This blog’s for you…

Yeah so, if you’ve ever asked me “did you quit blogging?”, “when are you going to do another blog post?” or have said “I’m tired of seeing that stupid elf just hanging there!”, this blog’s for you (and you know who you are )!  I know it’s been awhile and the only excuse I have is life.  But to those of you who have hounded me about this, I want to thank you because my main purpose for this blog is to record all the fun (or not-so-fun) moments in our life. Yes, I want to keep you updated too, but that is just an added perk! So thank you my nagging, pesky little friends that just won’t let it GO! (I kid, I kid)

I wish I could go back and do a separate update on all I’ve missed,  but to be honest, it’s just a bit overwhelming.  I will do up catch all right here and now.  What’s happening, happened or not happened?

Christmas – wonderful, great celebration with both families.  This year, the kids still weren’t too fond of Santa , but they really did seem to soak up the Christmas story.  We celebrated advent by each night reading a bible story an opening an symbolic ornament to hang on our Jesse tree.  I was amazed at how well the kids did listening to and remembering the stories and what each ornament stood for.

As bad as they didn’t want to take the picture, they held it together pretty good!
(L to R: Rocco, Sloan, Madden & Jagger)

Grandaddy reading about the birth of Jesus from the Bible

New Years….

Hello 2012! (S,J,R,M)

The 3rd Birthday!  Since the kids’ birthday fell a week before Mardi Gras, we decided to have a Mardi Gras themed party complete with beads, king cake, and a parade, of course.   And wouldn’t you know it, the party had to be on THE coldest day of the year.  I think everyone still had a good time.

Madden – It’s been one year (March 11th) since he got his pacemaker.  He had his semiannual checkup and all is well!  Madden is doing great and his pacemaker is working just as it should. Thank you Lord!

However, It would be seriously remiss of me to not write out the story of this doctors appointment.  I had decided to take all four kids with me (mind you, this was my first outing with 4 3-year-olds) and my mom decided to come along at the last minute thankfully so because the appointment took much longer than I remembered.  While they waited, she took the others for a walk around the hospital and stopped by the coffee shop to get her morning cup.  Of course, the kids wanted a “treat.”  What do you buy a 3-year-old from a coffee shop?  hmmm…G.G?  A mocha sippy to share…why not?  Bless her heart. (Sidenote:  I do limit sugar intake on a daily basis, but by no means are they deprived from sweets and sugar.) BUT OH, the caffeine.  To make a long story short, it was all fun and cute in the beginning and then it turned U-G-L-Y.  Here is a snippet of their caffeine crash.  (Madden is in the red and you can totally tell that he didn’t have any caffeine!)

Ay-yi-yi! Fortunately, we have not had any melt downs of this magnitude since!

Potty training – Not happened. Next. 

Easter – The kids are still loving their school.  They go twice a week for a few hours at a time, but it amazes me how much they learn.  So I was super excited to go to our very first school program the week before Easter.  The kids had been singing all their songs for weeks.  Or should I say the boys have been singing their songs.  Seems Sloan is taking after her daddy and has decided she is too cool for school   Girl cracked us up during the program.  And she warned us the night before that she wasn’t going to sing.  And I ASSURE you…she knows every single word and hand motion.  Here is one of the first songs they sang.  I apologize for the distance, Nick got closer later, but Sloan was blocked by another kid and this one really shows her “coolness.”  They are sitting together on the bottom row almost directly in the middle.  (L to R: Rocco, Madden, Jagger & Sloan)

Easter egg hunts were fun this year…

At school, looking through their finds

Sloan and her partner, KeKe

Jagger took the booby prize

Madden on the lookout

 
Rocco wins the GOLDEN egg!

Our best pal, Chad, came over to take some pics of the kids all dressed up.  Here are a couple good ones (considering his subjects weren’t cooperating too well.)

And a couple of pictures from Sunday…

 

Ahhhh...it feels good to be back!  Hope you had a wonderful Easter with your family! We serve a Risen Savior! Hallelujah!

He’s baaack!

Our elf, Riggins, came last night!  The kids were decked out in their new elf pajamas so we had an inkling that he might show up. 

He appears to be quite the thrill seeker as he bungeed from our breakfast room ceiling fan!

The kids think he is super cool  
(Don’t you just love those elf jammies?)

We celebrated Riggins’ arrival with a special North Pole breakfast that all the little elves got a kick out of.

Snowman Pancake, bacon scarf, m&m’s, snowflake sprinkles and marshmallows…yummm!
(thanks Pinterest!)

While they ate, I read the story about Riggins – including the ONE rule – you can’t touch him….yeah, we’ll see how that goes. 

ALL ears!

Eight little elf feet and 40 little elf toes!

Riggins also took it upon himself to hang the kids’ new stockings.  Ah…the stockings.  Before the kids’ first Christmas, I bought 6 DIY stocking kits with very high hopes of sewing a personalized stocking for each of us.  A bit ambitious, yes.  This year I decided if I wanted to have stockings hung before they move out, I should put those aside and purchase some.  What a relief!  And they really are SO cute!

This is gonna be fun

geaux tigers, beat bama!

Even our kiddos are hyped up about the big game tomorrow night!  At school today, they made purple and gold “pom poms” (according to Sloan, “shakers” according to the boys) and paraded around the school halls chanting “LSU, LSU!”  Haha!  Roots really run deep in these parts!

Enjoy!

Follow the Yellow Brick Road…

It leads to lots of sugar and candy!  So yeah…I decided to go with the ol’ tried and true characters from Wizard of Oz this year for the kids’ Halloween costumes.  I know, it’s been done many times over but I just couldn’t seem to shake the thought of the regret I would have for NOT doing it!  It such a classic and of course I believe we have the perfect cast!

