Random Tidbits from Thanksgiving

Christina got Wyatt hooked on gum this weekend. He is obsessed with gum. He thinks that he is an adult when he chews gum. Yesterday I took the kids to the store to pick up a few things and I let him pick out some gum for himself. He chose pink gum...strawberry flavor. So far he hasn't swallowed any and remembers to spit it into the garbage can when he is done with it. He loves it! I like it for the bribery potential involved in loving something that much! Thanks Christina!

I am already getting sick of Jingle Bells. The Raffi version isn't bad, but when it is played almost continuously for days on end it can make your ears bleed!

We got the Christmas tree up last weekend! It is the first time that we have had a Christmas tree up in this house. The kids LOVE it. They have not messed with it too much. I am impressed!

Shane needs a stocking!

Short One

We enjoyed a great Thanksgiving holiday with Mom and Dad and Aaron and Christina. We were sad to see them all go today, but are looking forward to seeing everyone again soon in a few weeks when we go to Michigan for Christmas.

Thanksgiving Drama

We are hosting Thanksgiving this year. We have done it since John and I got married almost 12 years ago. It is a great tradition that we look forward to each year!

Every year we have had glitches and Thanksgiving day doesn't go exactly according to plan.

There was the year that we deep fried the turkey when we were still living at Fred's house. We had 16 people over including grandmas from both sides and my grandma could not stop complaining about how terrible the turkey tasted. She thought that we ruined the traditional turkey flavor by frying it up in grease. (Weird though because I swear that one year when I was little she had lobster for Thanksgiving, but whatever!) That was the same year that we all played the board game Taboo after dinner and my grandma got the word "dead" and had to act it out. She was hilarious. I don't think that I have laughed that hard since! I can still picture how she tilted her head to the side and closed her eyes and just kept laying there while everyone was guessing and the timer was long expired. It was legendary!

Then there was the year that John put the turkey in the laundry tub to thaw it out. He turned the water on and walked away. When I came downstairs 30 minutes later, water was POURING over the side of the tub, seeping through the wood floor, and running out the ceiling in the basement. That was an expensive turkey!

This year was already filled with drama. Yesterday I dumped some spaghetti noodles down the sink and it clogged the drain. When John got home from work we sat down to eat before attempting to clear the drain only to realize that the roast that I had been cooking for 5 hours was still raw! We ended up eating sandwiches for dinner and then John started working on the drain. After three hours and 2 Home Depot trips we ended up calling a plumber. I left messages with 3 different plumbers and finally got somebody to show up today. After 1 hour, 50 feet of snake, and $150 he pulled out a washcloth that was lodged somewhere in our pipe and we were back in business.

So I am hoping that we got our yearly dose of Thanksgiving excitement out of the way early because I don't think that I can handle any more. My Thanksgiving plate is officially full!

9 Months Old!!!

Where has the time gone? My baby boy turned 9 months old today! It seems like yesterday that we were bringing him home from the hospital and making room for him in our house full of boys.


Shane is still the most wonderfully pleasant baby that I have ever met. He is happy doing just about anything. Days will pas without us ever hearing him cry. If his basic needs of food, diapers and sleep are met, then he is smiling almost constantly.



He loves his big brothers and they are equally enamored with him. In spite of his early resentment of Shane, Jonah has even become his friend. They boys fight to be the first to wake him in the morning and the last to say good night to him at night. They shower him with toys and jump to grab anything that he accidentally drops. Wyatt has even staked claim to a specific seat in the van because he can "see Shane the best from that seat".



Shane is very attached to his Mommy and I am very attached to him. I can't get enough of his sweet little laugh and his toothless grin. I can literally count on one hand the number of times that I have ever became frustrated with him. He has made me one proud Mommy during the last 9 months! I can't wait to see what a wonderful little guy he turns into in the next 9 months!

Holiday Baking

This is the first year in a long time that I am really excited about holiday baking.

I used to come home from college and bake with Mom and Al. I really looked forward to it. We would bake cookies and have Christmas music playing in the background. Usually the music consisted of Mom playing carols on the piano in the living room while we made sugar cookies or fudge or something sweet in the kitchen. Afterward Al and I would belt out some mixed handed piano carols. She always played the left hand and I always played the right hand. Our music got mixed reviews, but it was a tradition.

We were usually in a hurry to finish baking because Mom always volunteered us to play our violin and cello for church. We always had about 2 hours to learn the music and we were still usually tired from finals. It was like our LAST final exam... in front of God! The pressure!!!! It always went well though. People love stringed instruments on Christmas Eve. It doesn't matter how good you play...they just love the sound of the music. We enjoyed being a part of the church service together and it became a tradition.

