Last Birthday of the Season

The kids have taught me well, and I spent a good part of last week and all of the weekend celebrating my birthday. It started with my parents watching the kids so Jeff and I could go to a movie. As far as I can remember, this is only the second time we've made it to a movie since Natalia has been born, and the last trip to the movies was a baby gift from my office who paid for tickets and watched all four kids including tiny baby Natalia, so we were a little overdue. We ended up seeing American Hustle, which was quite enjoyable. (On a side note, I've had "I Feel Love" stuck in my head ever since and I felt compelled to wear wrap dresses to work all last week.)

Last Monday, my parents and grandmother took us out for Mexican food. I am quite embarrassed to say that my 93-year-old grandmother can guzzle margaritas much quicker than me. I obviously need more practice!

Things were quite for a few days, but on Friday night, Jeff and the kids took me out for Mexican food. (Yes, there is a theme. I was born in Texas. I cannot properly celebrate anything without chips and salsa.) After dinner, the kids all scurried into our bedroom to wrap my presents. They then, of course, helped me unwrap my presents.

Saturday I threw myself a small party. I love that: 1) I have friends to invite to a party. 2) My friends don't care that I throw myself a party. 3) My friends are still my friends even when they come over and there are dog fur tumbleweeds all over the house. (On the bright side, the toilets were clean!) The evening was simple. We just invited over two families for dinner, drinks, and cake. Of course, we had Mexican food. I just couldn't stop myself.

All together, there were 8 kids here. They had, um, fun in the toy room.

We didn't have any plain candles. Or the actual digits for my birthday. So it was decided I should be 23. I like that.

The best part of having my own birthday party? I didn't have to worry about driving home.

It was a relatively late night, with everyone staying until around 10, and the kids not getting to bed until 10:20. I'd like to say they slept in the next morning, but of course they didn't. So everyone has been a little groggy ever since. But it was completely worth it.

So we are now done with birthdays for the season. I am actually looking forward to the return to regular life. But maybe I'll let the party go on in my head just a little longer.

Talia

Last week Natalia turned three. Wow. We've made it three years. In the past we've joked that twin boys were just a warm up for Natalia, but the truth is, twin boys were just a warm up for Natalia. The girl is exhausting. But cute. Very cute. And so we keep her around.

We had two major milestones over the weekend. The first was that I woke up on Saturday morning on my own (no kid noise!) and in daylight. Yes! Daylight! It must've been at least 6:45. I have no idea when Natalia (or Mike) last let me sleep that long. Perhaps Natalia's separation anxiety is starting to lessen. Maybe??? The other milestone was later that morning when I was out shopping with Natalia. I realized, shockingly, the two of us were having fun. It wasn't just a battle! Ree was with my parents, and the boys were at a birthday party (that Natalia was quite sad to miss), so I treated her to a trip to Dunkin' Donuts. We actually sat there and had a nice conversation and enjoyed our sugary goodness. After that, we headed to the library where she taught me the proper way to use the self-checkout. (Jeff must have the patience of a saint considering, based on her expertise with the system, during their weekly trips he must let her drag a step stool to the wheelchair accessible computer, scan each item, and then run all the DVDs through the device to unlock them. She most certainly did NOT need me to help her with the check out process.) Then we went to the grocery store where Natalia reminded me that shopping with her is normally rather challenging. She couldn't let me off that easily!

Natalia does seem to be mellowing. Over the fall, her favorite phrase became, "Oh, that's cool!" and she adapted a slightly more laid back personality to go with it, although she is still occasionally beating up school aged boys on playgrounds.

She also continues to be the child who does all the "typical" things kids do that other kids in the family decided not to do. Lately that involves pretending to read books (she favors chapter books, "Like Jewel"), pretending to write (she spends a lot of time taking orders at her pretend restaurant), and carrying a baby doll with her at all times. (Also, as the spoiled, youngest child she gets to drag a baby doll around with her, even in public. Ree's stuffed animals were not allowed to leave the house. The boys were allowed to leave but had to stay in the car. Natalia's, of course, go everywhere.)

