
-still sleeping great and taking two naps a day!
-asserting her tiny will on us. I think this one is going to be like her sissy in that department.