A busy month that hasn't even started!

Since when is the month of October so stinken busy? I remember waiting all of October for Halloween... Now I have so much to do before the 31st that I haven't even bought the kids costumes yet. So not like me.

Lets rewind a little bit...

The kids have been great! I can't begin to tell you how well they are doing. The twins turned 20 months on the 21st and are just exploding with words and personality. Jake has made such an improvement and it's so much fun to listen to him talk! His therapy is going wonderful and each week we see such an improvement. Aly is awesome and still so very little. She has absolutely no fear and will jump off and get on top of just about anything. This includes the kitchen table when nobody is looking. She also has 2 more teeth! She now has 4 teeth in front and 4 molars!

Teeth count :

Jake -- 12

Aly -- 8

Ethan - 0

Ethan is also doing very well. He's such a love. He has the best laugh, a lot like Jakes. He's also really ticklish, just like all the other boys :-) He's spending a lot of time on his tummy these days and is able to scoot around if he can find something to push off of. He's also eating some baby food. So far carrots is the fav (YUCK).



As for Jon, he's doing great as well. He had a soccer game this last Saturday and Grandpa P even cam to watch. But it didn't go well. It was super super hot!! But they were destroyed, very sad. On a good note, Jon is GREAT! He is so strong this year and showing a lot of promise. Normally there are a ton of really good players on his team and he would just stay back, but he's one of those strong players and that's awesome to see. I'm so very proud of him. He's doing good with school too. We just got his progress report and have a couple areas to work on but not much and nothing too serious. It's the same as it is every year, Jon needs to ssslllloooowww down! He rushes through everything.



So I was talking to my wonderful cousin Meg, we got on the topic of Poison Control (I have their magnet up on my fridge) and she laughed. Well I had to call PC last week because of Jake. I kind of knew that he'd be okay but felt I needed to call, just to ease my mind. I'm sure you're wondering why I had to call.... That's a good question. I don't know how it happened but somehow he managed to get a tube of diaper rash cream into his during nap time. So when I went to get him after nap I smelled it. Now normally you'd expect to see it... nope didn't see much of it but boy did it smell!! So I looked for it and realized Jake had white on his face.. not much just a little bit below his nose. Then I smell his breath.. oh yeah there was the smell. I then find the tube and it's dang near empty! How in the world did he do that? So he gets all excited that I found this tube and I hand it back to him and sure enough he puts it straight to his mouth and SUCKS it up! GROSSS!!!! So yes I decided after ingesting a tube of diaper rash cream that a call to PC must be done. Of course he's fine and apparently this is common.

So as for the future.. things are getting busy! I really wish it would cool down and feel like fall.

I leave for Las Vegas on Sunday... I can not wait! I'm trying to get everything ready, Nate will be home alone with the kids till Thursday afternoon. He's such a trooper! I can't wait to sleep in and do whatever I want for 3 whole days. I'm already worried that I'll be homesick but love the people that I'm going with and know that will help. A break.. wow.

I then come home to a whirlwind of busy-ness. The twins C&E sale is in 3 weeks and I've just barely started! I have so much to tag!!! I can't WAIT to get rid of this baby stuff!!! It makes me super excited :-) We also have 2 big twin outings and of course Halloween ending a very busy month. The twins also have a weight check in there somewhere and will have to update then. I honestly don't think Aly has gained an ounce. But we'll see.

So not much else to report, here are a couple pictures I can share of the last few weeks. Love to all.

Jake and Aly in the tub...

Can you tell who's who?

Aly wearing daddy's shoe and Ethan crashed out under his little play gym.

Deaths in 3's...

I'm one of those that thinks death comes in 3's. I'm not exactly sure why but I was so sad to hear of Patrick Swayze's death. I knew he was sick and saw his thing with Barbara Walters last year but it still was a shock to me.
Then on Sunday I read a status post on facebook from an old High School friend, it read "RIP Robby"... I'm not sure how I knew but I did. I got this feeling in the pit of my stomach and just waited patiently to hear, Robby who? It was answered by another hs friend that posted... Yep it was him. It amazes me how something that was so HUGE to me 14-15 years ago can just come flooding back after being totally buried for years!! I've spent the last 24 hours thinking about him and remembering the times we had. We were friends first, he was friends with a close friend of mine and he was there when my heart was demolished by my first love. I don't remember a lot, but I think I remember the important things. He was a part of so many firsts for me, some that may not have been the best ideas at the time but they are all part of my childhood that make me the woman I am today. We went our separate ways, and I was very much to blame for everything that happened between us. As I sit and type this I can't help but think of my kids, who they are going to be friends with, what my mom was thinking during all this.
My random thoughts on Robby.
He had beautiful eyes, but his hugs were the best.
He taught me how to drive, in his moms mini-van.
He tackled me all the time! In many random places... Parking lots usually.
We wrote letters to each other during school... I may even still have some in a box somewhere.
He bought me a cat that we named Tyler--the devils cat :-)
We laughed... a lot. to the point of tears, many times.
He used to come over in the morning and make me breakfast.
He drove everyone, everywhere...
He introduced me to GOOD music!!! I think this is one of the very best things that came out of our friendship. I'll never forget getting lost trying to get to someones house, and we just drove around and around listening to Weezer, on tape.
The many many clambakes... ;-)

I am so sorry that you were taken way too soon from your family. I heard you were just married. My heart goes out to your family and (in no doubt) your beautiful wife. RIP Robby, I will forever remember you as you were one of those that helped make me a better person. I can only imagine how many lives you touched.
Robby and I after our first double date... I always wondered why my mom kept all these pictures... I guess now I know.


