Halloween!

Well, as you can see we had Batman, Luigi, Thing 1, and Thing 2 at our house last week! I had the idea for Thing 1&2 a long time ago and I couldn't find any store bought costumes, so I had to make them, but it didn't involve sewing so I was good! I just bought solid red jammies (which hard to find by the way) and pinned on the felt circles I made. I bought washable blue hair gel from Sally's and I made the bows. The hair gel washed right out thankfully....I was a little nervous because I just dove in and covered their heads with out testing it first!!!

Landon was VERY determined to be a superhero this year, even though Mario would have been adorable!! We certainly wanted him to be what he wanted and trust me he LOVED being Batman. It was all I could do to get him not to sleep in that costume every night. Last night, some lady told him, "Thanks for keeping us all safe Batman." That was a highlight of his evening. He is so into the holidays now and if it were up to him our house would be decked out in holiday decor year round.

Liam would have been happy to be just about anything this year, I think this is probably the last year that he won't have a strong opinion. He was very familiar with Luigi because he plays Mario Kart with Kevin and the old school Mario Brothers with my dad. We couldn't get the mustache on him unfortunately. That would have been awesome!! He told everyone he was "super fast!"

The girls loved all the attention they got. I however, was not quite prepared for it! We had people stopping us for pictures right and left, it was crazy. I guess I'm not meant to be a celebrity:)

Klaire

Kallie

We are having a hard time keeping everyone healthy in our house. We are on round three of illness running through the family in the last 10 weeks. I know we are just 'paying our dues' for having four kids and two in school, but this getting really stressful and expensive! We've all had the swine flu, we've had sinus infections, an ear infection, a lower uti, and now croup. Fun. Fun. Maybe we will get the worst behind us before Christmas?

More coming soon!

Lots to catch up on

A lot can happen around here in a month! Let's see here...first things first. Landon LOVES school. We are so relieved and thankful, we have worried for the last couple of years about what school would be like for him. He is too smart for his own good and we didn't know if he would get bored and become the class clown or be overwhelmed by the chaos (we thrive on structure in our family:), but so far we are having no issues. In fact, he loves everything about school...new friends, computer class, art, music, p.e., lunch time, recess, circle time, centers, library, and of course his teacher! He already has a best buddy named Keenan and they are connected at the hip from what we hear from Landon. He told us that they promised each other that they would ALWAYS sit next to each other during rest time and lunch time...it was so sweet I almost teared up. We have our first six weeks parent teacher conference this week, so we will get to know more about how it going from his teacher's perspective:) He has only had to pull his card one time and it was for something very minor, so we are thinking that she is enjoying him, just as much as he is enjoying her.

Now little brother is still adjusting to the whole kindergarten thing. Some days he just seems lost with out Landon, but preschool is helping. He likes that he is doing something similar to Landon...I think he enjoys having the same subjects to talk about.....teacher, backpack, lunchbox, projects, parties.....more than he does actually going to preschool:) None the less, it is good for him to have his own experiences and hang out with kids his own age. His teacher tells us that he is really sweet to the other kids he just sometimes gets grumpy.....well that didn't surprise us. He has had to adjust first of all to having two baby sisters, now big brother is off making new friends at kindergarten, he has never been away from mommy for a regular 5 hour stretch, and he just turned three. And for anyone of you that have boys, you probably know that boys typically are harder at three than two. That's been our experience at least. But all that being said, Liam is still really joyful and tender and we are still enjoying his innocence very much. I have been trying to give him my undivided attention during half of the girls nap time on Mon, Wed, Fri. We have been doing puzzles, books, alphabet & numbers, and computer games mostly because I still need work on my rocket skills:) He also still likes to cuddle with me often throughout the day...so he has me wrapped around his finger when he wants to! My favorite quote from him lately is, "Good thing the pooper lid is down." That is what he says when we take him number 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, I guess since I am going in birth order I should talk about Kallie! Miss Kallie Layne has shown us in the last month that she is probably going to be more of a dare-devil than our other children! She went from crawling to pulling up and walking around things in like two weeks. Then I caught her climbing EVERYTHING and we had to buy a fence thing for the living room. And she doesn't care about falling, in fact she will just turn and dive and when she does get hurt she barely cries. She just keeps going. And she is not a big fan of the fence, she spends much of her time trying to maneuver her way out. She is crazy. Kevin let go of her this weekend to see how long she could stand up on her own, and it was amazing. The girl is going to walk way to soon.

