Someone told me today that little girls are just as pretty in pink as they are in dirt. How true! Here are some pictures of our other little princess who is always looking beautiful. Now that she is walking, she has taken after her sister and is another dirt magnet. She sits in puddles, stomps, and digs. We think she’s pretty darn cute.
This is Avery’s very best friend.
And I just had to throw in a picture of my other cutey-face because he is just so fun too.
We wanted to make sure we posted some pictures from Father’s day and let you know what we did. Since Father’s Day/Mother’s Day is always on Sunday, we never really get to do the sleeping in thing but we still did breakfast in bed. We made pancakes and the kids all ran in and jumped into bed with Jim. Jim may have missed his calling as an actor because he does an amazing job of acting overwhelmingly surprised when three kids who have been yelling and running around the house for an hour try to wake him up. Then we came downstairs and opened presents. I had the kids paint their handprints on a t-shirt and that was their big gift from them. They also made pictures and Cole made a calendar at school. I think the calendar may have been Jim’s favorite. They asked Cole why his dad was great and he drew a picture of all of us at the Red Sox game which included some green scribbling on the side for the green monster. We taught Children’s Church that morning and made cards with the kids for their dads. Then we hung out at home and just relaxed. Jim even took a two hour nap while we were playing which almost never happens. We are so so lucky to have such a wonderful Daddy here.
Alli is 3!!! Alli had a terrific 3rd birthday. She woke up bright and early and before her brother and sister. She came creeping into our bedroom and crawled into bed with us. This almost never happens. Once one kid is up, another one is right on their heels so having some time alone with Alli that morning was pretty special. She was very excited to go downstairs and see what was in store for her. We decorated everything with Hello Kitty and pink. She ate her birthday donuts and was ready to start tearing into presents. Alli loves presents like Cole loves candy. She is always so excited to see what is inside. Her biggest present wasn’t wrapped and was a “big girl” pink bike. She has been begging for a big girl bike for a while and we have kept telling her that she had to wait until she was three. After she opened some presents and played, we went down to the park for our friend Jack’s birthday party. Jack is a good friend and shares a birthday with Alli so she actually ended up with all day sugar and cake. We left Jack’s party around 2 and came home to wait for Pop, Amy, Adam, and Seville to arrive. The kids were very excited to see them and warmed up to the boys right away. We loaded up and went to Chuck E. Cheese for dinner. Adam and Seville won a ton of tickets for the kids so they wound up with plenty of prizes. Then we headed back to the house for birthday cake and more presents. Alli had a wonderful 3rd birthday. Once it was all said and done, Jim and I breathed a huge sigh of relief that birthday season is behind us. We are tired, tired, tired but waking up to their cute little faces makes it worth it.
This is our traditional “Go to bed two, wake up three” picture.
The umbrella straws ended up being a huge hit. So easily amused.
It has a princess basket and horn and a ballerina helmet. Did I mention the bike itself was a garage sale find that we got for $5!
Seeing her birthday stuff
She got a lot of Fancy Nancy dress up clothes from Mimi. Here she is making a Fancy Daddy.
Fancy Alli
I let Avery “help” with the icing. She enjoyed herself.
Alli started writing her name a couple of months ago but it usually doesn’t look very legible. This one turned out so nicely that I had to blog it. She’s growing up!
This is the boy Alli says she is going to marry bringing over a birthday card he made for her.
Round 1 of cake
Scaring Pop and Amy with the bugs they got from Jack’s party
Her new glass slippers
Her pink Hello Kitty cake with sparkly sprinkles. It was everything she wanted.
She got embarrassed and hid when we sang Happy Birthday. She came back to blow out her candles.
Happy Birthday LoveBug.
(By Jim)
So this weekend Natalie went out of town to the PWOC Women of Faith conference with some of her friends from the post chapel. They left Friday morning at 6am (I think, I was still asleep) and should return sometime late on Saturday night. Which of course means that I get the distinct pleasure of watching the kids for two full days. Not that I haven’t taken care of the kids myself before, but usually Natalie is a short cry for help away.
