Worth It.

This weekend my world traveling sister visited with her kids. We all had a great time and I already miss my niece and nephew so much it hurts....but with all that comes the realization that I have a comparatively 'boring' life. Don't get me wrong, I don't feel bored....I just have not much to talk about that's not kid related. I definitely don't provide stimulating conversation. But, I have been questioning my chosen 'profession' less and less over the past year...feeling more confident in the decision....recognizing that what I do all day, while totally unglamorous, is still important.

And then this morning Daughter A came running into my room, jumped on the bed, snuggled up for a hug, and said, "Mama, do you know why I love you? Cause you're home all the time." :)

Here's a few pics from cousin time:

Survey Thingy

I was just thinking this morning that I haven't done one of those fun-to-me email/facebook type surveys in a long time. Then I re-ran across this post by a friend and decided to steal it :) (I'm distracting my mind from this afternoon's kindergarten sign-up!)

What time did you get up this morning?
6:35. Shocking, for a habitual post-8am riser, but I found some walking buddies and had to get a few loops done before Jer left for work. All that extra awake time is part of the reason for this survey - ha.

Diamonds or pearls?
Diamonds - but I prefer colored stones like emerald, garnet, sapphire etc. Pearls are probably my LEAST favorite.

Last film you saw in the theatre?
'Alice in Wonderland'. I was so excited (Jer fell asleep), but it was not as good as it could have been...I like 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' a LOT better

Favorite TV Show?
I have a hard time picking so I'll give my top 5: 1)Glee, 2)The Office, 3)Parenthood, 4) The Good Wife, 5)Modern Family...and I'm very sad about the cancellation of 'Better Off Ted' and 'Scrubs'. I used to feel guilty about enjoying TV...but everyone needs ways to relax and that's mine, so there!

What do you usually have for breakfast?
I don't like breakfast and have just recently made an effort to eat some every day. Before it was just a highly-sugared cup of coffee or Earl Grey Tea. This week it's been one hard-boiled egg, a few slices of pepper jack cheese, and a hand-full of pretzels. I like to have a few tomatoes with that combo, too.

Favorite Clothing?
Jeans that fit well and are comfy (ie don't feel like they are squeezing me or about to bare my rear) with a t-shirt that hugs the right curves and hides the strange pattern that my children left on my stomach.

Anywhere in the world on vacation where would you pick?
For a relaxing vacation I would pick a tropical and uncrowded beach - the whole white sand/clear water thing. For a site-seeing sort of vacation I would LOVE to go to China...someday!

Where would you like to retire?
Jer and I have discussed two options: 1) Buy a really fancy RV and travel the country in style, 2) By a house in the north and one in the south and avoid extreme temperatures :) But, I imagine I will attempt to live as close to my children as they will let me!

What was your most recent memorable birthday?
The memorable in a bad way b-day was two years ago when I was stuck home with an infant and two-three year olds and then one of the three year olds wound up throwing-up all day. A good recent one was three years ago, my sis took me to a comedy club in town and then we hung out at her house afterwards. I like it when people will hang out with me :)

What are you going to do when you finish this?
Clean the kitchen/counters, then feed the kids, then go register two of the kids...

Are you a morning or a night person?
100% night owl. Although, I'm always a bit surprised how pleasant it is to be outdoors in the early morning....

What did you want to be when you were little?
First off a mom, then an accountant for Hershey in Hershey, PA in a purple house.

What was the last thing you ate?
see breakfast question above

Last person you spoke to on the phone?
Lady from church who is watching the girls for me this afternoon

Favorite soft drink?
Cherry coke. mmmm

Hair color?
Dark blondish

Summer or Winter?
Fall and spring! But I actually prefer the cold to the hot.

Chocolate or vanilla?
Chocolate...preferably dark.

Coffee or tea?
Either - so long as it's nice and sweet and has some creaminess added.

When was the last time you cried?
Don't know...

What did you do last night?
Watched kids at children's small group, watched Biggest Loser catchup with Jer, watched ANTM, showered and went to bed.

Positive or Negative?
I try to be positive and can usually see the positive in most situations...but will often fall into negativity without realizing it and have to pull myself back out!

A Few Firsts/New Accomplishments

A. conquered the monkey bars a week ago. All the way across all by herself - several times. They were some pretty hard ones, too! They were set up in a curve so some were farther apart than others. She was SO excited :) She then got to experience the beginnings of monkey bar blisters!