The past few Christmases have been less "traditional" and I have missed it. The Christmas after Wyatt was born was sad because he was 11 weeks old on Christmas. I had been on maternity leave and I knew that I was going back to work right after Christmas and I was having a hard time thinking about leaving my beautiful baby with a sitter. I had a lot of mixed feelings that Christmas.

The next Christmas I was pregnant with the twins. I was hoping to have 2 little bundles of joy under the tree on Christmas day, but I had to wait! Jonah and Sam were born exactly 1 week after Christmas. I was ginormously uncomfortable and definitely not enjoying Christmas as much as I would have liked that year!

The next Christmas was tricky. The boys were too young to grasp the concept and were not really great listeners yet (as if they are now?!?!?) so we didn't even decorate that year. We were nervous that they would get into the ornaments and lights and get hurt. Actually that same year when we visited Grandma Kathie and Grandpa Bill's house, Wyatt bit into a Christmas light bulb on their tree and it broke in his mouth! They ended up taking their Christmas tree down the next day. We were all a little freaked out!

Then of course last Christmas I was pregnant for Shane. I was exhausted! Being pregnant with three kids 3 and under tires you out! The thought of decorating for Christmas and then having to take everything down a few weeks later was comical. John and I didn't even entertain the thought! Christmas baking required too much standing on my part and my legs couldn't take it. I did make some cookies, but it was a feeble attempt.

This Christmas is different. It is game-on for us this year. The kids understand the concept of Santa. They appreciate Christmas lights for their beauty and not their taste. They are already talking about a Christmas tree. They want to bake. They want to make Christmas projects. They want to see Santa. They want to make Christmas lists. They have been listening to Jingle Bells non-stop already this year. It is going to be a great Christmas!

One of the most exciting parts is starting Christmas traditions with my kids that they will look forward to each year. I got them each an Advent calendar that has a little toy figurine to open each day in December that is part of a Christmas scene. On Christmas day they will open the last piece and each of them will have a complete Christmas scene with Santa. I am hoping that we can repeat this each year and someday they can pass their Advent calendar down to their own kids...because it is a tradition!

We also started our holiday baking this weekend. The boys listened to Jingle bells on continuous repeat while we tried out a new baking craft. They were able to participate with hardly any help from me. It was great. Shane even watched (look for him in one of the pictures)! They put a big marshmallow on a popsicle stick, dipped it in melted chocolate, and then rolled it in sprinkles. It dried for about 10 minutes and then they sampled their creations! Very easy and fun! We used holiday sprinkles and milk chocolate, but you could use white or colored chocolate and add coconut or mixed chopped dried fruit. It has a lot of possibilities and we will repeating this one again next year for sure... because it's a tradition!

Plenty of Room

When you have 4 kids, sometimes you run out of places for everybody to sleep....

The news from Lake Wobegon

There are a hodgepodge of newsworthy items this week so far...

My friend Laura from MSU who is also a twin momma and faithful blog reader in Oklahoma, informed me that she suspected that the alphabet train that I had purchased was recalled. Upon further inspection, it looks like she was correct. I purchased a train that has excess levels of lead in the paint. And as we all know, lead can cause learning delays, so it may not be the best toy to help my kids learn their letters after all! I am planning on contacting the company that manufactured the train and see about getting a refund tomorrow. You know, cuz I have so much free time to spend on the phone during the day!

I finally found a place that has the H1N1 flu shot for Shane. I made an appointment for Friday and am hoping that they don't run out of the shot beore we get there! I will finally be able to breathe a huge sigh of relief that we are ALL protected!

John did a mini closet makeover this week. He installed some hooks. We are big believers in hooks when it comes to kids. So, John put a row of hooks underneath the hanging bar in the front hall closet to give us places to hang the kids coats. I never put the kids coats on hangers so they are always laying around in piles and it drives me crazy, but now with these hooks, we have a great system! It's a must-have for kids coats! Yipee!

I have been trying to teach the kids about Thanksgiving. I got some books from the library and bough a Dora Thanksgiving book from the bookstore. We have been talking about being thankful for all of our blessings. They don't really understand the pilgrim/indian thing yet, but I have talked about it a bit. This week the kids made a corn on the cob craft project to celebrate the Thanksgiving bounty. They loved the glue. I have no idea how much of the Thanksgiving concept is sinking in, but they sure loved the glue!

I have a new threat that has been working wonders with the kids when we are out shopping. I told them that every store has a room for kids that aren't listening to their mommies. If you don't listen then you have to go in the room all by yourself and you can't come out until the mommy leaves the store. My kids are terrified about having to go into the naughty room. They ask me where it is, what it looks like, and who is in there every time that we enter a store. I usually say that it is in the back and you can't see it until you have to go in there. All that I have to say when we are shopping and the kids start to act up is "Do I need to find out where the naughty room is and have somebody take you there?" and they get right back in line! Or if they are acting out and they see an employee start to walk by they assume that they are checking the store for naughty kids and straighten out all by themselves! It's great! The best part is that even if the kids ask an employee about a naughty room, the employees look at me and when I nod they tell the kids that there is such a room and it is not a fun place to have to go! Everybody plays along!

