Tears in Target

I can't believe this happened to me. I was shopping for books and fun little things to put in Easter baskets this year and I picked up the book, Love You Forever. I've read this book before but I haven't really looked at it since I became a mother. I started paging through it to reacquaint myself with the story and within a minute or two I had tears running down my face. I almost never cry during movies or books but since I became a mother it's amazing how much more emotional I am. Looking through the book made me so grateful for all of the sweet moments I've had with all three of my kids. I know I started crying because I realize how quickly it's all going by and before I know it all three of my kids are going to be kids, teenagers and adults. I quickly recovered and cut my shopping trip short to run home and kiss my children. I can't believe what a sap I've become!

I'll love you forever,

I'll like you for always,

As long as I'm living

my baby you'll be.

Snuggling with my sweet Sofia during her first week of life

8 months old

This week the boys turned 8 months old. We had to have two rounds of picture taking because after taking the first set of pictures we noticed that Everett still had squash on his face, I promise we do clean our children. We just decided to take pictures spur of the moment and Everett's face went unaccounted for. Sullivan has been to the doctor for a pesky ear infection so I know that he weighs about 20.5 lbs right now. I am not sure about Everett, usually he is just a little heavier than Sully. The boys are so much fun at this age.  I know I say that at every age but I guess I'm just loving parenthood.

Everett
-You LOVE vegetables, especially squash.
-You are a Mama's boy and a very personable guy, you just love to interact and be with people
-You love Frodo, you are surprisingly gentle with him. Frodo loves you too, but he doesn't like the fact that we won't let him lick your face.
-You have four teeth, your top two and bottom two.
-You are quite mobile with rolling and crawling backwards, I think you'll be crawling within a few weeks. You are getting up to your knees and rocking back and forth.
-You insist on sleeping on your stomach no matter how many times your Dad and I flip you, as a result you've been waking up wet around 3am every night. I'm still working on a solution for this.
-You sleep through the night about 3 nights out of the week. If you don't wake up your brother makes sure he wakes up, it's a nice little arrangement you to have going.
-You are a typical older brother, you are always looking out for Sully and you have started grabbing him to hold hands, sometimes you bite him. I can't even imagine the wrestling matches that will happen in our house.
-You are a very sensitive guy and you spend a lot of time studying faces.
-You love our dance parties after dinner.

Sully
-You are very interested in puffs and fruit, you will take a few bites of vegetables but you don't shovel it down like your brother.
-You have almost perfected your pincer grasp, you grab so many things with your index finger and thumb now, you love to steal puffs from your brother.
-You have four teeth, your top two finally poked through this week
-You are quite content to sit and play with whatever is within your reach but you definitely will roll if something looks interesting.
-You always seem notice the small details in life.
-Your brother is always worried about you and trying to engage you in conversations, sometimes you oblige but you definitely don't seem to worry too much about him.
-You love our dance parties after dinner.
-You are such a silly guy, you are always cracking up in laughter.

8 months old

My handsome boys

The teddy bear was in between them for a split second, and then Sofia confiscated it.

Here are some pictures from our failed photo shoot the day before. There are a lot of pictures but it's so hard to choose, the boys are so funny in their pictures. Oh, and the boys are wearing the shirts we got them on our trip to St. Lucia.

My brother!!

Going in for a hug.

Sibling love...

Yikes, I need to do a better job of posting regularly. We are just soaking up the past week of gorgeous weather here so it's hard to justify sitting in front of a computer when you can be outside! The boys 8 month post will come later today, hopefully. Last week the kids started taking their bath together. It's awesome and crazy, the boys like to do suicide dives every now and then and flip in the water. I have two more kids with no fear of water. Anyways, I remember sometimes worrying about how Tim and I would give enough love and attention to Sofia and the boys when we found out we were expecting twins. It's true though, love does not split with more kids, it simply grows. My heart feels like it's going to burst constantly, cheesy but true. I feel so grateful that we have been able to give our kids each other. I hope that makes sense. I just know that down the road it will be so nice to have someone their age to play with, look out for one another, and hopefully maintain their friendships as adults. It's hard to express in words how my heart feels seeing so friendships develop between my children. The boys are more and more fun for Sofia now. She is so protective of them, I had to bring Sully to the doctor yesterday for an ear check (he has another ear infection, it's amazing how he has had 3 so far and Everett hasn't had a single one) and Sofia was so upset with our pediatrician until we both reassured her she wasn't hurting Sullivan. The relationship between the boys has always been there, they have always been together but watching them with their sister just makes me melt. They adore her.

