Why my kids cry...... updated 11/23/13

I'm totally stealing someone else's idea.  There is a guy who has been taking pictures on why his son's cry.  His son's are younger 2 and 4 and has been writing the captions on why the kids are crying.  It is hilarious, so I'm totally stealing his idea.  I'll constantly be adding to this one.

Reason #1 - Thing 2 - It's not his turn on the swing.

Reason #2 - Thing 2 - He got dirt on his sock and shoe



Reason #3 - Thing 2 (I'm noticing a trend here) - He wanted a pouch we gave him a pouch.

 

Reason #4 - Thing 1  - Mom and Dad had jalapenos with dinner, we wouldn't give him any 11/23/13

 



First Day of school - The Girlchick Edition 1st Grade

Well today is the first day for the Girlchick to attend public school.  We ended up keeping her in the private kindergarten since we didn't think she was going to do well in public school.  She is super excited, but a little nervous as what to expect and about making new friends.

First day of first grade.

When asked how her days was when she got home, her response was " It was perfecto!".  Her response to the second day was "It was even more perfecto".

So I guess she likes school.

Last day in our first house

It is bitter sweet for me, this was the first house we built, the first house we moved into after we were married, had our kids, there were a lot of firsts in this house. But yet I'm still very excited to move into our new house so all the kids have their own room.  Which is one of the main reasons we are moving.  The boys sharing a room is not working out.

It has been beyond crazy up to this point, getting packed, trying to sell the house, and getting all the work done on the new house.  All going on at the same time.  The new house needed all new flooring and every room needed to be painted.  Let's just say that we all survived and we are still married.  After all of that stress, it's a miracle that we all survived.

The Girlchick is super excited for her new room.  She got to pick out the paint colors which is a bright hot pink.

I took some of my favorite pictures of her when she was a year old up on this dresser in nothing but her birthday suit.  She's a little bigger now, and a little too old to be posing in her birthday suit anymore. 

All the kids in the boys room after they started taking the beds apart.

Girls trip! San Diego

This summer was The Girlchick's last summer before we become a slave to the public school schedule, which forces you to take your vacations when the schools schedules them.  I do have to say that that is one thing the British schools do right.  They plan their breaks and holidays much better. 

I really wanted to do some fun stuff with her this summer.  We couldn't figure out a good time for all of us to go on a longer trip so we decided that The Girlchick and I would go by our selves and leave all the boys at home. 

We went to San Diego and had a blast.  We went to the beach, Sea World, The San Diego Zoo, The Safari Park and there was plenty of time spent at the pool.  I had never been to San Diego so it was a first for both of us.




Waiting to go get on the plane

We even got to fly first class thanks to all of our airline miles!  She wasn't really impressed

I rented a convertible for us since she has always wanted to ride in one. She even got to sit in the front since her booster seat wouldn't fit in the back seat. She was super excited.

After we found a great breakfast spot The Mission cafe - killer french toast and hot chocolate.

 

 

First stop on the trip was the beach!  She just had to stick her toes in the sand and her hiney in the water! The water was a little chilly for my taste but it didn't stop her!

 

 

We took a nice stroll along the beach after cleaning up.

She had to bring her stuffed seal named "snouts" after the seal in the Barbie books.

Selfie at sunset at Mission beach

 

The next day was Sea World.  She wore me out!  There is so much to see and do! But first things first - we had to go see THE Whale. 

 

THE Whale's big entrance.

 

Getting wet!  Notice Mom is not down closer to the glass.  But she had to be right down there where the action was.

 

She was already wet - waiting for round 2 of wetness

 

All wet!  First thing she said was "MOM! I got water in my mouth and it was all salty!"  First thing I thought.....  ewwwww gross all those whales have pee'd in that water!
 

So here's the thing - I don't like roller coasters, I don't like things that spin you in circles or drop you really fast.  I get really bad motion sickness very easily.  She wanted so badly to go on some of the rides.  I told her to find one that Mommy can do that I won't get sick on.  She found the log ride.  I was like - I can do this, it's one drop that's over quickly, usually I'm ok with that and don't get sick.  From the front of the ride - all you see is the slide part on the log ride.  We get in line, get on the ride, and we go.  We go down the slide part - it's a lot steeper than it looks, and we get to the bottom and we float along like you normally do and then it dumps you into a blacked out elevator.  I'm like - OK it's just getting us back to the top of the ride since there isn't a steep climb in the beginning - you start high.  Then we get out of the elevator and start climbing again.  I'm like what's going on is there a second drop?  Please tell me there isn't a second drop!  Well there was, but it wasn't the drop you have on a log ride.  The damn thing turns into a roller coaster!  And I'm screaming like a little girl the whole time!  The Girlchick is having a blast and laughing the whole time.  She is definitely her fathers kid. 

waiting for the ride - all sweet and innocent looking

 

after the ride

Then we caught the dolphin show and a few more exhibits.  She really liked the Arctic exhibit.