B. read a book all by herself!! She needed a bit of help on some of the sight words - but that's because the English language is totally dumb and almost none of the words follow the rules. They are all 'funny' or 'silly' words, as our reading book calls them. She was so excited to read that princesses love singing...she loves singing, too! (She sings almost non-stop).

Lil Jo's firsts have all been vocabulary expansions lately. She said her first 4 word sentence ('Mama, kiss you me.') and she has been stringing together more and more sentences since. I think there was even a 5 word-er, but I can't recall what it was.

The girls also got to play Mario Cart for the first time on Saturday. We were babysitting some for some friends at their house and they have the four player game. It was VERY entertaining watching two 5-year olds, a 6-year old, and a 3-year old race :) Daddy had a hard time watching instead of 'helping.'

We had our first Easter egg hunt at our new church. 20,000 eggs....needless to say all the kids filled their baskets with lots left over. Daddy said he saw A. going slowly through the field, picking up an egg in each hand, weighing the two against each other, then tossing the lighter egg over her shoulder. Fortunetly for me (and unfortunetly for Daddy and Jo) most of the eggs seem to have been filled with mini-pb cups, yum!

Of course, I forgot my camera for Easter/ Egg Hunt/Trip to the Beach, but we are very lucky to have friends who remember cameras and offer to take family pictures of us:Can you tell we don't take family pictures often? :)

Waiting.

That's what I feel like I am doing right now.

The girls start kindergarten in 5 months......

I can't even fathom what our lives will be like.

They didn't do mom's-day-out or preschool. Our longest recurrent separation was Sunday mornings for church.

We've never had much of a set schedule. Naptimes, yes, but we wake up when they're ready and have breakfast when we're all awake enough to eat it. Lunch is at noon....ish. Supper when Daddy gets home which can be anytime from 5:30 to 7:00.

I'm not really worrying. I just feel like I can't commit to anything until I know how this new 'lifestyle' will affect us.

I feel like I need to hang on to every second...but they are SO ready to go.

Why all this melancholy out of the blue?? This morning a friend whose first born is also entering kindergarten next year informed me that there is early registration happening the first week of April. In three weeks my babies could be in the school's system....

What am I going to do all day at home with just ONE lil girl???

On a more upbeat note - here are the girls and Daddy planting our garden -yay!:

'Girls'

*Taking a moment to blog while my hideously bright pink nail polish dries :) *

We have recently confirmed that Lil Jo does, in fact, think her sister A's name is 'Girls'. This may be because both sisters have similar sounding names to her, because I refer to the twins as the 'girls' and she transferred that to just A., or because whenever I holler 'GIRLS' only A. comes running. It may be a combination of all of those. Regardless, she is adamant that A's name is 'Girls' and will not even attempt to pronounce A's real name. Weird, mostly funny, but starting to be a bit frustrating. I guess it's not hurting anything. I had to wonder today how long this idea has been in her brain. I've tested her a lot to see if she can tell the girls apart. She has said 'Girls' to A for quite awhile, but I assumed she was just telling me that A was one of the girls. It never occurred to me that she would get their names confused like this :)

This past weekend I went to our church's women's retreat (great as always :) All the girls went to stay with my dad and step-mom. My husband and I had Saturday and Sunday evening alone to celebrate our anniversary - it was very nice :) But, the girls came home Monday morning and started asking lots of hard questions (I'm not sure if it was out of the blue or if I'm just paying more attention after some of the topics discussed at the retreat). We have discussed: fat vs skinny, why a boy with autism acts differently than other kids, the devil (as they saw him on some friend's animated bible story dvd), what will happen if they can't have a baby, how babies come out of mamas' tummies, why grown-up ladies wear bras, what those diaper things for grown-up ladies in wal-mart are for (Mom, do you peepee in them??) etc, etc. My brain is tired!

One other development that has me really feeling the transformation of my babies into big girls - we have officially graduated from toddler clothing. 5T is just too small. The move across the isle in wal-mart is a sad one (and expensive!).

Well, I think the polish is set- should be able to blind many tonight at small group :)

Butterflies

Disclaimer: This may not be interesting to anyone else but me.

