fun times with cousins

eating breakfast.....
eating dinner....

and making crafts....


then it was on to the photo shoot. They entertained each other for quite a while with a couple of cameras.

And we even celebrated grandmas 29th birthday. It is weird how she is younger than me! Claudia gave her a full pedicure!

Just in time for Christmas!

Because now she can really sing "All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth". We have been waiting for this wiggly tooth to fall out for some time now and FINALLY it fell out last night. I have to say it is one of my favorite things when kids are missing their top front teeth. I just think it is too cute!
And we had so much fun when grandma and grandpa came by for a visit last weekend. They couldn't stay very long but we loved having them here just for the day or two that we got to see them. It was grandpa birthday so we had some fun singing him "Happy Birthday". Thanks for coming to see us!

it happened....

Last week, with at least three months still left in my pregnancy......I was asked if I was having twins. I wait for it every pregnancy because someone always asks me and it makes me feel really great.

I was at the grocery store and the checker came up to me and said, "Is that baby coming soon?" And I answered her, "Oh no. I have quite a bit left." She said, "End of December?" And I said, "No, end of February." The look on her face was like sheer horror and she said, "Is there just one in there?" I wanted to slap her but repressed my Alli McBeal fantasy and said, "There better be." Needless to say I think she had nightmares that night from the way she was acting. And I love the question : Is there just on in there? Like I am a storage bucket or something.

The worst experience I had with this was when I was pregnant with Lilly. In the morning I was asked if I was having twins, granted I was almost 9 months pregnant and HUGE (as I usually am). However, it wasn't that experience that left me in tears that day. It was later....IN THE SAME DAY.....when I was chatting with a mom at a gymnastics class Joselyn was in. I mentioned having my third girl and she looked at me and in all honesty said, "OH! I didn't know you were pregnant!"...............WHAT?! How can I look like I am having twins and someone not obviously no I am pregnant in the same day. How FAT did she think I was?!

And I vividly remember when I was pregnant with Maddy that one of Dustin's friends told him, albeit discreetly so that I could overhear, that I sure looked "sturdy". And no I haven't forgotten it in the ten years since then, just a testament to the power of words. Is that not the most rude thing ever? I was so devastated! It is hard enough to be pregnant and watch your body change and have no control over it. And it is hard enough to not be blessed to be one of those "cute" pregnant women. You know the ones where you can't tell they are pregnant until they turn to the side? Yeah NOT ME! I just wish that people could hide their shock and awe better and keep their mouths shut! (I am having a day .....alright maybe a pregnancy.......if you can't tell)

The lies I love

WARNING: If anyone let's their kids look at our blog you probably don't want to let them read this post!!!!

Well I had a moment last Sunday. It was a moment that I have not been looking forward to. For those who know me, you know how much I love my holidays. I love everything about pretty much every holiday including all the lies that go along with many of the favorite holidays. By lies I mean, trying to convince our kids that Santa Claus brings presents (even if you don't have a fire place), that the Tooth Fairy really does slip money under your pillow (even if she gets really busy sometimes and doesn't slip it under your pillow for a few nights), and in our family that there are such things as leprechauns that hide chocolate coins on St. Patrick's Day (even if your teacher has told you that leprechauns don't really exist). These are the lies that I love. I love the excitement and the magic of them!

So back to last Sunday. We came home from church and to make a long story short Maddy ended up in tears up in her room after Santa Claus came up in the conversation downstairs. I went up and sat on her bed and asked her why she was so upset. She looked at me with tears running down her face and told me that in her Primary class that day they had been talking about faith and believing in things. She raised her hand and said that she had faith that Santa Claus was real and that she believed in him. And she told me that everyone laughed at her! She was so upset and it made me so upset. I had to fight back the tears! I asked her what she did and she said she just pulled her hat down over her face. Seriously I wanted to cry.

So I was faced with a dilemma. Obviously she is at an age where most kids know that Santa is not real and I needed to decide if I should tell her then and there or try and wait until after Christmas. I decided I was going to tell her and I asked her if she would like to know the truth. She yelled out, "NO!" So I was quiet for a minute and then I told her that I loved to believe in Santa Claus too and that it was really fun to believe in him. So she looked at me and said she wanted to know the truth. So I told her the truth......there really is no Santa Claus. She BURST out into tears and I felt horrible! SO we cuddled for a bit and I tried to make her feel better by telling her that it didn't make Christmas any less exciting and that mommy and daddy still get excited for Christmas even though we know that Santa doesn't exist and that she will still get presents even though she doesn't believe in Santa. This all seemed to make her feel better and she left the room with a smile on her face. I made her promise though that she would NOT tell her sisters because it would ruin it for them and told her she was in the adult club now and that she needed to keep that secret.

