Happy New Year 2009 !!!!!

Manners

Why is it that a three year old can say "please" and "thank you" without prompting, but constantly picks their nose and wipes it on the wall?

Early Birthday Bash

We celebrated Jonah and Sammy's birthday a little early today! They will be two years old on Thursday!

Merry Christmas 2008!

Merry Christmas 2008! We feel blessed to be spending our holidays with our families and our 3 and 1/2 beautiful boys! This year just keeps getting better! This picture (my favorite from Christmas) perfectly captures the joy and excitement that has been on our kids faces this season and keeps reminding me of how the simple things are often the most rewarding!

Piano Grams

The boys LOVE Grandma's piano playing skills especially her ability to sing while playing. Wyatt keeps asking John and I to play him songs on the piano AND sing along. He doesn't realize how hard it really is!

Sledding 101

Daddy and Grandpa took Wyatt sledding on the local sledding hill today. I wasn't sure if Wyatt would be scared, but everyone had a great time!

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Who would have thought that Pittsburgh would feel like the tropics compared to Michigan? It is freezing here and there is tons of snow, but we made it safely to Michigan yesterday afternoon! Grandpa made a train table for his train set and the boys were busy running the train until bedtime! They were so excited! We went to the 8:15 am church service this morning with all of the kids and got some exercise chasing them all around the sanctuary during the service. Jonah and Sammy even went up on the altar and took a bunch of ornaments off the Christmas tree during the church service, but everyone thought that they were so cute that they were quickly forgiven by everyone in the congregation! We are hoping for a warm up tomorrow so that we can finish some last minute Christmas shopping!

Happy Birthday Kathie!!!

Happy birthday to Grandma. She just turned 50 today! The boys are excited to visit everybody in Michigan, but I am dying with all of the packing! Do you know what I hate about packing? Everything!!!!!! We are leaving tomorrow for Michigan and I feel like I am already forgetting everything! At least I remembered to give everybody haircuts!

Sleep Position #352

Wyatt chooses some interesting sleep positions at naptime. This is one of the most creative so far. When he woke up I said "Did you know that you fell asleep in your chair in your bedroom?" and Wyatt said "Yes". I said "Why?" and he said "Because I was really tired!"

Maple Syrup

Jonah is allergic to maple syrup. This is the second time that he has had this reaction and it was definitely from eating pancakes this time (the last time was more mild and he had eaten several new things so I wasn't sure)! He started looking like this within 2 minutes of finishing his meal! I will have to figure out if there is some preservative that he is allergic to or if it is the maple part because he has eaten other brands of maple syrup without any problems. So far this is the only food allergy that we have seen in any of the kids (besides Wyatt's peanut allergy, which I really don't think he has any more but am nervous to test out) so we are pretty lucky!

Feeling Better!

Sammy seems to be feeling a lot better today!

Christmasland

Yesterday my friend Bethany and I took all of our kids to Christmasland. It reminds me of Bronners in Michigan...a Christmas superstore with tree displays, Santa, and more toys and decorations than you can wrap your mind around. The kids had a lot of fun and especially loved the Jingle Bell display! After we got home and the kids napped, I decided to take Sammy to the doctor since he seemed to be feeling worse and it turns out he has strep throat! The doctor told me that it is contagious (duh!??!?!) and there is a good chance that the other kids were exposed so I am looking forward to the rest of the troops being stricken! Yipee, more illness and sick kids...just what I asked for from Santa!

Why I Stay Up So Late At Night

Yes, John was sick and stayed home today! He did watch the twins while I took Wyatt to preschool and ran to the post office, but then he had to go into work for a while to send some e-mails that were of the utmost importance. On the way home from work though he managed to run to the grocery store which was even better than him watching the kids so that I could go! It was still a long day! Sammy appears to feel slightly better today than yesterday, so I have high hopes for tomorrow!
At the end of the day when everyone is tucked into bed these are some of the things that I do EVERY.SINGLE.NIGHT besides the obvious cleaning. I'm starting to think that I am the only one... Let's see.....
1.Tighten all of the cabinet knobs on the kitchen cupboards (yes, daily)
2. Turn off the optional chime buttons on the washer and dryer (again, daily)
3. Check all of the first floor window locks (I usually find at least 2 that are unlocked)
4. Check inside all of the backpacks (all pockets) for hidden or spoiled sippy cups (I always find one)
5. Make sure that the padlocks on the medicine storage boxes are locked (we bought locks with a three number combo instead of a key because Wyatt steals keys and hides them in his room to access things when he is supposed to be asleep. I freaked out earlier this week when I found one unlocked, but it turned out that John didn't close it correctly!)
6. Make sure that the spare bedroom and bathroom is locked upstairs (these are what the stolen keys were used to access in the wee hours of the morning...we lost 1/2 gallon of bubble bath and discovered that Wyatt was secretly pooping in the spare bathroom. We also discovered his large stash of stolen keys!)
7. Check to make sure that the high lock on the front door is locked to prevent a midnight escapee.

