Emily made a colored a paper donkey with clothes pin legs, and crafted a pipe cleaner person at church. I asked her this morning if it was Jesus riding on a donkey. She said it was not. Then she explained in detail the story of the Good Samaritan. He version was adorable and she told it with such emotion. The pipe cleaner person was the man who was injured, and he got to ride the donkey to go get better.

Peanut Butter and Jelly

Like any good mother, I serve PB and J for lunch. It is cheap, sort of healthy, they almost always eat it, and it is a fast lunch. Today's menu included a PB &J, carrot sticks and apple slices. Emily and Dallas are currently in a growth spurt, months ago when their pants dragged on the ground, now are all ankle length or shorter. Emily has doubled her normal eating portions lately, she had two bowls of chili last night. The moral of this tale is that making them split one sandwich is no longer enough. I had one sandwich prepared, sliced it in two, and we sat down to eat.

Noelle then pooped, everywhere, but her diaper. It was bath worthy, and since I was holding her while it happened we needed to take care of the problem rather than delay it.

At this point Emily was begging for another sandwich. I tell her to wait, I would just be a minute, she could finish the rest of her food, and I would make her another. Two minutes later she is up in the bathroom with me whining about being hungry.

I told her to gather up the ingredients and she could make herself another sandwich. She gazed at me for a minute, smiled and then set to work. I figured I would be down to help her by the time she was unscrewing the peanut butter jar.
I walked into the dining room as Dallas was eating jam out of the jar with my fork, two big globs on the chair. Jam lid on the carpet. One mangled piece of bread on the table, that Emily said Dallas was eating. And sweet Emily dutifully spreading peanut butter on a heel piece of bread. It was too cute, I had to grab the camera. She did a good job making the sandwich, cutting it half to share was the hardest part for her.

I think making a PB&J is a good skill for a four year old to know, now to show her how to pour from a gallon of milk without to big of a mess, and I might not need to come out of my room before noon!

Pray for Rob at 10:00 am

Rob is interviewing someone seriously cool, wildly popular, incredibly famous, that would be a great connection to have in his back pocket.
It has been in the works for a while and was hard to land. Pray that he says and asks the right things, and has a great conversation for TMCP podcast.

...and if this guy wants to give Rob a race car and entry (sponsorship) into the next NASCAR race, great (might clue you in on who this legend is)

Guess who?

Guess who has slept through the night the last two nights??? Me, that would be a big fat NO. Noelle, also a big fat NO.
if you said
DALLAS,
you are correct. He has been getting up every 1-2 hours sporadically since Christmas, has been taking these lovely 45 minute or an hour naps as well.

I have been tricking him into taking longer naps, which I think has carried over into bedtime. No more cuddles for Dallas. He was showing up at our bedside several times a night requesting juice, cuddles or books. I have been walking him back to his room and putting him back to bed. The last two nights, we didn't see him at all! Now to get Noelle's 3 hour wake habit fixed, and I might actually feel what it is like to wake rested, and not worse than when you went to sleep. Most parents say that doesn't happen until you kick them out of the house.

I do miss our quiet time in the morning. I can't get up and get things done before kids are up. Some days Dallas wakes at 6:00, sometimes earlier or later.

Who enjoyed today's weather? We were riding bikes outside by 8:30. It was already 50 degrees when I came back from the gym early this morning! Have to savour this weather, I am looking forward to the cold and snow again. Frozen ground makes less of a mess for Bo! Having no snow in the backyard did allow me to pick up dog poo.



Dallas has been spending a lot of his day in time out. The last couple of days he made multiple trips before breakfast. Yesterday I overheard him putting his cars in timeout!



Emily is super proud to have lost a tooth. The tooth fairy visited and left her $1. She is pretty sure the tooth fairy has wings, is a girl, and tiptoes.



Noelle is super-duper smiley these days. She is showing less signs of being tired since she prefers to smile. I need to get her some food soon, as I want her to have tried a little oatmeal before we go to the 6 mo appt, just in case we have issues, I can ask questions.

Robert is really busy. Self employment takes 31 hours a day, he also likes to sleep at least 5 hours, so he is pretty tired these days. He loves his days, and is happy, a tired kind of happy.

Thursday nights are ballet nights. The girls head for ballet class, Em gets to see her friends and I get to see my friends (the mom's). Rob gets to stay home and do guys things like play cars, and put them in timeout.

We made our annual trek to Hickory Park for our Valentines meal. I am fairly sure we were done eating and headed towards home a good four hours before we were even seated to eat on that epic first date. I guess life is circular, having kids makes you eat early with the grey hairs. The kids did get many cutes, and oogles from all of the senior citizens eating at 4:30 with us. Dallas even put on a rousing game of peek a boo, he was very entertaining, for the next booth over.

Life is like a box of chocolates

breaking news...

Showing daddy her tooth
it is hard to smile and get a picture of the "gap"


I am canceling my usual Valentine's Day post, you all know the story, first date 13 years ago, blah blah, blah. This is big news! Emily lost her tooth this morning. She looked up at breakfast and said she had some food in her tooth, and then she pulled out the tooth. Wow. These 4 years went by in a millisecond, give me two more moments and she will be a teenager. We are so happy, and can't believe how beautifully she is growing up. Happy first lost tooth day Emily!

its beginning to look like Feb 14th

She is 5 months today

two for the books

The following two events happened the last couple of days that surely seemed worthy of documenting.

