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.