As for the 3rd death.. I'd like to think it was my pump, wishful thinking I'm sure.

Labor day and a hard goodbye.

Labor Day weekend. Friday Nate went to work and I decided to let the kids play with markers and color. Here are a couple pictures. Jake did awesome and really seemed to enjoy it. Aly on the other hand preferred to eat and SUCK on the marker rather then draw with it. Thus the pretty markings on her face.



That afternoon I guess I had left a marker in their playroom and I found them drawing on themselves. Here are the beautiful markings :-)





Saturday we went shopping... really not very exciting. Sunday however was a BLAST! I had my Aunt Linda, cousin Joey, and the Jacoby family--Cousins Megan, Ron, and Kaylin (3y) and Roan (16.5 months). The weather was beautiful, and the kids were all great!! Nate bbq'd some wonderful food and we just sat around eating and playing outside.
The kids love the trampoline and Aly is always the first one on! The girl can go forever!


She also has some great balance, it's pretty funny cause the boys (Roan and Jake) joined her and Kaylin and could not keep standing. They had such a hard time, the girls were just way too busy for them.


The bigger boys played catch and frisbee and it was a lot of fun to watch. We had the all too familiar ball stuck in the tree and got another ball stuck (trying to get the other down) and a pogo stick broken because Nate kept tossing it in the tree to get out the two balls. Finally Ron saved the day by climbing the tree and getting the original ball.



I also have to add some pictures of Aly with her tomato. Roan, Jake and Aly all had them but boy did she like hers!


Ethan just hung out in his little excersaucer and was so very sweet. He also took a nice long nap during the day so that was very helpful! It's so nice being able to hangout and not have to hold a baby the whole time.


Nate and I have discussed numerous times moving out of state and days like Sunday remind me why I want to stay here. I am so very blessed to have the family that I do. We may not be big in numbers but we sure are big in love and support, oh and a bunch of really precious BABIES!!!!

The second half of this blog is not easy to write and if there are any men reading this it might be hard to read :-)
My breast pump died. Let me rewind a little bit. I decided when I found out I was pregnant with the twins that I would exclusively pump. So having Nate as a husband I went out and did ALL of my research. I wanted the 300$ pump... but having Nate as that husband of mine, I chose the 150$ one... I pumped for the twins until they were 5.5 months old and I had to stop because I was pregnant with Ethan and my milk just dried up. So I of course knew I would pump with Ethan and have done so for 6.5 months. It died the other day and Nate went out and bought a manual pump which just does not even come close to working as well as my Medela Swing pump. I am so very torn by this whole thing. It's no secret that I've seriously gotten abusive with my pump and have a very strong LOVE/HATE relationship with it. But when it died, I cried. I get teary just thinking about it. At 6 months I did cut down a pumping session so I was only pumping 3x a day and that helped me so much! I think I'm just mad because I didn't get to choose when to stop, my pump chose for me. Which may have also been a blessing because every time I wanted to quit I had a huge wave of guilt rush over me. Now I know that I shouldn't have any guilt, hell all Jon got after 5 weeks was formula. And so did the twins, I can't explain it. So every time I pump I see less and less milk... It won't be long before I stop all together. I do have a LOT of milk in the freezer and am hoping that can last another month but at some point it will end. My sweet husband even offered to run out and buy me another 150$ pump but I of course hugged him tight and said I'd be okay. I can't believe that this is so tough for me. I hate this pump... well maybe not as much as I thought I did.
Let me also add that I'm so incredibly proud of myself for going this long... For the first 3 months I pumped every 3 hours around the clock!! That's 4 hours of pumping a day... I then went to pumping 4-5 times a day until 6 months. Pumping has been such a huge part of days... finding the time, the place, making bottles, freezing milk, timing the pump for when we had plans or I had to be out for more then 3-4 hours. Things got very tricky. I also had a horrible Lactation Consultant at Marshal Hospital that looked very poorly on pumping. She gave me such a hard time when I had the twins and when I had Ethan and saw her again she didn't even offer me the pumping stuff. Pumping is JUST as good as breastfeeding and NOBODY can convince me otherwise! But it was all worth it and I did it!! I could not have gotten this far without the wonderful support of Nathan. Every morning he gets up with the kids and changes diapers because I'm pumping.
So long, my yellow pump...

