Coming soon...

I don't have time to post much now... but I have my twins' birthday and before that Amber's dance...  so check back soon to see more pictures! (and soccer season has ended, and I have pictures too!)

Mini-preview

Check back in a few days for details! (and more pictures!)

School is out!

School is out.  I didn't ever do anything for Teacher Appreciation week (because I was too busy, but more accurate would be because I am just lame) so we decided to do end of the year gifts.

I saw this idea on another blog... wish I could remember which one it was so I could link it.

I found these at Ikea which were under $4 a piece.  They have dividers inside.  We got some from there years ago that were blue.  I looked all over at other office supply stores for these with lids and couldn't find any.  I finally went to Ikea, and wala! 

The girls decated them with stickers and sharpie markers.  I put mod podge (2 coats) over the lids to seal them and keep the stickers from peeling off.  I wish I would have gotten the matte finish. 

Then I filled them with things I had on hand like gum, chapstick, candy bars, rubber bands, paper clips, cap erasers...

(gum and chapstick were free after coupons)

The boxes were a little under $4 and then the supplies on average were under $7 a piece. 

I then bought a few things in packages and split them up for the 2 boxes.  Binder clips, small (2 boxes @ .88 each) binder clips, large (2 boxes @ 1.37 each) pink erasers (6 ct for $2) glue sticks (2 pk for .97) Expo markers (8pk for $5) small post-it notes (3 pk for 1.44) Lined paper pad (3 pk for 1.77) then I got more rubber bands (.46) and cap erasers (40ct @$1) to add to replenish my supply.  Oh and the tissue and the purell were on average $1.12 each.  Not too bad for a gift around $10!  The stickers and sharpies and modge podge I already had as well.  I thought they turned out cute and the kids loved making them.  I also wrote a little personal thank you note to each teacher on the lined paper pad.

Now I am off to do some birthday cakes for Lindsey and Lauren, since it is their birthday today!  While I have been baking cakes the other girls have literally been sitting in the kitchen... that would be Samantha's kitchen that she got for her birthday... they are such crazy girls. 

Amber came up to me and told me she gave Samantha some chocolatey splishity splash.  I asked her what that was... she told me frosting... which she gave the frosting tub to Samantha to eat. 

Yeah no worries, I am not stressed... she is a mess, my house is a mess, I am making 2 cakes which I am not sure how I am going to do what they want me to do...  I am totally calm and in control.  I can do this!  But I better go just in case I can't!!

Samantha's first 2 years

2 yr old Samantha

I was thinking of all the fun things that Samantha has done in her first two years.  She is such a happy little girl!  She loves to do things by herself.  She is constantly getting naked and wanting to go "potty" in the toilet.  Although most of the time it doesn't end up being anything but just a struggle to get her diapered again.  I hate to discourage her.  One of these days she will figure it out. 

Samantha likes to do things by herself like getting in and out of the car, putting on her shoes, taking off her shoes and clothes, getting into her high chair (which is kind of scary to watch), and getting down from her high chair.  She sometimes will refuse her chair and want to sit at the table on a big chair with the rest of the family. 

She loves to go outside and always asks me if she can "go side" as she is trying to put on shoes, any shoes she can find.  She is chatty but not as chatty as I remember Amber being at this age, but maybe I am not remembering right.  A few days ago I was holding Samantha in my lap and she looked up at me and said, "I'm bored."  I was shocked!  Obviously the girls are rubbing off on her. 

Samantha loves to sing and dance too.  She will sing to the radio in the car, even if she doesn't know the words, she just sings along to the tune with her own hums or voice sounds. 

She absolutley hates to be left behind.  I sometimes in the morning will run the girls to the bus stop in the car, Samantha freaks out if I leave her behind with Emily.  Samantha now ALWAYS goes with me.  If I have my shoes on, Samantha is saying, "go" meaning she wants to go too.  I have to tell her, "I am not going anywhere."  Robert and a few of the girls went somewhere the other day and Samantha was crying.  I asked her what was wrong, did she want to go?  She just sadly said, "uh-huh" as she most the time answers.

I took her to the doctors, she is 33 inches (same as Amber was at 2) and she weighs 26lbs (really close to what Amber was too at this age) which puts her about average or around the 47th %tile in the charts.  It is funny becaue my older girls where always so BIG for their age.  They were always over the 90th %tile and often over 95th.  Emily created her own curve above the curve, she was so long/tall and weighed so much for the first few years of life. 

Amber and Samantha wear pretty close to the same clothes... Amber is taller but only weighs about 3 or 4 more pounds.  I think they will be closer the older they get too. 

Samantha's favorite things right now are animals... cats, dogs, frogs, horses, anything she can recongize and see somewhere.  She likes to play with them and making noises for them too.  She loves, loves, loves, babies!  She wants them to be in her bed, covered up with a blanket when she goes to bed or even her nap.  If one of the two babies are gone she wants you to find the other baby.  Many nights I am in search of a baby that I can't find before Samantha falls asleep.  She will also take those animals or babies and put them on pillows and cover them up with blankets.  I find animals and babies all over the house all tucked in to pillowed beds. 

Samantha still loves her blanket and most importantly the tag on it.  She has gotten better about washing it, I can get her be involved in the washing part of it if she puts it into the washing machine and then finding her blue blanket (which isn't quite the same but she will tolerate okay) until her pink one is out of the washer and dryer.  She loves to still suck her thumb, which she mainly does at night or when she is tired or really sad and has her blanket.  She doesn't seem to suck her thumb much without her blanket, it seems like she will only do it when she has her blanket.  Not sure if that is good or bad. 

That is about all I can think of right now with Samantha.  She is the best at saying "thank you" whenever you give her something or when you do something for her.  I change her clothes and she tells me "thank you" or even if I change her diaper, "thank you" which is really cute!  She will do this "angry eye" thing... I will have to get it on video, it is so funny!  She and Lauren were doing it the other night, it was pretty funny.  Samantha couldn't keep her angry face, she would then start laughing. 

I can't believe little Samantha is two already.  It seems like just a short time ago that she was a little baby I was nursing still.  What happened?  How did she get to be two already?  She does complete our family, I can't imagine life without her!  Although I can't imagine life without any of my kids!  We are so blessed to have them all. 

Samantha is 2 now!

Samantha turned 2 years old, can you believe it?  I can't!  Two years ago I was planning Lindsey/Lauren's birthday knowing I was pregnant and due after their birthday so I wanted to get their birthday party done before the baby so they would really have a party.  I planned their party a WEEK before their birthday.  Robert had told me not to but it was like 3 weeks or so before my due date so I didn't think it would be a problem.  Robert had been in Florida for work stuff and he came home on Wednesday night and Thursday morning I heard this strange *snap* sound.  I was wondering what it was and then shortly figured it was my water.  What timing!  I had Samantha on a Thursday and I was suppose to be having the girls party on Friday.  Ooops!  I should have listened  to Robert.  Lindsey and Lauren told their friends the party was postponed.  It surprised me because it was 3 weeks early, I never went that early.  The twins were only 2 weeks early.  I guess Samantha was just ready to be a part of our family.  At 9lbs 5oz it was probably good that she came 3 weeks early.  She would have been HUGE otherwise.  (Not that 9lbs isn't already big.)

Samantha didn't really know what to do with her candles... she didn't blow them out or even attempt to.  Amber was okay with that because then she got to blow them out.  We wanted to do a cat cake for Samantha, I had invisioned doing the number 2 for a cake and then putting little cats that I had seen at Zurchers along time ago.  When I was by the store last I forgot I needed to go there and instead tried Partyland which had dogs, frogs, horses, bugs, and zoo animals but no cats.  I thought I would look at a few other stores just in the toy area, which came up with nothing!  I was so frustrated!  I decided last minute (midnight at the store on Friday night) that I would do a ball of yarn with a cat behind it.  I was not happy about it, but I would do it.

Emily helped me with the cake.  I frosted it pink and then gave her the frosting bag to do all the string/yarn lines on the cake.  She did a great job.  She got frustrated (sounds like what I do) when it wasn't turning out like she was wanting it to.  I finished it for her after she had done it for awhile.  I thought it was okay, but I wasn't super thrilled about it.  I should have used a smaller bowl to bake the cake in.

I ran out of Birthday paper so we used Christmas wrapping paper.  I don't think she really cared!

Everytime she opened up something she would say the next present was that same thing.  She got a bee, then she thought the penguin was a bee before she opened it.  Then the gift we gave her next she said was a penguin.  It was cute. 

She loved her snake and frog!

She thought the gecko was a little "scarrrrry!"

She got some play food (which by the way is junk! it is already all falling apart.)

To go with her play kitchen.  (thanks again Wendy for spotting it and getting it for us!)

This is the bee that Lindsey got her.  She loves it!  I hung it up kind of above her bed, she always notices it when she gets up or goes to bed.  She thinks it is really fun.  I wasn't thinking it was a good gift, but Lindsey thought it would be.  I guess Lindsey was right!

