Jack

On Tuesday we finally got to meet Jack. Jack is an absolutely adorable little boy who is the son of my sister's best friend Fay. He is not shy at all. He came barging into the house and ready to play claiming toys as his along the way. Gotta love 2 year olds! The kids got along with him great (aside from the who owned which toy thing) It was great to finally meet him and I really hope that we can have another play date soon. Let's not wait 2 more years ok!?!

They all decided to play dress up. Jack was very insistent on wearing one of Paige's dresses. Let me tell you he worked that dress!

Isn't he the cutest! I don't think Paige was totally convinced that he should be in her dress though. Hahaha.

Hooray for play dates with friends! Maybe next time it will be at Kristen's new house! :)

Chili

Tonight was our annual chili cook off at church. We missed it last year because we were sick. I was excited to go this year. People cook either chili or BBQ and enter it in the competition. I entered our chili recipe, that I got from my friend Liss, in the cook off 2 years ago and won third place. I had big plans to enter this year. Then I got scheduled to work. So it was all up to Alan. I came home from work today to the house smelling like chili. It smelled good! (and this is coming from someone who doesn't really eat chili)

I had the task of revamping the winners hats. They were sad looking and kinda falling apart. I wish I had gotten a before picture but I added lights to the chili hat and prettied up the BBQ hat.

Here are the new and improved hats!

The chili hats. It has 2 battery packs to power it's lights. Next year I plan on getting all red lights to replace the rainbow colors.  :)

The barbeque hat. Or perhaps we should call it the Barbeque crown now! :)

My Dad's barbershop quartet form the Bucks Country Gentlemen preformed. I love when my Dad's group sings. If you ever need singers for anything contact them because they are awesome! The even do singing Valentine's! (hint hint Alan :P )

The kids did some drawing on a blackboard. Kinda funny since a lot of school no longer have these. How long till kids don't know what a chalkboard is?

Getting ready to announce the winners! I actually judge the barbeque every year. This year there was only 2 entries. There were 4 judges. The barbeques tied.....twice. We had to go to a 5th person to break the tie!

Clapping for the winner!

There were 12 entries for the chili contest.
Guess who won!?!

Alan! He was so surprised! He has never made chili before. I guess he can make a mean chili! Way to go Alan! :)

He looks good in the hat right? Now he has to wear the hat to church tomorrow! Hahaha.

Fun day

Today was a fun day spent at home keeping warm. Miss Melanie and Doug came to visit us today. They came with some awesome news. They are going to have a little girl! I am so excited for them!

The kids got out their tablets to show Melanie their games.

We had a nice visit. I really wished we lived closer so we could see them more. I can't wait to meet their little girl. 20 more weeks!

This evening Paige decided she wanted her nails painted. I of course had no problem with this. Of course we all know what that means. The boys wanted theirs done too. Mommy can only paint so fast so we had to recruit Alan to the painting team. He did a great job!

See that talent!?! He has a kid in his lap and he is painting anothers toes. Who said men can't multitask!? lol

Showing off our awesome nails. Paige told me she is just like a ballerina now. Although almost anything makes her a ballerina but hey whatever works!

The Complete set!

I have been trying to get the kids Toy Story jammies. I started out with jammies that looked like Buzz Lightyear for Nathan. After a couple months I found Jesse jammies on clearance at Kohls. Well this past Monday I bit the bullet and bought Woody jammies for Levi thus completing the set. They were too funny when we put them on last night. They ran around the house quoting their characters phrases looking all cute in their cute jammies.

See how cute they look! And they even held hands! Whoa!

Jump!

Batman photo bombed! lol

Thank you for being my friend

Here is a little story about a girl. That girl just happens to be me. Girl meets boy and they fall in love. Eventually they get married and decide to start a family. After we got super pregnant (hehe) we were in the waiting room one day for one of our many visits when I came across a magazine. It was by The Bump. I decided to come home and look up this website. www.thebump.com. Little did I know that I would meet someone who I am incredibly proud to call my friend.

