Visitors

Could Wyatt be any happier that Grandma and Grandpa came today for a visit?!?!?

Before and After

This is what the playroom looks like first thing in the morning....then last thing at night!

Recovering

Thankfully the boys are all on the mend!

The Plague

Now Sammy has the bug and John and I are feeling kind of funny too! The good news is that Wyatt and Jonah seemed to be feeling better today just a little more tired than normal.

Puke City

My intuitions yesterday were right on! Jonah and Wyatt both have a stomach bug and I'm sure that it is just a matter of time before Sammy gets it!!! In between the numerous loads of laundry and vomiting, we managed to shoot this clip today of Jonah coming out of the closet! Pretty good for a sickie huh?

Cold Thrill

Good stuff from today...
*I took Wyatt to the store today and the whole way to the grocery store he wanted to know if we were going to the "choo choo store" (which is Toys R Us).
*I am pretty sure that Jonah is a closet walker. He can take up to 5 steps if he is forced to walk, but really prefers to crawl.
*All of the boys can do most of the hand motions to The Itsy Bitsy Spider
*Jonah threw up in his crib tonight at 11pm. It was his entire dinner. He woke Sammy up and we had to feed them both again. Jonah drank water and Sammy drank milk. I am hoping that we do not see them again tonight, but I am a little worried.....

Pasta

Choo Choo

Wyatt has become obsessed with "choo choos" lately. Today he took EVERY book off the bookshelf in the playroom to see if he could find trains in each book. He asked to play with his train a couple of hundred times today before I told him that he could play choo choo with Daddy when he got home from work. He sure loves one-on-one time with Daddy and his choo choo!

Under the Table #2

The boys spent the majority of their day under the table in the playroom again!

Hiding Out

After I put Wyatt in bed for a nap and was cleaning the kitchen from lunch, I heard giggling coming from the playroom and went to check it out. Usually hearing laughter when I am not in the room means that somebody is doing something that they are not supposed to be doing. Usually Wyatt is the cause of the laughter, but he was already sleeping (aka jumping and bouncing in his crib). So today when I peeked into the playroom, I had to grab my camera to catch this scene of the twins playing and giggling all by themselves. It was a very cute sight to see!

Play-Dough Maniac

Wyatt is OBSESSED with play-dough! He asks to play with it at least 50 times a day! I usually only let him do it after Jonah and Sammy are in bed since he likes to share play-dough with them and they like to eat it! Maybe he likes the one-on-one time with Mom or maybe he is a little more artsy than his parents, but he will play with Play-dough for 45 minutes at a time without moving! Therefore, I have also become obsessed with Play-dough, but for completely different reasons than my 2 year old!

One More

Here's another funny picture of the cookie making yesterday! Check out the intensity!
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I didn't take any pictures of the kids today since I am sick! I have a killer sore throat that is resistant to Motrin and Tylenol! I think that I may even use up one of my sick days tomorrow if I don't improve!

Better Late Than Never!

We made Valentine's Day cookies today! Wyatt was in charge of sprinkles and touching each and every cookie before it went into the oven! Job well done!

Birthday Bash

Celebrating my birthday with my boys!

Spring Chicken

I am going to celebrate my birthday tomorrow with my 4 favorite boys! I am sure that they have BIG things planned for me and I can't wait!

Happy Valentine's Day!!!!!!!!

Have a lovely Valentine's Day!

Bye Bye

What a great farewell! These guys were all watching John leave the other night to go to Home Depot!

Project Gate

John spent the better part of last weekend putting up a gate between the playroom and the rest of the house at my request. It required a lot of planning since one side of the gate would be attached to a banister. I bought the $60 gate and John bought about $20 worth of wood and screws and painted it all to match the stairs. Finally on Sunday night we got the gate up and I was thrilled to test it out. So, this morning I put all three kids in the playroom and then ran out to the driveway to get the newspaper (which I was SURE that I would finally be able to read) and was greeted by Wyatt in the basement when I came back in. In the midst of my shock I was able to ask him how he got out of the playroom to which he replied..."Come here. Wyatt goed under gate like dis". He then proceeded to show me how he could shimmy his way underneath the gate and get back into the playroom. He was very proud of himself...I on the other hand was not so much! I called John at work to tell him what happened and he thought that it was simply hysterical! When I went to my Mothers of Multiples meeting tonight John took these pictures.

Mommy Scientist

Last week was a parenting nightmare...mostly because Wyatt didn't nap for 4 days in a row. All of my mom friends kept telling me that some kids give up naps when they turn two...and I was worried that Wyatt was one of them. The perplexing thing was that he was SERIOUSLY tired on the non-nap days. He needed to nap, but there was just something stopping him! What was it? Then on Thursday I remembered something that I had read in a scientific journal back when I used to be smart and spent my free time getting smarter. I didn't find the exact article but here is my introduction:

Take a warm shower If you miss a workout, you can still ease sleep-hindering anxiety by taking a warm shower or bath 90 minutes before bed, decreasing the water temperature toward the end. The water is a relaxant (tense muscles can increase your body temperature at night, interfering with the onset of sleep). "The heat warms the surface of the skin and the muscle below it, and the blood vessels dilate," says Smolensky. "That brings more blood flow to the area." The increased circulation brings more oxygen to your muscles and carries away built-up metabolic waste. Additionally, there will be a compensatory drop in your body temperature after the shower, similar to what happens post-exercise.