Starring…

Sloan as Dorothy Gale

Jagger as the Scarecrow

Madden as the Tin Woodman

Rocco as the Cowardly Lion

How perfect?!?

They looked SO cute…I couldn’t get over it and I couldn’t decide who’s costume was the cutest!!!  I kept changing my mind the whole night :)

Daddy and his trick-or-treaters

the good witch

Interrupting trick-or-treating for a photo opp doesn’t produce big smiles from 2 year olds!

Hope everyone had a fun and safe Halloween!

Icey Cream, Icey Cream!

So tonight I had the great idea to bring the kids to get an after dinner ice cream.  Well, really frozen yogurt, but they didn’t know.  I just noticed this cute little shop right around the corner from our house this week and I thought the kids would love it.  It’s was a first…not ice cream, but the going out for ice cream. 

Oh the choices!  I did choose the strawberry banana yogurt for each but they got to choose their own toppings…
Sloan – rainbow sprinkles
Roc, Mad & Jag (all the same – go figure!) – rainbow sprinkled chocolate chips

:)
(LtoR: J,R,M & S)

Yummmm!

Rocco.  And I love seeing Jagger just digging right in with his hand.  LOL!
(by the way, it’s a self serve shop and everyone gets the same size cup – they are only about 1/4 full for our little guys…after all, this WAS just an hour or so before bedtime!)

Madman, my silly nut!

Jagger

It was a great outing and a great family night.  I didn’t even realize until putting this post together exactly HOW normal of a night it was for us.  You see, I often tell Nick…”let’s go do something normal.”  But even when we try to do something “normal” like go to dinner with the kids, it’s just not normal.  Normal to us, sure, but not by others’ standards so we get tons of questions, comments, and stares.  In no way am I easily offended or put off by those types of things AND I do love to see the joy my kids bring to others, but it is a constant reminder of how not normal we are.  SO it just dawned on me, tonight was pretty normal!  It really was.  There was no one else in the shop except the sweet girl working.  She was nice, she didn’t ask ONE question and she didn’t stare.  Just a Friday night eating ice cream yogurt with my family.  Very nice. 

Hope you have a nice and normal weekend

Waving my white baby wipe

Hiya!  It’s been awhile, I know.  But this weekend was definitely worth coming out from under my blogging rock I’ve been hiding under. 

If you are one of my facebook friends, you may already know that I attempted potty training this weekend.  It was sort of last week type decision.  I originally was going to introduce it (we’ve already been talking about it for a while), but then late Friday I decided it was the perfect weekend to do the 3 day potty training lock down.  I had a 3 day weekend with the labor day holiday.  We had Tropical Storm Lee to keep us inside.  And Nick was away for the LSU game in Dallas (GEAUX TIGERS!) 

I had my stickers ready, candy stocked, 4 little potties cleaned, and my notes studied.  The plan requires complete focus, dedication, patience, consistency, positive reinforcement and love.  I was ready. It also requires watching the children very closely (like the only thing you will do) to 1)learn how they communicate their need to use the potty and 2)catch the start of any accidents so you can hurry to them to the potty to finish the job.   According to the plan if followed properly, it will “click” with your child sometime by the end of day 3.  Sounds great, right? 

Before I go any further, let me just say that I consider everyday with my children a blessing.  I REALLY do.  It never gets old to me.  Sure, I may have “grrrrr…” moments at times, but I try to have a positive attitude in most situations.  Having said that, this weekend was probably in my top 5 for the most UNfun things I have ever done.  Ha!  So incredibly UNfun. 

So.  We started on Saturday.  The kids were excited.  I pumped the big boy and girl talk BIG time.   

Who’s ready to use the potty?!? (M,R,J,S)

The beginning of the day…of course they all said they needed to go  -- and of course, no one did!

I didn’t get to take many pictures once the day began, but this one was definitely worth capturing.  Rocco told me he had to poop.  So we ran to the potty and we waited.  He started to get up so I told him to put his underwear back on if he didn’t have to go.  He said “no” and went and picked up some reading material and returned to his throne!  Now, he didn’t really go, but I still thought it was funny!

It starts early!

Another highlight.  My mom came over to fix us lunch so I could stay focused on them.  We had the idea to go out on the front porch just to get some fresh air plus the weather, although rainy, was nice.  The boys slowly made their way off the porch and into the rain.  The fun ensued.  They absolutely LOVED it.  And to be honest, it was a much needed break for me.  There probably was more than just rain falling on the sidewalk, but eh who could tell?

Love those little underoos!

After 20-30 minutes of this, Jagger ran onto the porch to my mom and said, “This is a fun day G.G.!”  LOL.  I’m glad it was for you buddy!

Back to the potty training.  As the day progressed, there were accidents…to be expected. I stayed positive. They kept coming. The kids were fine when I hurried them to the potty. No crying but they just didn’t go on the potty. Although extremely exhausting, I think I could have done that for 3 days until it “clicked” with each of them. But my problem started when one would creep behind the couch or in the other room and do their business and I would miss the accident all together. It would happen so fast. OR I would catch one in the act and be tending to that kid and then the other one, two or even three would start and I would miss theirs. Are you picturing this? They totally ganged up on me! I was missing so many of the accidents.  I made it half way through day 2 before I started waving my white baby wipe.

I need to regroup.  Tweak my “plan” a little.  Be more effective.  Like keeping them confined to one room and definitely having Nick on board and available to help.  Any other ideas from you potty training pros are welcomed.  We will try again, but not this weekend

There have been lots of changes around here lately.  We’ve moved into our new home (hence my blogging break), the kids are each sleeping in their own room for the first time ever, they start a mother’s day out program this week, so maybe we hold off a little on this potty training business.  After all, no kid ever goes to kindergarten in diapers, right?  But as for Mother’s Day Out, diapers we wear!