As if bath time wasn't already fun, throw three babies in together and it's a real party.

My little ham, Sully, being read to by Sofia.

My baby is 2!

Time flies when you're having fun. This past weekend was spent celebrating my sweet girl, Sofia Lorraine. She has turned into quite an amazing little girl. Sofia and Sully spent time hanging out with Tim on Friday while Everett and I ran errands for the party. Sofia's party was great, the highlight for her was definitely the balloons. She wasn't all that interested in her presents because one of the first things she opened was her gift from Uncle Andy. He gave her tons of art supplies, including her favorite...GLITTER! I officially have a girly girl on my hands and I love it.

Official Stats: 35.75 inches tall (91st percentile) and 29.2 lbs (78th percentile) You are long and lean like I was growing up. Chances are good that you'll be taller than your Dad and I.

My sweet girl, on the run as usual.

At 2 years old you continue to be more and more fun. Here is a LONG list of all of the random fun things about you.....
-You love arts and crafts, your favorite arts and crafts right now are definitely play doh, painting, glue and glitter, and of course coloring.
-You love to dance and love music. If I don't have music playing you hit the buttons on your brothers' exersaucers so you can have something to dance to.
-You memorize songs very quickly, if I teach you a new one you sing it back to me all day long.
-Your vocabulary grows daily, you are putting together some sentences that have five words! Granted, they are memorized phrases but you do put other sentences together as well.
-You are very polite and like to use please and thank you.
-You love playing dress up with your magnetic dolls, I love seeing the outfits you choose for the girls.
-You still love to read, especially on the toilet! You are really getting the hang of things with using the potty.
-When you read by yourself you say some comprehensible things about the pictures but you talk for a long time about what's on each page. Your vocabulary is just exploding lately.
-You are such a great big sister, you do everything I do with your brothers. When I feed them lunch and dinner you sit next to me and help me or you feed your baby doll. You even carry your baby around in a mini Ergo baby carrier.
-You are definitely a girly girl, but you also love sports, you got a basketball hoop for your birthday and you love playing basketball. You insisted on sleeping with your basketball the other night.
-You love swimming and are getting closer and closer to jumping in the water on your own. Lately you love it when I throw rings in the pool and you have to go and find them.
-Whenever I am getting on the freeway you look at the other cars that are ahead of us and say "I'm going to get you car!" or "I'm going to get you truck". You tend to talk about almost everything we are doing while we do it.
-This week you expanded your counting up to five!
-You know quite a few colors, you tell me what color everything is when we go for walks outside.
-You love jewelry, brushing your hair, and you are always doing cute little poses when you smile. It's adorable and your Dad and I love it!
-You know some of the letters in your name.
-You sing all day long, during your nap time you sing about Mama, Fro Fro, Dada, baby etc with a lot of jibberish and actual words in between.
-You pat the ground next to you when you want me to sit by you.
-You are very motherly over Frodo, Everett and Sullivan.
-You love to take your Baby Doll for walks up and down the sidewalk.
-I'm not a big fan of television but occasionally I let you watch Sesame Street, you LOVE Elmo and Cookie Monster.

I could go on and on but I've been working on this post for days and I need to actually publish it. The truth is I could write a novel about you and the two plus years you have been in our lives and it wouldn't be enough. We love you so much, this year has been such and adventure and you have taken everything so well. I'm so grateful that God chose to put you in our lives. You are such a smart, kind, and adventurous little lady with a big heart. Watching you grow up is bittersweet. I love seeing you learn and grow but ever since you were a day old I've been saying, "Ok, this is my favorite stage". The point is that every day with you is great, yes, we have challenging days but I am so lucky to be your Mama. Your Dad and I will be with you every step of the way to guide you in the adventures to come. We love you, Sofia!!

Here are a few pictures from the party.

When you woke up from your nap for the party we had about fifteen balloons out, you LOVED them.

You pulled each one down and told us what color it was.

Butterfly balloon!

Here is one of the two butterfly cakes I made.

"For she's a jolly good fellow...."

The second cake for your actual birthday.

