Tinkerbell underpants and other thoughts

My eldest daughter started the day by conning her father into letting her play with the package of tinkerbell underwear that was being saved for when she is a big girl and potty trained (aka incentive underwear). She started the morning by putting on all her panties--one on each foot and one on her head. Hilarious! She and her father then proceeded downstairs to a hearty breakfast of stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, turkey and ham. The man is a mystery to me. I had pie, which is the right and proper thing to do the day after Thanksgiving.

I wanted to mention that you may notice that I do several posts a day, but then no posts for a few days. This is because I let my hubby hijack my laptop downstairs for his warcrack game. I didn't realize that I was giving up my computer; I thought I'd just share it a little. And not to point fingers or place blame, but now that he's using it, it seems to have developed a little bug that causes the desktop to change spontaneously. So anyway, to write a post or whatever, I have to be upstairs with my laptop.

In other news, both babies are now sleeping through the night! This is a good thing unless you ask my boobs, which are still a little miffed about the idea and wake me up several times a night. Hopefully they will get over it soon. Also, Laney is getting jazzed for Christmas. We had a discussion about Santa coming with presents and how we will leave cookies out. and she said:

"we will leave tookies for Santa and coffee"

I told her that Santa always seemed to have a soft spot for his coffee when I was a kid, so probably Santa still likes it. Are you listening Santa?

I braved the crowds briefly today to shop the Carter outlet sale. Three kids never seem like a lot until you have to buy clothes for them. I still need to buy clothes for myself. I hate buying clothes for me. In a fit of post pregnancy organization, I donated most of my clothes figuring it would give me incentive to actually purchase something. In addition, most of the stuff I kept is now too big. I've been shlumping around in jeans that are falling off me, which is driving me crazy. I really need to do something about it sooner rather than later. Stupid spandex and the popularity of low rise jeans are ruining my life. I need to squat down all day long, as well as bend over, sit on the floor and everything else moms do. It would be nice to do so without my butt crack showing.

Happy Thanksgiving

We had a good Thanksgiving and have been lazing around all day eating pie. Ricky and Erica even showed up early (a family first--normally they don't arrive until after everyone is eating). No one fought, though I did get a little snappy with Mike. What can I say? I'm still mad at him for eating a big piece of Charles birthday cake and leaving to go to the bar before we had a chance to light a candle or anything. It was a strange holiday--Ricky and Erica were there early and Don and Olive were the last to arrive. Charles was serving very stiff drinks pre-dinner and I was a little worried that family tension would bubble over, but amazingly everything worked out fine. Don had two drinks and stayed quiet most of the night and Olive had two drinks and was happy. The move has been quite tense for them to say the least.
The best part of Thanksgiving for me was watching all of the kids play together. They played and played and played. Nothing says family to me like herds of cousins running around the house. While it might normally be assumed, I will say it: I am so grateful for my children. I'm grateful for my family especially my in-laws who have made me feel like a part of the family since day one, I'm grateful for my husband who does so much in so many ways and for my friends. Happy Thanksgiving!

Baking Pie and takin' names

I have a confession. I am a slight control freak sometimes. Holidays can be one of those times. We're having the big turkey day at my house because a) I asked what the plan was and got volunteered and b) I like to do a lot of the cooking because I like to have certain things. I'm a big believer in making the pies from scratch. I don't believe in stuffing that includes meat. I think vegetables should be served including salad. So I basically make things way harder than they should be if I just let it go and asked everyone to bring more stuff.
I'm working on pie 3 right now, but took a break. We're expecting somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 people for dinner tomorrow, but that depends. Certain members of the family can be a little flaky. I won't name any names.

Wonders of Walmart/Evils of casserole

Not a very exciting day today. Went to Walmart for Thanksgiving groceries and will still have to go to the grocery store again. Walmart has some dirt cheap prices on some things, but they don't have a lot of selection. For example, they don't carry riesling wine for some reason. And their produce is always out of something. On the other hand, they had sweet potatoes for 43 cents a pound.