The bump is a spin off of The knot which I used when we were getting married. Only when I was using the knot I knew nothing about message boards. After playing around on the bump a while I found the message boards. There are a lot of them! They have them for how pregnant you are, for how old your child is, for multiples, trying to conceive, infertility, the list goes on and on. On these boards I met a core group of ladies that I started to do live chats with. In that group I met Liss.

Liss is my Canadian friend who I have yet to meet in person. We have been talking and texting for almost 3 years now. She has a son who is almost 2 months older than my trio. She is such a strong person who has been through so much these past few years. I admire her because no matter what is thrown at her she just picks herself up and continues on. She likes to do random acts of kindness for strangers just because she wants to brighten someones day. She is funny, witty, and an awesome Mom to her little boy.

Today it was my day she brightened. I went out on a shopping day with my cousin Beth. I called Alan on my way home just to say hi and see how everyone was doing. That was when I was told there was something waiting for me at home. Guess what I found!?!

She sent me this lovely flower arrangement! I absolutely love it. I never get flowers so being told there were flowers waiting for me at home totally threw me for a loop. Thank you so much Liss. I love them.

Some day I will meet Liss in person. Then I will be able to give her a real hug and not just an e-hug. All I need is my passport. Then it is off to Canada I go.....eh. lol.

Happy Birthday Grammy!

Today was Grammy's birthday! We tried to make it super special for her. First the kids made special cards just for Grammy.

The kids were so excited to give them to Grammy. We took them with us to church and Grammy and Pop-pop arrived right after us. We couldn't get them out of their car seats fast enough so they could give them to her! They were so proud of their cards.

After their nap we went to Grammy and Pop-pop's house We of course brought Grammy some presents!

Of course the kids were right there to help! I asked the kids what we should get Grammy for her birthday. Levi said she wanted Tick Tock (from Jake and the Neverland Pirates) Nathan thought she would like Ariel just like Paige. And Paige said we should get her pink. Interesting choices I must say!

We got her

A family photo session! We are going to do an extended family photo session this Spring/Summer. It has been a long time since we had a family photo with my parents, my sisters, and I. We will of course also be adding in Alan and the kids as well as Travis and Shawn. It should be a fun time!

Happy Birthday Grammy! We hope you had a fantastic day! :)

Shopping

Now I love a good deal. I am the type of person who starts shopping for Christmas....the day after Christmas. I like the clearance rack. One good clearance sale I try to hit every year is Target. The mark the toys they don't keep year round ridiculously low. I love it. Yesterday they marked their clearance toys 70% off. I had to go! We decided tonight to take the kids out to use some of their gift cards and really just get out of the house for a bit. First stop was Toys R Us. The kids got gift cards there for Christmas and I had a couple duplicate things I needed to return. We then let them each pick out a toy to use their gift cards on.

We started on the "girl" side looking at Barbie's and Princess stuff for Paige. She stopped at everything and tried to load up her arms with whatever she could carry! Hahaha. She finally settled on a Little Mermaid toy. Then we walked around to look at the games for the tablet. We decided to wait till they go on sale! Then off to the Spiderman and Batman aisles. Levi found a remote control batmobile that he had to have. Alan also saw this and I can honestly say I am not sure who is more excited to play with it Levi or Alan. My bets are with Alan though because I don't think Levi quite understands what all it can do yet. Last but not least we traveled to the cars section. Because Nathan doesn't have enough cars. He selected a 20 car matchbox set. I tried to sway him to something different but he had his heart set on it. We also got Doc McStuffins on DVD. All in all not too bad and we still have money left!

Next up we stopped at the Mall. Mainly because we can't go to Montgomeryville without visiting the Mickey store! I really wanted to get a pair of Woody pj's there for Levi. We have a set of Buzz and a set of Jesse. I need to finish the trio with a set of Woody but they didn't have his size. They did however have Spiderman ones we may have to eventually get. I ended up getting something that is more for me than the kids. I got a stamp set that I can use in their scrapbooks and stuff. I mean I guess I can let them play with it too. lol.

Last up was Target. We also had gift cards leftover from their birthday to use there. What is interesting is that at Toys R US we were looking at a Tinkerbell innotab game for $25. We found it at Target on clearance for $7! awesome find! We also got a Jake toy for $12 that was originally $40! Whoa! See why I love their sales!?! We got some awesome stuff.