Friday, I was feeding and putting Noelle to nap, Dallas and Emily were playing downstairs. Emily has two craft scissors which she is allowed to play with and she said she was making a craft. (no this is not a haircut story) After a while they come up stairs, I decide Dallas needs a new diaper and then notice his pants are much altered. It looked as though someone had taken a scissors and sniped up 1" from the hem all around the leg hole, causing a fringe "look" it was too perfect to have been ripped, especially with both of the pant legs affected. As soon as I say something aloud about the state of his pants, Emily runs out of the room, dead giveaway! I called her back and she confessed. I sent her to her room, and called Rob for a consequence meeting. Our rules about scissors have always been only paper use from the beginning and she clearly knew this was wrong. I felt like the consequence needed to be more than just a "timeout", and Rob agreed. I wanted to have her give me five dollars from her savings so she could learn about not ruining clothes, and that clothes cost money to replace. I decided against this since I really don't think she has captured the "value" of money yet. We have not gone to the store so she could spend her money yet, she has only started giving at church. I guess I didn't think she would feel the pinch of losing the money. So, instead I gave her the choice of missing ballet class next Thursday or going 1 week without tv. I told her she could think about it, she chose skipping tv.

Fast forward to today. Rob and I had attended a marriage conference the last day and half, and the kids had spent the morning at the church in childcare. We came home, rushed to get lunch done, and I put everyone to nap. Rob left for a meeting in DSM, and I started on making some treats for church tomorrow. I had the mixer running, doing laundry and emptying the dishwasher... normal nap time things I try to get done. I decided to run upstairs and grab a flashlight, and I commenced to freak out. All of the bedroom doors were open. Emily was napping in our room, I thought it was strange, as naps started with all the doors closed. My first thought was someone came in a took the kids. Then I noticed I could still see Em curled up amongst her pillow pets. And then I heard music from Noelle's room...(she can't turn on music), heart beating fast... I round the corner and see Dallas sitting in the corner of the crib, the mobile is on, and he is giving her and switching out different paci's for her. At least they were all safe! We had a discussion about not waking up our sleeping sisters, not climbing in their beds, and again not touching her paci's.

Noelle is rolling, sort of

Noelle rolled for the first time, tummy to back on 01/23/11. I kind of forced her the first time, she repeated the feat two more times that afternoon. All times she was in a rage, but I seem to remember it happening with the other two that way.

She really loves bouncing in her little bouncer, sort of loves sitting in the bumbo. I find it makes her poop, and poop everywhere! She loves watching Bo, and the kids dance and around. She is getting more interested into playing with and holding toys. The big hits lately are a little crinkly book, and a waffle ball rattle that seems easy to hold. She smiles a lot, I love when she studies me, then recognition hits, and she flashes a big smile for me.

She likes to wake and eat about every 3-4 hours over night. She goes to bed around 7:00 when Em and Dallas lay down. I have been also trying to train her to get on a three a day nap sched. She usually likes 4 naps. Morning nap, wake at around 10:00, then she likes a 11-12 nap, then down at 1:00 with Dallas (yeah!!!!), combine that with a mandatory 1 hour quiet time for Emily and I am one happy momma. Then she usually snoozes one more time before dinner for about an hour. The afternoon nap is the longest, and I think I should try to get the morning nap longer, so she doesn't need that pre-noon nap.

these are the days...

We have changed our schedule around the last month. I have been working out early in the morning. Rob and I are both aiming to be done with exercise by 8:00 am. This works out most mornings. Since we have been doing this, we dropped the kid membership at the gym. I think the kids loved going and playing there, but I was starting to feel like our time could be better spent.

1. Noelle really likes sleeping at home, and as she gets older, sleeps less and less when we are out and about

2. I know they try hard, but I do think it is germie place. They probably don't enforce the sick rules as well as a full blown daycare

3. Round trip from the moment I decided it is

time to go, it takes 2-3 hours, while I might only get 45 min of cardio done.

4. They don't change diapers or nurse my baby, so even when I am working out the nursery workers can come and grab me to do either of these.

We have found more time for naps, schooling, play dates and projects by staying around the house.

fun times at Urgent Care

We called in a case of pink eye yesterday. Luckily they let me self diagnose, and we had drops for Emily by noon. Fast forward to 5:30 pm today, Emily said she felt like something was in her ear. She wanted me to clean out the "corn" that must be in there. Five to ten minutes later she was in hysterics, crying because it hurt. I call to see if we could get in to the ped urgent care before it closes. "can you get here by 6:15, yes" Somewhere along the line I notice that Dallas has blood in his hair. In our hast getting ready Dallas must have fallen, and he has a good size gash in his head. I know he fell a couple of times in the kitchen hallway, but after those he was complaining about his toes hurting? He never showed me his head or said that it hurt, I hate when I miss these things, makes me feel like a bad mommy. Robert walked in the door just in time. I wanted his opinion, I didn't think it was too bad, but he thought it should be looked at. That means instead of taking one kid to the Dr, we all go.



Emily has an ear infection. Apparently about 10% of the time, a pink eye infection becomes an ear infection. The plus side to this is the antibiotic for the ear tops trumps the eye drops, so we don't have to have that fight. Downside is the new antibiotic is $37 more than the drops were. And Robert was right, Dallas had a pretty deep, 1/4" hole. The Dr. recommended a couple staples.

Noelle had a nice time hanging out with us, she seemed healthy and happy.

Dallas with a bandage, it is holding a cotton ball onto his head to numb his cut. The stuff must work well, he didn't flinch when the first staple went in, and just said ouch the the next ones. Hope it goes as smoothly to get them pulled out on Monday. I think we lucked out because normally they make you go to the emergency room for things like this, guess they took pity on us!