Falling Like Flies

John is down for the count. He thinks that he may be staying home from work tomorrow if he doesn't feel any better by tomorrow morning. I feel bad for him, but I am a little excited to have a babysitter here tomorrow! Is that wrong? I have a ton of errands to do and it would be great to be able to do them without kids! Christmas cards will be sent out tomorrow and I have to make a special trip to the post office to figure out how to send something to Australia (for Maree)! I could also go grocery shopping without children and get everything accomplished in half the time without any little ones in tow! How I'm torn!
This morning I had to get my 1-hour glucose test done to make sure that I am not a gestational diabetic. I was dreading the appointment until John made arrangements to stay home for an hour this morning so that I could go and get the test without dragging the kids along. I have to sit in the office for 1 hour after drinking the glucose drink before I get the blood draw and I was picturing what their office would look like if all three kids had to stay in an office filled with needles and blood for an hour first thing in the morning. It wouldn't have been pretty! Anyways, John stayed home with them and I went by myself and it was glorious. I read the entire paper cover to cover without a single interruption! I addressed Christmas cards and stamped them. I hummed Christmas tunes. I completed every thought that passed through my head! One silly old man made the mistake of trying to start up a conversation with me in the waiting room and I gave him a beat down. I had an hour to myself and my thoughts and I wasn't going to share it with anyone, especially a perfect stranger! It might not be such a bad thing if I fail the one hour test and have to come back for the 4 hour glucose test now that I think about it would it!?!?!?

My Non-Sickie

Jonah is the only kid right now that appears to be totally healthy!

Santa

The boys sat with Santa today and nobody cried!

rodgers Dispatch

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Sick City

Jonah woke up with a fever today. He was super extra clingy all day (hard to imagine that it could get much worse, but it can!). I am perplexed by this illness....how would Jonah be the only kid to get something? Everything usually starts with Wyatt! Weird! The poor little guy was up tonight at 9:30 pm to get some more Motrin and he looked so pathetic! I am a little scared to see what tomorrow brings!

Super undies

For the last three days Sammy has insisted on wearing undies over his clothes. What a ham!

One Month and Counting

I am having trouble wrapping my thoughts around the fact that Jonah and Samuel will be two years old in a month! I am hoping to put together a video of their first two years sometime before then.

Winter Spirit

You can't even imagine how hard this shot was to get!

Construction Work

Today we did a little black Friday shopping. We took some family pictures and decorated gingerbread houses this afternoon (Sammy was a riot. He wouldn't let anyone put his candy on the house because he wanted to eat it all. If we managed to get some of his candy on the house, then he would take it back off and put it into his bowl.) Then John and I escaped tonight and did a little more black Friday shopping by ourselves. We have a jam packed day planned for tomorrow so everyone went to sleep early tonight!

Happy Thanksgiving 2008

We have a lot to be thankful for again this year!

Almost Turkey Day!

We spent the morning checking out the Christmas flower at the conservatory. We all had a great time and were dead tired by the end of the day!

Best Friends

You might think that these three look like best friends, but then you didn't see the newest bite mark on Jonah's back!

Brrrrrrrr!

It's chilly here! Well, it is actually the warmest that it has been lately, but Wyatt turned off the furnace switch on the side of the furnace and John and I froze all night before we figured out what happened! We did watch tv snuggled under the same blanket which was nice though....

Getting Ready for the Holidays

I finally found the time to take down all of our Halloween decorations today (which consisted of three handmade ghosts)! Obviously we had to replace them with something, so the boys made some candy canes to hang up instead. The rest of the day was spent destroying everything in sight (which is why the three candy canes will be the full extent of our Christmas decorations this year)! The path of destruction ended with Wyatt lathering Vicks Vapor Rub all over himself after he escaped from his bedroom tonight. What is the smallest size that they make for straight jackets?

Snowy Saturday

We got some more snow today. The kids still have a bunch of toys on the deck and I was waiting until the snow melted to get everything, but I have a feeling that I may be waiting a while!

All Smiles

I took this picture today and it quickly became my new favorite picture of Jonah!

Thanksgiving Pageant

Tonight Wyatt was "in" a Thanksgiving pageant. I am using the word "in" loosely at this point. Remember the movie Parenthood with Steve Martin and the scene with the auditorium performance at school where the youngest kid destroys the entire set and gets all of the older kids fighting? Wyatt's performance went slightly better than that. I had to go on stage with him....in front of seriously 140 people....while pregnant...while my other two kids screamed and cried "Mommy" over and over again. After the performance John sat by the exit door holding a coffee can for donations for us to get a nanny. We made $400. Can you imagine how much we are going to make off of the Christmas pageant?