Natalia is still refusing to potty train. She won't do it. At all. We did have to laugh about it on her birthday. Weeks ago we bought a bag of M&Ms to use as bribes when she uses the potty. The package is still sitting, unopened, on the bathroom counter. For her birthday, Ree gave Natalia a bag of M&Ms. Natalia excitedly ran and put this new bag of M&Ms on top of the other unopened bag in the bathroom. At least she knows where to keep her candy. A couple of weeks ago I asked Natalia when she was going to start using the potty. Her response was, "When I big." So I asked her when she would be bigger. She then patiently explained, "I grow bigger every day."

Some pics from Natalia's birthday:

The requisite trip to Chuck E. Cheese. She wore her party dress and spent a lot of time on the rides. We tried to leave to eat dinner somewhere else. Nope. She needed to eat pizza and watch the band.

How many kids does it take to open a package of princess statues?

Her favorite present was Ree's old easel. Ree and I had spent two hours scrubbing it the weekend before. I was worried about all the existing stains and drawings, and I used big wall stickers to cover up what I couldn't remove. I shouldn't have worried. It is now covered in stains and drawings again.

 Natalia wanted chocolate cupcakes with pink sprinkles and princess stuff. Easy enough.

Overall, we had lots of fun on Natalia's birthday. And I think we'll keep Natalia around for another year.

Long Weekend!

We had a pretty good weekend. Aside from a crazy Friday, we didn't have any plans. Sometimes, I really look forward to weekends with no plans. Other times, I look forward to quiet weekends but end up regretting that we "wasted" the weekend, neither relaxing nor accomplishing anything. This weekend was a nice balance of both relaxation and projects.

Friday was a little bit of a crazy day. It was my day to work a half day from home, and I had already worked quite a bit last week, so thankfully I only had to squeeze in a couple of hours of work which I was able to do first thing in the morning and during naps. In between working, Natalia and I took the boys to school and then went shopping. Of all things, I had to shop for gifts because I am invited to three baby showers this week for women having little girls. Natalia took her shopping very seriously. Any time I gave her a choice between two things, she would pick both. And if she had her way, we would've purchased complete layettes for each baby. At one point she was very concerned that we were not buying everything the babies would need and started pleading, "But Maaaaamaaaa, babies NEED bibs!"

Late Friday afternoon, Ree and I headed to her Daisy Scout meeting. We came home for a quick dinner (Jeff cooked. Yay!) and then the whole family took off to get frozen yogurt. Our excuse for going was to celebrate the boys having good checkups at the doctor that afternoon (Jeff bravely took all three little ones while Ree and I were at Daisy Scouts) and Ree getting a great report card.

Saturday we split up for "Boys' Day" and "Girls' Day." The boys did boy things - there was chicken wing eating and a great deal of sports watching. For girls' day, Natalia and I took Ree to her dance class. The teacher was kind enough to let Natalia participate in the warm ups on the floor and again at the end where they do rhythm work with wooden sticks. Natalia (in the fuchsia dress) was in heaven.

After dance, the girls headed to Olive Garden since I had a gift card burning a hole in my pocket. For as long as I remember, Ree and I have headed to Olive Garden once or twice a year for a "fancy" lunch, and I was worried that she wouldn't like Natalia joining us. But Ree took it in her stride, Natalia mostly behaved herself, and we all had a nice lunch.

On Sunday morning, we headed to the aquarium. We've been before, but I guess it's been awhile, since the boys (especially Leon) were amazed at everything on the drive down, especially the brightly painted beach houses in Kure Beach. Natalia's mind was blown the first time she saw a purple house - and then we passed two more.

Everyone had a ton of fun at the aquarium, and once I realized that it was going to be $40 for admission for our not-so-small family, or $60 for an annual membership, we opted for the membership. The kids, especially the three stooges, are already planning our next trip.

From the aquarium, one of my favorite signs ever.

Bonus science fun. Leon loved that we could see our reflections in the fish tanks.

Leon also loved finding all the waterfalls. His siblings followed.

The kids were really excited to discover they added a playground since our last visit.

Today Jeff took the kids on more adventures while I attacked the house. Ree's room has been out of control ever since Christmas. The Barbie dream house is sitting smack in the middle of her room, and there wasn't a lot of space before. So I am cleaning her room out. But in order to do so, I had to rearrange the toy room. It's a slow process, but I did get the extra toys out of the living room/dining room today. So for tonight, I will not think about all the work I need to do in the toy room, Ree's room, or the garage. Instead I will focus on the nice, somewhat uncluttered living room and on looking back on a good weekend.

