Water Park

John and I took the kids to an indoor water park this weekend. We all had a great time! The kids absolutely loved the water slides. There were kiddie water slides and big water slides. The kiddie water slides never had any wait and the kids landed in about 2 feet of water. The boys went down these water slides for about 4 hours while I watched. Meanwhile John went on the bigger slides with whichever one of the boys wanted to ride with him. Some of them were inside enclosed tubes and were pitch dark during the ride. The rider ended up in a chute of fast moving water and they got completely wet! I was surprised that even Jonah tried out the bigger slildes quite a few times.

Our friend Keith watched Shane for the day so that we didn't have to worry about him at the water park. Keith said that Shane did great and he wasn't any trouble at all.

We are already talking about going back to the water park in the fall!

***************************************

I finally got the check for my Mothers of Multiples garage sale in the mail and I made $560!!! I couldn't believe how much stuff I got rid of! We decided that we are going to put the money in the boys 529 account. So even though it was a TON of work for me to label everything, I guess that my hard work paid off! The boys can go to college! Yipee!

Houston We May Have A Problem

We have a bit of a pee issue going on right now.

Jonah and Sam can't stop peeing on everything when they are outside. They are like dogs marking their territories. Every time that I turn around they have their pants down and are aiming for something.

The tires on the van.

Their dump trucks.

Their wagon.

The new swing set.

The grill.

Today we met a friend of mine at the park with her kids (boys thankfully) and Sam peed off the top of the play structure about 20 feet in the air. Luckily for us nobody was underneath him!

The last straw was today when I walked into the laundry room and Jonah had his pants down and was just about to pee into the washing machine. I flipped out! I threatened to cut it off if he doesn't start using the potty! Jonah got his pants up pretty quickly after that.

I suspect that he may need therapy for that one some day.......

Take Your Kid To Work 2010

Today was "Take your Kid to Work Day". I found out about it at lunch time. I suspect that John knew about it and accidentally on purpose forgot to tell me. He was probably worried that I would force him to take all 4 boys to work for the day.

Can you imagine the looks on his coworkers faces if he trotted into a meeting with all four boys?

As it turned out, I drove Wyatt to John's work at 4pm and he got to hang out with Daddy for an hour. Wyatt loaded up on candy from people's desks and came home hyped up beyond belief. He literally couldn't stop talking at dinner. And he kept calling us "Donald". "Can I have some more pizza Donald?" "Donald, what are we having for dessert?". We would say "Wyatt, stop talking!" and he would say "Ok, Donald"!

I am already putting "Take your Kids to Work Day" on the calendar for next year so that we can plan accordingly. My thoughts are that I can drop a different kid off at John's work every 2 hours and pick up the last kid. That way everybody gets to go to work with Daddy. It will be like a relay race passing the baton to the next kid until 5pm. Now I just have to figure out how to get Donald to go for it?

The Swing Set

Last weekend I spent one whole afternoon staining the swing set. It was in rough shape. I kept one baby swing and got rid of the other two baby swings and then got a used bucket swing instead. Then we found a perfectly good sand box in somebody's garbage pile last week and John went and brought it home after dark. I moved the boards that used to be the picnic table (which the kids never used) to make a platform floor and was able to fit the new sandbox under the swing set. Then I sewed a new canopy cover from green canvas fabric to replace the green vinyl one that was cracked and peeling. When it was all done I was pretty impressed (and covered in paint from head to toe) with how good the whole thing looked. It looks brand new again!

Today John brought home some sand for the new sandbox. The kids were so thrilled! They were busy for hours. I am not even kidding when I say that now the entire sandbox is empty again. The sand was moved and dumped and moved and dumped in and out of the sandbox so many times that it is gone. John is going to get them some more sand tomorrow and we will see how long it lasts. But honestly even if it is gone again tomorrow night, I am almost willing to do it again and again if it keeps the kids occupied for hours on end. Plus, I think the novelty of removing the sand will wear off eventually right?

It reminds me of when Maggie was a puppy and she would scarf down her food at lightening speed as soon as we would fill up her bowl. It was so irritating. Finally one day John had enough. So, he stood next to her and every time she finished her food he would fill it up again. Finally after about three full bowls of food she walked away and left some food in the bowl without needing to eat it.

