The Babies and The Beach

Okay, I know I'm behind.  Well, to be honest I'm a bit more than behind, but I have an excuse.  It's not a good excuse, but an excuse none the less, and 

that it that its summer.  And this particular summer has been pretty full of all of these amazing things that I don't have pictures of yet.  

I mean, I have the pictures, I just don't have them off of my camera.  But one

 thing that I do have pics of is our recent family vacay to the beach.  Me, DD, and DH all went to the beach with the in-laws.  This was my first trip with them and it was an eye opening opportunity to say the least.  

On a side note, this is my brother in law and one of the triplets.  KG was a cheerleader for UT back in the day, and he is teaching all the kids to stunt.  Caia just kind of sat on his head .  We'll have to work with her on that!

 But, back to Vacay!  For starters we has 6 little girls all in one condo unit.  1 six year old, 2 year old triplets, 1 16 month old, and my sweet baby at 10 months.  If you check out the pic to the left here you can get a good idea of how it looked for the most part.  I especially love all their little matching outfits in this pic.  

 Actually, it was a lot of fun!  We did our best to wear the kids out every day, and as you can see, it worked!  I mean, what kind of self respecting 

two year old falls asleep in their dinner plate? Poor little Sarah!

The kids were all so sweet and it was fun to watch them play together in the sun and sand.  Caia loved the pool and she would happily play in it for as long as her dad and I would stay in with her.  She was so sweet!  She also decided to make the trip special by taking her first steps.  Now she is running around every where and daring all of us to keep up.

I'm going to wrap it up now because I have managed to delete my pictures three times and have no idea how they are all going to show up on the page.  I don't know how you guys make it look so good!

Happy Father's Day!

I wish that I had a picture to put here, but I think that I am just going to have to talk it out.  This morning I was trying to get the baby to kind of color on her Daddy's Father's Day card.  It took a minute, but then she really seemed to get the concept.

She clutched the marker I gave her as tight as she could and had this very serious look on her face as she slowly made marks on the card.  While we were doing this, her daddy walked in.  She gave him a big smile, and he melted when he saw what she was doing.  

I decided to stick the card in the envelope anyways and gave it to her to give to her daddy.  This was what was sweet.  She clutched that card in her little hands like it was a treasure and then handed it to her daddy.  Then she leaned over and gave him a kiss.  I have to admit, I got a little teary, and it was a great moment for her and her daddy.

My DH is over the moon and doesn't care if he has a present or not.  I just wish that I had it on film of some kind!

Happy Father's Day to all you Daddy's out there!

Creepy Crawly Critters

The other day I got a call from a friend of mine that reminded me of what it's like being a newbie living in the south.  You see, she had just gotten her very first tick.

Don't laugh, it's traumatic.....And maybe just a little funny.

You see, this is my super outdoorsy, eco-friendly, didn't shave her pits for a summer because she was working as a park ranger in Washington State, friend.  So the face that she called me absolutely freaking out was pretty entertaining.  

It makes me think back to when I moved to the South.  Granted I was much younger than she is, but I still remember my first camping trip with blinding clarity.  The conversation went something like this:

Them - "Hey, before you go to bed make sure that you check your sleeping bag."

Me - "Why?"

Them - "Ticks, Snakes, you know, things that could crawl in there."

Me - "I'm sleeping in the truck."

See, where I grew up we were taught important life lessons like, "Don't eat the yellow snow."  We were never taught to check our sleeping bags for things that could potentially kill us! In fact, all the things that can kill you in Alaska can eat you, so them hiding in your sleeping bag isn't really an option.  

Over the years I have come to term with the ticks.  We have a hate hate relationship, but I can deal with them.  Snakes on the other hand are a whole different story.  I scream, I shriek, I turn into a very sissy girl.

Can't help it.

A few weeks ago my DH and I took our little one to have her six month pictures.  She did great!

......Mommy struggled a bit.

I just look at this little thing that can now sit up, sleep through the night, and eat off of my plate and I think, "Where did my baby go?"  It's like she's already turning into this little girl.  

Then I proceed to look at pictures of my nieces, nephew, and sweet little cousins and I know that it's only going to get worse!

On the one hand it seems like every age brings with it something precious that you cherish.  (It also brings something that you could live without, but we're not going to focus on that right now)  On the other it seems like so many of the stages are over with before you get your fill of them.  

I now understand why people have a dozen kids.  (Okay, I'm not having a dozen, but you get my point!)  I mean I'm already starting to plan her first birthday party and it feels like I just had her yesterday.

BTW - Party's going to have a rubber duck theme and it's going to rock, so you all should come.  

But back to the picture.  I have a few others that I would like to post, BUT I don't know how to keep them from showing up side ways.  

Sara can customize her border and make it rock.  I can't even get my pictures to align right.  I am SOOOOO behind.

Well, the subject of my post is now eating the power cord to my computer.  While it's still plugged into the wall.  Since I am absolutely sure that that is a bad thing, I'm going to head out.