I have new pictures of the kids I've been taking, but I haven't downloaded them yet. I've been trying to get the "are you trying to kill me?" grimace that Kenna makes with the first bite of cereal. Hilarious. I wish that my camera used the smaller flash cards. There is a super cool gadget for cameras that uses wi-fi to automatically upload photos off your camera and onto the web or wherever you want them to go but it only works with the little cards, not the bigger compact flash my camera uses. Such a bummer. I love the automagic of wifi. In fact, I got all techie and fixed my printer so that I could use it on the wireless network in our house. I tell ya, I'm practically a genius or something. Ha.
I made a casserole tonight to test drive it prior to springing it on a mom in my group who just had a baby (congrats to Talia and little baby Anthony!). It was ok (anything that involves a brick of cream cheese and a carton of sour cream can't completely suck, let's be honest). I have to say, the appeal of the casserole eludes me. They are not easy or quick to make. You dirty up a billion pans to assemble the ingredients and then still have to cook it in the oven to have everything come together. I can saute a chicken breast, make a pan sauce and a side of rice and veggies in 25 minutes start to finish and use only three dishes. When you make casserole, in the end you have...a casserole. And I ask myself: all that work and this is what I got? On the upside, the humble casserole has a comfort food quality about it that can be nice and it is portable hence the need to make one to take to someone else. Casserole is the food of potlucks, new babies, etc.
So anyone out there with a kick ass casserole dish that is not a lasagna, chicken fettucine or enchiladas please let me know (I'm trying to take pity on these poor people. I think they are going to be getting fettucine or enchiladas every other day for two weeks). Meanwhile, back to the drawing board.

A conversation

A conversation related to me by Charles.

[Charles farts]
Laney: Daddy fart! I'll check.
[Laney reaches over, pulls his pants away from his butt and has a good peak inside]
Laney: Daddy poo poo!
Charles: No, I'm not!

A week in brief

I've been slacking on my posting this week. I wrote a post earlier but decided it was negative and bitter so it didn't get posted. It was a long week, what can I say.
Charles was gone until late Thursday night and it was a tough week. Saturday I worked on painting again and am almost finished. We've been waiting to paint until Laney goes down for a nap since toddlers and paint mix too well. I'm really liking the color. Friday night I went out for a mom's night out and we had a great time. I really like my Tuesday mom's group. They are all really nice people without being so saccharine sweet that it makes my face ache. Super sweet people make me wonder if a) they are really that nice or just pretending and b) if they aren't pretending if I'm just a total piece of crap because I'm not that nice all the time.
Anyhow, we had sushi and a lot of fun. Wednesday I went out for dinner with my sorority and took the kids. It was somewhat funny because my friend Kathy came out to help haul the kids in and the waitress asked if we wanted to add another table for when the other moms got there. Ha ha.

Regarding the tough week issue, suffice it to say that most of the time I put on a brave face and sort of "fake it til I make it" but sometimes having three children under age 2 is really hard and I just can't pretend otherwise.

Pee pee where it shouldn't be

I should change the name of my blog to something related to bodily fluids and their distribution. I know that many of my posts relate to pee or poo, but hey that is my life. Deal with it. You at least only have to read about it, I have to clean it up.
This morning Kenna's diaper leaked on my side of the bed. I got Laney up and found her in a pool of her own (stupid princess pull ups). During nap time, Laney decided that her pull up was too wet and needed to be removed. I don't know if she removed it before or after wetting her bed a second time, but I found her dancing naked after a too short nap. She soaked her pull up again right before bath time and sat on me all soggy.
It was just one of those days. Laney spent too much time watching videos, but I was tired. Griffin was grouchy today. He didn't really take an afternoon nap like he normally does and just cried on and off. By dinner everyone was unhappy and they all three sat around me and cried. It was just awesome, let me tell you. They all finally settled down, but when I went upstairs to give Laney a bath Griffin started howling again. That boy gets seriously mad. He turns red and just yells. It's a good thing that he's really cute. Everyone went to bed pretty easy though so I decided to clean my oven after the massive chicken leakage problem Friday night (can't remember if I mentioned this but I roasted a chicken in a pan with a hole in it and didn't figure out what the problem was until 3/4 of the way done. Very smokey). I haven't cleaned my oven before, but it started billowing smoke from all the grease burned in the bottom. So I called my mother. I'm still airing things out. It was eye watering to say the least. Now I'm going to go to bed in my pee peed bed.

