June 4, 2008

Happy Birthday Daddy!!

Today is Matt's 23rd birthday. He has to work this evening but we had cake before he went to work. We are staying in the new house now so I got to use my new oven. YAY!!

We got our big delivery today. Our fridge, stove, shower, toilets, vanity and medicine cabinet for the upstairs bathroom and the faucets for the upstairs bathroom. Now getting the delivery was a big pain in the butt. (I won't go into that right now.)

Not a great picture and it's sideways--but I will take a new one once it is put together and installed.

New house

After the girls' appointment we went to Galesburg and signed the papers on our new house!! YAY!! So exciting and terrifying at the same time! I will be posting pictures of the house later-when I have more time.

1 year check up

The girls had their 1 year check up today. Everything looks great. G2 is 17 lbs 1 oz and 29.25 inches. G3 is 16 lb 11 oz and 28.5 inches. They also had to get their immunizations today. Poor babies. The doctor seemed very impressed with how well they have caught up with the children their age. YAY GIRLS!! :-) G3 even stood on her own to show off for the doctor.

More birthday pictures

G2 in the tub

G3 in the tub saying "What Mom? I'm not trying to take the plug out."

G2

G3

G2

Daddy getting G3 ready

G2

G3

The cake that we ate

The cake that Daddy took to work

G2 not sure what to do

G3 had a taste on her thumb

G2 once she figured it out

G3 enjoying the cake

G2 at 7:02 PM--exactly 1 year old!

G3 at 7:02 PM--exactly 1 year old!

1st birthday pictures

We took the girls to Sears to get their pictures taken (for the first time by a professional-although Marcia does just as well, if not better) for their birthday this morning. All three kids did really well. I was amazed. We then came over to Galesburg (that's where I am now) to have cake with my mom. We will be doing their party on January 1st. I will post pictures from eating the cake today when I am back home.

G1 wanted to do pictures too, so the photographer did get one of him by himself and one of him with the girls. Matt picked out the dresses that the girls are wearing. Didn't he do a good job?

Here are the pictures from Sears:

G2 and G3-The birthday girls!

G2

G3

G1

Pretty girls

G2 and G3

G2 and G3

G2

G3

G1, G2 (trying to whistle like the photographer) and G3

G2 and G3 reading a book

G3

G3

G2

G2

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BEAUTIFUL GIRLS!!

The girls are one today! It seems so unreal. They will officially be one at 7:02 this evening. I will post pictures of them later. I just wanted to get their HAPPY BIRTHDAY on here while I had a chance.

A new tooth!!

G2 got her third tooth today. YAY!! It is the top, front, left one.

More ramblings

We just purchased the movie Reign Over Me. We really enjoyed it-except it made us cry. I would definitely recommend anyone watching it. Anyway-so we got this movie and we've watched it a few times. Well, as we were watching it at Matt's parents house last night it got me thinking. If I were to lose my family (Matt and the kids) in a tragic accident (like there is another kind when you lose your family) how would I be afterwards? Would I be able to eventually pull myself through and continue my life how it once was? Or would I be like Adam Sandler's character and just become some completely new person who is totally lost? Would I just get into some sort of funk where I forget everyone and everything in my life?

I think I would end up in a mix of the two, I guess. I know my world would be shattered. My children are my life. I don't spend much time without them in my presence and for them to be gone would just tear me to pieces. Matt is my best friend and without him I would definitely be completely lost. But I still would have (hopefully) my siblings and parents-who I know would eventually be able to bring me back to the 'real world'. I hope and pray I never have to go through anything like that, but it got me thinking.

I feel so bad for the families who's lives are shattered because of September 11, 2001 (I mention them particularly because in the movie Adam Sandler plays a 9/11 widower)-which of course does not just include the people that lost someone on that day but everyone that has lost someone in the war since then.

*******

Now onto less serious stuff.

We are supposed to be signing the contract to get possession of the new house on the 20th of this month. YAY!! So exciting-yet so scary at the same time. We will hopefully be in the house this weekend or the beginning of next week to get started doing work on it shortly.

I still haven't started packing anything yet. I keep thinking about it-I just haven't done it. I don't really have any boxes to be packing stuff into though either. Hopefully we will be getting boxes this week or next. I really just want to get everything but the necessities packed RIGHT NOW. lol

We finally got a new filter for G1's humidifier (he tried to eat the old one) and we got a humidifier for our room. Now I can breathe when I wake up.

We got the girls' stockings for this year-just cheap ones (like the rest of them) and then hopefully next year I will get all of us ones to use every year. Well, I got their names on their stockings and went to find Matt, G1 and I's stockings. Can't find them ANYWHERE!!! Very frustrating. So, I guess I will be going back to the store to get 3 more cheap ones for this year. UGH! I had been putting all the ornaments and stockings in with the trees, but evidently forgot to do that last year or G1 found and took off with them. Either of those is possible.

We haven't had much snow or what not-but it's still be yucky (yes I said yucky) outside. Well, Matt just called to tell me that if I am going to be going to the store this evening I might want to go now because we are supposed to be getting 3-5 inches of snow later today. I just put the kids all down for a nap-no way am I waking them up to go to the store. So, hopefully the snow holds off until we can go later. Otherwise Matt will be going to the store for me in the morning.

Can you believe it's December already?!?

This year has gone by so fast. It's crazy! We have had so much happen this year. First the girls were born-which of course was last year, but they didn't come home until January 5th of this year. Then 5 weeks later they got put back in the hospital for 9 days with RSV. A couple weeks later (beginning of March) we moved into a new house. At the end of March Matt started working for the railroad. Easter weekend (April) G1 spent a couple days in the hospital because he had a bad asthma attack.