She pooped a ton the next day! But, she never gorged herself again. And she only ate when she was hungry after that! Now there is food in her bowl all of the time.

I am not sure it will work with the sandbox though. My kids seem to learn things the hard way. Maybe if they were eating the sand.....

3 Weeks until Florida!!!!!

We will not be going to Macy's anytime soon. I didn't ready the incident report form carefully, but there may have been a section limiting us to within 50 feet of the store. It doesn't really matter. We never really liked that store anyway!

The boys knocked over a huge metal/glass display case and sent glass and clothes flying into the make up and perfume section of the store. Thankfully nobody got hurt. Mostly because the store had opened about five minutes earlier so we were the only shoppers in the store.

10:00 am store opens
10:03 destruction
10:05 hasty exit

Clearly the display was not so secure that 2 three year olds and a four year old could knock it over, but I am not blaming the store. I would say 70% our fault/ 30% their fault (I could even go as high as 80%/20%).

The store was really worried about a lawsuit though, so maybe I should go with 50%/50%. Whatever, we are not going to sue them. We are, however, going to recommend that they have a drive through return/ exchange window so that moms like me (the ones that should be on drugs) can return an item without plotting an escape route ahead of time.

And to the 25 or so people that saw us walking through the mall at various times this morning and stopped to tell me how adorable and well behaved my kids were.... I am sorry that I kicked you in the shins.

And especially to the other 2 women in the mall that told me to enjoy my kids because they grow up way to fast... the paper that I shoved down your throats was my copy of the incident report and I am going to need that back for my future juvenile file.

Wyatt Sun

I enrolled Wyatt in Tae Kwondo and he had his first class today. It is so perfect for him. There were 10 kids in the class ages 4-6 years old. 8 boys and 2 girls with 2 instructors for a 30 minute class. Besides being just about the cutest thing that I have ever seen, Wyatt did really well and seemed to enjoy the class a lot. He called it his exercise class and wanted to know when he could go back. On the way out the boys watched some older kids sparring with each other in a different classroom and were completely mesmerized. I am so excited that we finally found a fun group activity for Wyatt that he enjoys so much! Now I have to start brushing up on my Korean.....

Phone Calls

Last night I went out with some girlfriends and John was home with the boys. After the boys were in bed John said that he got an interesting phone call. First the phone rang and then it stopped ringing, so he didn't answer it. Then it rang again and John answered the phone and they said "Hello, this is 911, what is your emergency?". John said he didn't call and they said that it sounded like a little kid on the phone, but they were required to call back and make sure that there was not a real emergency. Sure enough, when John went into Wyatt's room Wyatt was sitting on his bed with a phone in his hand. He called them and hung up and then answered the phone when they called back the first time too!

That police tour that we had last week sure made an impression on the boys! They discussed emergencies and how to call 911 when we visited the police station. I didn't really think that it registered with they boys, but I guess that I was wrong!

*******************************************

Today Sam found a kill deer bird nest in the back of our yard. The bird has 3 eggs laying right in the middle of the ground. It's about the least safe spot that you could ever choose to have a nest! This bird is insane if she thinks that her eggs will last long enough to hatch into baby birds! I may end up breaking all of her eggs after the crap that she pulled today!

Poor Sam fell for the classic kill deer faking an injury trick. The bird worked her maiden in distress dance while getting really close to Sam. Then she tricked him into thinking that he could catch her but flew a few feet ahead over and over again. She lured him right out of our yard, through the neighbors yard, and practically into the busy street leading to our subdivision before I spotted him.

I can not believe how fast I sprinted through the yard to get to Sam. My heart was pounding! I was so scared. None of my kids have ever left our yard before and I was in shock!

I explained to Sam that he can't catch birds no matter how hard he tries. I also told him how scared I was and how he can't leave our yard. He was upset, but I don't think that it will happen again...hopefully!

************************************

I cleaned up at my Mothers of Multiples sale last weekend! I got 12 pairs of shorts, 8 short sleeve shirts, 3 long pants, 2 long sleeve shirts, and 3 pairs of pajamas for Wyatt for $40! Plus I sold almost all of the stuff that I brought to the sale. We took about 3 truck loads of stuff to the sale and I came home with 1 tote. People were actually buying stuff as I was unloading it from the truck! It was insane. There were 209 people in line by 9am to get into our sale! I was thrilled with the turn out!