Weekend warriors

Charles highjacked my laptop over the weekend and I was too tired to go up and use the other one. So here's a quick recap of the weekend:
Went to Tucson moms Fall festival on Saturday. It was majorly windy, but it was still relatively fun. We met Talia's husband for the first time and he and Charles seemed to get along. Talia's husband just got back from Iraq, where he is a security guard. He's a former Marine, so he and Charles had something to talk about. Laney ate her first cotton candy and the twins took in the scenery. Laney also bounced in the jumping castle and literally bounced out of it! The cover for the entrance was not particularly tight and she popped right out and on to the ground. She was fine, but quite suprised. The festival was from 1 to 4, so Laney didn't get a nap. We went from there over to Debbie's to check out her new house paint job--it looks great! I'm not looking forward to having ours done. Guess I should start saving now. From there we went to Pinnacle Peak for a dinner out with other moms from my Tuesday group. To say that Laney was not her normal sweet self is something of an understatement. There was food throwing, crying fits, and general mayhem. At one point she bit me on the arm for taking the dish of beans away from her and I smacked her face. So yes, I publicly abuse my daughter and I know I'm not supposed to hit in response to biting but I still have a massive ding on my chest where she bit me the other night and I reacted before I thought about it. The twins were both fussy too and cried for a good portion of the dinner. I think both Charles and I just couldn't wait to get out of there. Lesson learned. One thing a day. Skip naps at your own peril.
Sunday we got up bright and early to paint our family room and kitchen. I can't believe how different it looks. We painted the end wall, hall, and under the kitchen cabinets a darker shade of tan. The tv wall and eventually the rest of the family room walls and kitchen is a lighter golden tan. The room really changed in the way it feels and the darker shade seems to make it less long (it's very rectangular for those who haven't seen it). I like it even though the room is a little darker. It really makes the granite pop and warms the space up considerably. Hopefully it will hide kid dirt too ;-) I did most of the painting while Charles took care of the kids, then we painted together while Laney was napping. I was totally beat by last night.

Park Day

We stayed home for the last couple days, so were more than ready to bust out and get some park on. It was a good day at the park. We went to Arthur Pack, a new park, and really liked it. I meant to bring my camera but didn't. There were so many really great potential pictures too. The kids discovered big kid swings and were draping themselves over the seat and swaying back and forth and playing in the sand. It was really cute, though Laney did slip headfirst off the swing into the dirt in a sort of slow-mo slump and when she looked up the swing came back and smacked her right in the forehead. She was ok though (she's tough).
We went to Wendy's for lunch with Richelle and Ella and Tara and Cameron. The twins just crashed out and Laney did such a good job at the restaurant. She's getting so big. I just can't believe it sometimes.

Gettin' Organized

I've been busily tidying. I'm not sure what is prompting the urge to purge and cleanse, but it's very strong. I think I'm having some post twin pregnancy thing--I couldn't do anything during the last of the pregnancy with the babies so now I'm making up for lost nesting time or something. Or maybe I just feel the urge to bring more order to a potentially chaotic life. I don't know. But I do love the feeling of doing a thorough cleaning with everything all neat and tidy. Honestly, it's been a while coming. There have been pockets of major mess in my house for a while. I couldn't clean for quite a while and had lots of "help" so nothing was where it was supposed to be. It seems sometimes that if a few things start getting out of place, everything rapidly goes downhill.
I'm ready for someone to develop a brilliant means of organizing baby bottle and sippy cup stuff. It just goes out of control. I've organized the pantry and a few other kitchen cabinets and the laundry room. Now I need to do the garage, which is stuffed to the rafters with Goodwill stuff etc.

