My Trio

Our Creek Adventure

To get to our pool you have to walk across a bridge that goes over a creek. One day we saw a little girl playing down in the sand on the bank of the creek and the kids begged to go down there. We didn’t go that day but told Lance about it. He said that our neighbor told him that there were Copperhead snakes down there.

Last Wednesday we had some friends come over to our pool. Reese and Sam told the boys all about it. Jenny and I decided that we would let them all go play in the creek for a few minutes. I told her the warning about the snakes but we were not too worried. The kids had a blast! They threw rocks in to the creek, walked in the water, and tried to climb some rocks across the creek.

As they were playing a landscaper walked by and said, “Be careful! There are Copperheads down there!” Ugh! What a party pooper! Jenny and I decided that we better not take any chances now that we had been warned twice and told the kids it was time to go back to the pool. They were all so disappointed because they were having the best time. Reese and Sam have asked a million times if we can go back down there. I imagine we will get to play down there again…

Doing Dishes

I have a picture of both Reese and Sam “helping” with the dishes when they were babies so I had to get a picture of Hayes as well.

I just love that chunky little monkey splashing in the water on the door.

I could just eat him up! I can’t believe how big he is…his little life is just flying by.

I love our new house but I HATE our dishwasher. It is definitely something that is on my short list of updating. It is soooo loud and doesn’t hold much.

We’re a Mess

Hayes has no desire to have me feed him solid foods. He either wants to eat from the food pouches or feed himself table food. After every meal there is a five foot radius around him that is covered in food.

And the other two! Dinner time has been a struggle with them lately. Every night they say they don’t like what I am cooking unless it is pizza or some other equally unhealthy food. Some nights I have to tell Sam to sit down a million times so that he will actually eat. He has gone to bed many nights with out eating because he will refuse to eat what is on his plate. A couple of nights ago, I was telling him to sit down for the 100th time and his hand slipped and knocked his whole plate of food on the ground. It was actually kind of funny and the kids lost it.

Reese ran from the table to the family room and fell on the floor laughing. Sam quickly followed suit and they were having the biggest belly laughs.

It was all pretty funny! That is until he did the same thing the next night. Then I almost lost it.

Sam, the Power Ranger

Sam is still a Power Ranger all day, every day. Every morning he gets up and puts his costume on. Every time we go to Target he begs to go to the toy aisle to see the new Power Ranger toys. There is one specific toy he wants to see and he calls it the “morphin toy”. While we were at Target this weekend spending Reese’s birthday gift card, Lance and Sam were looking at this toy. Lance told Sam that he could buy the toy and Sam could not contain himself. He was soooo excited. I honestly don’t think he has every been more excited about a toy. He was so grateful and just beside himself with joy. He has not put the toy down. I have to tell him to leave it at home or in the car most days so it doesn’t get lost or broken. He has wanted to take it to church and the pool and was very disappointed when I said no.

Boys Will Be Boys

Reese did VBS last week at a church that held it in the evenings from 6:00-8:30. One of the nights we went to a sporting goods store to find Reese’s birthday present. While we were waiting on the bike to be finished Lance and Sam went to see all the boy stuff…baseball, football, etc. Hayes and I walked up as they were getting to the football stuff and Lance was trying to find a football helmet to put on Sam.

After Sam tried it on, Hayes got a turn too. How cute does he look??

Reese is SIX!

Today is Reesey Bug’s birthday. She has had a great day. She woke up to balloons all over her floor and streamers in her doorway. When she came out of her room she had the biggest grin on her face.

Then she came downstairs to open her presents. We got her a new bicycle because she has outgrown her old bike.

I went to a warehouse sale for Scholastic Books a couple of months ago and bought several fun books for her. I wasn’t going to give her the Children’s Dictionary that I found but decided to at the last minute. She loved it! I also gave her a set of Judy Blume books that include the Super Fudge books. We loved reading those when we were little and I am so excited to read them again with my kids. I ordered a bed for her American Girl Doll as a gift from the boys but forgot to change to our new address on my Amazon account so it is lost right now. It says it was delivered to our old house but it wasn’t there when we had our old neighbors run by. So we are going to have to find that soon or order a new one. :-(

Since Reese’s birthday was on a Friday this year she decided that she wanted to do a “Pizza and Movie Night” party. And instead of a traditional cake she wanted to do a popcorn cake. We got busy making the cake before everyone arrived.

Once everyone was here the girls all played upstairs for a bit while we waited for the pizza to arrive. Everybody ate pizza…including the little guest…

After pizza we sent the girls to the basement to watch Wreck-it Ralph. I also served the popcorn cake while they watched the movie.

They were all so cute snuggled up in the chairs together. Even Sam got in on the action and got to snuggle in a chair.

They made it about half way through the movie and then slowly started playing. After I put Hayes to bed Reese got to open her birthday presents. She was so excited to do this and so were the girls.

Reese had a great birthday party and gave her friends some popcorn buckets with some popcorn, M&M’s and a glow stick.

At six years old:

*Reese pushes the limits at home but usually follows directions every where else.
*She amazes me with how much and how easily she learns.
*She is such a little mommy. Sometimes it scares me to see her talking and acting like me. It is like looking in to a mirror. She always wants to pick Hayes up and walk around with him and she always wants to boss Sam around.
*After Hayes was born we had a couple of rough months with Reese during that transition and I see the same thing happening with her right now after our move. The good thing is that I know she will come out of it. She just doesn’t know how to handle change very well and I really need to be patient with her. With all of that being said, she is super excited to start at her new school.
*She is an amazing little swimmer. I was so impressed with how much better she got during swim team.
*She has decided that she wants to do gymnastics in the fall so she is going to stop doing ballet for now. She also wants to do cheerleading and I found a church nearby that has an Upwards program that I have signed her up for.
*She still loves dresses and skirts. She loves to dress up and put make-up on. She is very good to ask if she can put it on though and never just sneaks away to put some on.
*She says she wants to be an art teacher when she grows up. She loves all kinds of crafts and artsy things.