Happy Birthday Samantha!!

Amber says the funniest things

On one of the routes we take to go shopping, we pass by a new church that is being built.  It is in the stage of the walls up but just the plywood looking walls.  As we drove by it, Amber said, "oh I didn't know they were building a straw house, that is so awesome!"  After a week or so when we drove back by it, they had windows in the building but that was the only difference from what I could see.  Amber noticed it and said, "It is really a straw church, I didn't know they had straw churches."

Amber recently has been having some allergy symptoms... runny nose, coughing and sneezing.  I called the advice nurse and picked up some allergy medicine she suggested.  As I was giving Amber her dose of it tonight before bed, Amber said, "this medicine taste like cows!"  I wasn't sure if I heard her right so I asked her again, "what does it taste like?"  She told me, "it tastes like cows,"  Whatever that tastes like?!  She really cracks me up!

She says the funniest things.  I often think I will remember the funny things she says or does but later when I try to recall it I can't remember exactly what it was, I just remember it was really funny.  I need to text myself what she says or does so I can remember it later.  Amber is such a funny character!

Amber's thinking

We saw the garbage truck go by today as we were getting in the car to take Em to school.  I told Amber and she said, "Oh he took our garbage?  Why did you throw our garbage away!  You can do so much with garbage!" 

She was pretty angry at me.  I think she must have been watching something that was upcycling or repurposing things... my other girls are BIG into keeping garbage to make things out of them. They typically get put back into the recycle bin or the garbage. 

It is partly my fault though, since I will repurpose things sometimes. 

Amber when we were in the car she thanked me for cleaning the ice cream she wiped on her window.  Then she said, "Are you going to throw me in the garbage now?"  I told her, "No, you can do so much with garbage, I wouldn't want to throw you away."

Lindsey gets braces

Lindsey sometime in that last couple years got a special appliance in her mouth that would help with her cross bite she had.  Her top teeth in the corner didn't line up with her bottom teeth in the same area.  We spent a few hundred dollars on it to get her cross bite fixed.  She has been doing really good at wearing her retainer to keep her teeth in line after that treatment.

She got that appliance shortler after she lost her top front teeth, so she was in 1st grade most likely.  As she has continued to lose more teeth and her adult teeth have been coming in... her mouth was looking more and more like Emily's mouth when she got braces.  She had teeth coming up behind the front teeth. 

Lindsey is so funny when I take her pictures!  She has such character!  She really cracks me up.  Her sense of humor is a lot of fun.  With the retainers we have, we go in for retainer checks.  Last time we did I asked about that tooth filing in behind the front line.  Braces! 

Here is one way you can totally see the difference in kids.  Their personalities and their outlook on things.  I thought Lindsey was pretty nervous about the braces, she kept talking about it.  Emily kept telling her how horrible they were, until you got use to them.  When Emily got braces she was a wreck for days.  She wouldn't eat, she would complain and just cry!  It was horrible!  I thought we would be going through this all over again.  I told Lindsey she would not being going to school today.  Boy was I wrong!

Lindsey and the silly girl she is...  she took it great.  We got some food afterwards and she ate it no problem.  She did say it was harder to eat and it took a little longer to eat.  She did get her shirt stuck to her braces on the bottom. LOL  She did really good with that though too.  I know Emily and Lindsey are totally two different people and I shouldn't compare them.  Emily is more sensitive to everything...

When Lindsey was little, she had such a crooked little smile.  I think it was because partly her cross bite.  It straightened out a bit, but this is how I remember her.  I think because of this, she ended up getting braces on the bottom of her teeth too.  Emily just got them on the top 4 teeth.  Lindsey has top and bottom 4 teeth. 

Lindsey as a child was also the one you could yell at and spank and punish until you were so tired and she wouldn't be fazed at all.  I remember when she was about 5 I put her in time out, and she said, "I wanted to be here anyways."  I could have BEAT her, I was so frustrated.  She is still alive, so obviously I kept in control.  She still pushes my buttons like that, she knows what to say to really get me mad, but her sense of humor if you can catch that side of her is much better!

Building a park

We are trying to get our garden all ready to plant in.  Last year it wasn't ready in time to plant a garden.  Because the soil is so bad out here we are taking the dirt out of our garden boxes and getting better soil to add into the boxes.  I saw we, but it is really Robert doing it so far.  On Saturday he wheeled loads of dirt out of the boxes and put them into our undeveloped playground area.

Lindsey and some of her friends decided to build a park.  They took the clumps of grass/weeds and replanted them in the pile of dirt.  As they were constructing their "park" more people came to help and watch the developments at the new park.