Cleaning Help

Happy birthday to my niece Colleen! She was born at 11 on the 11th day of the 11th month--the same time and date that the armistice agreement to end WWI was signed.
We did playgroup at Jamie's today and had a great time. Laney was so good and the twins were in fine spirits. I was trying to get everyone out the door this morning and was nursing a twin when I noticed that Laney was running around with my decorative hand towel from the bathroom. Then a few minutes later she ran into the family room with it and started rubbing the coffee table. She said "I cleaning" and just looked proud as could be. That is when I noticed that the towel was wet. She cleaned my house with toilet water.

Monday

Kenna is being a pill tonight so I'm typing with one hand. Just a joe average day. I dropped Laney off with Diane and the twins and I went to Costco for diapers. Kenna has been grumpy all day, so I'm not sure what the deal is. Laney had a good time with Di and Leah and came home filthy. I got a migraine, so I felt pretty bleh most of the day. On the upside, I finally figured out how to get my slideshow thingy to work. Must go, motherhood calls.
One more thing. I've got to add that Laney says the cutest stuff now. She told Charles that "bubble baths are awesome" the other night. Cracks me up. She also greets me with the most random comments in the morning. I have no idea how that little brain works.

Desert Museum

We went to the Desert Museum today and it was nice to get out and do something with just our little family. We met a lot of people from Europe oddly enough and that was interesting. We always get a family membership at the museum because when we have visitors we often go there and it's the same cost to buy the membership as it is to pay for four adults or whatever.

They have just added a new exhibit about life in the rocks with desert landscape above and then all the little dens and holes that the creatures are in are in the rock with glass so you can see everything. The desert is much prettier in the spring, but it was nice today to get out. Laney had a good time. She picked flowers from the lantana and shared them with another baby in a stroller. She was most interested in seeing a butterfly and we lucked out and saw their first Monarch butterfly of the year. After lunch, I needed to change diapers so I took one kid at a time to the restroom. I kept going by this couple with a new baby in my arms, it was sort of funny. We also tried out the two kids in the stroller/carry one in the baby bjorn solution today and that worked pretty well until my back started to ache. I always get a low back ache when I use those carriers. I probably need to strengthen my abs a little more or something.

All in all a quiet day in Tucson.

Pump it up

We went to Leah's 6th birthday party today at Pump It Up, a sort of indoor jumping castle place. Laney had a great time even though it was during nap. She's so incredibly brave it just amazes me. I was such a chicken as a little kid and she is absolutely fearless. I believe that's her father's genes coming out. I certainly got a workout climbing through everything and bouncing around. You know you're 36 and not 6 when you bounce on those things and think "huh. My bladder does not seem to be quite the same anymore". The downside of having kids, particularly twins. The twins stayed home with daddy today since I can't climb through stuff with Laney and watch them at the same time. The inability to be two places at once when you have a very active toddler and two infants is the subject of another posting though.
Anyhoo, the babies didn't attend. I also went to Hallmark today for their open house and bought way too much stuff, but oh my gosh they have cute Christmas things! Holidays are so much more fun now, but I'm seriously needing to stock up on decorations. I opted not to purchase the cute ceramic gingerbread house that plays the Russian song from the Nutcracker. So sweet, but ultimately way too breakable. I'm proud of myself though--I've got 75% of the way through my Xmas gifts for Tucson family and secret sister gifts for the next two months (not all at Hallmark). I got these tap dancing ornament things that I think the kids will enjoy and the singing snowmen thing. We got the snowman thing last year and Laney thinks it's just the best.
I don't know what the deal is but I'm already feeling very holiday-ish. Maybe because it's suddenly got cooler. We've also bought tickets for our trip home to Idaho for Christmas. I even called the airline to figure out what to do about all the baby stuff. It's such a ripoff to fly now. The airline charges to check a bag and allows either a stroller or car seat but not both. But Charles hopefully will be able to use his status in Star Alliance to get all our stuff there free. They are also now charging for sodas/juice on the plane. Seriously. Add to that the logistics issue of going through security with three children and fun will be had by all. Security will just have to help us I guess since you must put your stroller through the xray machine and carry your child. I don't know what you would do if flying by yourself, since they aren't supposed to hold a baby for you but it would be nearly impossible to hold two babies and collapse a 40 pound stroller (takes two hands just to collapse the stroller). I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Next year we will not be flying up to Idaho for the holidays. It will be time to stay home. That kind of makes me sad but it is what it is. Celebrating the holidays in Tucson isn't quite the same for me. For my family, the holidays are a really big deal and it's quite the opposite here. For example, I have no idea what the family is planning to do for Thanksgiving this year. I know that Debbie will be here, but that's the extent of things. I guess I'd better take charge and make a plan.
PS - I'm going to go back and add pictures now. I finally downloaded the camera. I'm still trying to get a Flickr slideshow to work - that's what that picture thing in the corner is all about but it isn't working for me.

