The dynamic of having 4 kids is fascinating. The kids are almost always paired up into groups of two when they are playing together. The pairs change on a daily basis and sometimes even with each activity.
Wyatt and Sam are the two outdoors men. They love to play outside no matter what the weather is like. They get along fine when it is just the two of them playing for hours on end as long as they are outside.
But inside usually Jonah and Wyatt will pair up. They like the same games and toys and play the same way. They are get along fine playing together inside.
Sam and Shane have formed a really special bond with each other... despite the fact that Sam still calls Shane "Baby". They play so well together. Sam is really protective of Shane and will come running if he hears "Baby" crying to figure out what is upsetting Shane.
Shane almost always sits by Sam if given a choice. He imitates his big brother all day long. Sam and Shane are quite a pair.... like two peas in a pod.... or something like that!
Today is our 13th wedding anniversary! It was a fun filled day of celebration. We had 3 birthday parties, a family pool party, and then a dinner with just the two of us! We haven't celebrated this much since we landed our first jobs. It was wonderful to be surrounded with such joy on our special day!
On Friday morning we made some cookies to leave for Santa. The kids were pumped. I think that we went through 4 bottles of sprinkles. And I am pretty sure that 3 of them ended up on the floor!
After the kids went to bed on Friday night we had a babysitter come over and John and I went to a Christmas party in the subdivision. After we were there for about an hour I started to feel sick and told John that we needed to leave ASAP. Within 15 minutes of arriving home I knew that I had the stomach flu. I was up all night long.
John had to get everything ready for Santa by himself. Luckily everything was labeled and ready to go!
Saturday morning I was feeling slightly better and was able to stay up and watch the kids open gifts for about an hour and then I went back to bed until 7pm! So I didn't get to see the kids enjoying all of their new toys. They didn't seem to mind though!
Today I am feeling a lot better. I am hoping that nobody else gets sick before we travel to Michigan! That would be the best present yet!
My kids all LOVE to eat. But Sam may have a future as a competitive eater someday! He is a pure foodie! It doesn't matter what I make Sam will eat it all. He savors each bite. It is entertaining to watch him eat because there is so much excitement involved.
His new favorite food is cranberries cooked down on the stove....
Sometimes shoveling isn't so much fun. Sometimes wearing your snowsuit and helping the big boys shovel isn't quite what you expected. Sometimes falling face first in the snow is the last straw.
Sometimes passing out on the chair covered up with everybody's blankets is just what you needed!
We visited Santa again tonight. My boys didn't seem impressed with the big man this time. Maybe they noticed that Santa seems to have aged since Saturday.... hmmmmm.
Could it be because Santa seems like he may have taken up smoking lately?
Or could it be because we had a weather related school delay, no naps, a dentist appointment, and didn't visit Santa until 6pm?
I choose door number three!
Correct!
The news already lists another weather related school delay for tomorrow too! Agggggghhhhh!
Since I never took an "official" 5 year old picture of Wyatt, I am using his school pictures from October instead. They turned out really well. I ordered 1 sheet of wallets instead of the package deal and am pleased. I got to preview them before ordering and there were at least 6 poses to choose from. Wyatt looked great in them all!
The twins school pictures were last month. I never got to see them because I didn't order any packages. The least expensive package was $44!!!!!! For 2 kids I would have spent $88 to get 1-8x10, 2- 5x7's and 1 sheet of wallets plus a class picture for each kid. And since I didn't get to preview the picture the boys could have looked completely horrible. It takes me a long time to get good shots of Jonah so I can imagine that a total stranger would have had a really hard time getting a nice natural smile from him. He is not naturally photogenic like his two younger brothers!
Plus, I am SUPER picky when it comes to photos. I scrutinize like crazy. All I really wanted was a class picture and you couldn't just order 1 class picture. So we walked away without anything. So sad.
Instead I am going to start thinking about what I want to do for Jonah and Sam's 4 year old pictures. It's only 3 weeks away! I have to give the boys the perfect haircut, pick out the perfect clothes, and find the perfect spot. Plus it may take a few tries to get it right so I am going to start soon!
I told the kids that we were going to see Santa after they ate breakfast and got dressed this morning. Yipee!
Wyatt said "Mom, are you serious?" I said "Yes, we are really going to see Santa why?" Then Wyatt said "Well it's going to be a long trip to the North Pole."
This is the first year that nobody freaked out when they saw Santa.
Shane was curious. Who is this guy anyways? What's up with all of that white hair?
Then poor Santa made the mistake of asking the boys what they wanted for Christmas. And they all started talking at the exact same time! Loud louder and loudest!
