Operation Fluffy Marshmallow, Sick Char, & Max Milestone

The girls had today off.  I was so excited to sleep in and then 7:00 am rolled around.  I woke up to a fully dressed Lily poking me in the arm saying, "Mommy its time to get up."  Yes, somebody forgot they didn't have school today.  I shushed her and whispered for her to go back to bed.  She headed out to the living room and in complete Lily fashion woke up the rest of the house.

After breakfast I allowed the girls to watch some TV while I tried to catch a few more zzz's.  Turns out Max was not going to let me sleep.  He wanted to eat.  After feeding him, I decided I might as well get up and get going for the day.  I got the girls and Max dressed and we headed to the van to run errands.  At this point in time I had heard from Charlotte about 75 times that her tummy hurt.  I paid no attention to that considering she complains her tummy hurts almost daily.  She eats like a bird and I'm sure most of the time it is hunger pains.  Its a work in progress.

We first stopped at the Rec Center to reactivate our membership.  We let it lapse when I was on limited activity.  Max finally hit the magic age of six months, so we figured now would be a good time for me to start going back to the gym.  See there is this annoying little gene in my body that doesn't do what its supposed to.  It allows my blood to clot easily.  Since I'm overweight that just adds to the clotting problem.  So I've got to kick it into high gear to get healthy.  I enjoy exercising at the rec center and can't wait to start building my endurance back up.  Its going to be a long road but I'm excited about it.  I like to call this journey "operation fluffy marshmallow" because that is what I am right now...a fluffy marshmallow.

While I reactivated our membership the girls kept themselves occupied by playing follow the leader and choo-choo train.  I loved seeing my girls enjoying each others company.  The moments where they all get along are awesome (Everything is awesome! -- Name that movie!)

After that we ran over to Walmart to pick up just a few essentials. I had debated about doing a full shopping trip with everyone but decided against it.  All through the store Charlotte complained about her tummy and insisted on riding on the shopping cart.  While checking out, I looked down and Char was curled up in a ball on the floor whimpering.  Poor baby!  We were supposed to go to another store, but I called it quits there.

We got home, had lunch, and sent the littles to bed for their naps.  The only problem...Char didn't nap.  She kept telling me she couldn't sleep.  Finally I told her to bring her pillow and blanket out and rest on the couch while we watched a movie.  She made it to the couch and promptly threw up her lunch.  I cleaned that mess up, gave Char a barf bucket and went to lay down.  I was just falling asleep when Lily ran in hysterically that Char was sick again.  Char had completely missed the bucket.  We ran a quick bath and I cleaned her up.

Meanwhile, Max woke up.  No rest for the weary....I decided to play with him because he has been exceptional grumpy lately.  Normally he rarely cries, but he recently started solids and they are making his tummy issues worse than they already are.  Anyway, I sat him up in front of me and put a dinosaur toy within reach for him.  After a minute or two I realized he was sitting up all by himself!  He wasn't leaning on me or the toy.  I slowly moved away and caught these cute pictures of him...

The rest of the night was uneventful. Russ came home, we had dinner, and sent the kiddos to bed.  Now I'm off to bed exhausted with the sad realization that I don't get to sleep in tomorrow.

Big Sisters

Charlotte and Allie were playing ring around the rosie today.  Bree wandered over to watch.  Allie saw her and told Charlotte they needed to teach Bree how to do it.  It was so cute!  I couldn't resist taking a video of it. Pardon the poor quality.  Apparently iPhone's don't take spectacular video.

Pictures...allergies...and warm weather!

Our life is quite routine.  Day after day is spent at home with me trying to not spend too much time sleeping on the couch.  Afternoons are spent with me trying to make some effort to keep the house from being a total disaster. The girls of course are wondering aimlessly around the house playing with things.

Today though I broke the norm and went to the big city with Bree and Charlotte.  We were in desperate need of professional pictures of Breanne done.  I've really struggled in getting pictures taken of the girls this year because our local portrait studio closed down.  I hate having to drive to the city get this done when I know I could take the pictures myself.  (I'm not saying I'm a pro, but my portraits are decent enough that I could be satisfied with them)  But I've also come to admit, I can't do everything just because I know how.  After driving an hour to get to the studio Breanne refused to get out of my arms for the pictures.  Seriously child?!  After much patience on the part of the photographer we were able to get a ONE cute photo of Bree.  I'll post that in a few weeks when we get them back.  When all was done, the little stinker refused to leave the studio.  She wanted to take more pictures!