************************************

Welcome to Jail

We spent Friday afternoon at the police station.

It was for a kids tour that my friend Bethany organized.

The boys loved it. They got to sit in a police car and turn on the lights. They got to go inside a jail cell. They saw the HUGE key that the police use to lock the cell doors. And they got a badge at the end of the tour.

I tell the boys that you have to go to jail if you don't wear a seat belt in the car. They think that police drive around looking for people who aren't wearing seat belts. So anytime they see somebody pulled over they ask me why they weren't wearing a seat belt and if they are going to jail. Duh, of course!

So, the tour was a nice visual aide to go along with my jail threat. They boys were appropriately edgy while we were standing inside the jail cell together. I have to admit that I would not want to be locked up for even a brief stay! It was a pretty depressing cold place! I have a feeling that I won't have to do much persuading about seat belts for a while now!

Green Thumb

We bought all of our garden seeds today and I am so excited! Now I have to do some researching about how to plant a raised bed garden. We will also need a critter fence. Or just Fred.

Fred was our landlord at MSU. He was in his eighties and used to shoot everything that looked at or came near our garden when we were in grad school. He was a crazy old guy!

One time he shot a skunk in his front yard and I swear that it smelled for 5 miles. As soon as you turned off the expressway you were hit with the smell! I can not even explain how strong the smell was. I was so sure that I hit the skunk with my car that I got out and checked under my car when I got home to make sure I wasn't dragging a skunk carcass along.

I used to go over and yell at him about all of his shooting, but he used to say "Oh, that was just a warning shot. I didn't really shoot anything." Uh huh right.

He even tried to deny the skunk shooting, but he knew that I had him dead to rights. His yard smelled for weeks!

Sometimes I would get woken up at 2 in the morning by a gunshot. The next morning I would go over to Fred's house and give him a piece of my mind. But he would pretend that he didn't know what I was talking about and insist that I dreamed the whole incident.

It was enough to drive a person batty. BUT we never had to put up a fence around our garden. We had great produce and hardly ever had anything eaten by animals. So the trade off wasn't bad...

Here we will probably have issues with deer in our garden. We have a groundhog too, but John had a live trap and plans to relocate him shortly. The church up the road is probably wondering why they have a groundhog infestation problem, but I am going to take Fred's lead and pretend that they don't know what they are talking about and insist that they must have dreamed the whole incident.

Now if John were relocating skunks, then that would be a different story altogether...

Dirt Anyone?

Now that it is practically summer I am dealing with some seriously messy boys! I can not even begin to explain how dirty the boys get when they are outside this year! Their clothes are filthy. Their faces are brown. And their hands and feet are disgusting. They look like they are trying out for the show "Dirty Jobs".

I am trying to come up with a way to wash the boys off before they come into the house so that they don't track dirt everywhere. This past week I have been carrying each kid upstairs and giving them a quick rinse in the laundry tub before lunch and dinner, but that's a lot of lifting for me! I don't need that!

Did you know that when you look up foot washing stations on Google that you get Bible references for washing the feet like Jesus did? There is a lot of information out there about how to wash feet as a purifying ritual with oils and prayer. Dealing with my boys feet after wearing their crocs outside in the dirt gives me a solid understanding as to why foot washing was so important that it was mentioned in the Bible so often.

I can't imagine dealing with boys that were living in the desert wearing sandals all day! Can you imagine how dirty Jesus and his neighbors feet were? They must have had to wash each others feet several times a day.

Ok boys, after breakfast we will build some sand castles and have a snack. Then we will wash your feet. Then you can play a bit before lunch, but make sure to wash your hands and feet before you come in. After your nap we will have a snack and go play sand tag. After that we will wash your feet. Then dinner and a bath. Then we will read some scrolls and wash your feet again before bed.

That's 5 foot washings in the day of a typical toddler from the old testament!

I am glad that I wasn't a Mom back then!

Anyways, I have been researching outside foot and hand washing stations for kids and reading about foot washing rituals and it seems like an untapped market. Maybe I am the only one that deals with this issue, but I don't think so!