Wyatt wants a rainbow and some keys (I am not even kidding on this). If all goes as planned he should be cross dressing by next year and be getting a sex change by age 7!
Sam wants a tractor and a REAL choo choo. Santa is going to fail miserably.
Jonah wants 2 M&M's and 4 lambs and a REAL choo choo. I don't even know what to say about this.
One of my friends said "2 M&M's? Way to set the bar low for Santa! He is going to look like a rock star if he brings the kid a whole bag of M&M's!"
Shane doesn't want anything. But I heard from the big man himself that Shane is getting a stocking full of fruit snacks, so he will be thrilled come fake Christmas morning.
Fake Christmas is exactly a week from today! It's a good thing that Santa is already done shopping and wrapping! He's going to have to spend the rest of the week trying to find a 2 Real choo choo's and a rainbow!
The twins have been very specific about the kind of birthday cakes that they want for their birthdays. Jonah wants a blue race car cake and Sam wants a tractor cake. Anyways, John works with a girl that makes cakes on the side and John asked her if she could do that kind of thing and she sent these.
They looked pretty good so I showed them to the boys and Jonah said that he doesn't want a "5" on it he wants a "J" on it, but otherwise it was good. Sam said that he really liked the tractor one, but he wants to be able to ride on his birthday cake!
The twins also have this new saying. Not Wyatt, this is just the twins. When they take a long nap they will say "Mom, I took a full moon nap" and if they took a short nap they will say "Mom, I took a half moon nap today". And they say it without smiling like it's not to be funny it's a real thing!
It is amazing how fast the boys have learned to play games on the Wii. Wyatt figured out how to play some of the games by himself and has taught Jonah and Samuel how to play now too. They can start the whole system up by themselves and switch games without any help from us!
It is funny hearing them talk while they are playing too "Look boys I'm riding through a volcano!". "Wyatt, don't drive off a cliff on purpose." "Turn it up, I want to hear the music when I beat you and win!"
Sam has been having trouble finding his name at school. When Jonah and Sam get to their school they have to check in. They find the apple with their name on it and move it from one side of the board to the other. Sounds simple right?
Jonah finds his name immediately and has usually taken off his coat, hung it up, taken his folder out of his backpack, and walked into his classroom before Sam correctly finds his name. It drives me CRAZY!
So a few months ago I made place mats for eating at home with each kids name on it. I figured that Sam spends so much time eating that surely it would sink in if he stared at his name 3 times a day every day for 30 minutes a pop.
Then last week he incorrectly moved the apple with the name "Sidney" from one side of the board to the other 3 times in a row! The EXACT same wrong apple. 3 times! I freaked out! His teacher even looked worried.
And then today we had a breakthrough...
Jonah knows that his name is longer than J-O, but those are the only letters that he can write so far......
Yesterday we hit the Home Depot for their Kids Clinic and let the kids make some Christmas picture frames. The kids tend to go heavy on the wood glue, but other than that they did really well. Then we went and checked out the Christmas displays and the boys found this train that they really wanted.
My boys could spend an entire morning in the Home Depot and be completely entertained. I love it!
Almost exactly a week to the day after getting locked out of the van we got locked out of the house too.
I picked up the boys from preschool, got home, opened the garage door, and then heard Wyatt say that somebody locked the door in the garage. I checked and sure enough the door between the garage and the house was locked. But it is one of those locks that uses a little pin to pop open so I didn't panic.
I rummaged through the tool box and found an alan wrench and stuck it in the hole. Then I realized that the issue wasn't really the lock itself. The door handle was turning, but it wasn't moving the inside metal mechanism so the door couldn't open. Hmmmmm.....
So I called John and told him our issue and asked him if we kept a key to the house in the garage so that I could get into the front door. He kept saying "I don't understand... why can't you just unlock the door? Did you try actually unlocking the door? How can you be locked out? It doesn't make sense. Then he said that the house keys were locked inside the house. So I told him that my neighbor had a key to the house and I would call her.
So I called my friend Carrie and went over to get our house key. She told me that if I had any more trouble to give her a call because she was an expert at breaking into houses????!!!?!?!?
Meanwhile it was lunchtime. The kids were hungry. Wyatt kept talking about not being able to nap in the garage. He started crying because he wanted his blue blanket. Then Jonah and Sam started crying because they thought that we were going to have to "start living in the garage"! Shane actually laid down on the carpet in the garage because he was so exhausted.
Finally I unlocked the dead bolt on the front door and realized that the top dead bolt lock on the inside was still locked. We installed a deadbolt at the top inside of the front door so that the kids would quit leaving the house at 5:30am and ringing the doorbell (but that's a whole other story...)
So we were still locked out!