Since I didn't get a morning nap I totally shunned the work that needed done around the house and took a nap while Char and Bree were taking theirs.  The big girls arrived home and we worked on some homework before we all went outside.  The weather has finally warmed up and is absolutely gorgeous!  The girls played while I wandered around taking pictures.

I had to go in pretty quickly though.  I thought it would be a good idea to take some pictures while sitting in the grass.  My allergies felt otherwise.  Allergies are really hitting us all pretty hard already and the season has just begun!  Allie, Char, and Bree all sound horrible!  Luckily Allie is the only one who has needed breathing treatments so far.  I think Char is just holding in there because she is on so many "preventative" medicines. 

Gymnastics

For a little over a year now Allie has been driving us crazy by climbing and jumping on every piece of furniture in the house.  She literally tries to climb the walls as well.  We've worked hard on keeping her from doing this at home but we also recognized that she needed somewhere that she was allowed to climb, jump, and tumble to her hearts content.  In August we decided to enroll her in gymnastics lessons.  Because we were not content with the dance lessons Lily was receiving we decided to switch her over to gymnastics as well. 

Getting to gymnastics has been a bit crazy what with a newborn and a crazy one year old, but Russ and I have worked it out.  Russ drives straight from work to gymnastics, and I make sure and feed the girls early that night so we can meet him there.  Sometimes I just drop the girls off to him, sometimes we switch cars and he goes home with Bree and Char, and other times we all stay.  It is a crazy schedule but I love having the girls in gymnastics and they love it too.  Each week they come out excited and asking if I saw them do a certain moves.  It hasn't been completely glamorous though.  Lily and Allie have both found things they are afraid of doing at gymnastics.  The bars particularly have been a challenge.  However, they are learning to trust their coaches and are slowly improving.

The gym has a very strict policy about no parents on the gym floor during practice.  They do this so kids don't get distracted and end up getting hurt.  This was always hard on me because I wanted pictures of my girls!  However, the gym staff is awesome and unknown to me had thought this through.  Each week in December they provide a different activity that parents can participate in with their children.  Last week was parents participate in gymnastics, we sadly missed that because of Lily's program.  Today was photo day!  Parents were allowed on the gym floor to take pictures!  I was so excited and got some really fun pictures and videos of the girls.

Lily working on the beam

Allie practicing the vault.  They have her jumping on a spring board. The younger girls don't actually get to do tricks(?) on the vault.  They just get to practice techniques.

 Gymnastics has been good for Allie to learn patience.  They rotate through several stations and many times they have to wait their turn to work with the instructor. 

The foam pit is a HUGE favorite of everyone's!

Lily learning to do a back bend.  With Lily is Coach Pat.  She founded the gym and owned it before selling it to her children.  She is an amazing lady who has quite a bit of patience with my Lily.  She doesn't teach all classes, so I consider us lucky that Lily gets to work with her!

Not sure why they were doing hula hoops, but i was quite shocked to see Allie pick it up and keep it going around for bit.  She's got moves that girl does :)

Lily working on vault.

Allie working on her handstand.

Lily working on her backward roll.

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's....

pure silliness!  Allie begged for me to put on her goggles today.  For whatever reason she started running around flapping her arms and crying "Look mom, I'm a bird!"  I got quite the laugh out of my smooshed face birdie flying around.

Lily came home amid the silliness and quickly donned her goggles too.  She reuqested a picture and this is what I got. 

She had her goggles on a little tight so I helped her out before having my two birdies pose for one last picture before they continued to soar around the house.  Silly girls!

Christmas Devotional

Russ always does fun things for the girls.  Today when serving up lunch he made sure to make it a little bit exciting for them.  The girls giggled and giggled over the smiley face daddy had made for them.

After dinner we gave the girls a bath.  Lily and Allie were so excited when I suggested they use my big bathtub with bubbles.  They rarely get bubbles in their bath and they had never taken a bath in my tub before.  Again they were full of giggles as they tried out being Santa with the bubbles and splashing each other with the water.  Poor Allie found out that she doesn't like the bubbles on her face.  They itched her too much.  Isn't that the cutest face she is pulling? 

I learned a lesson too...bigger bathtub = more water on the floor. Guess who got to clean that up?! M.O.M. *Sigh*

After baths we all snuggled up on the couch to listen to the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. 

