Fun Things I want to BUY for my kids :)

Instead we settled for borrowing a firefighter costume from a neighbor....maybe next time :)

Jeans for Robby.
He seriously has like two pairs of pants that fit right now. Yikes!
The weather change has me scrambling to find something for him to wear to get through the cold front.

Too bad Maddie is too big for this little number. Maybe at some point I will get another girl. Until then....

I am LOVING this dress above with the sweater below. Maybe for Christmas for my little lady.

this past week....

was literally heaven.
*I was off work for almost a week straight :)
*I finally got my hair done again professionally~ it has been almost a year
*I went to a fun "Super Saturday" craft day with Miss M.
*We painted the day away and she was actually quite the little helper there.
*We took family pictures with my family at Freestone park
(which was actually a miserable experience: my kids were very naughty, would not sit still, Miss M decided to be pouty and Robby and Miss M kept running away; BUT Eli was an angel, there were cute individual pictures of all three kids, and we are now done with family pictures for awhile!)
*On Tuesday we got some WONDERFUL news that made us VERY happy!
*We went to the park mulitple times during the week and played, played, played in the sand
*Miss M informed me that "Taj" held her hand in primary, and told her she was pretty (she keeps telling us that he is her "favorite friend"). She asked me all week when she was going to play with him (we were semi-freaking out at this point~ she's only four); but then when she saw him at park day she smiled, said hi, and kept playing with all her GIRL friends. Whewww... I am NOT ready for the interest in boys.
*I attended yet another craft night with some friends and in the process found my new favorite babysitter in my neighborhood. Yeah!!
*And then I came across these little jewels tucked inside my camera of my kidlets sleeping at night

I love how Eli is cuddle up next to his brown bear sleeping
Once again another picture of my two-year old with a pacifier...yikes. I figure we will get rid of it before he hits kindergarten :)

and of course Miss M asleep on her bed with her princess tent propped up on the bed.

Miss M has taken this habit directly from yours truly: hanging up clothes to wear the next day on the dresser with matching shoes placed on the floor :)

relief

Oh what a beautiful day it has been!
*
And I did not work a single bit today

~at least with my job :)
*
And I actually got sleep last night (did not work last night)~ 9 hours straight sleeping!!
*
And I have three of the cutest kids ever
~duh

*

And I went to the mall with all three kids in tow and was able to buy a new pair of jeans that I love!

*

And I took the kids to the park this afternoon, thus able to further enjoy the beautiful fall weather

*

And I felt like a normal stay at home mommy cooking dinner in my apron

*

And we all ate dinner together as a family

*

And I got a nice kiss from my sweetheart when he got home from work

*

And I can hear him and the young men out in the garage working on their go-kart cars right now

*

*
Luv It :)

Shots and Tears

We had a day today that included some master bedroom painting, preschooling for Miss M, cleaning, "potty-ing" by Mr R (we are NOT potty training yet however :), train playing and purchasing (for the previous), napping, cooking, visiting, and lastly doctor visiting. Oh joy....

*

*

Maddie and Eli had their respective scheduled appointments on the same day. So where does that leave Robby? At my wonderful mom's house of course. He was able to have some well-deserved "alone time" with the grandparents and loved every minute of it! Maddie and Eli did NOT love getting shots however. Eli's stats at 9 months:

Height- 30in (90th percentile)

Weight- 21lb 10oz (75th percentile)

Head Circumference- 18.5 in

*

*

Eli had two pokes this time around: a toe stick to check his iron level and a flu shot. He was a champ and barely cried on the flu shot and not at all on the iron test. hurray! He did get upset however when the lady stepped on his toe while trying to vaccinate Maddie (it was the very same toe she did the capillary stick on might I mention). Needless to say, he has been one unhappy baby this evening.