Miss Klaire Elise (i have to use her middle name since i used kallie's....no playing favorites around here...:) spent the first part of the month jealous of Kallie's ability to crawl to mommy and beat her to their favorite toys. But then she started army crawling faster and then last week she pretty much went straight to a regular crawl. Then last Thursday she started pulling up on things! Now she is still a couple of weeks behind Kallie, but this girl is on the move now too. She will sit for longer then Kallie, they both are sitting up great, Kallie just doesn't want to sit still. Klaire has been more vocal lately...she says mamamama and nanana all the time and she has few others that involve grunting sounds. She gets very expressive when she wants something! They are both eating little finger foods and dairy now. Cheerios are like candy to them and like a babysitter for mommy:) They girls had been sick since my last post until last week we got them on some antibiotics for sinus infections and Klaire had her first ear infection. Kevin and I were about to go crazy when they were at the peak of their sickness, these kids are hard enough when they are healthy!

Kevin and I went on a three day vacation to a friend's wedding over Labor Day. It was my first time to leave the girls. I cried for the first two hours of the trip, Kevin thought he was going to have to turn around at one point, but I managed to get through it and enjoy myself for the rest of the weekend. Kevin has been super busy at work the last six weeks or so and I have been even more tired than usual with our new school schedule. Let me just tell you a little bit about our routine now. We get up btw 6:00 - 6:30, the kids get up at 7:00. I have to have myself ready and everyone's lunches packed before all the kids are up. Kevin leaves for work about 7:10 after he gets the boys up, dressed, and gets their breakfast. Then I dress and feed the girls, gather Landon's school stuff, the diaper bag, and my brain (this is optional most days) and get all the kids loaded up. Until Landon gets more comfortable with being dropped off, I am having to park, get all four kids out, get the double stroller in and out, and walk everybody up the hill to the back of the school to Landon's class. And on Tues. and Thurs. I have to get everyone out to walk Liam to and from his class at preschool. And we leave at 7:35 to drop Landon off, don't get home until 8:10, then I have about 25 minutes to get the girls out of the car, rediapered, feed their cereal, cleaned up, gather Liam's stuff, and we get back in the car and take Liam to school. Then the girls often fall asleep in the car and don't want their morning nap, so we get home and play for a while, then I feed them and lay them down 11:30ish. Then I clean up the disaster that we have made in our rush, feed myself, do dishes or start laundry, check email possibly, schedule appts., make calls, barely make a dent in my way too long to-do list, and then they are up again. So we go get Liam at 2:15 and then go straight from their to get Landon and we get home around 3:15. Then the girls get feed again and Liam goes down for a short nap. Then I try to get the girls to go down for a short nap from about 4:45 to 5:15 so that I can make dinner. Then at 5:30 I have to have the girls dinner ready and feed them and I try to have our dinner ready at 6:00. And Kevin gets home about then, we eat while trying to entertain the girls, then they get in their jammies at 6:45, bedtime bottle at 7:00, and bedtime at 7:15. Then we bathe the boys and read or play with them. Then they go to bed btw 7:30-7:50. Then we finish cleaning up and doing dishes. We started doing the p90x program two weeks ago, so we work out from 8:30 to 9:45, shower and go to bed unless we have a tv show we really want to stay up and watch. Anyone exhausted? I need a red bull just to talk about it. Thank goodness for weekends and having family close by to help out.

My brain was so over-loaded this morning that I drove away from school without the stroller. Yep. Just left it in the parking lot. The secretary called me and said, "Ummmm I think you left your stroller here. Some other mom brought it in and said it had to be yours." My first thought was how nice of someone to bring that into the office, my second thought was did I drive home with the back of the van open....no Laura that would have been ridiculously loud and you might be blonde but you did not do that, and my last thought was I am just known as the crazy lady with the double stroller who brings in her flock of children to drop her kindergartner off? Probably. They were probably thinking it's a miracle she doesn't leave it every morning!

Yeah our life is nuts. But I think Kevin and I are organizing it the best we can. It's a lot of responsibility, but we wouldn't trade it for anything.

Today marks one year that our nephew Drew has been up in heaven in our Father's arms. If you could please say a prayer for Kari, Jordan, and Peyton we would really appreciate it.

As usual, I have too many pictures to post, so here is an album full of TONS of cute pictures of the kids.

August and September Pictures

Sniff. Sniff.

I know posting two days in a row...don't get used to it:)

Kevin and I dropped Landon off bright and early this morning. We left the rest of the crew behind with a friend so that we could just focus on him. He jumped out of the car, threw on his backpack like a pro, marched straight up to the school (said hi to the cross-walk guard of course), and followed us through the maze of parents and students all the way back to his room. He felt comfortable in his room and when I asked him to stand next to his teacher for a picture he hugged her instead....that is when I had to hold back the tears the worst. He is so sweet. They asked the parents not to linger, so we hugged and kissed him and walked out. He just went right over to the other kids and didn't look back so that was good.