Checking out the beluga whales

 

Wall of Ice

We found a great place for dessert!  I wish we had one that was close to our house - actually I don't.

At The Baked Bear - The Girlchick special - red velvet cookie, m&m cookie and oreo ice cream.  We ate here a few times on this trip.

The next stop was the Safari Park.  It was a hot one that day and the whole park is in the side of a mountain.  Well you have to walk all the way down to get to most of the stuff and at the end of the day when you are tired and hot..... you have to climb all the way back up!  Poor designing my friends!

She really wanted to go in and see the birds, but she refused to feed them.  So she took the picture while I fed them.

Riding the tram through the "African Wilderness".  See how pink her little cheeks are?  It was a tad warm climbing up and down all those hills.

The last stop of the day was the San Diego Zoo.  We only had a half day here, and it was super crowded.  If you ever go - plan on spending the day, it's huge and there is a lot to see.

I like to more open concept at the San Diego zoo vs. the traditional exhibits at zoo's.  You actually get to see more of the animals.

That's a long post!  But it was a busy trip!

 

Back at home - Dad is getting the house ready to sell!  Painting the whole downstairs, getting new wood floors put in.  In other words - chaos.  And we missed it all and had a nice relaxing trip.

 

 

Crazy times

Well we made some big decisions.  We decided to move.  But we need to get the house ready to sell.  This is going to be stressful.  

We have been talking about moving for awhile now or building out our game room into another bedroom.  The boys can no longer share a room.  They keep each other up and wake each other up.  Even with the bed tents they and we are not sleeping as much as we should be.  We also wanted to move closer to the school that The Girlchick would be attending in the fall.  We want her to be able to walk to school instead of having to ride the bus.  

So we started looking for houses.  We found a few that we liked, but there didn't seem to be a perfect one that was move in ready.  We found one that we could work with and decided to go for it knowing we would have to put some work into it as well.  The kids would each have their own room, their own bathroom, their own walk in closets and the rooms are huge!  

So here it goes.  The craziness!  Are you ready?  I'm not!

No more "big boy" jammies for you!

This is what we woke up to this morning.  At first glance I thought it was a mouse.  Then realized that Thing 2 was naked as the day he was born. 

Yes that is what you think it is in his bed.  Good thing we paid the $50 for the good mattress protectors!



The Confession - He looks so sad, he makes you feel bad for being mad - then you remember he just POOPED in his bed!

We have normally been putting them in foot jammies on backwards for this exact reason.  Recently we had decided to try the regular "big boy" jammies.  Thing 1 took his off the first night, so we ended up putting him back in the footie jammies.  Thing 2 was being really good about it and leaving them on.  He gave us a false sense of security.  Needless to say he will be back in the footie's jammies tonight.  No more "big boy" jammies for him!





Before picture - this is how we left them when they went to bed.

After picture - this is how Thing 1 looked when we got up in the morning.

Another one bites the dust

The Girlchick lost another tooth.  They are dropping like flies!  They just keep popping out.  I think we are going to go broke soon.  I was really proud of her.  I had tried to pull it two days ago, but it wasn't ready.  She has been obsessed with it coming out so she has been really working on getting it looser.  On Saturday morning while the rest of us were sleeping she got up and pulled her tooth.  I have had to pull all of her other ones, it makes her a little nervous since it can bleed or hurt a little bit.  But she did this one all on her own!  So proud!  She keeps this up and she really will be toothless.  We keep calling her that.  I think we got the name from one of the disney movie "how to train your dragon".

FINALLY - the bed tents have arrived!

The boys have been climbing out of their cribs since November of last year.  We slowed them down a bit with sleep sacks until February then they figured those out then we lowered their matresses all the way to the floor see little climbers and the update. It got to the point where I would sit in their room at night until they fell asleep and if they woke up early or in the middle of the night (which they did a lot!) Nathan would go up there and lay on the floor until they went back to sleep (usually falling alseep himself).  It was not very conducieve of good sleep for any of us.