Pulling Up

Hayes has started pulling himself up to standing. It started with him pushing himself up on things that were low to the ground like small boxes. Then he figured out how to pull up on taller things like the sofa and his crib. After his nap this morning he was yelling like he was mad. When I walked in I found him standing up in his crib. I am glad we decided to lower his mattress when we moved!!








On a side note, he has finally cut all three of the other top teeth. That was a painful few days and I am glad they are through.

- Posted from my iPhone

Cheer Camp

This week Reese has been doing cheer camp at our local high school. It is the only camp that I signed her up for this summer because of the move. Nothing else would fit in to our crazy schedule so she was so excited to go. And she had a blast! She had several friends in her group and saw several other friends that she has played soccer with in other groups. Each day I asked her to see if there were any kids that would be going to her new school and each day she would get in the car and say “Oh! I forgot!”. Ha! Oh well!

Today they had a “pep rally” and got to show off all the fun stuff they have learned this week. It was too cute! Before the week started Reese could do a cartwheel but usually ended up on her bottom. Some how her coaches taught her how to do a cartwheel perfectly. They also learned a dance to “Call Me Maybe” and a cheer.

I totally forgot my camera but had my phone to snap a few pictures and videos.

Our Fourth

Our fourth was quiet, nice and simple. We went to our friends house for breakfast and then ran errands and went to CFA for lunch with them. The kids had a blast spending the day together. I didn't get any pictures though.

We came home for naps and spent the rest of the afternoon watching movies since all fireworks shows were cancelled for the night. We did get to watch the fireworks from New York on the TV though and they were pretty amazing.

Hayesy Baby crawling around.




Our attempt at a family picture.




- Posted from my iPhone

Eight Months Old

Yesterday Hayes was eight months old. I haven’t done his monthly photo shoot yet so these pictures will have to do from the last few days.

At eight months old:

*He is full on crawling. For a while he would crawl a few “steps” and then drop to his belly to army crawl as fast as he could. Now, as long as he is on the carpet, he will crawl on all fours. The second he hits the hardwood he starts army crawling or will stand like he is going to bear crawl.

*He has pulled him self up to standing a couple of times.

*He “gets mad” just like Reese did.

*He still has three teeth but the other three on top are right at the cusp of coming in.

*I have finally figured his sleep out. I just have to let him cry himself to sleep. He usually only cries about three minutes and then he is quiet. Last night we even made it through the whole night without getting up with him...eleven hours!! That was the first time he has gone that long with out eating. I have been afraid to let him cry at night because I was afraid he would wake the other two up. I decided that since it is summer time I am just going to let him do that if we have to…so far he has not awaken them at night. So like I suspected, I was the cause of the problem. As long as I don’t go in to his room he will go back to sleep on his own.

*He can’t wait to be just like Reese and Sam.

*He is going to be the cause of my first heart attack!!

*He weighed 20 pounds, one ounce at the doctor the other day.

Getting Settled

June 19th

We let the kids say one last good bye to our old house. It was their last night sleeping there so we had ice cream and sparklers. We talked about our favorite things from the house and what we were going to miss.

This is how we had been living the last few days. Lance built the kids a fort with all of our boxes.

June 20th

The kids headed out to my parents house after Reese’s swim meet. They stayed with them until Saturday evening.

That night Lance and I did all the last minute packing while Hayes hung out with us.

June 21st

The movers came and started loading the truck. Lance stuck around and helped while I ran errands and kept Hayes out of the way. While they were unloading at the new house Hayes needed a nap. I fed him and he fell asleep. Since his bed was not put together yet he took a nap on the floor.

June 22nd

Lance and I worked hard at getting the kids rooms put together so it felt like home to them when they got there. We met my family for hibachi that night to celebrate my dad’s birthday and we brought the kids home with us that night. All kids fell asleep on the way home. When we pulled in to the driveway Sam said, “I want to go home.” He didn’t realize we were home. They ran inside to see everything set up and played until about 11:00. Finally I said it was bedtime and they did great. They have slept well every night since then.

Sam wasn’t feeling well when we picked him up and on Sunday we decided to stay home from church because of that.

June 24th

I took Sam to the doctor because it looked like he had strep. Turns out it was just a virus that was acting like strep. We had a lot of fun waiting on the doctor and drawing on the paper across the table.

The rest of the week was spent unpacking and getting comfortable in our new home.

Lance worked from home one day. Since we don’t have office furniture for him yet he set up the folding table in the office. Hayes was very interested in this.

Friday night we had pizza and a pool night at our new pool. We had fun while there and had it mostly to ourselves.

There is this cool little tree house at the pool that the kids were super excited to play in.

And lastly, probably the most exciting thing we have been taking advantage of, we live in a cul-de-sac!

About our new home:

• I truly believe this is the house that I have prayed about for years. It is not in the neighborhood I had “planned” on it being in but I think it is better that way. It meets everything that was on our wants list except the neighborhood.
• We will be in this house for at least the next 20 years. That should give us enough time to forget how horrible moving and selling the other house was. Ha!
• We have a basement…that has a playroom…that is a total wreck right now…and I am ok with that because I can’t see it!!
• The kids seem to truly like being in this house and I can see them as teenagers in this house.