So, Daddy Weekend started off with the kids sleeping in, normally a great and rare thing, except that it was a Friday which meant that Cole had school, so we couldn’t sleep in. Natalie actually called around 6:40 to make sure I was up (which I wasn’t) and getting everything squared away to take Cole to school. After waking up all three sleepy-headed kids and getting clothes and breakfast, we headed to pick up Cole’s friend Jack and drop them off at school. Then the girls and I headed to the Commissary to get groceries, since Natalie’s Dad and his fiancé, Amy, are coming to visit on Sunday. Alli was big helper at the Commissary, helping me pick out the produce and trying to sneak every princess cereal, fruit snacks, or crackers into the basket. Well, as we were walking by the bakery section, she spotted the cookies and asked if we could get one for her snack. As we approached the cookies she noticed the gingerbread men frosted with Red Sox uniforms, and asked to get a Red Sox cookie. 
I of course agreed, especially after the Sox beat the Yankees in the eight inning the night before. So, along with our full grocery list we got two Red Sox cookies and some Spaghetti-Os for for lunch. When Cole got home from school he was excited for his Spaghetti-O lunch and Red Sox cookie desert.
We then had our friends Danny and Emily over, since their dad was also assuming the role of stay-at-home dad for the day (his wife Lydia went to the conference with Natalie). We played for a few hours till dinner time. Then, we had quesadillas for dinner. Then after dinner we made a trip to the local PetCo. Cole’s preschool class brought stuffed animals to class that morning and made a pretend zoo. Cole and Alli kept asking me after he got home to go to the zoo. Of course I was not going to take 3 kids to the zoo by myself, so we decided to go to the pet store and pretend it was the zoo. The kids both fell in love with the cockatiel and have been constantly asking me to get one for our house since we left. We came home and all three kids pretty much passed out immediately.
Then came Saturday morning, when we had no plans and no reason to wake up, and all three kids are up by 6:20am! Awesome, pure awesomeness! We had donuts for breakfast and got ready for some visitors. At 8:00 Danny and Emily came over for the day (their dad had class from 8:30-4, and their mom was at the conference). Yep, 5 kids (5, 2.99, 2, 1, and 1 years old) versus 1 dad. Again, not such an unbelievable occurrence, so many moms and dads out there do it every day, just not me. Of course, we had a good day (so far at least, it is only 2pm). We played with lots of toys, which means toys everywhere. We made bracelets with beads and pipe cleaners I found in the basement.
So you might be wondering, why did you just waste 3 minutes reading a detailed account of our weekend, and why did I spend 15 minutes typing it all out. To try and give you some perspective on what I am about to say…
Stay at home moms (and dads) are AMAZING! Seriously, I truly want to tell every stay at home parent, past and present, that you ROCK! It is amazing to me that you can do this day in and day out. I love my kids, and I have really enjoyed our time together, I just can’t wait for Natalie to get home! To all the stay at home parents out there, thank you for being awesome. To my mom, thank you for being patient with me, I know my kids are way better than I was, and I am grateful that you put up with me. To my amazing and beautiful wife, you are the bomb. Thank you for making doing what you do for our kids and our family. I LOVE YOU!