Then I called John back. It was 12:30 pm and he told me that he could come home at 2:30 after a meeting and help us get inside. Uh huh right!
So I called Carrie back and she came over. She told me that she has broken into tons of houses using a credit card when friends and neighbors get locked out. She said that it has never failed. So we went to work on the door. First I used the credit card and she pulled back the weather stripping then she used the credit card and I pulled back the weather stripping. We still couldn't get the door open.
So I took off the other door handle mechanism and pried on the inside of it while Carrie used the credit card to try and free the locking mechanism. And finally we got the door open!
It turns out the a metal piece on the inside of the lock was broken and wouldn't allow the mechanism to move out of the door jam. John called the company and they sent us a new part and we are as good as new now.
Then this week at 5:30am Jonah and Sam came and woke me up and told me that they were locked out of their bedroom! WHAT??????
So I went and checked it out (because John was out of town) and sure enough their bedroom door had the same issue. The handle would turn but the inside of the lock was broken. I took it apart and the exact same piece is broken on their bedroom door too!
Is that the strangest thing or what? I honestly don't know if it is the kids or the locks, but I have become an expert at breaking and entering. I am thinking of becoming a locksmith.
The boys have convinced themselves that when Santa comes he is going to fill their stockings with candy. Santa really likes this idea because it is easy and cheap. Also, Santa doesn't want to let the kids down (but mostly easy and cheap). ******************************************* On the way back from the gym this morning Wyatt asked me if we could color eggs when we got home. I think somebody has their holidays a little mixed up!
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The boys are into telling secrets lately. Mom, I have a secret for you.... "I like dessert" or "I'm sitting next to you" or something equally non-secret-worthy.
But, the funny part is that now Shane will come over to me and whisper baby talk in my ear too. It's about the sweetest thing that you have ever seen!
How does he know to pull the oreo apart? Nature vs nurture. ******************************************
Have I mentioned our issues with door locks in this house lately?
One morning a few weeks ago I decided to take the kids to the grocery store. After I got everybody dressed and down to the garage I couldn't find the van keys. So, I went upstairs and looked and looked and looked. Nada.
Then I remembered that John had pulled the van up into the driveway the night before so I called him at work to ask him where the keys were. I knew that I had left one set in the diaper bag on the passenger seat and the other was in the center console. So I needed to know where John had stashed the set that he used to move the van.
John didn't answer his phone so I sent him an email. Usually he will respond to emails within 5 minutes. So we waited and waited and waited. In the garage.
So I called again and emailed again. Still nothing.
So we headed back upstairs. Then I listened to "Where are the van keys?" "Why isn't Daddy calling back?" "Did you look in the basket?" "Mom, why can't we go anywhere?" for 40 minutes until John called back!
Then John told me that he used the valet key to move the van, put it back in the glove box, and promptly locked the doors. So all three sets of keys were locked in the van in our driveway. The conversation went downhill from there (Who leaves 2 sets of keys in 1 vehicle? Who uses a fake valet key anyways? What if there were an emergency? etc.) until John told me that we had an extra set of keys in the gun safe. That would have been nice to know 40 minutes ago, but at least we were able to salvage the morning grocery trip.
So the moral of the story is: You need at least 1 set of keys for each child in the household...and even that may not be enough.
Stay tuned tomorrow for "Breaking into Your own House"
My parents came for a few days and celebrated Thanksgiving with us. We deviated a little from our typical traditional Thanksgiving. Thankfully Grandma and Grandpa were game.
We bought a fresh, never-frozen turkey this year. I really liked it, but John thought it tasted a little "gamey". He wants to go back to the frozen butterball next year. The fresh turkey was more than double the price of a frozen turkey, so I wonder if it was more of a price thing or a taste thing? Hmmmmmm.
Wyatt is taking a picture of the tree on his (Mom's old) cell phone.
I, personally, didn't like having to go pick up the fresh turkey. There were designated pick up times and the lines were crazy. People were lined up outside all wrapped around the barn that was next to a 2 lane highway. So I ended up having to get a babysitter to pick up the turkey since the first attempt didn't go so well. (I made the kids wait in the car and they ended up setting off the panic button on the van).
We made pumpkin bread pudding instead of pumpkin pie. We got the recipe from the Food Network Throwdown with Bobby Flay Thanksgiving edition with the Pioneer Woman Ree Drummond. It was her recipe and it was AMAZING!!!! I liked it 10 x better than pie! But, it is not a recipe for the novice cooker....it took John and I a while to make while Grandma and Grandpa worked entertainment duty.
We also opted for a cornbread dressing recipe from the same Food Network show. We baked it in its own pan and didn't stuff the turkey. I loved it!
Notice how all of the ornaments are 2/3 of the way up the tree?
