corn maze

Tornado Alley

Top 10 Reasons that I May Lose My Mind This Week (in random order)

1. Three sick kids with fevers (again....)
2. The ever-growing piles of laundry that I haven't been able to do since the bee disaster destroyed the laundry room (almost a week ago)
3. Two solid days with contractors coming in and out of the house
4. Two solid days of people forgetting to lock the doors and the panic that ensues when I see Wyatt outside through the kitchen window
5. Three days of literally tying the laundry room door shut to keep Wyatt out before the repairs begin followed by another two days of running every time Wyatt tries to go into the laundry room and touch wet paint and drywall while the workers are in the house and I can't tie the doors shut
6. Changing all of the boys diapers on the dining room table
7. The dust, the dust, the dust that has been tracked everywhere
8. The smell that has permeated the house since the bee disaster began (cat urine x 10 suitable topic for a post all its own)
9. Watching Wyatt steal tools from movers attempting to move the grand piano out of the house
10. Recognizing that Wyatt's obsession with tools has moved to a new level after having spent the week with Dad and the bee removal equipment, piano movers and their tools, housing contractors with ladders, paint, drywall, drywall mud, etc., and Mom the one-woman cleaning crew and all of my cleaning supplies

Seriously, can you blame me????? Tons of people have asked me this week "How do you do it?" and I don't really know the secret to my sanity, but I think that it has something to do with this sweet little face.......

Draggin

I am so tired from today! I will post details tomorrow!

All Boys

John took this picture of the boys when I was gone and I think that it is really cute. I also included a picture of my friend Carrie and her newborn twin boys that I took tonight when I visited them at the hospital. Their names are Jacob and Lucas and they were 7 lb 5 oz and 6 lb 1 oz! They are absolutely beautiful and I started crying when I met them and I don't even know why?!? They are going home tomorrow to meet their "big" brother Zach who is 20 months old. It's hard to believe that between the two of us Carrie and I have 6 boys under the age of 2......that's nuts!

The Night Owl

It's almost 1:30 am and Samurai is up. He pooped at midnight and then he wanted to eat! What next 2:30 am playtime? Never a dull moment......sigh.......

Little Kathie

Wyatt loves to wear the big yellow kitchen gloves from Grandma Rodgers around the house and try to pick up his toys. I guess that it is his way of challenging himself physically (either that or he is deathly bored). Did I also mention that he can gallop? He is surprisingly good at it too, but it is completely hysterical. I am going to try and get it on videotape this week.

Mom's Home

Updated to add: I talked to the builder this afternoon and he will be out Thursday to fix the holes! Yipee!!!!!!!!!!!!
My flight came in from Boston tonight at 735 pm. Keith (a friend of ours) called me in the car from my own house while I was driving home from the airport, so I knew something was going on. He asked me where I was and said that he and John had a big surprise for me when I got home. I suspected that I knew what it was. We have had a huge bee problem lately. I mean HUGE! Last time that I talked to John was at the airport and when he updated me on the current bee situation, I told him that we had reached the point where we needed to cut a hole in the wall and get the nest out once and for all. Of course John disagreed and argued with me about how to deal with it (understandable because who wants to cut a hole in the wall of a brand new house), but finally said that he thought that we were at that point too. Needless to say he decided to cut 3 HUGE holes in the laundry room ceiling to gain access to the nest and ended up calling Keith in as a reinforcement! The actual nest was apparently about 12 inches wide and 14 inches long and was LOADED with live bees. Thousands of bees! Neither of them got stung and they removed the nest, so I am happy about that. Now I just have to figure out how to get our builder to come and fix the ceiling and convince him that it is his responsibility since the bees gained access in the first place through a vent that was not properly attached to the house. At least I don't have to worry about being bored now that I am back from my mini vacation!

Teeth

Superdad

I am leaving today for a weekend in Boston with my sister with NO KIDS! This is the first time that I will have left the twins overnight since they were born. Wyatt stayed with my parents overnight for a few days last year when we were house hunting in Pittsburgh and I really missed him! I am sure that I will miss all three kids even more, but I am looking forward to some adult time without any little people around for a change. John is going to hold down the fort for the weekend by himself. I am sure that he will be fine, but it will be interesting to hear some stories when I get back! I gave him some instructions last night on how to update the blog, so he will be posting tomorrow and maybe Sunday as well! Feel free to give him a call and offer him your sympathy and support if you are so inclined! (One of my only concerns is that last weekend John was using the downstairs bathroom and Wyatt locked him IN the bathroom by activating the childproof safety lock from the outside so I had to let John out of the bathroom! I can only imagine what would have happened if I wasn’t here and John was locked in the bathroom all weekend while Wyatt had free run of the house and the babies!!!! Plus, did I mention that Wyatt learned how to open the deadbolt on the front door and can leave anytime he likes now?) Lucky for me I married Superdad and I think that he can handle just about anything the boys can dish out! At least I hope so…….
Also, Jonah has mastered the military crawl. Nothing is off limits now....not even Maggie!

Jonah Jumping

Jonah loves to jump up and down in his exersaucer.

4 Eyes

Well it looks like Jonah is going to need glasses.....

Another Tooth

Sammy is finally getting another tooth! I was starting to get worried......

