A Hope and a Future

Baby it's cold outside!

Tuesday night we got a little bit of snow and woke up Wednesday morning to a "dusting" of white outside. Of course Rebecca wanted to go play in it so Dennis took her out after she finished her schoolwork. I didn't want to let the little ones go out because it was like 25 degrees out there and they all have the sniffles right now. The only problem with that is anytime they see anyone leave the house without them they (especially Hannah and Samuel) have a complete meltdown that they have been left behind. Seriously. Several times in the past when D and I have left them with a sitter (miss you Megan!) we had her take them into a room to play so they didn't see us leave. Yah it's that bad.

Anyway, I was trying to minimize the meltdown so I sat them all down at the table to color. Well, that lasted about 5 minutes since both the boys just wanted to eat the crayons (my kids are SO oral....everything in the mouth!!) and Hannah was screaming that she couldn't hold ALL the crayons at once. So we moved on.....to playdough. Well, you can imagine that went SO much better (insert sarcastic eye roll here). The boys again thought it was snack so I had to take it away from them. Hannah actually did pretty good with it and ended up playing with it for quite awhile.

                                          

"Uh, mommy? Do you think you should comb my hair before you take a picture of me?"

                                          

For the boys I pulled out the spoons and pots and they had a blast making as much noise as possible. We laughed that it was a good thing my dad was at work; he's not a fan of the super loud noise:)

All in all it was a success as it kept their little minds off the fact that they were stuck inside!

Use it for pots and pans? But that's so BORING!

I keep my pots and pans in the bottom of the microwave cart and for awhile now the babies have enjoyed pulling them out to play with them (usually at mealtimes when I'm trying to work in the kitchen of course). The latest game, however goes like this:

                            

Isaac (usually it's him) pulls out all the pots and pans and gets in the cabinet.....

                           

then Hannah (usually although sometimes Samuel wants to get in on the action) comes and closes the doors on him...... 

                           

 and then Isaac pushes them open from the inside, they all cackle with laughter, and then repeat the process:) It is the CUTEST thing to watch. Isaac doesn't seem at all bothered by being shut up in the dark....not much fazes this kid!

Christmas tree = toddler temptation with a capital T!

       +          =

BIG TROUBLE!

I'm losing track of the number of times I've said "no touch!".....and the tree has only been up 24 hours! Hopefully the novelty will wear off and they'll lose interest (ok, not likely but a mama can dream!). We knew it would be tough this year and truly they're not doing TOO bad but it is proving to be interesting:) We were given tips like put the tree on a table, put a gate around it, or just don't put one up but truthfully we are of the mind that they are all old enough to understand that when mommy and daddy say "no touch" we mean it! We try to keep the "no touch" things to a minimum in their world so they can handle it for a few weeks. That being said, I truly do understand why some people choose to do things differently because with THREE toddlers it is a challenge!  

Sour pickle face

The other day Dennis was making his sandwich for lunch while I was supervising the little ones' lunch. He likes to eat those hamburger slice type pickles on his sandwiches and asked me if I had ever tried to give pickles to the babies. I had not and we decided to try it just for fun:) 

The result?

           

             

Both Hannah and Samuel made the predictable sour faces, chewed the pickle for a minute, and spit it out. Pickles? Not so much.

                                

And from our boy with the "stomach of steel"? Nothing. Nada. No reaction! He put it in his mouth, wallowed it around awhile, took it out, and threw it on the floor. I think he would have eaten it if he had enough teeth to chew it up properly. Wonder if he is always going to be this "whatever" about trying new foods? Can't complain about him not being picky, eh? 

Sippy cup row

                               

This is the scene around our table at about 7:00am every day. I like to call it "circling the wagons". I was trying to get a picture of them all sipping from their cups at the same time (very cute to me) but of COURSE no one would cooperate. Here's the short list of what comes to mind when I look at this picture:

• I just started putting them in "footy pjs" Wednesday night since it's finally starting to cool off around here:) Footy pj's are one of my favorite things about baby clothes. Also, how CRAZY is it to see Isaac in the pjs that Samuel JUST wore last winter?
• Notice Hannah's hair is in its natural state.....love it!
• With three little ones all drinking from sippy cups now I've assigned everyone a color lid: Samuel is always blue, Hannah pink, and Isaac green. The twins now know which is theirs and will choose the right one if they are all lined up (but don't think they won't try to drink out of each other's if there is something more exciting in someone else's cup!) The most common example of this is Samuel trying to drink Hannah or Isaac's milk if there is water in his cup (he almost always DRAINS his milk cup at a meal and detests water).