More later!

Perspective

Today I am not in my normal little corner of the world.  No, today I am a bit north and am hanging out with my sister-in-law in Knoxville.  Helping her babysit.  But babysit is such a tame term for what we're doing.  A more appropriate one would be "herding cats!"  In short today has been a wonderful lesson in perspective for me.

You see, we don't just have my little one to handle.  No, we have her 6 year old, my 6 month old, our 1 year old niece, and her 2 year old TRIPLETS!  Just in case you weren't doing a head count.  That's a round half dozen.

Not that they aren't sweet.  They are, and I love them all.  But six little girls is enough to be overwhelming to any one.  Poor Amy can't get one mess cleaned up or fight stopped before another is breaking out.  And trust me when I say that what one doesn't think of another will.  Let me give you a short breakdown of our day.

First, Breakfast.  We have 6 that need to eat.  The sooner you get them the food the sooner the noise volume dies down to a "sub deafening" level.  Then the oldest is off to kindergarten.  

Now playtime.  It's raining so unfortunately outside is out.  With in less than 20 minutes one of the triplets is bleeding from about 5 scratch marks down her cheek, another has colored  the kitchen floor with chalk, the 12 month old has fallen into the toy box and is now stuck upside down, and the last triplet found gum that she has now chewed and stuck into her sisters hair.

The same sister with the scratch marks and we're not sure if it was a "fresh" piece of gum or not.  

And the last time I popped my head in one of the triplets was eating poop.  

I really don't see how my sister-in-law does this day after day.  And she never gets mad, never gets upset.  She just has the most level personality and doesn't really get worked up about anything.  Kind of like an Aunt of mine.  I don't have that kind of personality.

Where am I?  

Hiding....In the office......Where I'm "working" while my own baby takes a nap.

Yup, I'm a chicken.  But like I said, perspective.  My days at home with just one little one really aren't so bad.  

At least she doesn't eat poop.

Yet.

Small Victories

I'd like to talk about a small victory that we have recently had at our house.  Now, to some of you this might not seem like that big of a deal, but in our neck of the woods (ha ha woods) this is a pretty pig deal.  

So what is it already?

Well quite simply my sweet baby girl has FINALLY consented to eat something!  I don't want you to think that I've been starving the poor child.  As you can see she is quite well fed. (In fact my father-in-law calls her 2 Ton Tessa, but that's a whole different post!)

No, she eats well, its just that up to this point we haven't been able to convince her that food does exist outside of nursing.  This is the child that WILL NOT take a bottle and WILL NOT take a pacifier.  It's not that we haven't tried either one, we have and many times, she is just convinced that both are most definitely poison of the worst form.

She does like cups however.  The fuller the better and they can't have lids.  In fact, my DH is learning just how long those little arms really are!

But, as I said we have had a break through.  And now as you can see my DD's culinary world is reaching new heights.  And cookies are my friends!

We have been trying baby food, but she just gags that up.  Literally, this child will sit there and gag until it comes back up.  It doesn't matter if it takes 10 minutes.  She's persistent.  

I hesitate to mention that as I have several people that just say that I deserve every minute of it.  Apparently I was quite to puker myself.  Who Knew?

Now if we can just convince her that there is life beyond cookies we're in business!

Where Does She Get This Stuff!

I have to admit, I'm an addict.  To my cousins' blogs that is.  You see, I apparently have two (and sometimes three) very witty cousins (Jess - Les, you know who you are!) that keep me constantly amused with the random musings on their blogs.  I find that I have to stop by at least every few days to see what new tidbits they have to offer me.  The great part is that I am always guaranteed a smile and usually even a small chuckle.  It's just a great and uplifting part of my day.

But at the end of it all I invariably find myself wondering, "where to they get this stuff!"  I mean, I think I live a pretty full and interesting life,  (okay, that might be a lie, I'm a stay at home mom with a 6 month old.  Exciting these days means I got to shower this morning.  But I digress) but I find that I just don't have half of the fun things to talk about that they do.   

I mean who would ever think to post about Newsies (sheer genius by the way), strange British desserts, or really sweet British YouTube clips?  (That last one was Les's not the cousin who is currently living in England) 

And the pictures!  I have to say, the main reason that you haven't seen anything new from me in quite a while is that all the pictures that I posted in my last post took me 3 days and several tries to get up.  I don't see how they do it!  And Jess, do you really just have that camera with you 24/7?  Because some of the shots that you get are just fabulous.  Like the crumbs of your weird British pie for example.  

And it's not that I don't try.  I sit down to write, all inspired by what I've seen and then......Nothing!  Because at the end of the day does anyone really want to hear about whether or not I've been puked on that day (usually yes) or the state of my daughter's diapers?  I'm thinking no!

I guess that I'll just have to try and do better.  Because averaging a whopping one or two posts in a whole month is just sad!

And I'm not even going to try for a picture.  I'll just do another post and stick it there!