I am hoping they forgot they saw some of these things so I can put them away for a later date. We shall see tomorrow! We will have fun playing with some of our new things tomorrow. Can't wait!

Busy day

Wednesdays are usually long days for me. It is truck day at work. What does this mean? It means I have to be at work at 3am to help unload our truck. I work until 10:30am. My Mom keeps the kids and I usually go home and nap and then pick them up later. Not today. Today I had somewhere else to be. Today we said goodbye to a wonderful Mother, Grandmother, and friend. Joyce Kellogg, my friend Cassie's Mother, passed away after fighting the good fight against cancer. She is in a better place now. The service for her was very nice and lunch at Plumsteadville Inn was also very nice. It was great to see Steve and Natalie as well as all of Cassie's family. I have no pictures for today because after picking up the kids Alan took over when we got home and I took a nap. I will have something tomorrow though and if your lucky it won't be food! Rest in peace Joyce, you were one in a million.

Such a good Daddy

I feel like a lot of my posts are about food lately. It is something we are working on so I just go with it. Once it gets warmer hopefully we will get more interesting. lol. Tuesday night is Alan's night to cook dinner. I have Girl Scouts on Tuesday nights so I am usually busy getting stuff ready for that. Tonight was pancakes. Alan loves to make pancakes since he got his electric griddle for Christmas. Now that he has a bigger surface to cook on he has been experimenting with making fun shapes for the kids with their pancakes! Last time we had pancakes we had a bunch of Mickey and Minnie mouses. This time Alan decided to try and branch out a bit.

On the griddle first was a Batman on the right per Nathan's request. On the left is a spider web for Spiderman. Levi has a thing for Spiderman right now.

The spider web didn't quite make the flip.

Paige asked for Ariel. If you look really hard you can see her fin and her hair flowing. Look really hard now! Haha. Both Alan and I worked together to create this masterpiece!

While Alan was cooking Levi was building. He got these magnet tiles for Christmas and builds things with them every day. He loves to build houses and garages for his cars. "take a picture of my house Mommy!" He is so proud.

Tonight was our cookie meeting for Girls Scouts. All the girls got their starter packs of cookies for our cookie sale! The sale starts this Thursday the 17th. Look for a Girl Scout after Thursday and buy your cookies!

Spaghetti night

We have been doing well with the nightly dinners. We have also had some success getting them to eat more things. Up until now I joked around calling my kids vegetarians because they wouldn't touch meat! Tonight We had spaghetti and meatballs. A staple in Alan's diet and something that most people love. Notice how I said most. Now I will admit it is not my favorite thing but I will eat it on occasion. 2 out of 3 of my children however acted as if we were trying to poison them! Now I always give them something to eat that they like and once they finish it and they want more they have to take a bite of the actual dinner. Paige and Nathan both inhaled their crackers and instantly wanted more. Meanwhile Levi decided he loved meatballs and was just eating those. After Alan showed him how to slurp the noodles which he thought was the greatest thing. He ate seconds!

Like father like son. This is an Alan face through and through!

Slurp!

And what the other 2 thought of spaghetti night. I hope they get on the eating wagon soon!

Donut Sunday

Every Sunday after church we take the kids to Giant and get them a donut. It is such a fun treat for everyone (including Mom and Dad!). We go in the store and the kids "walk by selfs" through the store. Levi is a big one who has really started wanting to do things himself. They then pick out their donuts. What is nice is that Giant usually has a nice selection of donuts made just for kids. We have gotten stars and footballs and Christmas trees just to name a few. They each pick their donut and then we pick up any other odds and ends we need and homeward bound we go. I usually cut their donuts in half and give half for lunch on Sunday and the other half with breakfast on Monday. Today however I had a request to not cut them. I decided to see how much they would eat and let them have them whole today. They ate most of them! I was shocked! I also decided to play a little with my other lens while they ate.

Levi

Paige

Nathan

Mmmm donuts!

Sleep?

