Sidney got see another "Talent Show"

A friend of mine gave us some tickets to see High School Musical on Ice...........Sidney isn't into HSM, but she loves music and singing and dancing ..... so we went with my sister and my older niece.......

We bought the girls popcorn and the $10 cotton candy came with a hat.........I was like, "Do you have any that doesn't come with a hat?" I wasn't about to buy two at that price and I knew the girls would fight over the hat............plus, who needs a cheap plastic hat.......can't I just get the cotton candy and pay less? Sidney really liked the hat though..............she wore it almost the entire time.

Sidney was bouncing up and down in her seat to the music...........then the girls finally got up and were dancing when they showed the crowd the moves for one of the dances

The girls were REALLY tired, but loved the show! Thank you for the tickets!

More around the house

Just a couple more cute pics of the kids around the house

Daisy thinks that this little couch is hers..........but Carter manages to squeeze his way in

Cameron is playing in Daisy's Kennel

Oh how the girls love their dress up!

Sidney's new room

We had originally put Sidney into the larger room, and left the nursery the same........that was before we knew we were having twins............now that the boys are getting bigger we moved them to the bigger room and Sidney is back in her original room. Her old room was three different shades of purple (if you go back a few posts ago you can see it in the picture of her sleeping with Roman)........for her new room she wanted pink.........and Roman decided to keep it fairly simple........luckily, her comforter has pink in it too and she already had some pink accessories..........

I still haven't gotten Roman to put a shelf up for these......it's been over a year

Sidney picked out the circle decals, we have had the "God Made Hugs, Smiles and Little Girls" plaque since before she was born and I got her the Princess plaque with hooks at the store my sister works at.

She is adjusting well and really seems to like her new pink room!......We still need to get her curtains back up and another Princess plaque....and we're looking for a ballerina picture for above her bed. ...........Now, if I could just get her to sleep through the night!!!

I just Loved This

I had to share....................I hope it's not plagiarism or illegal or anything....................a friend of mine sent me this article from the newspaper...............I tried to copy it, but it wouldn't let me....I'll just have to re-type it for you all.......some of you with kids I forwarded it to, but I was thinking I should forward it to my friends that don't have kids.................maybe it would help them understand my lack of time............

Tell Me About It

Why don't friends with kids have any time?

Dear Carolyn: Best friend has child. Her: exhausted, busy, no time for self, no time for me, etc.
Me (no kids): What'd you do today?
Her: Park, play group.........
OK. I've talked to parents. I don't get it. What do stay-at-home moms do all day? Please no lists of library, grocery store, dry cleaners......I do all those things too. I guess what I'm asking is: What is a typical day and why don't moms have time for a call or e-mail? I work and am away from home nine hours a day (plus a few late work events): I manage to get it all done. I'm feeling like the kid is an excuse to relax and enjoy, but if so, why won't my friend tell me the truth? Is this a contest ("my life is so much harder than yours")? What's the deal? I've got friends with and without kids and all us child-free folks have the same questions.
-Tacoma, Wash.

Dear Tacoma: Relax and enjoy. You're funny.
Or, you're lying about having friends with kids.
Or, you're taking them at their word that they actually have kids, because you haven't personally been in the same room with them.
I keep wavering between giving you a straight answer and giving my forehead some keyboard. To claim you want to understand, while in the same breath implying that the only logical conclusions are that your mom-friends are either lying or competing with you, is disingenuous indeed.
So, because it's validation you seem to want, the real answer is what you get. When you have young kids, your typical day is: constant attention, from getting them out of bed, fed, cleaned, dressed; to keeping them out of harm's way; to answering their coos, cries, questions; to having two arms and carrying one kid, on set of car keys, and supplies for even the quickest trips, including the latest-to-be-declared-essential piece of molded plastic gear; to keeping them from unshelving books at the library; to enforcing rest times; to staying one step ahead of them lest they get too hungry, tired or bored, any one of which produces checkout line screaming.
It's needing 45 minutes to do what takes others 15.
It's constant vigilance, constant touch, constant use of your voice, constant relegation of your needs to the second tier.
It's constant scrutiny and second-guessing from family and friends. It's resisting constant temptation to seek short-term relief at everyone's long-term expense.
It's doing all this while concurrently teaching virtually everything - language, manners, safety, resourcefulness, discipline, curiosity, creativity. Empathy. Everything.
It's also a choice, yes. And a joy. But if you spent all day, every day with this brand of joy, and then, when you got your first 10 minutes to yourself, wanted to be alone with our thoughts instead of calling a good friend, a good friend wouldn't judge you, complain about you or marvel how much more productively she uses her time. Either make a sincere effort to understand, or keep your snit to yourself.