Daddy Love

Much more photogenic when Dad is around!

Buns Buns Buns

I love these cute little buns! I have a picture that is almost exactly the same with Wyatt when he was dinky. I'm still working on getting a good picture of Sammy's buns, then I will hang all of our naked bun pictures in the boy's bathroom upstairs. They will be perfect for blackmail someday when the boys are teenagers!

Bedtime Smiles

The boys were all smiles tonight at bedtime.......Mom and Dad were too!

Practice Shots

I tried to take some 2 year birthday pictures of Wyatt today so that they would be done by his birthday, but it didn't go well. I like the clothing choice and background, but his expressions need some work!

Jump Jump Jump

There was a bounce house today at playgroup and the kids had so much fun in it. My friend took some pictures of the kids for me since I never remember to pack my camera in the diaper bag. I am just happy if I remember all of the baby essentials these days!

Drama Queen

It turns out that we have a little drama queen living in our house. Samuel is going through some major separation anxiety issues right now and making my life very interesting. He gets really excited and shakes when I come in to get him after naps or in the morning, but FREAKS out when I set him down and leave the room for even a SECOND! This happens even if Jonah and Wyatt are sitting right next to him and even touching him. Then when I come back from another room Sammy laughs and smiles! It's almost like he is bipolar! Wyatt never had separation issues as a baby, so this is all new territory for me. Fortunately, one of my friends told me that you can order life-size cutout pictures of yourself on Shutterfly.....I may put a cutout of me in every room of the house if this phase doesn't end soon!

Tong Demo

It's always entertaining at our house these days!

Mr Fix It

Wyatt is obsessed with tools. This afternoon I caught him using a whisk that he took out of the utensil drawer to work on one of his toys. He put it into each screw hole in the cart and tried to get the screws to turn. When he saw me watching him, he tried to get me to get a real screwdriver for him out of the cupboard. He is an amazing little person! Maybe I should get him an erector set for his birthday in a few weeks!

Remember When.....

Let's take a little walk back through time. Interesting hmmmm?

Homeschooling

Wyatt loves doing flash cards with me. The cards have pictures of things like ball, balloon, fish, bus, truck, etc. We do "pretend" speech therapy sessions about once a week and he gets so excited. He makes me get out his seat that he uses with Margo and we do all of the same things that Margo does when she comes for speech therapy, but the condensed version. The other day when we were in "fake speech therapy" Wyatt held up each flashcard for Jonah and Samuel and said the word on the card to them. It was funny, because they actually looked like they were paying attention to him and looked at each card and smiled when he said the word! I hope it rubs off on them because I don't want to do the speech thing with either of them...it is frustrating guessing what Wyatt wants all of the time, and I can't imagine doing it with two more!

Two Steps Forward.....

I am always trying to get ahead of the game when it comes to the mornings. Mornings are the absolute worst time of the day. Everybody is yelling and crying and wants to eat, but there are never enough hands to go around. Every time that I get a good groove going, something changes....somebody gets sick, Wyatt decides that he doesn't like the normal breakfast food anymore, the twins start eating solid foods, etc. Today was a pretty good day. Everybody was fed, changed (seriously 5 poopy diapers in 15 minutes), dressed (in matching outfits I might add) in record time, and then I got carried away. I put in a load of laundry! I even put it into the dryer... and then Wyatt struck! As I was making a phone call, he unloaded the dryer, brought it into the den, and proceeded to sit on the laundry and wipe his nose on EVERY piece of clean clothes in the entire load. That's what I get for teaching my kid how to blow!

Drool Monster

I can't believe how much Jonah has been drooling lately, but then I got a good look at his mouth and I know....he has about 50 teeth coming in right now!

Chatterbox

Wyatt has become a nonstop talker lately. I only understand about 1% of what he says, but that doesn't seem to stop him from jabbering away. We went to a new park this morning that must have been in the main flightpath for the airport, because there were tons of planes that flew overhead. Every time a plane went by Wyatt yelled "airplane" followed by about 10 other things that I didn't understand. I usually pretend that I know what he is saying and say things like "Yes, we see airplanes at home too." or "they fly really high up in the air", but I am really curious what he is actually saying.

Home Again

We drove back home this morning. Samuel is still ultra-crabby from his cold/medicine, but otherwise the trip went well. He finished up his medication today, so I am hoping that his mood will start to improve. I think that the antibiotic and steroid helped with the cold, but have made him ravenously hungry and highly moody. John hasn't seen the boys in almost a week and when he saw Jonah, he said that his cheeks and face were HUGE! I will have to take a cheek picture tomorrow and compare with an old picture to see for myself. It is hard to notice all of the changes when I see the boys every day!

Heading Home

Tomorrow morning we are heading home right after breakfast. Wyatt will miss the daily ritual of feeding the ducks with Grandma and Grandpa though. He says "Hi Ducks" every time that he walks by the door on the back porch. The ducks get fed a lot so they are very tame as far as ducks go. Maybe we can feed the cows down the street at home instead!

Corny

Gotta love this kind of help.

Mommy's Sick

I have a flu/food poisoning bug and am sick sick sick. Sorry, but I'm posting a leftover picture from yesterday!