Well the tents I found FINALLY came in! 

At first they only shipped us one.  We decided to go ahead and use it on the one that was being the most trouble, Thing 2.  We didn't have the bed frame for it yet so we just put it on the floor.  Yeah....... bad idea!  He tore right through the seam!  Needless to say we were very discouraged.  These things were supposed to be reinforced and strong enough to hold bigger children.  The fact that it didn't last one night had us wondering if it would work at all.

Big hole in the bottom seam where he tore through it. You can see part of the mess on the floor from where they were out.

We decided to wait until we got the other one and put them on the bed frames and use them both at the same time.  At first we would still stay with them at night and go up there in the morning since we didn't trust them.  We are slowly easing back on that.  We at least now leave them in the morning since they are pretty mellow until they are actually up.  At bedtime I still worry since they are really wound up and fight going to sleep so they are all over the place and will do almost anything to fight it.  I am really hoping that these hold up and will work where we can just put them to bed like we did before.

They were really excited for their new beds at first - before they realized that they can't get out.  They look so tiny in the big beds though, but so cute.

Everyone poops

But do they make this face when they tell you that they have gone poop?

I just couldn't pass it up.  We were outside playing and Thing 2 just all of a sudden stops and comes over and tells me "poo poo" while making this face.  He's not in the act of going, but has already gone.  I'm really not one for potty humor, but this was just too cute.  I know he'll kill me later when I show his girlfriends.  

Three is the magic number..... or not

There have been studies that have show that having three kids is the most stressful number to have.  I recently found this article that states it very clearly and pretty much says it all for me.  I couldn't agree more.  I think with having twins as well as the second and third child adds a bit more stress as well.  You still have one young child that demands attention and isn't quite old enough to understand that they can't have all of you attention most of the time.  The Girlchick is pretty good about it the majority of the time, but she is still only 6 and it is hard for her to not have all attention focused on her.  Or if she is being silly on the same level as the boys - it's hard for her to break out of it and tell her that she knows better and they are still only 2.  But it's always divide and conquer and one of us will always be in zone defense mode.  Just trying to go to the store with all the kids by myself.  I really try hard not to do that.  I usually go Friday nights after everyone goes to bed (yes I'm old - woohoo exciting Friday night).  I don't have enough hands for everyone.  The Girlchick has to hold a pocket while I hold the boys hands.  Then there is the issue that most grocery carts only have one seat up front, so one boy goes in there and one goes in the basket.  They can't be trusted outside of the basket.  Then The Girlchick gets upset that she can't ride too.  If you get the nice "car" shopping cart then they fight over who sits in the car part and who sits in the front of the basket.  So I really try to avoid it if I can.  Needless to say I can agree with everything they say about the stress level of 3 kids.  

The Girlchick cuts her hair - first edition

So The Girlchick got an idea to cut her "bangs" from a Miranda Lambert song...... "I cut my bangs with the rusty kitchen scissors....."  Then she went and cut her "bangs", which is actually just a little tuft of hair really close to her scalp.  I wouldn't have even noticed if I wasn't trying to pull her hair back in a pony tail and couldn't figure out why this one little section was sticking up and wouldn't go down.  Then I looked a little closer.  Then I asked her.... and of course she denied it, then she finally fessed up.  But the story is still a little off.  First she told Daddy that she didn't.  Then she finally fessed up to me that she did.  That she did it in school and her teacher Ms. Seema knew about it and she did it with the teachers scissors.  When we asked the school about it they said no it didn't happen at school.  Then later she told her dad that she got the idea from the above mentioned song.  So we may never know what actually happened beyond the fact that she cut her hair.  It could have been a lot worse.  Let's just hope there is no more inspiration for wild and crazy songs, or we will have to stick to kiddy songs for her.

I'm pretty sure I never cut my own hair, although GaGa tells me that Nathan did.  I'm pretty sure that this is a right of passage for most kids.

barely visible tuft up front.  a little close to the scalp that makes me nervous.