I managed to hold back my emotions until I got in my car. I know he is ready I kept telling myself, but a million things kept running through my mind. It's so hard. Then when I got home Liam was sad. He asked if we could go pick Landon up right then. So I talked to him about having special time with mommy today and he perked up and asked, "Can you be Wandon today mommy?" Choked up again, but it brings me so much joy to think about them loving each other that much.

So we played some games and puzzles and he enjoyed that very much, but when it comes to building rockets...I honestly need to take some lessons from Landon I guess!!

The last days of Summer

Landon starts kindergarten tomorrow and I think I'm in a little bit of denial! My baby leaving me from 7:45 to 3:00 Monday through Friday.....what!?!?!? Liam is going to preschool for the first time too...just two days a week thankfully. It is going to be really quiet around here...I might get some work done if Kallie and Klaire let me!! I'm a little nervous about getting all the kids out the door and ON TIME...many of you know that timeliness is not my best attribute:) Over the years I have gotten faster, but then we just keep adding babies to the mix and it's all a wash! But I am not going to have Landon getting tardies, even if I do have mission impossible most days of my life! I'd like to see all the other moms have to get a three years old and twins ready as well and still make it on time(I'm sure there is some mom that has like seven kids and triplets...that will somehow manage to beat me:), than I wouldn't have to worry about bringing up the tail end!
Anyway, since my last post we have been to Cananda and back. We just took the girls and the boys stayed back with Nanna and Papa. We went to support Kari, Jordan, and Peyton on a special day for Drew. There was so much thought and hard work that went into this event. It all went beautifully and Drew's life was honored so gracefully by MANY. Kevin participated in the golf tournament along with 97 other golfers, what a turn out. I helped with a few behind the scenes things and enjoyed every minute of it (even the posters Kari:) I was enjoying time with family and friends so much that I forgot to use my camera much, unfortunately!

But here are few pictures of our family over the last few weeks.

Kallie is crawling! Klaire likes to get up on all fours, but she isn't crawling just yet.

Klaire is sitting up better than Kallie. Kallie is such a wiggle worm, that she doesn't sit still for long. Also, Kallie has a tooth now too. And unfortunately both girls have a cold right now which has made for a fun last couple of days.

The girls were getting some cuddling from some friends that came up to the tournament from Bozeman.

Kevin and Peyton on the tramp.

Liam is Three and Fire Ant Invasion!

I know it has been way too long since my last post, I just don't spend much time on the computer these days!

So Liam turned three on July 17th....sniff sniff. He had a great little family birthday. It was wonderful to see him in the spot light all day. He was so excited and thankful for his presents and he sang with us when we sang him 'Happy Birthday'. He has such an adorable personality and we are so so so proud of him.

Three fingers are hard to hold up!

We filled up their sandbox and thanks to all the Aunties for the toys. They love them!

Big boy bike. He loves it and feels so special getting to ride like Landon.

Sweet Birthday Boy.

One of Lyndi's creations. It's so nice to have a cake-maker in the family!

(Klaire on the right)

We are starting a few chores around here and the boys are doing great!

Kevin and I probably hated fire ants more than anyone else in the world last week. It all started with a couple bites on the boys. We chalked it up to playing outside. Then the next day we found a few more bites on them, so we investigated and found 8 or 10 by Landon's bed. So we moved his bed and sprayed and called our exterminators. They came out and sprayed the boys room thoroughly and the exterior of our house. That night Kevin heard Kallie crying and so he went in calmed her down and patted her back to sleep. A few minutes later she was hysterical again so I told Kevin to bring her out to me and I would rock her for a while. He hands her to me and I immediately (we were not in very good light) notice that her face is all red, there is blood on her eye lid, and she looks like she has a black eye. So I jump up and we turn on all the lights and with in moments we both realize it is fire ant bites. ALL OVER HER. Her eye is swelling because she got bit so many times on it and she got so mad that she scratched it and made it bleed. Kevin runs in and grabs Klaire, who is sound asleep, and checks her and she appears to be unharmed. He turns on the light and finds Kallie's crib just crawling with them. Meanwhile, I am getting hysterical and anyone who knows me well, knows that things like this REALLY upset me. I felt so terrible and so scared b/c my dad is HIGHLY allergic to fire ants and she has never been bit before so I don't know how she will react and her eye is so swollen. Kevin and I felt like we were going to vomitt we were so upset. So I call our pedatrician and manage to articulate the situation in-between my sobbing. She assures me that Kallie's respiratory system would have already been affected if she was highly allergic and that we should just give her liquid benadryl and put some soothing topical cream on all of her bites, except the ones by and on her eye. So we do all that and put Klaire in the pack-in-play by our bed and Kallie won herself a night right next to me. I hardly slept a wink because I felt so bad for her. She ended up with at least 30 bites. We had the exterminators back out first thing the next morning and they sprayed every inch of our house and 'dusted in the walls'. They were nesting in the walls and coming out through our outlets. We baited the kids rooms for two nights to make sure they were gone and found nothing. I have killed a couple stragglers, but we think they are gone and the girls have returned to the nursery.