Yesterday the girls were given the task of making b-day cards. A. decided to draw a butterfly (so B, of course, followed suit). As she finished drawing the outline, I noticed that she had not really put a space for the body and was curious to see how she'd proceed (we rarely draw so I'm always interested to see how their skills have progressed). It was only when she started drawing what I thought was a second butterfly that I realized that she had actually been drawing each individual wing. Then after the wings were completed she added the body in the space between. Now, as a very poor artist who never aspires beyond basic doodles, I was very impressed by the detail in her butterfly. The body actually looked a bit like the worms/caterpillars from 'Herbie and Friends'. It was such a cute little butterfly with personality and detail so beyond what I have EVER come up with on my butterflies! I do enjoy doodling butterflies so I have attempted quite a few - but mine never have more than a playdough snake like body with antennae and maybe a smiley face if I'm feeling creative.

B started her butterfly a bit later (I was distracted from helping her write the b-day message by an annoying phone call from the insurance adjuster). Again I was perplexed by her picture. She only drew one butterfly wing and a body. I was thinking that surely she, at five, wouldn't think to draw a side view of the butterfly. But, turns out that's exactly what she was doing. The creativity in my five-years olds amazes me! I understand that they are probably totally normal in this area...but I have always been very unimaginative in my art -so seeing them draw from different angles etc just delights me :) I love watching their minds working.

Later, when I was describing to my husband how the girls had both created such different butterflies, B even informed me that she could have made another line on top of the wing so you could see the other wing behind it!! (She was also quite upset that she had forgotten to give her butterfly eyes) I do find it interesting, as well, that while they had butterflies from different angles and with different colors, they both put one spot on the top half and one on the bottom half of each wing. Is that the accepted butterfly wing design for most kids??

I'll close with some pictures from the last few weeks - most of them are from the indoor activities we've been forced to - because even here in the south, it's been cold and icky out. Then there are a few from our new church building (yay!). Our grand opening was two weeks ago and it has been great!

This is our front entryway:

Luckily she didn't try to stand up:

There is actually order to this chaos:

Part of Church Children's Hallway:
My husband built the stage and the puppet theatre:

Mama loves it when they get along:):

Just a lil cold

We've all been sniffly this week. The girls have a bit of a cough going, too. Nothing serious. But, I've found it interesting watching Lil Jo-its her first cold since she was about 10 months old: she is not lethargic, she is not sleeping longer (like I would like to do), no...instead she acts CAFFEINATED! She's goes through spurts of zinging through the house laughing and being goofy. You would never guess she's sick...until you notice the green goo oozing out of her lil nose. Or hear the raspy sound of her voice. The only behavioral indication of sickness is grumpiness. She isn't into tv so my usual set-em-in-front-of-the-tv-to-keep-them-still-so-their-bodies-can-rest remedy doesn't work. How do you speed the healing process in a little girly who is too young to be medicated and won't rest??

A lot of our friends have had kids with much more serious winter-time illnesses, though, so I'm feeling pretty ok with the colds! Do other kids become hyperactive when they get sick??

Here's my wild child at her recent b-day party:

A Minute of Peace

The girls are playing nicely together (!) in their room so I thought I'd do a quick post before I start the Monday clean-up (blah).

We have established our family motto. Last night in the car Daughter B. was gearing up for a full fledged fit when Daughter A. hollered out "B. DON'T FREAK OUT." Hilarious...but also almost exactly what I was going to say. See, our family is pretty much a freakin' out sort of family. Mama with her high-anxiety is constantly 'freaking out' about something and generally uses those words several times when describing her day to Daddy. Daughters A and B are also very prone to 'freaking out' because all issues from teeny tiny to giant require loud vocals, stomping, writhing on the floor etc etc. Lil Jo and Daddy are probably the least likely to freak out so they will be the designated keepers of the family motto who will be frequently called upon to shout above the din 'DON'T FREAK OUT'. And perhaps this established motto will help lighten the mood during the 'freak outs'...it's hard not to laugh when little girls holler and stick out their 'stop hands' :) And really one of our main goals since becoming parents of high drama (since birth) girlies has been to teach them how to resist the urge to freak.

So now I am off to clean the house with out 'freaking out' at how impossible it is to keep it tidy with three little girls, their Daddy, and a piddly dog :)

This pic should be with my previous post under weird games my girls play: