20 questions

We often play this game in the car. Mostly it's Erik and Bailey, but now Lex is trying to get in on the gaming action. On the way home a few nights again, Bailey asked to play. Normally her answer is guessed within a few questions. Lex's answer is normally guessed on the first time. So, we get to Erik's turn and ask Lex is trying to figure it out, he's getting more and more upset. "Just say yes!" he starts telling Erik. Erik is trying to explain that he can't say yes because it's not what he's thinking of. "So, just say yes!" This sends us all, even Nate, into fits of hysterical laughter. We figured out that Lex's answers are always a person. And, it's guessed so quickly because the first person guessed is who he decides is his answer. We realized the issue...he was calling the game 2 questions!

Passing of the puppy

This weekend Lex got his official big boy bed. He hasn't actually slept in it yet, as the weekends seem to be having sleepovers in Bailey's room on the floor. Tonight will be his first night in the big bed. That means that the toddler bed is now in Nate's room. Quite honestly, I'm not yet ready for him to be out of the crib for several reasons. The first, I don't trust the boy! Don't get me wrong, I love 'em to death, but the boy is wild. He needs some containment. Also, as soon as he goes into his big boy bed, that means he's not a baby anymore. That alone is going to make me want to just cuddle him a bit more.
Anyways, Nate now has both the crib and the toddler bed in his room. Lex was so stinking cute at he put his puppy, that he sleeps with every night, into the toddler bed and said, "here Nate, you can sleep with puppy now." Gotta love brotherly love.

Sledding

I hate to admit it, but this past weekend was the first time we have taken the kids sledding all winter. But, we did it! It was a gorgeous weekend. The temperature finally hit mid 30s, it didn't snow and we had this big yellow thing up in the sky that was pretty darn bright. We haven't seen much of it lately, but I'm pretty sure it was the sun!
Anyways, we get the kids all dressed up in their thermals, then sweats, then the snowsuit, etc. We all pile in the car and head on over to the hill. We are the only ones there! It was unbelieveable! Anyways, Bailey starts sledding right away and is having a blast. She's only doing the half hill, but it's fast enough for her right now. Lex goes down a few times and is starting to the hang of it. Nate, on the other hand, wants absolutely nothing to do with it. He wants to go the very top of the hill and be held by Erik. Only Erik. Have I mentioned yet that if he's not at the top and being held by Erik he's crying? He does stop crying long enough to say "that's fun!" as the kids go flying by him. We were out for about an hour and a half and everyone had a blast and took a nice long nap.
Fast forward to Sunday. We decided to hit the hill again. This time, the kids don't even go to the halfway point of the hill, they go straight for the top. And, boy oh boy, it is soooo much faster than Saturday. Bailey keeps losing her hat and her hood keeps flying up! Lex can't hold on so he goes down on his belly. Towards the end of the day, Nate wants to go! Even he went down half the hill by himself. What an awesome weekend we had.

Non-stop energy

Just a quick note to let you know how Nate started off this morning. I get him up and change his diaper. I decide on a cute Tigger outfit (pure orange). As I pick him up to put him on the floor, his legs start running in the air. I am not joking. I held him like that to see if he would stop. He didn't. I put him down and he was off. That was at 7 AM this morning. He is like an orange blur this morning.