The girls are seven months now. Klaire has one tooth, Kallie is about to get one any day now. They are both about to be very mobile, Kallie has taken a step or two crawling. She mostly gets up on all fours and rocks back forth and grunts in frustration. She will also push up into a bear crawl position (up on her toes rather than knees). She seems to be the more hyper of the two, you ought to see her in the bath tub....she is a wild-woman!!! Klaire is MUCH better at taking a bottle, but Kallie is a little more content to play on her own for longer periods of time. We love watching their personalities emerge, they are getting so interactive and interested in life!

We leave for Canada for Drew's Memorial tomorrow. If you would like to know more about it you can visit the website at:

www.adayfordrew.com

We're back!

We successfully made our first road trip as a family of six. It was an adventure from the get-go but we did it! We drove through rain, hail, snow (on the side of the road), and 105 degree weather. We had a mile marker pole punch hole through our bumper (not my fault!). We had a van go from spotless to mud covered disaster. We had moments of silence and hours of crying. We had conversations about turning around and going home and conversations about how we could do this again at Christmas! It was crazy...but we are glad we did it.

So during the trip I decided to start a list of all the funny things that had been said either btw Kev and I or the kids. Here is what I managed to write:

Landon to us about 15 minutes down the road, "Are we in Colorado yet?"

Landon about 45 minutes down the road, "Are we in a new state yet?"

Landon about 1 hour down the road, "Are we still in Texas?"

**We continued to get a 'are we there yet' question about every 15 to 20 minutes from Landon until Kevin had had enough and told him that we would just tell him when we got to a new state!

Landon, "Why is Texas so big?" How can Texas be so big?" Why didn't we fly? I really wanted to fly. Flying is more fun and we would be there faster on a big jet. But I don't know if I can wait this long."

Liam after having many snacks and me having to cut him off, "I need just one wittle bite to make me happy though..."

Me to Kevin at a gas station, "Help, Klaire just pooped all over my arm."

Me to Kevin, "You have got to be kidding me, there is a huge pile of poop in Klaire's car seat."

Me to Liam, "Get up off the bathroom floor!!" Next stop, "Liam! Get up off the bathroom floor!"

Me to Landon, "Don't put that....!!!!!!!! Arghhhh....you know not to eat food that's on the floor!"

Landon to me after we decided to let him sleep in tent, "Chocolate chip cookie your cool." (a Landon original. I must be super cool.)

Kevin to Landon, "Let's go eat breakfast..Nanna made Pigs-in-a-blanket." Landon looks confused. Kevin, "You know..little weenies wrapped in biscuits." Landon, "Those are different than human weenies right?"

Liam said some really cute things about the mountains and the cabin but I can't remember them and I didn't get them written down. The boys did so well in the car....really other than Landon's bazillion questions and them needing me to crawl to the back seat OFTEN...they were little angels. The girls did do some crying, but they were happy more than sad in the car so we are thankful for that!

The girls turned 6 months old while we were gone! Crazy how much faster your kids grow up the more you have! They are really getting fun...we are seeing more and more personality. They want to crawl and sit up on their own but they aren't ready just yet. They oink their baby food....except for apple sauce and pears....they seem to be liking veggies more than fruits which is totally backwards from what the boys did. But I know it is only a matter of time before they figure that one out:) They are really starting to get into each other...they make each other laugh and want to grab each other and the other one's toy.

Liam is going to be 3 on Friday and as you all know that is very bittersweet for me. He still sucks his thumb to fall asleep and sleeps with blankie and loves to cuddle and let me play with his hair and he can't say his 'L's' and 'R's" very often and I JUST WANT TO KEEP HIM THIS WAY FOREVER. I know I know other phases are fun and we will have experiences with him at each age that we can only have at that age, but he has been an adorable toddler. I hated seeing Landon leave this stage too, but it is harder for me with Liam. Anyway, I will post about his birthday in a couple weeks...

Here is an album from our trip!

Colorado Summer 2009