38wks3days

It's hard to believe the girls have been outside as long as they were inside.

Today they are 38 weeks and 3 days old (although I tend to think I was the full 40 weeks, but that's a different story).

Wow.

So, as fast as the time has been flying by - I can only imagine that I will blink and my kids will be teenagers already.

And right about that time I am going to be pulling out this picture...



...and *gently* reminding Avery & Brynn there was a time when they BEGGED to help me with the dishes.

Do you suppose that will work? :)

1st Trip to the Dentist

Evan had his very 1st dentist appointment this morning!

I took him with me to my appointment on Monday so he could watch them clean my teeth and see all the instruments they use. He was FULL of questions! Of course, his two favorite parts were getting to wear the dentist gloves (and notice he didn't take them off until we got home!), and getting to pick out a toy at the end!



So this morning was his turn. I had absolutely no idea what to expect. I really thought he wouldn't let them stick anything in his mouth.



But, as you can see, he did great!


It certainly didn't hurt that they had a TV on the ceiling that he could watch.


In fact, he even reminded the dentist that she was in his way...

tReMors

Have you ever seen the movie, Tremors?

Ya know, the one where the big scary monsters live underground, and every time anything touches the ground and makes a vibration, the tremors surface and eat whatever made the vibration?

Well, my day-to-day life reminds me of that movie.

Whenever an object hits the ground, Avery & Brynn coming running (ok, crawling) to explore it.

They really don't leave me much time to remove said object before they scoop it up and put it in their mouths.


Poor spiderman never saw it comin'...

The preschooler UpDate

I often wonder what is on his mind.

In fact, I'd pay money to know.

I have been challenged beyond what I ever could have imagined by having a preschooler around.

Each and every day something new and interesting pops up.

Which means for me, as a planner, I can't plan.

Slowly, but surely, I'm getting to be ok with that.

The up UpDate

This was really cute.

Until she tried to climb back off.

Without my help.

Cause I was taking a picture.

Ouch.

Good thing she can't climb too high.

The bottle UpDate

Yippee Skippee!!



Brynn has been holding her bottle ALL BY HERSELF for over a week!!


8-1/2 months is probably about normal for babies to hold their bottles by themselves, but we have been a little spoiled - Avery has been holding her bottle by herself since sometime between 5 and 6 months old.

(see, she is even showing off here... one handed and all...)

Avery loves her bottle. LOVES her bottle! We think the only reason she figured out how to hold her own bottle so early was because it was around the same time I was potty training Evan. There were many times I had to walk away from feeding the girls to help him. Avery just had to figure out how to hold it on her own, or wait - and by gosh, she doesn't like to wait!

It is wonderful to have the free hands while the girls are eating... and totally sad at the same time... I am all too aware of how fast my babies are growing out of being babies. And it kind of makes me understand why people have large families...

The tooth UpDate

Teeth, teeth, and more teeth!

Avery & Brynn both now have their two bottom and two top teeth. It's really quite adorable, but of course I'm going to say that, I'm the mommy, that's my job.



I must say, I've been having a lot of fun trying new foods with them. I never tried making Evan's baby food, just about everything he ate had a Gerber label on it. This time around, I've been making the girls' food - and since I've discovered how much fun it is to cook, I've even been giving them most of what we eat, just mashed or cut really small. They LOOOOOOOOOVE real people food. So, teeth are good.

What does the clock say?

We have been trying to teach Evan to look at the clock to figure out if it's bed time. We put him down around 8pm, so we have shown him when there is an 8 at the beginning of all the numbers, then it is time for bed.

It kind of removes the arbitrariness of why it's bed time, we hope. (I think I used that word right, or maybe I just made it up.)

It was working pretty well for us, until last night. Evan decided he didn't really feel like going to bed, and he was prepared to bargain with us. He kept saying, "Let's go downstairs to play, just for a little bit." (The kid has some serious negotiating skills, by the way - he has been able to get what he wants since he was 18 months old. If another kid had a toy he wanted, he would just hand them a different toy, and they would happily hand over the prized toy not realizing they just got duped!)

So, back to last night.

The clock read 8:03pm. We kept asking Evan what number came first. He said "3." We said, no, look again. Then he said "0." We finally realized these were just stall tactics, and we asked him one more time "Evan, what does the clock say?"


His answer:







"Tick-tock"




Did I mention he is a bit of a smart-a$$ too? But, I must say, I am getting equal laughter as I re-tell this story, as what I did last night after he said it...

here baby, baby, baby!!

I have been trying to teach Avery & Brynn to follow me, now that they can crawl. It's much easier than bending over and picking them up all the time... 'cause they are getting heavy!




They do pretty good, ya know, for being 8 months old and all...

It's a pretty funny sight to see them trekking down the hall to the sound of my voice!

Have a great weekend!

It's that time o' year!

We are gearing up for cold weather around here!

And it's alright with them!

Here, there, everywhere

We have managed to stay pretty busy lately.

Dan and I had convinced ourselves that we wouldn't be traveling as much with 3 littles, but that seems to be the exact opposite of what actually has happened!

We have had some great opportunities to visit my parents in Omaha, and we like to take advantage of that as often as we can. And we have been heading to the Iowa State games each time they play at home. All the packing, unpacking, laundry, and cleaning that is associated with traveling has been keeping me on my toes!

So, blog posting hasn't come as often as I'd like, but I'm actually working on an update post on what all the kids have been up to, but they keep changing, and it's just so darn hard to keep up with everything they have been doing! (again with my run on sentences...) Eventually I'll get around to posting, but for now I thought I'd show off a cute pic from the weekend with the fam.

Evan, Avery, our niece Joslyn, and Brynn
(Evan's chin got in a fight with the sidewalk last week, and I think you can see who won!)

Celebrities, sort of

If you get a chance, check out cyclones.com... one of the pictures of our 3 rugrats is being scrolled through on the fan scrapbook on the homepage! Not sure how long that will last, but we saw it there tonight!!

It also showed up on the big screen during the fan scrapbook time at the Iowa State/Iowa game a few weekends ago - it was the highlight of the game for us ('nough said)... but I wasn't quick enough to snap a picture of the picture.

But we did this time!
(I believe I have already established that I am a dork, so this should be no surprise...)