My Doer

Wyatt is still having trouble with learning all of his letters and it's stressing me out! I think that he has a very different learning style than either John or I. I am a visual learner and I think that John is a visual learner as well.

I am still trying to figure out all of the different learning styles, how to determine a person's style, and how to encourage learning with each different style and each different person.

One book that I read states that there are "talkers, watchers, and doers". Wyatt is a doer. So he needs lots of opportunities for hand on learning... cooking with Mom, handling objects, and touching things.

The book went on to say that although "does" may be bright, they are at most risk for failure in school because school is mostly letters and numbers, abstract symbols on worksheets and teaching through visual and auditory methods. So it's our job as parents to understand our child's pattern for learning and help them be successful in any environment. Sounds easy right?

There's more...some kids learn best in a group. Some kids excel individually. Other kids need a structured classroom while some kids need to discover concepts without guidance. Some kids need to see the big picture before breaking things down into smaller parts and other kids learn best in logical steps and want rules for doing new tasks.

How does your child process information?

Some kids learn best by seeing. Reading, observing pictures, and studying diagrams--these are visual learners (watchers). Jonah is here!
Some kids strength is hearing explanations and talking about the information--these are auditory learners (talkers). Samuel fits in here!
Other kids need to get their muscles, movement, and touch involved in the learning process by doing an experiment, rehearsing, or taking an active approach--these are kinesthestic learners (doers).
Some kids use combinations of all three methods of learning.

The book goes on to talk about the benefits of determining a person's unique style of learning and even says that siblings rarely have the exact same style of learning. (At least with 4 kids 2 of them should have the same learning style!)

Its a lot of information. I am still figuring all of this stuff out. But the stuff that I have read so far reaffirms my decision last week to pull Wyatt out of his preschool and put him into a different preschool. It was a tough decision. But the new preschool is less structured and he will get more individual attention. I don't think that we are going to regret the decision. I am still struggling to help him with his letters at home though, which is why I bid on and won this awesome train set. You know what they say...if you can't beat 'em... join 'em!

Special Dinners

John was out of town all last week. He left Monday morning and didn't get back until Friday. I was alone with all four kids by myself without any backup for 5 days! It was a tough week!

It went well though. We did a lot of "special" dinners that included cereal, pop tarts, eggs, and jelly sandwiches. As a matter of fact I think that we had a vegetarian week here without Daddy around. We didn't miss our meat one bit!

We also got to watch Dora while we ate last week, since it was a special privilege for kids that listened in the shower. Everybody listened in the shower. Nobody pushed or dumped water on anybody else. Everybody brushed their teeth and didn't complain. And everybody quietly put their jammies on by themselves so that we didn't wake Shane up.

Bribery works!

On Thursday afternoon Wyatt told me that he wanted to do something special for dinner and go to a restaurant. I agreed and asked him where he wanted to go. He said the Chicken Store (Chick Fil A), so we packed everybody up and went out to dinner.

I think that was the first time that I have ever taken all 4 kids out to dinner by myself! It went well. Except for the part where I was ordering and the 16 year old girl behind the corner kept asking me what meal I wanted. "If you are getting the nuggets and fries, but not the pop, then you should get the kids value meal, but then you will have to pay extra for the juice boxes. Do you want that? Or do you want the number 2 with an extra fry instead and then pay for 3 separate boxes? Or, do you want 2 number 2 meals with 6 nuggets only that will add up to 12 nuggets and only pay for 1 juice box, but have an extra fry?".

Meanwhile the kids were LOADING up on condiments from the condiment counter. They were stuffing packets of ketchup in their pockets, pulling out hundreds of napkins, and unwraping straws by the handful.

The manager overheard the commotion and came to the register just in time to hear me say "All I want is 12 nuggets, 2 fries, and 3 juice boxes. However you make it happen is fine with me, just make it happen quickly!". The manager was incredibly helpful and got us all set up at a table with our food within minutes. She even checked on us a couple of times while we were eating. She may have been trying to figure out where we were hiding all of their condiments since the kids were opening ketchup at the speed of light. Their ratio was 1 packet of ketchup per 2 fries. I decided that it was fine since they were getting their one serving of vegetables after all!

But now John is back and the kids were thrilled to see him. Sam and John are BFF's. Sam likes John almost as much as Jonah likes me! It's shocking!

We attempted to take a Christmas picture outside today for our Christmas card, but I'm not thrilled with the results. John told me that my hair looked like a helmet in the picture. It did. So we will try again tomorrow if it is nice outside. We did get a couple of cute ones of the boys though....

