Alli’s Birthday Party

We decided  to do Alli’s birthday party a few weeks before her actual birthday because so many of her friends were moving.  She will probably always have to have hers early because her birthday falls during PCS season and either she will move or half of her friends.  That’s just the way it goes.  We have three kids in our courtyard turning three within weeks of each other so once again, we decided to do one big party.  Everyone loves the loval bounce house place, Jump On In, and while it is a little pricey, split between three families made it well worth it.  We didn’t have to plan any games or activities and the staff cleans up the party mess.  Best of all, I’ve never met a kid that didn’t like the place.  Rather than cakes, we did three separate cupcake towers.  Cara and Alli both love the same girly things so we did one princess, one tinkerbell, and one Wall-E for Collin.  Everyone had a wonderful time bouncing and I am thrilled to be done with birthday party season around here.  Having April, May, and June babies might  not have been the best way to go after all.  I have a feeling that every spring will leave us exhausted! 

Avery’s Rough Time

We found out at Avery’s last appointment (about 2 weeks ago) that she has fluid in both of her ears.  Not unusual but this fluid looked like it was from an old infection that never completely healed.  The last time she had an ear infection was three months ago!  The doctor thinks that she has basically not really been able to hear for three months.  Everything has been muffled.  She decided to give her some different antibiotics than what she normally gets because Avery could be immune to the other.  So she started the meds and also got her one year shots that day.  No fun.  Her ears are almost completely healed and it is amazing how much more she is talking- and sad to think that everything has been muffled for a quarter of her life.  Well Monday she woke up with a very light rash.  Knowing that this can sometimes be a side effect to the medicine, we decided just to watch it.  Tuesday was much much worse so we took her in to the doctor again.  She is having an allergic reaction to either the antibiotics or her MMR shot and there is no way to tell which one it  is.  Yesterday she was completely spotted. Head to toe.  Her poor face is covered.  It seems to have gone down today a little bit so I think she is getting better.  We had to stop the antibiotics (obviously) so I guess just be praying that her ears completely heal on their own and that her rash goes away quickly.  She is still happy as can be and always smiling.

Our house is sometimes a zoo!

  By Jim

Today Natalie went as a chaperone for Cole’s Pre-school field trip to the Franklin Park Zoo in Boston.  I took the day off to stay home with the girls.  Well, Alli was kind of disappointed that she didn’t get to go to the zoo, so we decided to make our own zoo! 

As you can see, we had “cages” for the animals, especially the tiger and lion because we didn’t want them getting out and eating us.   Alli even decided to organize her very own zoo animal parade. 

This was a special zoo, because you could touch all of the animals.

 

There was just one rule at our zoo, that you had to be in your “Papa-Juliet's”.  (That is PJ’s for all of you non-Army people out there). 

The girls had a blast as I am sure Cole and Natalie did at the real zoo.

Avery Walking!

Here It Is!

There are a few videos coming…

Cups

Avery always wants to drink out of everyone else’s cup.  She screams if we try to take it away or move it and she only wants to do it by herself.  She doesn’t like us holding it for her at all so basically, she covers herself in water and ends up soaking wet all the time.  Cole and Alli, of course, think this is great.

Thankful for the sun

I love love love warm weather which means Boston is probably not the best fit for me but it also means that I get to be really thankful for bright warm days.  We had a neighborhood yard sale this weekend.  We periodically get together with other neighbors and do one giant yard sale.  The problem with that is that I usually end up buying more than we make.  This sale, however, I acquired 2 bikes, a baby bouncer, 2 weeks of chess lessons for Cole, and still made money.  It was good.  The kids had a great time outside with their friends.  They had a whole caterpillar hospital thing going on and 3D sidewalk chalk.  Very cool.  I wanted the whole family to come to the library with me, something we try to do together every couple of weeks, but Cole was having way too much fun outside so it was just Alli and me.  She picked out several books and then since we were having so much fun, we decided we should go on a girls only ice cream date to Friendly’s.  We took some of her new books in and spent a wonderful afternoons eating pinkalicious ice cream with sprinkles and reading “Alice in Wonderland.”  I love having girls.  Then we went home and played played played.  It was a good weekend.  And the biggest news…Avery is WALKING!!!  She has been taking about 5 or 6 steps alone for a few weeks now but she decided this weekend that she could be an all the time walker.  So cute.  Pictures to come later.  Here’s some pictures of this weekend.