I've started planning....So far I know that my prototype kid washer station needs to have a bottom with bristles to get the ground in dirt off the feet. It may or may not be motion activated?!? There should also be a sink area for hand washing and it should use warm water. Then the whole thing needs to work on a timer so that each kids moves through the station quickly and comes out sparkly clean on the other side. Like a mini car wash for kids.

I would pay a lot of money for a kid washer station. Wouldn't you? Now I just have to figure out what I am going to do with all of that money after my idea takes off!

Standing Up?!?!?

My little man finally learned how to pull himself up to standing! What the what?!?!? I am not ready for my baby boy to be standing yet! He still seems so little to me! I am going to be so sad when he finally learns to walk!


Shane's world still revolves around his Mommy! He is happy just sitting on my lap or touching me. I can't imagine being ready for him to go off and explore by himself yet! Wasn't he just born yesterday?



******************

I am taking to boys with me to go get my driver's licence renewed tomorrow morning. I am so excited! I don't think that I have ever renewed a drivers licence, in any state, in under an hour. I am hoping that if the boys act horrible then they will just try and get us out of there as quickly as possible.

My friend Erin said that she tried it before at the DMV and it didn't work. She has 3 boys too! But seriously, I am not sure that her kids have what it takes to get the fast pass at the DMV! My boys can definitely walk the walk. I am going to pack a big bag of jumbo marshmallows in the diaper bag for fuel and we might just be in and out of there in 10 minutes flat!

******************

I am thinking about trying to make my own granola bars tomorrow. I found a recipe in my new favorite magazine...Food Network magazine and it looks promising. A couple of months ago I made some graham crackers for scratch and I ate the entire batch by myself. They were amazing. Then I saw a recipe where someone dipped graham crackers in chocolate and let it harden and now I can't get that image out of my mind! I could make little graham cracker bites dipped in chocolate. For the kids of course...!


*****************

I have really enjoyed the past two weeks with the kids. They have been so fun to be around lately. I am not sure if it is the change in the weather or if they are just getting older, but I can see a light at the end of the tunnel. We still have our moments like today when Sam peed in his pants and I asked him if he peed in his pants and he said "Ok, Mom". Or the barrels of potty talk that permeates every conversation "I want to eat some poopie poopies for lunch", but the tide has turned. The boys are turning into little people. They have a sense of humor now! They can tell me what they want to do for the day. They can play well together. My job here is done!

Warm Weather Challenges

We have been loving the warm weather so much! I have been making the boys eat almost all of their meals outside at the picnic table for the last week. It is so nice to have a nice clean floor for more than an hour at a time!

John and I have been trying to prioritize all of our projects now that it is spring weather. We have so much to do! The yard work alone would keep us busy for a week straight! Then there is the garage organization since John brought the boat home and we only have so much space. The swing set needs to be stained and so does the deck. We are going to have a garden this year, so that will require some planning and work. John wants to paint Wyatt's room. I want to paint the downstairs bathroom. The list could go on and on! I need to start pulling some all-nighters!

I took the boys to the pool this morning and they are getting so comfortable in the water. It is so much fun to play with them in the pool now. I think that their new life jackets have really helped increase their confidence! Sammy throws toys into the middle of the pool, jumps off the side, and swims out to retrieve the toys without any help from me! Today I was in the middle of the pool with Wyatt and Sam throwing them up in the air and letting them splash back down into the pool. They kept saying "higher, higher!". Finally, Sammy told me that he wanted to go so high that he would hit the ceiling!

It was so warm this weekend that I had to go up in the attic and pull out all of the kids summer clothes. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that I don't have any shorts for Wyatt that are his size. Jonah and Sam are going to wear his shorts from last summer so I am really hoping to strike it big this weekend at my Mothers of Multiples sale and find Wyatt a bunch of summer clothes that will fit without having to get an entire new wardrobe. It is amazing how fast the boys get their clothes dirty this year!

So we are basking in the sun over here and loving all of the new challenges that come with spring and summer weather. I am especially happy about going coat-less! It probably saves me about 20 minutes a day, not having to find and put on anybody's coats! Now if the boys could just go around naked I think that I could save myself a whole hour!

Easter 2010

We enjoyed a wonderful Easter Sunday together today!