My children are very blessed

                                       

                                       

                                       

                                       

I am SO grateful that my children are getting the chance to know and be loved by my parents. Grandparents are awesome:)

We love you, Bama and Granddaddy!

What do you MEAN I'm late? It's ONLY mid-July!

                                           

So Dennis bought a baby pool for the little ones several weeks ago........and today was the first time they were in it! In my defense we have been busy and gone a lot but still......

It didn't go over terribly well but that was probably due to the fact that I filled it up just a few minutes before putting them in and the water was COLD (bad mommy!) I tried to skip the swim diapers (those suckers are EXPENSIVE!) but it backfired. First I left them in their regular diapers and within 5 minutes Hannah's was swollen to at least three times it's size and she was having trouble walking it was so heavy! Then I just put them both in swim trunks sans diapers.........yah, I won't be trying THAT again. Wouldn't you know that Samuel would choose THEN to poop.......and he's on Amoxicillin which always does wacky things to his GI system the first couple of days (I won't go into it........you don't want to know!) Suffice it to say the clean up from that one involved the hose.....nuff said.

Hopefully our next try will go better:) My other little fishy was asleep during this adventure which was probably for the best anyway.........maybe next time!

The "I have lost too many brain cells to remember" board

                           

This is a picture of the chalkboard in our kitchen. It sat mostly unused for a long time until the twins came along. It didn't take long after their arrival for us to start using the board to record their nap and feeding times. It really came in handy in those days of sleep-deprivation and pregnancy brain. We continued with that until they were probably 9 or 10 months old and were on a pretty regular schedule anyway. Since then it has been used for key Bible verses (can you see what we're working on in OUR house right now?) or for random teenagers to record goofy messages.

As you can see, the last couple of days it has been used for an oh-so-fun purpose. It all started with Isaac about two weeks ago coming down with some congestion (you know where this is going, right?) It quickly spread to the other two babes and lingered on until this weekend when both boys started running fever. A trip to the doctor Monday revealed ear infections for both (Isaac's first!) so they are now on antibiotics. Then yesterday Hannah started running fever too! We'll see if was a fluke or continues.......she is prone to ear infections as well so it wouldn't surprise me at all if she has one.

So the board has come in handy as it is pretty hard to remember when THREE babies last had their temp taken, Ibuprofen given, or cold drops given. And, yes, "grumpy" IS TOO a reason to give Ibuprofen, didn't you know that? Believe me, if you'd have been here, you'd have given it to him too:) 

As my grandmother used to say, "this too shall pass"! 

I think I got the better end of the deal!

My friend Heather is developing quite a talent for photography. She hasn't had any formal training (except for one class that she said didn't help her at all) but loves to take pictures and if you ask me (and lots of others) she is quite talented. We were visiting her yesterday and she decided to do a spontaneous photo shoot with the kids. I was more than happy to let her practice on them:) The only "problem" was choosing some to post here since there were SO many good ones! I think I have it narrowed down to my favorites, though. She didn't get many of Rebecca since she was busy playing but check out the cuteness she DID capture:)

And then there were three.....

                                                                     

....booster seats, that is! I finally had to say a sad goodbye to the bumbo seat since Isaac would NOT stay in it anymore. I set up the new booster seat and he is doing great in it! I realized pretty quickly that I'm going to have to watch Hannah closely: so far she's tried to give Isaac her milk cup and a piece of hotdog! Yah, not so great. This pic was taken at lunchtime and I could NOT get Samuel to stop drinking....that boy loves him some milk! Now the fun of trying to feed all three of them at once begins:)

                                                                             

He looks so BIG in this picture.....not my tiny baby anymore!