We finally had a break in all the craziness and were able to enjoy the summer and G1's 2nd birthday. It still seems like we are on the run all the time though. We always have something we have to get done. In a week or so we should be starting work on the house and then hopefully we will be in it shortly after Christmas.

The kids are all getting so big. There is such a big change in all of them from the beginning of the year to now.

G1 is talking so much now-and most of it is understandable by people other than Matt and I too. :-) He is so smart too. We are still working on numbers and letters-colors he is getting pretty good at. He has his characters--although he doesn't watch too much TV. We get movies from the library and he definitely knows what he wants to watch. Dora is a big one right now. Yesterday he named all the Sesame Street characters in one of his books. It amazed me. He loves reading to his sisters. It's so cute to watch them. He has learned the first part of the song "Jingle Bells" and knows parts of a couple other songs.

G2 is a climbing fool. Luckily she hasn't figured out how to get out of her crib yet. (G1 was climbing out by the time he was 10 months.) She loves giving kisses-but only on her own time. She loves to clap for everyone and loves to have everyone clap for her. She is so happy and so serious at the same time. She loves to observe what is happening in the world around her. But don't think about putting a hat on her, or putting her in her car seat-making her restrained, otherwise you will hear that little girl's soft voice become very loud!

G3 is definitely our funny girl. She has a laugh that could make anyone smile and laugh out loud. She thinks everyone is great. She is still our social butterfly. She is becoming so vocal and some of what she says is actual words. She is signing a lot more words now. She loves to dance (so does G2-just not as often). She is our little drama queen. When she does not get her way I'm sure the people in China can hear her!

I could have gone on and on about all of them but I had to end it some time. :-) I just could not imagine life without any of them. They are all wonderful in their own little way and as a group. I love how much they love each other and everyone else around them.

In 12 days the girls will be 1 and that seems so unreal. I'm excited for the next stages in their lives but I'm so sad the baby stage is coming to an end. They will be walking before we know it and they will be talking (understandably) before too long also.

As stressful as this year has been at times it has been equally rewarding also. :-)

O' Christmas Tree

We have put up 2 of our 4 Christmas trees today. The big one looks really bare right now. Until the kids are older all I put on that one is candy canes. We haven't bought the candy canes yet, so I have to wait until probably next week when we go to the store to get them to put them up. The second one gets our soccer ball ornaments. The other 2 trees that go up are the kids' trees. We have a fiber optic tree-which is G1's. He gets all of his ornaments on that one. The other is a little prelit tree that we bought last year for the girls. I'm hoping to possibly get another this year so each girl has their own, but we will see.

Hopefully I can keep the kids from attacking the trees too much. Last year G1 did real well around the trees. He liked to turn the lights on and off. We ended up taking all of the candy canes off last year because he didn't want to leave them along. But this year I have the tree up on our coffee table so hopefully the children can't reach them as easily.

G1 enjoying checking out the tree and presents

The 'big' tree

The soccer tree

Why do people really go out shopping the day after Thanksgiving?

I know the sales are great, but really what motivates people to get up to go shopping at 5 AM on Black Friday? This morning we got up at 7-ish. I probably didn't really get up until 7:30 and Matt had to drag me out of bed at that point. I thought getting up at 7-ish was nuts, but I guess normal people do that daily. Anyway, so we got up and got all 5 of us ready to head out the door.

We went to Menards. Now I am not a big fan of Menards on a normal day. But that is probably the absolute worst store to go to on Black Friday. The reason we went was because they have breaker boxes on sale today (and tomorrow and possibly Sunday???). We were looking for one for the new house. So we go. There were NO carts. We had to carry the girls and try to keep G1 walking beside us. It was not fun. I figured while we were there we would look to see if they have one of the things I want to get for all the kids for Christmas. They of course didn't have what I wanted. We ended up getting nothing. We went into that crazy, over-crowded, would probably get in trouble with the fire marshall store and got nothing. But that's okay.

We went to Lowes to see what they had. They, being the lovely store that they are, had carts-plenty of carts and we were able to walk through without fearing we would lose G1 in the crowd. It was bliss after Menards. We ended up getting the breaker box there for the same price we would have paid at Menards. I decided that anything we need for the house will definitely come from Lowes. They have much better customer service than Menards and they don't have crap all over the place blocking the aisles.

I really can't imagine heading to the mall at the crack of dawn and hitting all the over crowded stores, especially not with the kids. And yet there are people that hit every store in town every year after year after year after year....... Seriously what are they thinking??? It's cold and stressful and *to me* just the most horrible experience ever. Now that is not to say that I will not be going shopping later today, just not at 5 AM. I don't think it's too bad in the afternoon-well except at Wal-Mart. But that's an every other day of the year thing.

Well, I think my rant (or whatever you would call this) is over now. Maybe if I go out later I will have more to add, but until then..........

Happy Thanksgiving--Take 2 (&3)

We had Thanksgiving at my mom's on Wednesday, which also was her birthday. Happy birthday again Mom!! We had a good time and good food. After dinner and everything G2 puked all over Matt. That wasn't much fun, but other than that I think the day/evening went pretty well.

G3 eating an apple

G1-not quite sure what he was doing

G3-she's actually spitting in this picture

G2

G2-playing with Uncle Jacob

G1 and Aunt Marcia

G2 and G3 eating Jell-o

G3 loving the Jell-o

G2-she thinks the Jell-o is 'okay'

Matt and the kids all enjoying Jell-o (no Jell-o is not the only thing they ate--it's just the only thing I got a picture of them eating)

G2 and G3 riding the horse

G3 climbed up on top of the ottoman thing--she's getting so big!

Yesterday (real Thanksgiving Day) we had Thanksgiving with Matt's family. We finally got to see his grandma's new house-which is real nice by the way. We had a good time but had to leave right after eating. I didn't take the camera so I have no pictures to post from then.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!!