-Tell Me about It is written by Carolyn Has of the Washington Post.

Sidney thinks it's Summer

We've had some pretty nice weather this winter...........and Sidney LOVES dress up.......her swim suites are now with her dress up, as I had to make some room in the dresser in the play room for Roman's Mom.........well, the other day she kept asking and asking for me to let her go swimming and wanted to fill up the bucket again this year, like they did last year. I tried to tell her that even though it was almost 80 degrees out - not yet swimming weather here in AZ, the water from the hose would be VERY cold....... she had to test it out for herself though

now she asks me almost daily............and has my nieces asking too, if they can go swimming

It's winter child..............our community pool is FREEZING!.........I guess I need to get her back into swim lessons, pronto!

The Boys Around the House

I just get a kick out the things the kids do sometimes..........

here Carter is playing t-ball by himself..........after he hits the ball I always yell "run, run, run, run, run" and he drops the bat and runs down the hall and we cheer "YEAH!" when he gets to the end. It's sooooooooo cute! He LOVES sports and knows just what to do when he plays baseball.
Apparently Carter was tired...............he decided to just lay down on the floor......it hadn't even been that long since he had gotten up.

Carter was VERY tired another day.........he was watching Teletubbies and hadn't even eaten lunch yet. Unfortunately, he only slept about an hour that day. (I've never seen him just fall asleep like that before.........doesn't this just melt your heart?)

I thought this was so funny..........I have to hide the boys burp cloths when I need to wash them or they will pull them out of the laundry basket..............well, I had washed them all and all of the laundry baskets were full of clothes that needed to be folded, so I put them on top of the dryer.......Carter had found them and they kept going in there and dragging more down.........I wish I had gotten pics of them with their arms just full of burp cloths and blankets and them rolling in them.

Caught Up

Ok, I think I am officially caught up now!!! Whoooo Hooooo! I thought it would take me forever........it's a good think Babcia is here to help with the kids so I could work on it, in-between laundry and diapers....foregoing a shower until the kids nap time.......I do have a couple of things still on the camera and video camera from the last couple of days that I haven't downloaded to the computer yet................it's an on-going thing.

Oh, I forgot to say...................I took A TON of pics at the kids' b'day party......but tried to post just a few (mainly of my kids), as I'm already taking up a lot of my allotment. I made copies for everyone though.

Have a great weekend!

The Kids New Toy

One of the things that Mommy has been wanting to get us for a LOOOOOOONG time is an outdoor climbing toy with a slide....................Well, we finally got one! Auntie's kids haven't played with it much lately and I had saved some of the Christmas money from Grandpa Jo and have been looking on Craig's list for one.............so Auntie sold us hers. The kids, especially the boys always love to play with it every time we are over at Auntie's, and now they LOVE it in our back yard. Mommy is soooooooo excited...........as it warms up a little the kids will be out there A LOT and maybe.......just maybe Mommy will be able to get some things done while we play.........of course while keeping an eye and ear out for the kiddos.

Thank you Grandpa Jo and Auntie!!!!!!

Carter is still learning how to climb the ladder on the back side

Cameron has it down and they love the slide!

Even Daisy loves playing around it

Of course they like climbing UP the slide the best

The Birthday Party

We celebrated the kids birthdays together this year, since they are only a week apart. They had a blast with their friends at Rolly Pollies.

the kids are sitting quietly, listening to the instructions about the rules of play

the boys are hanging out by Daddy.....it looks like Cameron might be listening to the instructions

then it's time to jump in the foam pit!

Kendall, Madeline and Sidney are getting rocked all around by one of the gym instructors.

Carter was having fun in the foam pit................at least for the first little while.

the instructors gave the ok for the kids to throw the foam squares at their parents..........so there were red squares everywhere!

Roman is helping Cameron out of the pit here

Madeline is rocking Ryan on the platform now

Charlotte and Sidney are having fun going down the slide on the bounce house

the kids were taking turns swinging on the rings..........Sidney looks like a real gymnast here!

Cameron is doing great on the balance beam.........with a little help from Daddy

We've been here a few times.......and the last time was the first time Sidney tried the zip line.


the first time she held on until she got to the foam pit........but I didn't get the camera out fast enough...........this time she held on all the way to the end! She was having sooooo much fun!

at the foam pit the girls, Sidney, Marianna and Ashlynn where building a tower......and Cameron, is in the corner building one too..............but the best part is knocking it over!