My LITTLE ladies stats at 4yrs old:

Height- 38.5in (20th percentile)

Weight- 30lb (5th percentile)

*

*

Miss M had to have FIVE shots today at the doctor's. We are planning on sending her early to kindergarten next year and so we had to do all the dreaded school shots. She was so not having that. She did fantastic on the first two shots, saying "owie owie owie" when they stuck her. After doing one arm they announced they had to now do three on her other arm. At that point she totally broke down crying and started to say "please no...no I don't want another owie...no..no..no..please don't do it." poor thing. it about broke my heart to have to make her sit still and prep for another go round. the good news is that she is now DONE with shots until she is 11 yrs old~ other than H1N1 and annual flu shots however :)

a day in the life of maddie

Maddie typically starts the day dressed to the "T" at 6:30am with sunglasses, bracelet, multiple necklaces, and shoes all on as well as drawing all her alphabets she has learned thus far on the notebook, while she waits for mom to wake up

after Robby and Eli go down for their mid-day naps, maddie typically has some sort of surprise waiting for me. some days it is a fun puzzle to do, other times she has a bag of popcorn ready to be popped and a movie picked out. on this particular day she prepared our own special tea party complete with rootbeer, crackers and cheese. Yummy!

(obviously I work at a hospital with these goblets right?)

throughout the day she ALWAYS reminds me that she wants to play with friends. She love love loves to play dress up with friends.

then once the afternoon/evening time approaches, we have been trying to walk to the park at the end of our street and enjoy the beautiful weather.

(note: she STILL has her sunglasses on)

*love you little lady....please stay my best friend FOREVER okay?!

9 months and Filled with Adventure

Can you believe my baby is 9 months old?

Me either.

It seriously chokes me up to think that he is growing so quickly.

Can he just stay my baby forever? Here are some of things he has accomplished thus far:

*mastered the art of crawling and mischief
*opening up all doors and drawers
*crawling over to our stairs and almost falling down several times
{it is time to get the baby gate put back up}
*says "mamama" on a regular basis [I love love love this one!]
*pulling anything and everything out of my kitchen/bathroom cabinets
*become a human vacuum
*pulls himself to a stand on almost anything
*stands up at night in his crib and then cries because he cannot figure out how to get back down
*can crawl up to the second step of our stairs- downstairs baby gate is now up most of the time when we are down there :)
*loves to eat small finger foods such as bananas, rice, strawberries, bread, cheerios, veggie puffs, graham crackers, etc.
*drinks out of a sippy cup at meal time
*still LOVES sweet potatoes and carrots baby food
*has his two bottom teeth and must be working on some more lately {he has been unusually crabby}
*sleeps from 7pm-7am most nights
*crawls over to me and tugs at my pant leg and cries to be held
*loves attention from the older siblings
*still takes a pacifier and loves to hold his silky blanket when he goes to sleep
*is a total toe-head :)
*has our whole family wrapped around his pinkie

We sure love you little E

randomness...flashback to Summer

what a relief it is to know that my journaling from Disneyland is finally complete.

it felt like it took forever.

I was looking back on some pictures from this summer that I never posted and these ones all made me smile :) *Robby in the Bumbo chair with his beloved papa; like I've said before mr. R would love to forever be our baby :)
*a random occurence with some fun headbands.
*Maddie wearing her all-time favorite "cherry shirt" as she calls it. Right now, it is successfully hidden at the top of her closet. When I bring it down again, she will probably wear it every single day it's clean until we "lose it" again.

*even Robby wanted to join in on the headband fun. Daddy was not too excited about that one.

and once again you can check out his "perma-frown" that he has perfected

*Lori (my sis), Eli and I at Zack's baby blessing dinner. Unfortunately, I had to work that night so I am decked out in my navy blue scrubs. I will have to get some pictures of him on my blog one of these days... he is a cutie and quickly becoming a mini-linebacker :)

Papa Toronto's birthday dinner; he just loves my kids= the grandkids, and is always so good to them. the end result: my kids are all obsessed with him. {by the way, can you believe how grown up Robby looks in this picture...blows me away}

California- Part 1 DISNEYLAND

*we ended up leaving on Tuesday evening (Sept 8th) around 7pm....quite a bit later than initially planned. Poor Jesse had some work problems that came up last minute that he had to take care of. I was also exhausted because I had worked the night before; leaving me awake for over 24 hours= cranky mommy. We almost cancelled our trip completely {thank heavens we didn't}. Because we left so late, we didn't arrive at our hotel until around 2am. Maddie and Eli both slept almost the entire way, but Robby was a different story. He had taken a late nap and slept until 5pm, so he was WIDE awake until around 10:30pm. We both thought that all three kids would be so tired that they would just stay asleep as we carried them inside. That didn't happen. Then we thought that surely with it being so late they would all lay down and go right back to sleep. Again, that didn't happen. We were laying down trying to get some shut eye and Robby was literally RUNNING around the hotel room. This of course kept Maddie and Eli wide awake and laughing. We finally resorted to plan B and set up the one man tent, zipping Robby inside that sucker and after 5 minutes of crying he layed down and went to sleep. But at this point the other two were still awake with Maddie starting to wander the room and Eli was totally busting up laughing in his pack'n'play. All Jesse and I could do was look at each other and laugh. Finally I resorted to climbing in bed with Maddie and around 4am we were all eventually asleep. Needless to say, we were all pretty tired the next morning.