I was so thrilled that Jim was able to take the day off this past week so I could chaperone Cole’s zoo trip. I don’t know which one of us was more excited. I am very much anti-school bus BUT all of the buses in Mass have seat belts. Yay!! We all met in the classroom and the kids did their morning meeting and talked about what was going to happen. Everyone was really looking forward to their bumpy bus ride. We had a few minutes before we left so this was also a good opportunity for me and the other room mom to work on the end of the teacher gifts. It’s going to be really cute but more about that later. We got on the bus and had a fun ride out to the Franklin Park zoo. We got there around 9:45 and ate our picnic snack outside the gates. That we were ready to go as soon as they opened. The first thing we did was hit the bathroom (of course). I don’t know if any of you have had the privilege of going to the bathroom with a classroom of preschoolers but it was definitely an experience. That portion of the trip alone took around 15 minutes. Right outside the bathroom was an ATM machine. Some of the kids were pushing the buttons and playing around while waiting on their classmates. The next thing I know, Cole comes up to me and says, “Look Mom, twenty dollars.” Sure enough he had $20 in his hand. He pushed some buttons and it just came out. We probably should have immediately gone to the zoo manager or made a plan to put it into the offering plate at church or something really moral like that but his teacher looked at him and excitedly asked him what he was going to buy and told him how cool that was that he got $20! His eyes immediately lit up and you could see the wheels spinning in his head thinking about what toy would be coming his way. We ended up letting him keep the money, explaining that you usually do not get money for nothing, and getting him a light saber with it. After the lucky kid free money thing, we went to a zoo classroom and the kids learned about some different animals. They touched a giant tree roach (SO GROSS), a blue-tongued skink (really cool), and a very stinky ferret. Then we toured the zoo and saw of the other highlights. Everyone really liked the gorillas, lions, and giraffes. The coolest thing about the lion is that it stood up when we were all watching and roared about ten times. All of the kids roared back and it was very cute. Overall it was a very good zoo trip and very fun for me to be able to go. Jim spent the morning playing with the girls, then he took the big kids to the pool when we got back. When we sat down for dinner at 5:30 that evening. He looked at me and said, “Man, these kids have really worn me out. This was way harder than the weekends. It’s a long day being at home with them all day. There is just never a break!” I just looked at him and smiled. I am thankful for days like those. Thankful that I have such a great husband who is a big kid at heart and loves to play with them and thankful that he understands what it is like to walk in my shoes sometimes and appreciates what it means to be a mommy.
You may notice in these pictures that Cole’s hair is “spiked.” The hairdresser put gel in his hair one day and he has since decided that spiky hair is his new five year old look.
I can’t tell you how hard it was to get the whole class in the picture.
It’s hard to keep this updated over the weekend because we always have so much going on but here is a little wrap up of all our weekend entailed. Jim came home early on Friday which gave me time to run to target and pick up a few things for Alli’s birthday. She wants a Hello Kitty birthday so I was waiting for a time to shop solo so she didn’t see everything. Friday night we decided to have a fondue and movie night followed by a “campout.” Those of you who have experienced these campout with my kids know that this really just means they get to stay up super late, sleep on the pull out couch, and eat unlimited popcorn and candy. It’s fun. We watched 2 movies and stayed up until about 10. We spent almost all of Sat. playing outside except for my additional target run for light sabers. Cole recently got $20 by sheer luck and wanted to spend it on a light saber. He was supposed to go to the store with me to pick it out but all of his friends were outside playing so he asked if I could just go get the toy for him with his money. I cannot resist his sweet voice. As I was leaving, Jim told me that he would also need a light saber because you can’t have just one so both the boys got new toys on Saturday. Alli immediately claimed one for herself and then began the biggest neighborhood light saber/ sword fight I have ever seen. Amazingly no one got hurt and all the kids were really good about not beating each other with them. The game soon turned into all the kids chasing Jim around and attacking him which was pretty funny. We eventually had to pack it in to go to dinner. We took Jim’s cadet from West Point and his girlfriend to where else? Rainforest Cafe. It is the only restaurant loud enough to mask our children’s voices. Everyone had a great time as usual and we got Alli her birthday volcano cake. The kids crashed as soon as we got home after being up so late the night before and we had our neighbors over for our weekly game night. Sunday we actually had to wake the kids up to go to church which never happens. It would be great if they slept past 7 on a Saturday. Jim and I have been teaching children’s church which is usually okay but this week turned out to be a little out of control. All the kids decided it was their day to misbehave. We have two sisters in our class who can’t seem to stop spitting at one another. I’m not sure anyone got much of anything out of this week. A little frustrating but we are coming up with a better plan of action for next week. We spent yesterday afternoon outside all day again and had a neighborhood cookout to say goodbye to some friends who are moving. I hate having to say goodbye to so many people all the time. I still feel like we just got here some days! It’s hard to believe that this time next year we will be packing up and moving again. Avery took her first bath in the big tub last night with Alli which was pretty cute. They both came in covered head to toe in dirt. It cracks me up how filthy these two little princesses love to get. That’s about it for our weekend. Hope yours was great too!