So she has been dealing with this news for the past couple of days. Tonight she asked me as I was tucking her in, "Mom, what about the letters from Santa? Do you write those?" I told her that I was the one who wrote them. She seemed a little disappointed and she looked at me and asked if she would get one this year. I asked her if she wanted one and she was adamant that she wanted one. So I told her she would get one and she was very pleased about that. Then a few minutes later she said, "And what about the Tooth Fairy......is she real?" I told her no she wasn't real either. It was mommy and daddy that put money under their pillows. She said she thought maybe that was the truth before because she said she noticed that Santa and the Tooth Fairy had the same handwriting (our tooth fairy always leaves a letter for the first tooth lost). I told her that was my handwriting and then this was the best part. She said that she thought maybe Santa wrote the letters for the Tooth Fairy because she was too little to write them. I thought that was highly creative thinking on her part trying desperately to make something that seems so completely implausible actually possible.

I am now waiting for the Easter Bunny and the leprechauns and I guess we will probably have it all covered. She will officially be out of the magical child knowledge and into the real adult knowledge. She seems to be taking it pretty well. I can't say I have taken it that well. It actually makes me quite sad but I know it's time and I really don't want everyone laughing at her so she needs to know. Ah......but the loss of innocence.......still makes me a little sad.

My Little Eggplant

No I haven't forgotten about my ever growing baby bump. They just started spreading out the delicious correlating fruits and vegetables into months instead of weeks. So, honestly I don't know what week I am in at this point. And it seems too much effort to figure it out on the calendar but I know I am in my sixth month somewhere. And if you look to the right of the blog you will see that this delicious baby is due in EXACTLY one hundred days. I wish it was less....but what are you going to do?

I can't say that I particularly care for eggplant as a food to ingest so you will get lucky and not get any creepy references to baby eggplant recipes. Your welcome mom.

Proud to be an American

So I had her sing it for me and here it is......

too funny.

Proud to be an American

This is just too funny I had to document it! Josey came home from school the other day and excitedly told me how she sang a song by herself in front of her class. I was confused trying to remember if there was something special going on that day that would constitute the solo performance of my 7 year old at school.

I couldn't come up with anything, so I asked her if the class was singing songs that day or something. She said no.

I asked her what song she sang and she told me that she sang "Proud to be an American". Then I was more confused.

I asked her if the teacher asked her to sing something? And she said no.

So I finally just asked her why she sang the song by herself. She told me that she just asked the teacher if she could sing a song for the class.....in the middle of the day......by herself. WHAT?!

It made just a little more sense when she said they were talking about Veterans Day. BUT STILL?! I asked her why she sang that song and she said that as they were talking about Veterans Day she thought that that song would be a good one for her to sing for the class. (Because don't we all have that train of thought?) So apparently she got up and sang the song by herself acappella to inspire patriotism in her fellow classmates. I haven't had her sing it for me yet and honestly I didn't know she even knew the words to that song so I am going to video tape her singing it and I will put it on her just so that you can visualize her singing this in the middle of her classroom by herself. I seriously think my kids think they live in a musical sometimes....and just maybe I want to live in that musical as well.

When I think about it, how many of us.....okay maybe it's just me and I guess my daughters .....have moments where you do just want to break out in song at an inappropriate time?

I forgot to put this on here a couple of weeks ago. But Josey's class was doing a little play and Josey got to be the main part of Anansi. She was a little spider. They sent home invitations and everything. She was of course the cutest little spider ever!

way too early

So it is 5am and I am tired. I didn't get to sleep last night, or should I say this morning, until 12:30 and here I am already awake. WHY? Well, I will credit this crack of dawn morning to my wonderful 3 year old. And I will also say this is becoming a problem. Lilly just seems to not be able to sleep in her own bed throughout the entire night. Can you give a 3 year old a sleeping pill? jk

Since combining Josey and Lilly together in their own room Lilly has been keeping Josey up at night talking and being loud. So last night she was threatened that if she got out of bed or kept talking to Josey that she would be put back in the dreaded crib. Well it's no surprise that we had to actually follow through with that one and she ended up in her crib. Upset would be an understatement, and the night went downhill from there. In the middle of the night we decided to pull the side down of the crib so that if she needed to go to the bathroom she could climb out and go.