*that morning we got up & ready for the day, sang happy birthday to Miss M, and had brought one present for her to open. Included in it were the sunglasses that accompanied us to Disneyland. We then loaded up the strollers and walked over to "the Happiest Place on Earth." We stayed in the Best Western right across the street, making it so convenient. Even though Robby was Mr Cranky to a T, we had a great time! Some of the highlights include riding Dumbo, spaceships, Autopia, Pirates, It's a Small World, etc; eating lunch in Toon Town; meeting 3 princesses with Miss M (even though we waited almost an hour= ripoff); watching the Celebration Parade in the evening.

*we ended up leaving right after the parade passed by Main Street and headed back to the hotel. All three kids fell asleep fairly quickly and we all entered dreamland by 10:30pm- HOORAY! *my three kidlets outside our hotel and READY for some fun!

*my cute hubby with the kids for a sunglasses photo* Maddie loved being able to wear a special pin for her birthday....if you can't tell :)

*all the employees at Disneyland would wish Maddie a happy birthday as we walked around. finally she turned to me and said "Mom, why does everyone know my name?" I never thought about how creepy that might be, to not understand how people would know this tid bit of information. After I showed her that her name was written on her pin, she was okay with it.*Mommy and the kids

*Maddie at the Sleeping Beauty castle...I had to practically drag her out of this one *Mommy riding the carousel with Maddie & Robby

*Dumbo ride: Robby had a really hard time waiting in line for this one. He kept yelling "my turn" when people would get off the ride and was trying to climb over the line dividers.

*It's a Small World

*snack size cheetos were a must at Disneyland *I think that this ride was probably the favorite for all three kids. They had updated it with more dancing people & they all looked around in amazement *riding the train

*we ate lunch at Toon Town, which consisted of Robby wandering around the entire time. even though we brought lots of snacks and juice boxes with us, we had to buy lunch. It was such a rip off and next time we will plan better :)*Mark Twains riverboat tour

*Tarzan's jungle playhouse; Jesse took the kids on this and I stayed with Eli as he snoozed in the stroller

jungle cruise; Robby totally jumped and hid when the piranha's came out of the water

*the infamous spinning teapots, or "puke" cups as I call them. Jesse was kind enough to take one for the team and ride this one with the kids*me & my little E; the big kids and Jesse went off and rode Autopia while we hung together. I ended up taking Robby & Madde back on Autopia for round 2 after they were finished. I think that it might have been the all-time favorite ride for Robby. He LOVED steering the car

*waiting in line for the princesses

*Maddie loved being able to meet some of them, but it was sad that you wait in line for such a long time and then only meet three. She kept asking me afterwards where Cinderella, Snow White & Sleeping Beauty were.

*Miss M with Jasmine *Ariel*Maddie was in heaven when she finally met Belle. she walked right up and proudly announced that Belle was her favorite. what a cutie pie!

*our 1 family picture

*I could eat this little guy up; that is how cute/smiley/cuddly/loveable her really is

*Robby pretty much gave me this look the entire day, we call it his "perma-scowl." this kid does NOT function well sleep-deprived.

*and lastly the kiddie spaceship ride. after this we got some dinner and only ate part before Robby had completely LOST it. So what to do? We packed up our food and headed out to watch the parade and then quickly walked back to the hotel.

a few tidbits I learned for next time:

*arrive much EARLIER in California= better sleep for the whole fam

*somehow find a way to bring the double stroller, it has so much more storage space and can hold all three kids- when needed; plus the seats recline for naptime and there is a canopy to shade kids

*if at all possible plan on 2 days at Disneyland so you aren't so rushed into fitting EVERYTHING in on one day

*stop at Subway and bring your own Subs for lunch