Tales of Jon

Jon is just funny. I have no idea what he's going to be when he grows up (if he ever grows up) but it has to be something good.
His imagination is so unique and very cool. I wish he liked writing because he would make a great storyteller! I'm not sure if I've already done this but these are the names he's come up with for us.
Nathan: pops, Mr. Oaks
Me: Marge
Aly: miss tufsy (when she was an infant), Little pickle
Jake: Jakie the snaky, Jakester
twins: bears, this is what he's always called the babies. He'll often say "where are the bears"...
He also has names for the animals but I can't think of what they are right now.
A funny that happened a couple days ago.
Let me set the scene a bit... Most of my days are now FULL of playing with either two crazy, teething toddlers or trying to keep Ethan happy. So when Jon got home from school the other day, I was exhausted! I was also on my last nerve and really needed some computer time. I had helped Jon finish his homework and he asked if he could watch tv (which happens to be right next to my computer) I said yes I didn't care... So I'm sitting at the computer eating apple slices (the first thing I'd eaten all day long) and Jon starts saying mom. There was about 5 second pause in between each "mom".... Well and technically he didn't start off saying "mom"... He calls me Marge sometimes and he started with that, "Marge, Marge, Marge, Marge, Marge" Then moved on to "Mo" , don't forget about the 5 second pause in between. "mo, mo, mo, mo, mo, mo" Then it went into "mom" "mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mommmm, mommmm, mommmm, mooooooom, moooooom.." I finally turn around and say "WHAT??!!" Yes it was a bit of a scream and he responds with a bit of a scare because this whole time he's watching tv and so I startle HIM! He then says "never mind", what? So I tell him he better tell me what he wanted to tell me or else he was going to be in trouble and he says "hi"... Yes that's what he wanted to tell me, "HI"... I thought to myself, only Jon. But THEN!! I was watching tv with Nate this weekend and a commercial came on for Family Guy ( I do not watch this show, however the boys do) and it's that little baby Stewie doing the same damn thing to his mom, her ignoring him and then him saying "hi" when she finally answers him. OMG, I'm living that life. So I'm sitting next to Nate laughing hysterically, not sure if it's because Jon copied this off of the show (which he swears he didn't, but we'll never know) or because I ignored him for so long that he had the chance to do it. Either way I got a great laugh out of it and had a heck of a time explaining it to Nate.
Jon's doing really well in school. I love that he's happy and that we both just love his teacher. I also love that Jon can be himself with her and the class. I remember 2nd grade and he never did open up. His teacher said that he was shy around her and that he was very secretive... yeah he was scare of her, heck so was I! I saw her on Back to school night, and I had just walked out of his new class and walked right by her. I think she wanted to say something to me but I just did a quick smile and kept walking... I honestly have nothing nice to say about her, nothing.
So while we're on the topic of Jon I want to just share a story that most of you may have heard but I just love it and want to make sure it gets into my blog somehow :-)
It was towards the end of 1st grade and it started on a Sunday night. Jon was told to take a shower and then he had to go to bed. So he came in to give me a kiss after his shower and his hair was spiked (odd for Jon) and I said, what are you doing with your hair, and he said that he liked it that way... uh okay. The next morning was Nate's morning, so I had made him a bowl of cereal and set it on the table and put his clothes next to it. Nate did the rest while I hopped in the shower, by the time I got out they were already on their way to the bus. Fast forward to that afternoon when I went to pick Jon up from the bus. He stepped off the bus and I immediately saw it. There was a patch of hair missing. It was very straight and looked like it had been cut, it was about an inch long of bangs missing. This is how the conversation went:
Me: What happened to your hair?
Jon: huh?
Me: what happened to your hair?? (as I'm running my fingers through it)
Jon: oh it got caught in the water faucet at school and the yard duty cut it off.
Me: how did it get stuck in the water faucet? Where in the faucet? Why did she have to cut it off when it's only like an inch long anyways???
Jon: It got stuck in the drain part while I was drinking. ( he then shows me how it happened)
Me: So the yard duty had scissors in her pocket and just cut it off?
Jon: yeah
Me: Do you have a note or anything saying what happened?
Jon: nope
Me: why not? Did they try to get it out? I still don't understand how it got stuck?!
Jon: Mom it just got stuck and she cut it out.
At this point I'm totally dumbfounded... So I call Nate and run it by him. He's asking all the same questions as I'm asking and I still don't quite get it. Why would they not have told me, why would they have cut it, how in the world would it have gotten stuck.
So I then sit down at the table and start writing out a note to his teacher to ask what happened. Jon comes in and says.
Jon: what are you doing?
Me: writing a note to Mrs Kraft to find out what happened and why I didn't get notified.
Jon: Mom, I have something to tell you. (serious as can be!)
Me: what?
Jon: well it didn't happen at school.
And then the light bulb goes off! And I say
Me: it happened last night huh?
Jon: yep
So it turned out Jon had only spiked his hair to hide the fact that he cut it! I couldn't help but laugh, poor Jon thought he was in trouble. Which he ended up being grounded for a couple days for lying, not for cutting his hair. It amazed me that he could so easily tell this story and he was so good at it. I knew at that point that I was in some serious trouble. I have caught him in some big stories, but this was the last time that I really fell for it. I'm now much more aware of his abilities!
As I sat and typed that the only thing I could think of was how much Jon has grown up and how I'm so thankful that I have him to help ease the blow of all the troubles the twins will bring. Good Lord I can only imagine the trouble those two can get into.