According to Levi you don't need much of it. He fights it tooth and nail some days and others he goes to sleep no problem. We separate the boys for nap. Nathan is miserable without a nap and Levi would just keep him up. Levi needs a nap but not as long of a nap as Nathan. Unfortunately in order to keep Levi in his room to nap we have to double gate him in. I was going to take a pic of the setup but Levi started to wake up. Most days he is fine and plays in his room till he eventually falls asleep. Others he will scream at his door, slam his door, and use every excuse in the book to come out. Today was a screaming day. He usually wears himself out and then goes to bed. Today, for the first time, he didn't make it to bed.

This is right on the other side of the gates. Of course as I was trying to take pics Paige started talking/yelling and he started to wake up. So this isn't the best picture but you get the point. Someone needs to inform him that sleep is awesome and some day he will be wishing he got nap time still!

Tents

They looked cute online. Sure the reviews weren't all that great but hey it would be fun right? The kids got tents that fit over their beds for Christmas. I had put it on their wishlist because they looked like fun. Well we decided to try them out tonight. Ugh. They were not easy to get together and on the beds. They are also very flimsy and Nathan's wasn't up long before they "broke" it and it needed some tlc.

Levi got his favorite Jake and the Neverland Pirates.

And Nathan of course got Cars.

And here is Princess "I refuse to smile for the camera" in her princess tent.

Would I recommend these? Well that depends. If you have 2 boys who share a room and wreck the place on a daily basis? No. If you have one child who goes to bed relatively easy and does not swing from the rafters. Yes. Levi's tent lasted about a half an hour. We need to fix what we fixed on Nathan's since they did the same to Levi's. Nathan's another 15 minutes after that. They decided to totally dismantle his piece by piece. Paige is happily sleeping in hers. At least they looked neat for the short time they were up right?

scrubby dubby

It has been a while since I have done a tub time photo. Mainly it is because I usually bathe them 1 by 1. I get less wet that way and I enjoy the one on one time I get with each of them. Tonight they decided they wanted to take a bath together. I of course saw it as a photo opportunity and clicked away as they played.

Still pretty dry here. Paige has some nice pony tail head going on. Haha. I think it is kinda funny that they now put themselves in this order a lot. This is the order I used to do their monthly photos in. Probably a coincidence. Happens often though.

Getting wet!

All soaped up! I do love that they have so much fun together.

All clean! And a little cold. Haha.

Now they are all ready for their 3 year well check tomorrow. Yes that's right I said 3 year well check. Yikes where has time gone?

Tiny feet

I was getting ready to go up to bed and realized I didn't take my picture for today! Wednesday's are pretty crazy around here. I work really early in the morning.....3am early. So the rest of my day kinda melts together. I do get a nap though thanks to my Mom who keeps the kids until around 4pm. I looked around for inspiration for my picture and immediately saw 3 sets of tiny feet.

I love these tiny feet. Every single one of the 30 toes you see. The NICU made these for Alan and I as a Christmas gift from the kids. Thankfully they came home right before Christmas. It was such a nice surprise to see these in the mail a couple weeks later. They are so special to me. They hang on my wall for all to see. Each foot is maybe an inch and a half long. So tiny! I can't believe how big they have gotten.

Alan's new toy

Alan is very excited because he got a new toy. Through work Alan is able to earn points. These points can then be used to buy things. He has gotten us free movie tickets (1000 points each). He rarely buys anything because they never had anything that struck his fancy within his price range. So he has been saving for a long time. He finally spent a good chunk of his points (10,000 to be exact) which took him 5 years or so to save up (so says Alan).

It is his shiny, new, camera! He got a Canon powershoot A2300. We have both been wanting a small point and shoot camera for a while. I love my dslr but it is very bulky to take to a lot of places. Also I tend to forget it sometimes. I love that I can put it in my purse and I won't even notice it!

Isn't it pretty!?!

I thought this photo was neat. Not gonna lie it was a little weird taking a picture of a camera. Haha. This arrived on our doorstep yesterday. Alan was home with the kids all day today so he got to play a bit with it.

Here is a picture of Paige taken by Alan on his new camera. Static electricity is not her friend. lol

Here is one of Nathan taken by Alan on the new camera. I love how he is curling his tongue.

And last but not least, Levi taken by Alan on the new camera. We now have a fun new toy to play with! Expect to see lots more photos by Alan from now on! :)