The kids and their cats

Sometime last fall, Erik and I decided that the kids would really love a pet. And, by loving a pet, I mean, they talked about it NON-STOP! Erik and I are not cat people. At all. If anything, we are dog people. But, I was not going through training dogs in the fall again, by myself, with little kids at home. And, now that we live in the tundra, I wasn't about to do this task in the middle of winter. So, we opted for cats. Erik happened upon a conversation with some ladies at school who just happened to have a few four-five month old kittens. Her husband wanted them out of the house. I told Erik, fine, we could get one. Under no circumstances were we coming home with four. Anyways, we decide on a day to go up to pick out the kittens. We weren't going to bring them home until after the Christmas holiday, but because Bailey wasn't going to be here for Christmas we wanted her to be part of picking out a family pet. A day or two before going up there, I realized that it would be in our best interest to get two cats so they could keep each other occupied. In a few short years, Nate will be in school full time and I was not going to occupy a cat! So, two cats it is.
We walk into this ladies house and see four kittens scattering everywhere. The kids went crazy! They had no idea until we were in her driveway what we were doing. I then realized...we had three kids at home. What in the world was going to happen if two kittens each chose one child to sleep with? That would leave one child by themselves. Great. Three cats it is.
Bailey instantly found a kitten and it fell asleep in her arms. She wanted this particular one and wanted to name it Molly. The boys were just crazy trying to grab the other kittens. I wasn't worried about them picking out one because they would be with us to get them. So, off we went with three excited kids.
Fast forward another two weeks. It's time to get the cats. We walk in and the lady can only find three out of the four cats. Please, let one of those cats be Bailey's! It looked completely different from the other one's as it had a white chest and white legs. Whew....that one was there. Snatch it up and put it in the carrier. Two more were sleeping together on the chair. There we go. Three cats. We thank her and come on home with our packages.
Bailey's cat, Molly, is pretty much afraid of her shadow. She refused to come out of the bag for almost an hour and when she did come out, she went right under the couch and we pretty much didn't see her for three days. She looks completely different from the other two cats and is much much smaller in size.
Lex's and Nate's cats could be twins. We actually had to put a collar one of them to tell them apart. Nate couldn't say kitty correctly and kept calling it "Biddy." So, that's his name.
Lex wanted to name his cat either Heidi(his aunt) or Elli(his cousin). We tried to explain that those were girl names and he had a boy cat. Also, can you imagine a teenage boy trying to explain to his friends why his boy cat is named that?? So, Erik tried talking him out of it. Tried to tell him he should think of something he really likes. Spiderman. Okay, but every toy and animal you have is named Spiderman (actually pronounced 'Piderman by Lex). Erik asked him to think of something he really likes that is only one word. "Chocolate! I really like chocolate!" But, he didn't want his cat to be called chocolate. Erik tried to tell him that chocolate is made from cocoa, sugar, etc. and Lex instantly said, "Cocoa, that's my cat's name." So, there you have it. The kids and their cats.

Cheap diapers

For some reason, I thought I'd save some money and buy the Walmart Brand of diapers. BIG, big mistake. As we were getting ready for dinner last night, Erik noticed that Nate's legs were wet. I just assumed it was from the glass of water he had been drinking/spilling (he likes not having to use sippy cups all the time). Anyways, after dinner, Nate is standing in the dining room grabbing his leg saying, "yucky." I notice that as he puts his slipper down on the carpet, it left a wet outline. I quickly feel him and his soaked! I don't mean a little bit, I mean soaked! So, Erik grabs him and takes him upstairs to throw him in the tub. The next thing I hear is everyone up there laughing telling me to come look at Nate. The diaper straps were around his waist. The diaper itself had come apart under the straps. So, it looked like he had on a belt, with his diaper hanging behind him and his package free. Yep. No wonder he was soaked. We will not be buying this brand again.

I'd also like to add, that as I walked into Nate's room today I found him in the corner of his crib with his leg up and over the railing. Guess it's time for a toddler bed. Let the real fun begin...

The point of my blog

I want to be able to print this, bind it and give a copy to each of the kids. Because I work on the computer, it is easy for me to write during the day (a bit here and there). I'm sure you won't all be interested in everything. It may seem redundant. It may seem boring (although I highly doubt that one). I just suck at taking pictures so I really want to capture our day to day memories.