Cut to about 3 in the morning when I awake to noises next to my bed like usual for probably the last 3 months and realize that she has climbed out and taken her usual spot next to my bed. I don't even put the pillow and blankets away everyday because she seems to find her way in there every night. And the worst part is that she has to wake me up every time she comes in and keep me up until she FINALLY falls back to sleep. So I am trying to ignore her and just let her go back to sleep when she hops up and starts crying, informing me she has now gone pee pee in her pants......AAARRGGHHH! So after I get her changed and back in her bed I realize that Josey is also missing from her bed. I look back in my room and find her curled up in another corner of my room. Why can't people just sleep in their beds!!! Is my floor really that comfortable?! At least when Josey comes into the room she just brings a pillow and blanket and finds a clean patch of floor and goes back to sleep. I don't even know when she is in there. I can deal with that kind of middle of the night movement.

I try to stay sympathetic, reminding myself that she is very little and we have recently moved and that she is probably still adjusting to the whole change and the expectation of a new baby. She has been very clingy already and it has been very hard to stay patient and loving.

I am really getting tired (no pun intended) of this every night awaking. I SERIOUSLY have to get this thing nipped in the bud before this baby comes or Lilly is going to be in for a very rude awakening. She is going to be introduced to sleep deprived mommy and I don't think we are going to get along very well. Any suggestions out there?

Maddy's room

Ok. You might remember this post about Maddy and Josey's cute room that we had painted and redecorated (mostly). I was so excited to be done with a room and thought it turned out pretty cute. Well after a month or so when we really started thinking about where we were going to put the baby and how we were going to work out the room situations.....we decided to rearrange rooms. Crazy I know but it just made the most sense in the long run!

So we decided to forgo the playroom and turn it into a room for Maddy. She has her own room and she couldn't be happier. We then decided to put Lilly in the room with Josey and the baby will have her own room for a little while until she gets easier to share with. So Maddy has been ecstatic and Lilly has been ecstatic (she has wanted to share a room with one of her sisters her whole life). Josey is the only one that is sort of getting the short end of the stick and feeling it! However, because Dustin and I are second born and middle children we feel WAY too sympathetic for her. So we are "redoing" her room as well trying to salvage as much as we can from the old room. Fortunately Maddy's chosen bedspread has some of the colors that were going on in the old room so they were easily transferred to Maddy's room.

So here we finished Maddy's room this weekend finally. Here is a little bit of the before room...

and here it is after.....

She loves it and is spending all her time reading in her bed and hanging out in her room!

I have a few more things that I need to do in Josey and Lilly's room and then I will post some pictures of the changes. I am excited because I think it is turning out super cute!

musical rooms....

changes, they are a comin'.......

Happy Halloween!

Halloween Night! We left to go trick-or-treating with a few friends. Here is everyone looking nice....kinda.
And here is everyone making their character faces.....spooky and cute!
Maddy really wanted to go trick-or-treating with a friend this year so we invited her friend Kelly to come and they went as zombie cheerleaders. They are too cute!
Josey wanted to go with her friend Emma from next door. They went as vampires.....same costume and all!
And here is Lilly making her scary Halloween face.

And one with just my girls. I didn't notice that Lilly wasn't looking and I wish Maddy had looked a little happier even though I know she is just trying to be a zombie.

After three long hours of trick-or-treating we FINALLY headed home to see our stashes. Lilly pooped out a lot earlier and headed home with daddy so I didn't get a picture of her with her candy. She was so funny. She filled up a little bit of her bucket for maybe an hour and then she asked me if I could carry her. Then I asked if she wanted to go up to the next house and get some candy and she told me that she had enough candy and was ready to go home. I thought that was funny coming from a three year old!

Then the trading started. I LOVE the trading part but this year we had a friend with us. I was getting so irritated at my girls because they kept trading away the candy that I wanted! They kept trading it to Kelly! I can't secretly steal Halloween stash from her! I know that this is really a better thing to get it out of my house than for me to eat it all but did you really have to trade peanut M&Ms for tootsie rolls and suckers!

And Dustin wanted a picture with his stash.

And actually speaking of "stashes". This month apparently is prostate cancer awareness month. Apparently there is a movement that men start growing a mustache on the first day of November and they grow it for the whole month. So Dustin's office is doing this and he is starting fresh faced tomorrow. I will keep up updated on the growth!

Halloween parties

I love going to the Halloween parties and parade at the school. I didn't help this year with anything but I still showed up! I am sure the other parents that actually participated liked that! I just couldn't handle it this year but the girls were glad that Lilly and I were there. Here are some pictures from the parade.

Here is Josey's teacher.
Here is Maddy.
Here is Josey (unfortunately blurry and I didn't have time to take another).

And Josey posing waiting for her sisters to walk by.

And then there was this guy! I couldn't believe that actually let him wear that in the school!

Here was Maddy's party. They parents seem to always go all out for the parties here and the kids love it!

It was even complete with a chocolate fountain.....it was good!Here was Josey's party.

Lilly stayed in here most of the time and was able to share some ice cream and treats.