We filled some buckets with a few outside toys that the boys could all enjoy and hid Easter eggs full of candy throughout the house. Each egg had one of the boys first initial on them so that there was no fighting. The boys LOVED the egg hunt. Wyatt snuck downstairs first this morning while John and I were still sleeping and checked out all of the egg hiding spots, so he had a huge advantage during the actual hunt.

After sneaking around downstairs for how ever long, Wyatt came upstairs with a full report. "Mom, Dad, the Easter bunny came and left us each a bucket full of toys. The boys and I each got a rocket ship, a net, a bug box, a flashlight, and a package of fruit snacks. Shane got a bag of teddy grahams and a fruit snack in his bucket because the bunny knows that he can't have milk. Also, mine is the pink flashlight. And there are eggs hiding all over the house! I found some in the playroom, the kitchen, the den, and the front hallway. But there are not any upstairs. Everybody has their own letter on their egg so that we don't fight. Isn't that great Mom? Let's wake the boys up. I will get Shane and you can get the boys? Ok Mom? Mom, are you awake yet? Let's go find some eggs."

The boys were pumped and they ran around looking for eggs for about 30 minutes. Then they sat down for breakfast and ate CRAP LOADS of candy. I figured that they only get to enjoy candy in the morning once a year, so why fight it?

After that we packed up some lunches and took the boys hiking at a state park about 35 minutes away. The weather was great and the trail was a lot of fun for everyone!

While the boys napped I got in a nice run outside with Maggie. She needs to lose a few pounds so I am starting a running boot camp for me and her. I am hoping to run outside with her at least 3 times a week after the boys are in bed. She was a little tired after 1 loop today, so we will stick with that until her endurance improves.

Tonight we had Keith over and made the traditional Easter dinner of hamburgers on the grill with finger jello for dessert. It was nice and simple, and best of all we didn't heat the house up cooking a ham all day!

Notables

We have had a lot going on the past few weeks....

I am getting ready for our Mothers of Multiples sale next weekend. I have so much stuff to sell this time that I have taken over about half of our basement to get it all organized and labeled. We are selling all of our baby stuff that Shane doesn't need anymore including a lot of the big things that were just taking up valuable space in our attic. Yipee!

**********************************************

I took the boys on an Easter egg hunt at a local farm this morning with my friend Erin and her 4 kids and my friend Kasey's husband Rick and his twin boys. We took a hayride up to the egg patch where we met the Easter bunny and found eggs. Then we rode back to the barn on the wagon for some candy and balloons. I dressed my boys in matching blue striped shirts. Erin dressed her kids (twin boys + 1 boy + 1 infant girl) in matching plaid outfits. And Rick dressed his boys in solid orange shirts.

We heard a lot of people making comments about our clan as we walked by..."Oh, look at all of those boys" "How cute" or "Wow, are they triplets?". Finally Erin decided that when people asked about our group we should say that Rick is the Dad and he is a polygamist with three wives who all happened to have twin boys. We had to dress each group of kids differently so that he could keep them all straight!

The boys were so dirty when I got home that I made them get cleaned off in the driveway before they came in the house. I filled up a bucket with soapy water and handed each boy a washcloth to get their face, hands, and feet all cleaned up. At the end of it they were all soaking wet, happy and clean.

*******************************************************

Potty talk is still in full swing at our house with no sign of slowing down anytime soon. Everything smells like "stinker poopies". Everything tastes like "stinker poopies". Everything looks like "stinker poopies". I assumed that by week 3 of potty talk we would have moved on to more advanced poop vocabulary, but the word "poop" can still elicit hysterical laughter when inserted into any sentanance. For example, "Mom, is it almost time to poop to school?" (uncontrollable laughter). "Are we going to ride in the poop?" (fall on the floor laughter?). "I see a poop car." (peeing in pants laughing).

I keep telling the boys "No more potty talk"! Then the other day I heard Wyatt tell Sam and Jonah "Boys, no bathroom words".

*********************************************************

It was almost 90 degrees here today. Our house is so hot upstairs that we had to turn on the air conditioning to get the temperature below 80 degrees inside! Every year it seems like we have to turn on our air conditioning earlier and earlier, but this year may be a Rodgers Family record!