Memorial Day

My Dad passed away March 7, 2012.  He was buried at Houston National Cemetery in Houston.  I have not been back to his grave since the day we buried him.  I even told my brother that I might never go.  It's not something I like to do, I don't like to be sad and dwell on it.  It's a personal choice.  This memorial day I decided that I might want to go visit his grave and to put a flag on it and some flowers and a yellow ribbon.  This year was the first year that the Houston cemetery was putting all the flags on the graves and having a big ceremony.  It was a little nuts with all the people and really darn hot!  But we made it.  The Girlchick was really excited to go and put flowers on his grave and the flag and the ribbon.  She was full of questions.  Like why the yellow roses and not other pretty flowers.  I told her it was because the first time I came to Houston to visit my dad when I was close to her age, my dad gave me a yellow rose as I was leaving to go back home.  Why  the flags?  It's a symbol of our freedom as a country and a reminder of the service that our military men and women do for our country.  It's a day to honor the ones that we have lost.  So this year this was our honor.

We also had tickets to the baseball game that afternoon.  We had planned to try and take the whole family, but the boys were really really tired, so we decided to keep them home so they could take a nap (which they didn't do) and The Girlchick and her dad went to the game.  They had a great time.

The Girlchick's Kindergarten Graduation

It's really weird to me that there is the big to do and "graduation" ceremony from kindergarten.  We didn't do that when I was younger.  You just went on to first grade.  Not the case these days.  It is such a big deal that they have to find a place big enough and then they still have to split it into 2 groups.  They rented out one of the smaller auditoriums at the Berry center.  Which is where the school district has plays and other events.  So it's a big place.  The kids that are graduating are on the stage first and receive their medals and diploma and sing a song for all of us.  Then they go back to their classroom groups and come back out to sing with their individual classes.  It is fun to see them be silly on stage and to see them perform, but it's a bit unnecessary to have the whole graduation from kindergarten. 

Her medal, her flowers, and her crown from when they sang "I just can't wait to be king" from the lion king.

Singing with all of the graduating Kindergarten class.  "I'm on my way"  It did make me tear up just a bit!

Singing "I just can't wait to be king" from the Lion King with her actual class.  Since it is a Montessori school there are kids in age from 3-6 in the actual class.

The Girlchick amazes me

We have known that The Girlchick was smart, but I really had no idea how smart she really was. 

She had her testing done back in early April.  I was worried with how she was going to do since the whole standardized testing is new to her and she struggled with the prep they did at school.

Well I should not have been worried.  She nailed it.  She beyond nailed it!  She hit a grand slam with all the bases loaded and completely knocked it 100 yards over the fence!

We got her test scores back.  She was in the 99th percentile for everything except vocabulary.  For that she was ranked in the 92nd percentile.  She is only 6 after all - how much vocab can she actually have?  How they do the ranking is by how many kids took the test around that same time nationally.  So she is ranked pretty high on a national scale.  They even have what they call a grade equivalent score - for most things she was 2.5 and higher, which means that she has understanding and doing work over and above 2nd grade.  Her vocab was only a 1.9.  But her word association was a 3.5 which completely blew me away. 

What I worry about now is if the public school gifted and talented program is going to be enough to keep her engaged and liking school.  I talked to one of the first grade GT teachers at the school that she will attend.  I have to say that I was not too impressed.  Again.  They follow the same curriculum as the regular first graders, but give them more comprehension work.  Getting more into the stories and making sure they understand the full story and can go into details and explain it to someone else.  Or like working with the clock and time - instead of just doing the face of the clock they go into 1/2 hours and 1/4 hours.  Or they have them write full stories.  This is all stuff that she is already doing.  Plus when they test them they test to see what level they are at.  The problem with that is if they test above a full grade higher they can't teach them at that level.  They can only go 1 grade above.  It's a district wide rule. 

What we have decided for the mean time is to put her in public school, let them test her for GT and see how she does.  If it doesn't work then we start looking at private schools.  I never thought I would have to be worried about her being too smart and what the heck to do with her so that she is challenged enough. 

Darn it I knew she was too smart for her own good!