Charlotte was being a pill so we didn't get to hear too much of it.  Also I fell asleep.  What little I did hear was good though.  I enjoyed Pres. Monson's talk about not missing the reason for the season.  The girls enjoyed pointing out President Monson and President Ringman{Eyring}.  They also pointed out President Uchtdorf, but we had to help them with his name.

 Even though we didn't hear a much of the devotional I'm always so glad the First presidency does this.  I always look forward to it, and it starts off the Christmas season on the right foot.

Impromptu Dance Party

My girls love a good dance party.  Today they turned on one of the Christmas CD's. {yes we still only use CD's, no ipod's here}  They quickly started twirling around and having a good ol' time.  Allie showed Charlotte how to stand on her head and kick her leg in the air.  This is something she has been learning at gymnastics.  I think it will eventually lead to a handstand.

Charlotte pulled out some pretty stylin' moves of her own.

And one more picture of the dance party.  Allie was excited she finally got a turn with the wand.

Lily was there dancing around, but spent most of her time on the couch crying.  Sadly she hadn't listened to me when I asked her to give her sisters a turn with the wand.  It is so rough being the oldest and having to share things.

Always Together

 

Today was Lily's first day of vacation for Thanksgiving.  I was not at all surprised to find these two spending a lot of their time like this.  These two are all always together.  Don't get em wrong they fight and have their moments, but they really are the best of friends. 

Costumes & Trick or Treating

Note to self...don't ever have a baby so close to a holiday ever again!  Whew, this year was a bit stressful pulling costumes together.  After last years disaster with me sewing Lily into her purchased costume I vowed to sew one this year.  That was bit difficult with a newborn to care for as well! {eeks!}  But I took the task on anyway.  I asked Lily what she wanted to be and she replied Jessie from Toy Story.  I said okay and dived in.  I under estimated the time it would take to make her costume mostly because I thought I had found a pattern to follow and it turned out that it wasn't a pattern and I kinda just winged my own pattern.   Turns out that I did okay winging it, even if I was sewing all the up to trick or treating time.   I'm proud of the whole outfit but I particularly love the hat!

Allie's costume was a bit more manageable.  She asked to be Izzy from Jake and the Neverland Pirates.  We were going to use an old pirate costume we had, but Allie insisted that it didn't look like Izzy.  So after checking clearance racks we put together an Izzy costume.  Daddy helped out and made a pixie.dust bag for her.  Allie loved that part of the costume.  She's been sprinkling us with pixie dust all day!  I was worried no one would recognize who she was, but quite a few mom's said to her or me that she made a great Izzy.  Phew!

Charlotte didn't get a choice.  I decided she was going to be a lady bug since we had the costume on hand.  I had to buy new wings {thank you Dollar tree!} and make her antennas but that was it.  Easy peasy!  She turned out soo cute too.  The costume was adorable on her.

Bree didn't get a choice either.  She was our little flower this year. 

I made sure to get a sister picture of them all dressed up, and it worked!  The girls were all on their best behavior and smiled!  That could have something to do with Charlotte feeling better...just maybe.

Lily and Allie insisted on taking a picture holding Bree.  I can't believe how much they fight over who gets to hold her.  Oh well, at least I get some cute  sister pictures out of them fighting.

While I was busy taking these pictures Charlotte noticed something was in her bucket and kept herself busy.  I love this series of photos.  You can see Charlotte's little mind working in them.

Puh-eeesss????

We finally got around to trick or treating.  Our neighborhood is awesome and most everyone is out in front of their houses passing out candy.  The girls get loads of candy!  Since Russ wasn't feeling 100% he opted to stay home with Bree and hand out candy.  Here we are walking around our cud-de-sac.

I was going to go out and walk Charlotte around a block or so and bring her back.  Turned Charlotte loved trick or treating.  She managed to walk about 5 or 6 blocks before tuckering out and needing me to carry her home.  Russ and I switched off and he took the girls out for some more.  Charlotte really enjoyed helping me hand out candy.  Everytime the doorbell would ring she would run to it and yell, "HELLOOO!!!"  We were kept quite busy handing out candy.  Eventually we ran out and I had to turn off the light.

Around 7:30 the girls and Russ came home and checked out their haul before going to bed.  It was such a fun night for the girls, I'm glad we could pull everything together for them.