Then they put rocks in the side so that they make a water hole of some sort.  I told them the water would just go through that.  They told me they put rocks in it and so the water would stay.  I tried to tell them that the rocks won't hold the water.

Then they decided (since the water didn't stay) that maybe they wanted a waterfall instead.

But the water didn't stay in the desinated area. 

It made a great mud hole at the bottom of their "park" which seemed to be a good idea too.

When they were done playing in building the park, they wanted to cover it up with a tarp.  I suggested them to just leave it.  They were worried about what will happen to it if it rains.  They didn't want it to get washed away.  It rained over night... I wonder if it did get washed away? 

I guess we don't need that playground and all the fancy wood chips and all those things which we haven't had the money to do yet.  The pile of dirt and the left over pile of rocks seem to be okay for now. 

Detective Lauren

Lauren has told me before that she would like to be a detective when she gets older.  I am not sure if recently they have talked about any of this at school or if it is a book I recently bought her Geronemo Stillton and the Cheese Detective I think it what it is called.  Something like that anyway. 

One day we got this DVD at a church aution.  We recieved two and we watched one but we didn't have time to watch the other one that same night.  The next time we were able to watch it the DVD was missing from the case.  I was asking the girls, "Who opened the case?  Was the DVD in there then?  Who took it out?  Where is it?"  I came up with NOTHING!  No one opened it, no one saw the DVD, no one took it out, no one knew where it was at.  Then Lindsey remembered she did take the plastic off the case but didn't open it. 

Next I saw Lauren with a pad of paper and a pen and she was asking people all these questions, where they were at when it happened and all sorts of crazy questions.  She was wearing all black.  She was cracking me up.  She had a few friends over and they were all going to watch the movie.  Some of her friends where helping her track down clues.

One of the girls found a piece of hair near the case... they put it into a plastic bag, then they went and asked each person if she could have a piece of their hair.  I tried to explain that hair is all different on the same person's head.  I can have a piece that is light brown and yet the next peice I pull out can look totally black.  They still wanted to collect samples of everyone's hair. 

They also wanted to look for fingerprints.  I told her that wasn't going to work because all of us had touched the case looking for the DVD.

With all the investigations and samples Lauren took, we still have not found the DVD that is lost.  It makes me wonder if it ever came in the case.  I think it is more logical that it was in the case and someone took it out and lost it. 

Soccer

Robert is a huge soccer player!  He recently was on 2 indoor teams, and now he is on an indoor team, an outdoor team, and does Saturday pick up games with some neighbors.  When the city starts their adult soccer teams, he will play for them too.  The girls have had soccer games on Saturday so he hasn't played much himself on Saturday.  He loves soccer.

Because he loves soccer, Robert wanted to get the girls into soccer this year.  They play on the city organized teams.  They are loving it almost as much as Robert does.  Emily is always saying she can't wait for practice or her games.  Lindsey and Lauren have been excited about it too. 

It 's crazy, there is another set of twins on Lindsey and Lauren's team.  The poor coach!  My girls look very close to the same and the other set does too.  The coach is out there yelling... Lindsey or Lauren, Katie or Alysa.  It cracks me up.  Not that I am much better at names.  I am always calling my kids by their sister's name.  It must be something you do when you turn into a mom, I know my mom did it and still does it.

Lindsey and Lauren both have played goalie/keeper (not sure which is the correct term) and they have loved it.  Lauren did really well, and Lindsey didn't see much action when she was in there. 

I don't have any pictures of Emily yet, it seems like the weather has been rainy or too cold so I have stayed home with the little girls during her games.  The ones I have gone to I have forgot my camera.  The pictures from Lindsey and Lauren are from another mom that has kids on the same team. 

The city also has fall soccer... I think the girls will want to do that too.  It has been pretty crazy and our Saturndays have been consumed with games and early mornings but it is good for the girls and they enjoy it.  Amber keeps talking about her game.  She isn't old enough yet to play but she really wants to. 

Potty Training again....

This morning, Samantha and Amber were in the bath.  I got Samatha out of the bath and dried her off and gave her special blanket to her and went to get clothes.  When I came back in, Samantha was by the toilet and told me she wanted to go potty. 

She does this ALL the time, wants to go potty, she will strip out of her pants and diaper and want to go potty which results in NOTHING.  I always put her on the potty to let her try.  This morning when I put her on the potty, she REALLY went!

I was so excited!  I am still excited!  I know this most likely won't last and that later she will have a dirty diaper, but it is start of no diapers for me.  Wahoo!