A Picture Story

I dressed the boys in matching outfits over the weekend and since I could barely stand how cute they were I decided to try for a few pictures. So we put the boys in the picture chair but Parker started smiling goofy...McKenna decided she wanted in but wasn't wearing pants...I talked her in to wearing pants but by then Sawyer was finished.I took one or two smiling pics and then things got ugly...But somehow, between goofy smiles, wardrobe changes, a fussy baby and toddler Wrestlemania we caught...

LOVE.

Position Filled

Dinner time is crazy time in our house. Since Sawyer's arrival I have slowly learned how to balance our days in order to keep everyone as happy as I can keep a teenager, two toddlers and a newborn but it all falls apart at 5 pm. The kids are hungry, the baby wants to be held and I need to clone myself in order to get dinner on the table.

Enter big sister Ashlyn.

While trying to make dinner the other night with two kids wrapped around my legs and the baby strapped to my chest Ashlyn saved the day with a tub of play-doy and cookie cutters. The kids followed her to the table and sat perfectly while she played with them. I hired her as my Dinnertime Activity Director on the spot and made dinner in peace and quiet.

Not only was it nice to have the kids busy playing with someone other than me, it was a proud Mommy-moment too because this kind of thing is not easy for Ashlyn. Coming up with a spontaneous activity and pushing through with a lot of social interaction is hard work for her but as Ashlyn always does, she amazed me again with how much she has grown and what she can overcome when she puts her mind to it.
The pictures are not the greatest but the best I could do while wearing Sawyer and flipping turkey burgers.

Honesty

I read an amazing blog the other day and the author said that she "blogs like no one is reading." I'm not good at this but am going to start trying. Here is my first attempt at spilling it...

Tonight at dinner I looked at my husband and said, very eloquently,
"Today sucks."
He looked at me like I was a loon (I've seen this look many times) because it had been a good day and it had. But good days can be the worst because on a good day, you take your kids to the park and watch them climb up the stairs for the slide and see the perfect space where their sister should be climbing too.
On a good day you find the cutest dress in a 2T and see that it comes in another color and hate that you don't have a reason to buy both.
And on a good day you say your daughters name once, hear how beautiful it sounds and wish you needed to say it a million times more each day... so many times that it doesn't give you a lump in your throat and you forget how much you love it.
The truth is I don't even know what a good daty is any more. I'm still waiting for it all not to hurt so much.
There is no where that I go that the ache of loss does not follow.

So that is my honesty for today, my post that no one is reading. I'm sure tomorrow I will get swept up in the craziness of our day and be able to blog about the silly things my kids have done and how I love them all to pieces but right now it is quiet enough for me to spend time with their sister and grieve a little.

Fight for Preemies

November 17 is a day dedicated to raising awareness of the crisis of premature birth. Over 20 million babies are born too soon each year. I had four of them.

Prematurity can be devastating to a family. Many children end up with life long health conditions and some children born prematurely do not get to live life at all. Over the past two years I have met many amazing families struggling with complicated pregnancies, special needs children and infant loss. I am reminded everyday how lucky I am that my surviving children are thriving but also live with the devastation of having lost a little girl born too soon.

So today, take a minute to visit the March of Dimes if you can. Learn more about premature birth and what you may be able to do to help and give your kids an extra kiss and hug if you are lucky enough to have them here with you each day.

Excitement

Well we are on our way... I have not been pushing potty training much yet because the kids have not really seemed ready. This morning McKenna got out of the shower, sat on her potty and went #2. This was a huge event, the excitement that two two-year-olds get out of not only checking out what is in the potty, but getting to dump and flush it into the big potty, was almost more than they could take.

They squealed, jumped, clapped, took turns sitting on the potty waiting for something else to happen.

I took pictures. We sang our potty song.

It was quite a morning.

They were still saying "bye, bye poopie" when I put them down for their nap, three hours after the amazing event took place.

It was the easiest morning I have had in ages, I didn't have to come up with a single activity to keep them out of trouble. Who knew potty training could be so exciting??

Someone please note this post and direct me back here when I try to train Parker, I have a feeling "easy" and "exciting" will not be the words I will use to describe the experience.

McKenna sitting for her "potty picture" not too long after the big event :)

Bye-bye Boat

This weekend we finally got the boat put away for the winter. I think we were one of the last houses on the lake to still have our boat in the water. I got the kids all bundled so they could watch Daddy get the boat ready. They were so excited just to be outside and kept yelling "boat ride, boat ride!" over the deck.

Parker got to ride with Daddy on the boat by default, he was the only one little enough to be able to fit his life jacket on OVER his winter coat... my tiny little man!Some day we will not be so behind on our household chores that the kids have to wear their winter coats to watch the boat be put away. I guess when that happens though we will know our kids are growing up and are hands aren't so full anymore.

Ahhh bathtime

Today I decided to have the kids help me give Sawyer a bath. Why I was envisioning a nice calm bath with the kids taking turns washing up their little brother while he cooed back at them I don't know.

I gave them each a wash cloth, covered the floor with towels and put Sawyer in his little tub. Someone lost their washcloth so we started bathtime off with a wrestling match for the remaining cloth. After the novelty of attaining the sole washcloth wore off McKenna decided to give Sawyer his towel to dry off with right away, by putting it in the water. As my vision of this perfect bathtime quickly faded and Sawyer's screams got louder I washed him quickly, trying to keep the water that was now flying everywhere out of his eyes, dried him with the closest dry anything I could find and looked up to see this...

Yes the water is still in there.

Nothing like a nice calm bath.