Family Pictures

On February 2nd we made our way to Madison for family pictures. February 2nd fell right in the middle of the boys turning 6 months old and a few weeks before Sofia turned 2 so we were able to get the kids' 6 month and 2 year pictures taken. Tim and I had a bit of chaotic morning trying to get ready to go. Our plan was to leave at 12:00 (nap time) and arrive for our appointment at 2. We thought the kids would sleep during the drive. The boys did, Sofia did not. We also left two bags on our kitchen island, the bag with outfit changes for the boys and the bag with snacks and bottles for the boys. We didn't realize this until we were at the photographer's house. I can't tell you how silly I felt, normally I am so organized and I thought that we were headed for disaster. Thankfully, our photographer (Krista) was amazing, she was so good with the kids and helped me manage them while Tim ran to the store for snacks and formula. I felt so bad about us being unorganized and Krista was so sweet about it all and just rolled with the punches. She really is a great family and kid photographer. We hope to use her again for the boys' year pictures. After the session we were able to have dinner with an old friend of mine and his wife and two kids. I've known Kyle since fourth grade and it's so fun to catch up with an old friend, especially one you can relate to well who has kids etc. The only downside of the day was that we couldn't get Everett to show us one of his signature smiles, I think he was very curious about the camera and different setting. And Tim and I weren't able to go hog wild trying to get him to smile since we had to keep Sofia and Sully entertained/fed. Here are a few of our favorites...

She only uses her nuk to sleep now, I'm so mad we didn't take it out for this sweet picture.

Nothing warms my heart like sibling love.

If you are in the Madison area please check out Vintage Pear Photography, Krista Roder was our photographer. She was AWESOME!!

Winter decided to arrive

We had an awesome and very busy week last week. The highlight was definitely taking the kids to a new library program. We are lucky to have a ton of libraries within 15 minutes of us and so I like to try out all of the different kids programs. This week we tried "Books and Blocks" at the Saukville Public Library. It's intended for children ages 0-24 months so I thought it'd be great for all three of the kids. I brought a blanket and some toys for the boys and we made our way over. The boys just loved sitting on their blanket and watching all of the activities. Sofia sat in my lap so we could sing and dance to all of the songs and stories. She also spent some time dancing in the middle of the circle and playing instruments. The children's librarian who ran the program was just awesome. Sometimes I feel bad that I can't hold all three of my kids together, the most I can hold is two. But I am just happy that my kids are still getting out and having all of these great learning experiences. I didn't get a chance to take any pictures since I always had a baby in my hands.

We finally experienced our first winter storm this past weekend. Tim picked up an extra shift in Madison so I was home with the babies all day Friday, kind of an extended day since it's a 2 hour drive one way to Madison from our house. The day went great though, I took Sofia swimming in the morning and we played basketball in the gym. She took a nice long nap in the afternoon and I was able to spend some sweet moments just sitting with my boys watching the snow fall. Sofia and I made smoothies together, she loves smoothies and they are a great way to get her to eat lots of different types of fruits. She loves strawberries, apples and bananas but she definitely has a texture issue with some fruits. Smoothies take that away. Sofia is such a little helper these days, I cut the stems off and she throws the fruit in. She made sure to taste test each strawberry before putting it in.

Mom, seriously, just make the smoothie.

Poor Tim had to drive home in the nasty storm and didn't make it home until about 9:30pm. I was pretty pleased with myself that I was able to have fun all day with the kids and have all meals made, everything cleaned, kids bathed and in bed, and the driveway shoveled by the time Tim walked in the door. During Tim's lunch break he stopped at my favorite store, Nicki's Diapers (a cloth diapering/natural parenting store) and he picked up Sofia's new carseat. The boys both weigh about 21 pounds now (not an exact weight, I stood on a scale with them) and the limit on their seats is 22 pounds so we are about to do a big carseat shuffle.

We have two larger convertible carseats that we purchased when Sofia outgrew the Chicco Keyfit.  Everett will move into the Britax Roundabout 50, rear facing of course. Sullivan will move into the smaller seat we purchased that fit really nicely into our small car (Toyota Yaris). It's a Combi Cocorro, their claim to fame is being about to fit three across in most vehicles. I'm really excited about Sofia's new seat. It's a Diono Radian RXT. It has amazing safety ratings, has a steel frame, memory foam seating which will be nice for long road trips, and it also has the capability of fitting three across in most vehicles. It's not cheap but it's the last carseat Sofia will ever need, it goes up to 120 pounds. It also folds down for air travel and is FAA certified so we can use it on a plane. Eventually we hope to purchase two more for the boys. We won't need to anytime soon since we have the minivan and two other great seats but I know the boys will like these seats when they are bigger.