Cameron tried the zip line too, but wasn't so sure about it.................he still had fun being thrown in the foam pit though

After all that playing, now it's time for some nourishment..................aka: CAKE of course!!!

all the kids were loving the cake and the strawberries

In true Carter fashion...................he had to have his balloon right away.............and he wasn't letting go for anything............including his cake!

The Kids' Birthday

We decided to celebrate the kids birthdays all together this year, since they are only a week apart and they are still young enough to not really care.

We let them each open one gift at home in the morning

Cameron and Carter got.............

.....a t-ball set......with an extra bat of course..........to try and avoid any fighting.

All three of them wanted to play it right away!

Sidney got....................a Hannah Montana guitar!!!!! Since her older cousin, Madeline, has gotten into HM, Sidney has too..............she even knows that her real name is Miley Cirus!

Then it was off to Rolly Pollies for a romping good time!

The Boys at the Park

For the boys playgroup we frequently go to the park........this one is really close to our house and has a separate playground for younger kids...........the boys were having fun running around while we waited for our friends to arrive.

Around the house

Here's a few pictures of the kids.............just being kids..........

this is a perfect example of the bad habit that we started...........we had to take Sidney out of her crib fairly early, at around 20 months I think, because the boys were coming and the pediatrician recommended that we do it far in advance of when they would be coming home.......then I was hospitalized for a month, so Roman started laying down with her at night, as she was looking for me and wasn't sure what was going on.................well 2 1/2 yrs later she still wants us to lay down with her.................and when she wakes up, almost EVERY single night then she will come wake me up and either want to crawl in bed with us, or have us go lay down with her again....................as you can see, she likes to kind of lay on top of you...........and she is a very restless sleeper...........I always manage to end up sharing my half of our queen sized bed with her, getting smacked in the head and kicked............and basically pushed out of bed........it makes for a very tired and weary Mommy! Roman, he can sleep with her all night and he's not bothered one bit......he just sleeps right through it!

We had been so busy in December that we didn't get to put the gingerbread house together......so I let her do it a couple of weeks ago..................she still had fun, even though it wasn't Christmas anymore.

here's an example of our silly girl......................ever since I can remember she has always liked to put buckets and baskets...............anything besides say, oh..............a HAT on her head.......she was just goofing around.

Who says only boys can play with cars??.........Sidney took these from her brothers and was playing with them and lining them up

she was just singing, and playing.............oblivious to anything else around her.........Oh, and she likes to take all her clothes off these days too and run around in a diaper (don't ask.........we've been working on it for over a year and a half....................the Dr. just says she'll do it when she's ready)

Carter and Sidney are dancing around to the Little Einsteins

boys and their toys........I mean tools.............This was their gift from Santa......I finally got around to putting this together.......(if we had waited for Daddy to put it together they would have been waiting a looooooong time........he thinks they already have too many toys!)

this was just the other night...............the boys love running/jumping/rolling around on the couch with each other.........I like to pull the coffee table back so that they don't take a flying leap into on a misadventure........it's so cute to see them wrestle with each other and giggling.

ZooLights

We continued our annual tradition this year of going to Zoo Lights. We've gone every year since I was pregnant with Sidney......(except the year I was on bed rest during my pregnancy with the boys.............I wanted to go and rent a wheel chair, but I was having too many contractions.) It was the last week when Czeslawa arrived, so we went the day she got in to town.

the entrance to the zoo.........there are lights up everywhere......they start putting them up months ahead of time.

these flower lights were on top of one of the concession stands.

this didn't turn out as neat as it looks in real life, but they have all of these birds up in the trees, it looks really nice

here's an animated butterfly

this is Jenga, the talking giraffe........Sidney is always fascinated by him and we have to stop for a few minutes..........there is a person standing out of sight, but somewhere so that they can see and interact with the kids...........not just a pre-recorded thing.

Sidney and Babcia stop to look at the flamingos

most of the animals do not have lights in their exhibits, but you could kind of see them still

This is the area that Daddy likes the best.......where the lights dance along to the music.


it's too bad that I couldn't get the shot farther back, but you can kind of get the idea here.

Can you see the spider climbing on it's web here? The pictures just don't turn out as nice as what the eye can see. (plus, it looks like there may be some spots on my camera lens too.............tiny little finger smudges is probably more like it!)

of course, every time we go to the zoo we must ride the carousel! (we have know wised up and buy the card............that way you get a couple of rides for free!)


you are my sunshine..........my only sunshine........

As you can hear, by Sidney yelling in the background, they did not like waiting around for me to take pictures and video...........but we all had a nice time.