Sleep, Interrupted

I will remember 2013 as the year I didn't sleep. There were a variety of factors that caused the continual sleep deprivation, and they weren't entirely bad. I was working more, and I decided to at least attempt to have a life again, and those both led to some late nights. Plus Ree started kindergarten, so that meant no "sleeping in" until 6:30 any more, even if it had been a rough night. Factor in four young children and two old dogs, and there were also plenty of excuses to get up during the night and very, very early in the morning. I'm used to Natalia getting up between 5:15 and 5:30 most mornings, but one day in December she decided to start our day at 4:49. That was a new record for us.

There were at least some semi-humorous moments in it. (Well, at least that's what I think in my current delirious state.) There was the moment last October when Michael said, "We've been up for two hours, and the sun is still sleeping. That's funny." Uh, sure. Then there was the night we slept at Jeff's parents' house over the holidays. The six of us were sleeping in the family room in their basement, and for some reason Natalia woke up around 2:30 a.m., and she would not let herself go back to sleep. I tried letting her sleep with me. I tried sleeping in bed with her. We cuddled and I sang (verrrry quietly) and I rubbed her back. She would get drowsy, and every time she would start to nod off, she would sit or stand up so that she didn't actually drift off. There were a couple of times were I actually fell asleep and I woke up to her running in circles, in the dark room, to keep herself awake. Finally, miraculously, she went back to sleep around 5:30. When my mom asked Natalia the next afternoon about the sleepover, Natalia's response was, "I had trouble sleeping." The girl does not lie.

I went into 2014 quite hopeful that this year I would sleep again. But then, thanks to young kids/old dogs/a stomach bug, I had a night where I only slept 3 1/2 hours. Doh. But I took a nap the next day, and though for sure things would get better. But, nah, it's the same old. I did have at least an interesting reason to not sleep last week.

Last Tuesday I was up with Michael at 12:30. I'm not sure why he was up, but he was screaming, so I tucked him back in. Of course Natalia woke up, too, because she is just as light of a sleeper as her mama. (Poor girl.) Then Ree was up at 2:30. I have no idea why. She never gets up unless she's sick, so I gave her cuddles and tucked her back in. I crawled back in bed and was just about to fall asleep when I heard an electronic chirp. Thirty seconds later, I heard another chirp. And again. And again. I quickly realized we had a dead battery in one of our smoke detectors, so I went and stood in the living room so I could determine which smoke detector was torturing me. I figured it out, and then woke up Jeff to see if by any chance he could reach the smoke detectors easily. Nope. Since I was already up, I trekked out to the garage in the cold to get the ladder. (Of course this would happen on a night when the temperature was in the teens.)

I took out the battery in an attempt to find silence. Nope, it was still chirping. Our smoke detectors are hard wired with battery backups, and apparently they chirp until you put in a working battery. So I looked around for a 9 volt battery. Of course, there were none to be found. Jeff got up and helped me brainstorm what devices we had that required 9 volt batteries. We could not think of any. The chirping was really loud and annoying, so I traded my pajama pants for sweats, put a jacket on over my jammie top, and drove to CVS at 3am to buy batteries. I forgot to take a coupon (and I laughed at myself for even thinking about the fact that I was failing to use a coupon), but I did stop at the kiosk to print my Extra Bucks. I paid for my overpriced battery, using my Extra Bucks, came home, and Jeff put the new battery in the smoke detector. No more chirping. Ahhh. I got back in bed, and found my head was filled with work thoughts. I finally passed out again sometime after 4am. I ended up waking up for the day at 5:30 when Natalia decided we "needed" to get up. Yawn.

On the bright side, since that incident, Michael (aka Fire Marshal Mike) has not had to harass us daily to change the batteries in our smoke detectors. We are good until daylight savings time begins. At least he can sleep better.

Talia's First Selfie

Natalia was only about 8 months old when she discovered that if she spread her palm out on my iPad, she could make the picture get bigger and she could move things around. She really liked that! And she has remained obsessed with technology. She now fights to get time to play games on the iPad or on our phones just like her older siblings. (And, just like her older siblings, she does not want a grown up to help her, thank you very much.)