Nastiness

I mentioned in the boys birthday post that Thing 1 wasn't feeling very good at their party.  That night he ended up throwing up and started running a fever on Sunday.  Sunday night it started to get really high, it was 103.8 with both Tylenol and Ibuprofen.  I was worried that we were going to have to take him to the ER.  The after hours nurse said told us that if it got higher than 104-105 that we needed to take him in.  He had a rough night Sunday night and stayed in our bed with us in just his diaper.  He started with the nasty diarreha on Sunday as well.  It took almost 2 weeks for that to go away.  I was hoping that it was just going to be him, but Thing 2 started with it on Tuesday and The Girlchick on Thursday.  Both Nathan and I had some issues as well but it wasn't the vomiting part just the other stomach issues part.  Thing 2 ended up having it a bit worse (but got over it a bit faster), he had a higher fever and eventually he ended up having to go to the ER since he had multiple occasions of blood in his stool.  They tested both boys for all sorts of bacteria and it all came back negative (of course, when would they ever have a test result come back and say they have this, or that....... that would be never).  Fast forward a few weeks and we are all finally healthy.  It took awhile for it all to work itself out of everyone's systems.  That was one nasty bug!

Thing 2 home from school showing that he is feeling better and a very bendy baby

Poor Sleepy boy waiting to see the dr at TCH - but he was happy and so good even feeling like he did

Thing 2  sitting in the TCH ER bed eating crackers to try and get him to poop.  Which he did - on command

In the midst of all of the sickness they had a follow up appt with their ENT - They ask you at the check in desk if they have certain symptoms and since they did - they made them wear the masks of shame.

Things I love

I love the hugs and kisses I get from the kids. 

I love when I get home on Mondays that I'm greeted with very excited, happy to see me, can't wait to hug me kids.

I love it when we are sitting on the couch hanging out, the boys like to sit next me and be close or touching me in some way.

Thing 1 sitting next to me on the couch with his foot on my knee

I love it at night (after they have settled down) when we get ready for bed and do rocky bye.  I love to just hold them and they snuggle up.  They are getting to the age where they don't want to be held very often so I love that I still have this time with them to reconnect after not seeing them in the mornings.

I love that The Girlchick is her own person and dresses how she wants to in what makes her feel pretty.  Even if it doesn't match or isn't the coolest.  But she is who she is and likes what she likes (she is constantly telling us this).

All I want for Christmasss isss my two front teef

The Girlchick lost her second front tooth.  She was working on it and working on it and it was finally ready to be pulled.  She was really good about letting me pull it out.  She now has the cutest lisp.

Happy Birthday Big Boys!

Happy Birthday!

It has been two years since I welcomed you both into the world and you have been full of surprises at every turn.  Just like you started out the day you were created, you were a surprise then too.  I have loved every minute of it.  Well most of it.  The chaos that now rules our house - some days I could go without.  But I wouldn't change a thing.  Every experience, every sweet little boy hug, every step, word and tears.  Wouldn't change a thing.

You both have amazed me and scared me and I really do think that you have caused a lot of the gray hair I have recently discovered.  But I love you both so much.  I love to watch you discover and learn new things.  I love to watch you play and be crazy.  I love to see how you follow your big sister around like little ducks and listen when she reads you stories.  I don't love it so much when you fight, it hurts my heart, but I know that it is mostly normal and hopefully as you get older it will get better. 

It's been an amazing 2 years, I can't wait to see what comes next.  But let's slow it down a bit.  I need more time to enjoy the moment.

The boys had a nice celebration at the school on the Friday before their actual birthday. 

Big sister got to join us for cookies (Thing 1 is next to sissy)

We also had a small Barnyard themed party for them at the house. I couldn't have pulled it off without the Gill family.  Paula made all the labels for the food and did all the shopping for the decorations and Wayne helped us put it all together and blew up all the balloons for the find the piggies game (the piggies had escaped their pen and everyone had to chase them down and put them back in, silly piggies escaped several times!).  The Girlchick at first thought that the purpose of the game was to pop as many of the piggies as possible and was pretty upset when we told her that wasn't the point.  I think this game was the biggest hit of the party.  Well that and the wagon hay rides where daddy was the horse.  They had a lot of fun.  Unfortunately Thing 1 started not feeling well that day and this ended up being the start of a nasty tummy bug. 

The table with all the labels of barnyard themed foods and the banner that The Girlchick made

The Gooooodie bag



Wagon hay rides



Bobbing for duckies

Eating cake and snacks with Grammy And GaGa (thing 1 in the dark blue shirt and Thing 2 in the light blue shirt)

Thing 2 with Grammy



Thing 1 with GaGa

The Girlchick, Thing 2, Ellis & Dorset Gill, sitting on the hay bales in front of the big red barn door that Wayne made on the fence

Thing 1 was feeling pretty yucky by this point at the end of the party and he just wanted to be held so he isn't in any of these pictures