Finally, we skipped the green bean casserole and made brussels sprouts instead. It was a nice change!
Then at dinner we all went around the table and said what we were thankful for....
Wyatt: "I'm thankful for rainbows and flowers." Jonah: "I'm thankful for everybody here" Sam "I'm thankful for my family"
Me, I'm thankful for my family, our health, and all of the happiness that we have enjoyed this year!
Is it just me or has the time between Halloween and Thanksgiving decreased? So much has happened in the last few weeks and I never have time to sit down and write about it. Jonah asked me to take this picture of him. He wrote the J and O and asked me to finish his name. He is a very determined little guy. And his twin brother..... not so much.
John and I took a look at our calendar for November and December to figure out our plans for Christmas. We decided that we are going to squeeze in a trip to Michigan this Christmas! Yipee! That also means that Santa will be coming to our house a little early....December 18th to be exact.
FYI boys...if you are old enough now and reading this blog..... we didn't really celebrate Christmas ON Christmas day every year. We changed Christmas so that it fit better into our schedule. We also changed some of your birthdays so that they fell on a weekend. This was before you could read a calendar or tell time, so you probably won' remember anyways..... but now you know! This kind of information will help your therapist down the line...
So if we count backwards, our Advent calendar needs to start on November 24... the day before Thanksgiving. And we only have 4 more weekends to shop until "fake" Christmas.
So we started working on the Christmas prep laundry list... On Thursday we headed to the outlet mall to get some matching Christmas picture shirts for the boys. Little did I know that Thursday was the official celebration of Veterans Day and there were close to a million people shopping at the outlet mall with us. Luckily we got to the mall before it opened and got a good parking spot because by the time we left people were fighting over my spot. I packed the kids lunches and as we picniced on the grassy spot next to the van I literally had at least 10 people ask me if we were leaving. I simply said "sorry, no we are eating lunch first".
Then I actually had a woman say "Well, don't you think that that is a strange spot to eat lunch?"
I said "Ok, bye bye lady"
Then today we picked up some new Christmas cd's for the van. It doesn't feel like Christmas until the music starts. I should have just bought the single of Jingle Bells because the boys want that one song on continuous repeat and "NOTHING ELSE MOM" (followed by exasperated sigh). We don't want to hear "any of the other 123 songs. This is our favorite!" I can't wait until my ears start to bleed.
Then today I sewed some Christmas pillowcases for the boys. They were a big hit. I am hoping that they will inspire the boys to sleep in and dream of Christmas. (Did I mention how much I HATE the time change? Can you say 4:45 am?)
Our Christmas excitement level is really starting to climb over here. And that's good, because we have to get there a week before everybody else. Santa's coming early this year boys and we have got to be ready!
By the way... if we are moving Christmas up, then Thanksgiving is this Thursday. I can't wait! Gobble Gobble!
Tonight Sam told me that next year he wants to wear a butterfly costume for Halloween so that he can fly all around the yard. That's quite a tall order....John's going to have to start working on that now!
Kids that fall asleep on the way home from preschool because they got up at 5am!
Kids that are "too tired" to eat lunch, but "can't fall asleep" in their beds at naptime?!?!?
But my favorite thing about the time change is when everybody asks "Aren't you so excited that we get an extra hour of sleep this week?" I'm still waiting for that..........
This is the get up that Jonah wore to speech therapy this week!
We went grocery shopping yesterday and the boys choose to get Santa hats at the checkout instead of candy! They thought that it was hilarious to say "Hi, I'm Santa. What do you want for Christmas?" The cashiers thought that they were "sooooo cute".
I didn't tell them the truth!
Happy 7th Birthday Jackie! I can't believe how fast the time is flying. Wasn't it just yesterday that you looked like this?
If Halloween is any indication of how exited the kids are going to be for Christmas this year.... we are in serious trouble!
The kids have been doing a countdown until Halloween for 2 weeks already.
"Mom, did you know that there are only 11 more days until Halloween?"
"Nine days till Halloween. Nine days till Halloween."
When I asked Sam what he was going to say when he went up to people's houses on Halloween he said "Boo."
I said no, you are going to say trick or treat. He said "No, I'm going to say boo and get candy".
Alrighty then, lets see how that is going to work out.
Yesterday all three boys had Halloween parties at school and came home all sugared up! It was pure craziness! Anybody that says sugar doesn't hype kids up doesn't have three boys!
We have pretty much everything checked off the Halloween checklist....
Selecting the right costume... check
Decorating Halloween cookies... check
Carving pumpkins... check
Hayride... check Decorating the house.... check
There is only one thing left..... Saying "Boo" and getting our candy!