So, I supposed I shouldn't have been surprised when I was going through pictures on my phone last and came across this.

 

Yes! It's Talia (as she calls herself)'s first selfie! It seems to capture her so perfectly. So totally wrong - she was not supposed to be playing with my phone much less taking pictures, but at the same time both cute and funny. Ugh. As one of my former students used to say in reference to little kids, "God made 'em cute for a reason!"

More Christmas Pics and Stories

In case you are looking for some more Christmas pictures of our kids...

Not only were we able to catch up with family and friends over Christmas, as a bonus, we had family members and friends who took lots of pictures and blogged about our time together.

My brother Andrew's girlfriend was visiting from Japan. Andrew made a website about their time together, and included pictures and stories of our Christmas day together.

My parents were also kind enough to watch all four kids so Jeff and I could sneak away on two different occasions. We were able to watch the Bengals-Vikings game at a local bar on Sunday and we went out with our good friends Mike and Janae another evening. (Bonus points to my parents for watching Kramer, my brother Alex's dog, that same night!) Janae included pictures from our evening together on her blog.

Christmas in Ohio

So every now and then (well...regularly), I get a crazy idea and run with it. My latest madcap idea was spending Christmas in Ohio, something we haven't done since we moved to North Carolina over six years ago. This year seemed perfect - Ree finished with school and I finished with work on December 20th, leaving plenty of travel time before Christmas plus both of my brothers would be in town.

I am happy to report that the trip went really well. We did very little - Jeff and I laughed on the way home as we realized our outings (aside from restaurants, which are mandatory Cincinnati stops, and church on Christmas Eve) had been limited to trips to Target and Jungle Jim's, a gigantic specialty grocery store. Now don't get me wrong, the kids weren't great. "Really well" just implies we miraculously escaped with no serious injuries or ailments. Imagine all of the excitement of Christmas AND all of the excitement of vacation AND all of the excitement of grandparents all rolled into one week. Wheeee! Thank goodness there were lots of adults around to help.

I took surprisingly few pictures on the trip. I think I was mostly just enjoying myself and couldn't be bothered with a camera. I did manage to capture a few moments.

Cookie baking with everyone in their new Christmas jammies.

Decorating a miniature Christmas tree with Obaachan.

Ahhh. A quiet moment. Our three stooges are busy playing Legos, Ree was building with Grandpa Jim, and Jeff and his brother are busy watching ESPN. On a side note, I think I have decided that Legos are my favorite toy for kids ever. They are durable, you can use them creatively, and there is no setup assembly required. And for the actual playing assembly, there are wonderful pictorial directions.

Racing upstairs on Christmas morning to see what Santa brought. I love that Mike (on the left) is holding Turtle and Leon is holding Percy, his penguin. Christmas presents must be shared with "friends." Natalia struggled with sleeping in a new place (not that she sleeps that well at home to begin with), and her siblings had to shake her awake at 7am. I was carrying her behind the rest of the group.

Staring in awe. Santa brought the Barbie Dream House, in all three stories of its glory. Which we had to transport back to North Carolina. This may or may not have been another one of my hair-brained ideas. Santa works in mysterious ways. Oh, and you know what I said about Legos? The Barbie Dream House is the EXACT OPPOSITE. Except for encouraging creative play. That part is good. I will forever be grateful that I was warned that it takes three nights to put together. I shudder to think what would've happen if Santa and the elves had waited until after the kids went to bed on Christmas Eve to start on that bad boy.

The Disney Princess Klip-Klop castle. Natalia was very specific with her request for Santa. Thankfully, he listened.

Gifts! The kids were awesome and waited until after everyone ate a real breakfast before tearing into their stash.

Video games! Super Mario Brothers (2?) lives on thanks to Uncle Alex.

Kramer, Alex and Reiko's dog, looking like he owns the place. And illegally sitting on the couch.

It would be a sad day if my brothers ever acted serious around each other.

We were out in the evening several times. And every time we got back to my parents' house, Natalia had to run over and say hi to the neighbors' Yoda and Darth Vader Christmas decorations. A true highlight of the trip.

Hope everyone else had a safe and enjoyable Christmas, too!