Everyone thinks they are in charge

Yep. All three kids think they are in charge of the other ones. Will this ever end? Let's start at the youngest and work our way up, shall we?
Nate: Although he cannot fully speak yet, we can understand most of what he says. And, believe me when I say, his facial expressions and tones leave nothing to be questioned. He is often the first one to attempt to discipline the other two. Wait. He attempts to discipline Erik too. Although, I find this quite funny now, when it's him and not me. And when he's little. I digress. When either of the two older ones are in trouble or time out, he is often right there with his miniature hands on his miniature hips, letting them have it. We often have to pick him up and remove him from the time out area!
Lex: He apparently feels it is his given duty to take items away when they are not being used appropriately. Let's say, a musical drum stick as a whipping stick. "If you do that again, I will take it away from you." Um, sorry buddy, my place not yours.
Bailey: When Nate cries, the first thing out of her mouth is, "Lex, what did you do?!" Again, my place not yours. But, please, by all means, tattle on them every five minutes because it makes my day.
I'm sorry, in case you haven't figured it out, I'm a tad bit sarcastic. And, yes, so are my children. We are well aware that many parent conferences are in our future. Now, where's my kaluha?

What did I just do?

I really need to lose some weight. I've been eating super healthy and the pounds are just not dropping. So, I thought I'd step up the fiber and buy some prunes. That always helps, right? Anyways, for lunch today, the boys have raisins. Of course, they scarf those down in record time and then notice the big "raisins" on my plate. "Want some?" Nate asks. The mean part of me snickers and says, "Sure, baby, have one." To which Lex says, "I want one too please." Silly me thought they wouldn't like them. They were snatching them off my plate?? I mean, seriously, what kids LIKE prunes? Yea, mine do! (Just for the record, even though Bailey is at school at not part of this lunch, she loves prunes too!) Buncha weirdos! So, after a handful or raisins and several prunes later, I start thinking, "Oh good Lord, what did I just do?" I mean, eventually I am going to have to clean up this prune mess. Again, the mean part of me snickers and thinks, "That's okay, Erik will be home later." Um, no, not tonight. I get the whole poop mess and it's already begun. Nate wasn't sleeping for his afternoon nap and I went up to check on him. The smell hit me before I opened his door. When I did open it, he looked at me with this horrible scrunched up face, grabbed himself and said, quite loudly, "Ohhhhh gross! Yucky!" Lovely.
Fast forward another hour. Lex wants to go outside and play. Like the smart Mom I am, I always make him pee before the snowsuit goes on. The whole winter garb is on Lex, he goes outside and starts making snow angels. I start to think how much I really do love my life. "Mom! I have to poop!" And the day is not even half over.

A typical meal

Well, honestly, I'm not even sure where to start. We're quite the characters. Although I often lose my patience, these kids are funny. Let me give you an example of a typical dinner at our house. I had made spaghetti sauce from scratch and was excited for everyone to try it. I try to dish everyone's dinner up at the same time so we can eat together. Erik is in the kitchen, right in my way, err, I mean helping, to get the kids their milk. I finally place in front of my loving family and instead of the "oooohhh" and "ahhhhh" I was patiently awaiting, I get "What's this?" "I don't like sauce." and a few others. Great. I sit down. Right away, Bailey doesn't have her plate in front of her correctly, she whacks the end of it with her elbow and sends the plate of spaghetti to the carpeted floor. Deep breath. And, of course, Lex has to add that he doesn't like sauce, he just wants past. My patience is slowly leaking out of me. Then, Nate adds, "bubbbllllle (his word for trouble). At this point, I don't know if I should laugh or cry. Fast forward a few minutes. Nate has pasta hanging out his mouth, Bailey and Lex are eating. Calmness at last.
Oh wait, Lex decides that this would be a totally appropriate time to sing the alphabet at the top of his lungs, Bailey wants to tell us about her day over top of Lex singing and Nate decides to stand up in his chair, put his hands to his sides and pretend he's shooting us with pretend webs from his wrists like Spiderman. Erik just breaks down and starts laughing. I don't know if I should laugh, cry or scream. I just keep eating. This, I'm afraid, is a normal meal for us.