What A Big Baby!

I got vaccinated for H1N1 today!

I still can't get the shot for Shane and he is too young to get the flu mist, so I will keep checking the local pediatricians for updates. At least I know that he won't get the Swine Flu from me or the kids now, so I am slightly relieved.

I had to stretch the truth a bit in order to receive the vaccination today. The target population to receive the vaccine includes caregivers of babies younger than 6 months. Shane is 8 months old so I am technically not in the target population. But, since I can't find the vaccine for him ANYWHERE I think that I still qualify as part of the "target population".

So, when the nurse looked at Shane and asked me how old he was I looked her straight in the eyes and said "he's five months old". Ok, she said, then you can receive the vaccine. So I did. And I don't feel bad about lying either!

He has got to be the largest 5 month old that I have ever seen! I don't know what she was thinking? Maybe she knew that he was older and let it go! Either way John is going there on Friday to get the mist since he is also the primary caregiver of a HUGE 5 month old baby! What can I say? Desperate times call for desperate measures!

School Pictures 2009

Not bad this year! I ordered the first one, but I'm still on the fence about the second picture... I feel like I have pictures like the second one that I took myself, but the first one has props that I obviously don't have.

Isn't it weird that all of the boys in the class picture are dressed in stripes? Is that the universal formal boy dress up outfit?

He looks so old to me in these pictures, but I am sure that sometime soon I will look at them and laugh about how young he looked when he was in preschool. Then I will cry about how young I looked when he was in preschool!

The Best Invention

I just discovered that Kinkos has an amazing service that is perfect for busy moms like me. You can email them a print job with instructions and personal contact information. They will prepare your print order and email you when it is ready for pick up. The best part is that it costs the exact same price as if you went into the store and did your own copying and printing! Isn't that amazing!

Half of the reason that I don't copy and print things is that I can't fathom taking all of my boys into Kinkos with me. I have been forced to do it a few times and it isn't pretty! There is a lot of threatening and bribery involved. But this is going to change everything!

Tonight I made up some worksheets for Wyatt and e-mailed them over to Kinkos so that I can pick them up on my way home from taking him to preschool tomorrow. I am also working on some fall craft projects for the kids that I will send over for Tuesday pick up. I have not figured out what I need printed for Wednesday yet, but I'm working on it. I am so excited, the possibilities are endless!

Poopy Head!

What can I say? They learned it from their Daddy!

I want food!

This little guy is in desperate need of some new kinds of baby food. We are down to bananas and Cheerios. Tomorrow I will have to take them shopping for some grub!

The Time Change

So far this time change has been a little rough on the boys.....

Halloween Etiquette

The boys were really pumped up about Halloween this year. They knew enough to be really excited about trick or treating. They knew that they were going to wear their 3 little pigs costumes. They knew that they were going to carry a bag and collect candy in it. They knew that John and I were going to walk around the neighborhood with them and that Keith was going to stay home to watch Shane and pass out candy.

We practiced saying "trick or treat" and "thank you" and "happy Halloween" a lot before Saturday. Unfortunately there were a few pointers that I forgot to share with the boys.

For example, I didn't tell them that you don't knock on the door knock, knock, knock, ring the door bell ring, ring, ring, ring, peer in the window, and then open the door and walk right in to people's houses.

If you manage to stay on the porch until the person opens the door you don't shove them aside and walk into their house like you live there.

You absolutely don't get to make requests about the candy that you would like to have. "I want M&M's, but not the ones with peanuts". "I want candy in a box". or "I want suckers".

When the neighbors hold the candy bowl out for you to choose from, be polite and pick one or two things. You don't take EVERY piece of candy in the bowl at lightening speed like you have never eaten candy before in your life. Otherwise your mom is forced to shout "only 2 pieces please" while explaining to the home owner that the kids were "in character" for their three little pigs costumes.

When the neighbors sit in their driveway or on their porch to pass out candy, it is not because their "house is broken". You do not need to keep asking everybody if they are sleeping outside because their house is broken. Daddy is not going to come over and fix their house for them either.

Finally, the last thing that we want to hear at 7 am on Sunday morning is "we forgot to trick or treat at those two houses across the street. Let's go over there right now and get some candy!".
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I met our new neighbors on the corner Sunday morning at 8 am. They are a 50ish year old gay couple from New York. I guess that they are technically not empty-nesters so it's a step up from the old neighbors, but not quite what I was hoping for. I was hoping that a young couple with 2-4 year old boys would move in. Instead we have Bill and I forget the other guys name and their dog "Cassidy". Somehow I don't envision them wanting to spend a lot of time hanging out at our house unless Cassidy want to come over for a playdate with Maggie!

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Shane is starting to sit up by himself. He is still pretty wobbly but it's a start.