Take a hot shower or bath before you go to bed—about thirty minutes before you want to turn out the lights. The reason why it works is because the hot water makes our body temperature increase. When our bodies get warm, it is a signal to our brains that it is time for sleep. A recent study presented at the Association of Professional Sleep Societies’ annual meeting this year in New Orleans, LA, showed that hot baths were as effective in inducing sleep as taking a popular sleeping pill! Not only did the baths make people fall asleep faster—they even increased the amount of deep sleep they had—which sleeping pills tend to diminish. How’s that for a great, natural way to relax and fall asleep?

Materials and Methods:
A two year old boy
A hot shower
A hairdryer
A crib

Results:
Giving a 2 year old boy a shower between 10:30 am and 11 am, then using a hair dryer on his hair and body, and putting him in his crib elicits sleep within 40 minutes +/- 2 minutes

Conclusion:
This experiment needs to be further investigated with more small boys (to follow shortly), but indicates that the shower, hair dryer, crib method of sleep induction is highly effective.

Triple Take

The magnificent trio!

TGIF

I love Fridays...especially this week!

Sleepless in Pittsburgh

Sammy was up at 4am this morning
Wyatt didn't nap at all today (but managed to undress himself in bed 2x)
John and I were up at 4am and didn't nap at all today
Thus, the kids were in bed at 6:10pm tonight! Yipee!!! John and I ate dinner together ALONE after the kids went to bed and it was heavenly (after we realized that we didn't have to talk really really fast and shout at each other)! We both finished all of our sentences on the first try too...it was kind of weird! We decided that we are going to do that once a week and eat with the kids the other 6 days a week (despite John's pleas to do the opposite schedule and eat with the boys 1 night a week)! Why didn't anyone tell us that we should have done that a long time ago!?!?

Birthday Fun

Today I took the boys to Lilliput for a birthday party for a little boy who turned two. Lilliput is a store that sells swing sets and playhouses and they have a bunch of houses set up like a little village for the kids to play. I went with our twin playgroup which has 7 moms and 19 kids! We had pizza and cake and my three boys out-ate everyone else there! It was shocking really, but we had a good time!

Busy Bee

What I didn't write about yesterday was that my boys were horrible. We truly had one of our worst days ever! Wyatt didn't nap all day and was in bed and asleep by 6:15 pm and Jonah and Sam were competing for the biggest whiner of the year award. I called John at work and even asked him if he could come home early because I needed some mental health time, but he couldn't leave early. Fortunately I had plans to go out to dinner with some girls from the neighborhood and got some much needed adult time yesterday!! Today went really well and I am wiping yesterday off the books as an anomaly! I took the boys to a Kindermusik class this morning (which they LOVED) and then Wyatt had speech this afternoon. It was a busy day for us, but left little time for the boys to get bored!

Messes and Masterpieces

This scene is repeated roughly 20 times a day!

Happy Birthday Grandma and Triston!!!

We were all sad that we didn't get to wish Grandma and Triston a happy birthday in person, but hoping that they both had great birthdays!!!! In other news, Wyatt achieved an important milestone today. He launched himself out of his crib tonight and landed on his head!!!! John and I heard him hit the floor from downstairs and knew right away what happened. We made it to his room before he even made it to his door. Of course he was hysterical and his heart was racing really fast, but he didn't seem to have any marks on him other than the goose-egg on his forehead. He kept saying "Wyatt fell down....boo-boo" and pointing to his head. Poor baby! I am going to look into getting a crib tent, but he seems pretty scared about falling again, so he might not try that for a while. I made him pose for a picture with his ice bag after he fell out tonight and tell me what happened!

Eye Color

Genetically John and I could have kids with any eye color from blue all the way to my color of brown but not any darker than my eye color. How strange is it that Jonah has blue eyes, Wyatt has green eyes, and Sammy has brown eyes? I wonder what color eyes the next one will have??? JUST KIDDING!!!!!!!

The Potty

Wyatt's latest obsession is having his toys go "poop on the potty". We have not even attempted to take this leap with him and start potty training, but he sure is into it! Today he had his baby go "poop on the potty" and then this afternoon Wyatt had a firetruck go "poop on the potty". He even wiped the firetruck, flushed the toilet for him, and said "all done". Too funny...the stuff that he comes up with!!!!

My Littlest Love

How cute is this little guy?!?! He is the smallest by far, but feisty in red!