Two Year Check Up

Laney went to the dr. Tuesday for her 2 year appointment. She's 34 inches and weighs 25 1/2 lbs. She was a real trooper about getting two shots. She watched the nurse do both of them without really any reaction, though she was excited about the tweety bird "stickers" that were applied afterward. Hopefully she remains blase about shots always (ha).
G and K seem to be doing better. They are getting busier every day and play with toys a lot more now. They particularly like this big ball shaped rattle thing that is bigger than their heads. When I get motivated, I'll post picts of them with the toy. Kenna particularly likes to chew on it, no hands. She reminds me of one of those desert tortoises stretching her neck out to mouth the toy. Hilarious.
We're having playgroup at our house tomorrow for the first time. Hopefully all goes well!

Happy Birthday Part 2

So we skipped the Tea for Two party on Monday in favor of sending Mommy to the doctor. The diagnosis? Possibly pleurisy, an infection of the lining of the lungs. I'm waiting for blood work to come back and taking tylenol. That night I fed both babies cereal for dinner and then Griffin screamed for hours straight. We tried everything but nothing was making that baby happy. During the scream-a-thon, Charles checked on Kenna and found her face down in a puddle of vomit. He rolled her over and she projectile vomitted across her crib. So he cleaned everything up and took care of a puking baby while I dealt with the screaming baby. Meanwhile, the birthday girl had been sent to bed a little early and was also screaming for quite some time. After the Kenna thing, we decided to do a check on her and found her passed out in her crib with a majorly runny diaper spread everywhere. So I woke her up, cleaned her up, and Charles rocked her back to sleep while I dealt with Kenna (Griffin had gone to sleep). Did I mention that we have 3 cribs and 4 crib sheets? On a two crib disaster night, this did not work out well.
Sometimes you've just got to laugh. It seems like there are just times like this when it all goes south at an amazing rate and there just isn't anything you can do about it but carry on.

Happy Birthday Delaney

Today was Delaney's 2nd birthday. We had a family party yesterday and were supposed to have a birthday party with friends today, but my lung thing came back and I went to the doctor instead today. The doctor suspects pleurisy, but I'm waiting for blood work to come back. Laney's birthday was also highjacked by the dreaded Don and Olive drama about money.
Laney got a trike for her birthday and thought that was pretty cool. She also got a fairy Barbie sticker book with the stupidest story I've ever read. She of course wants me to read it to her over and over. Seriously the worst story ever. It's like someone took a bunch of the classic stuff and smashed it together into this awful mess of a story.

Halloween scare Laney

Happy Halloween! We made another attempt at the Tinkerbell costume for the playgroup party in the morning and it was a no-go. Laney thinks that costume was created by the devil. She will not, I repeat, will not wear it. In the afternoon, Charles explained that she needed to wear a costume and that she would say Trick or Treat and people would give her candy. Boy, she was all charged up and ready to go! She brought him her regular clothes and said put these on me and let's trick or treat. So I had to MomGyver a costume together at the last second. White tshirt, white shorts, bunny ears from Easter and some eyeliner and boom! you're a white rabbit. It worked.

We canvassed the neighborhood with the twins and Diane, Leah and Brandon. Everything went well, except one little thing. Some idiot in my neighborhood decided it would be super fun to answer the door in a Scream mask that literally ran with blood all over the face. Laney was truly horrified at the boo boo and after that house she stated over and over again that "Halloween scare Laney". I felt awful.
I cannot believe how much candy that child came home with. Seriously, a bagful from just close neighbor houses. What are we going to do with it all?