the mohawk

some of you might remember that madelyn had a "rat tail" when she was a baby.  manning has a very similar hairstyle except his "rat tail" length hair runs from his neck to his forehead like a mohawk.  the top of his has always stood up but is starting to lay down as it has gotten longer.  he won't have this crazy look forever, so i thought that i should get a few pictures.  i took the second one without a flash because you can see the concentration of hair down the middle much better.  love.

coughs

all four kids have had a turn with this dry cough thing.  it keeps them up at night, but other than that doesn't really seem like an 'illness'. manning is the only one where it started to sound a bit 'juicy' so i had planned to take him in on monday if it didn't clear up over the weekend - but then he got pink eye and they told us his lungs were clear and it was nothing to worry about.

anyway, i took maddux in last friday because, again, i didn't want to get into the weekend and have it turn into something.  he had been coughing for a good week and wasn't sleeping much.  he, too, was perfectly fine.  the reason i note all of this is that he was 33 pounds and 3 feet, 3 inches when they checked him in.  the nurse thought that was fairly noteworthy so there you go.  love.

manning has pink eye

we had gone back to the house after lunch at wendy's because playland wouldn't be open for about an hour and that way i could feed manning at the house instead of trying to use a restaurant highchair (they are usually backless and he can't sit that well yet).  i noticed a little goop in one eye, nothing too unusual, but worth watching since madelyn just had pink eye.

he was asleep while we were at play land, but when he woke up there was more in his eye.  since it was a friday afternoon, i didn't want to take any chances and called the doctor's office for an appointment.  they asked if i could be there in 30 minutes.  i didn't dare turn it down.  so off we raced to the car, called madelyn's school to say that we were on our way to get her, signed her out early since it was close to the end of the day and i would never make it to the bus stop in time and headed to the doctor's office.  nana stayed in the car with the kids while they watched a movie since maddux had fallen asleep and i took manning in.

they weren't convinced it was pink eye since he also had a pretty bad cough too, but she went ahead and wrote me a prescription since we were heading into the weekend and places like cvs won't see such a young baby.  she said that if i had to wipe his eye every 10 minutes or so to start the drops.  by the time we got home he had goop draining out of both eyes and i started him on the eye drops. 

now i don't know if you have ever had to give a 5 month old eye drops, but it is next to impossible.  he fought them so much that matt had to help me hold him down.  it was awful but it would be worse for him to wake up with crusted eyes that he couldn't open and wouldn't want wiped.

two down, two to go?  love.

mason's christmas concert

mason has been waiting all month for today - his christmas concert!  he has been practicing his songs almost daily and tells us all about how he is going to stand on the stage in chapel and sing after the kindergartners.  (mom's a little excited too.)

this is mason's special day where he is the center of attention.  he suggested that we go to wendy's after the concert and then he wants to take nana to playland.  sure, buddy, that sounds great!

this is mason's go to pose - the lean

nana and mason

after dropping madelyn off at school, we all headed over to mason's school for the 'grandparents' christmas concert.  school starts at 9 and the concert wasn't until 9:30.  i stayed with both boys last time and made sure i had lots of options for maddux this time.  he did so great!  he got a little crazy with the stickers (on nana, in his hair, on the floor, etc) but he was quiet and stayed with us - not too bad for a two year old who had to 'sit still' for over an hour.

and then it was time for the concert.  you can see mason in his white shirt and the voice you hear?  yep.  it's mason.  all week he has been telling/showing that when his teachers cup their hand by their ear, that means to sing louder.  and mason is a very obiedent boy.  he was a loud singer, just like madelyn last year.

wasn't he great?!  he was so proud to have us there watching him too.  the real concert is on sunday night and that is when daddy and madelyn will get a chance to see him do his thing.  i think mason was most excited about the cookie reception after the concert.  love.

nana's here - and she brought gifts!

nana arrived today to visit and celebrate an early christmas gift exchange.  madelyn could hardly wait to put on her snow white outfit (the only unwrapped gift).  daddy said that we will wait until saturday to exchange gifts (papa is going to skype in).  nana is going to be with us until tuesday and is going to get to see mason sing in his christmas concert - both times!  she was pretty worried about winter weather but the temperatures rose just for her trip so safe driving to and from which i know was a relief.

unfortunately, i had a lesser version of the stomach bug we all had a few weeks ago (again).  but i am feeling pretty good today so as long as no one else gets it, we are going to be in pretty good shape for nana's visit.  love.

tuesday tip

several of my mommy friends have been saying that i should share the things i do to make life easier, so i am going to try and share a little tidbit every tuesday (i am hoping the alliteration helps me remember, but that is not the tip).  if there is something you want to know how i do with four kids, let me know and i will try to offer something useful.

today's tip - use chocolate chips in pancakes instead of syrup on pancakes.  the clean-up is much easier and there is a lot less stick on the table.  i have also found that dark chocolate is less messy than milk chocolate. plus, it makes it easier for me to just eat them cookie style while still getting stuff done in the morning.

love.

happy birthday, daddy!

as luck would have it, both big kids were still off from school today and matt took the day off from work so that we could celebrate his birthday!  we didn't have anything too grand planned.  in fact, matt chose what to do on his day and this is how it went - breakfast at cracker barrel (gift card and coupon), opening a new bank account, changing the oil in his car, chipotle for lunch (again gift card), working on a hd antenea for the house (to get rid of cable) and a second turkey dinner.  might not sound great to you, but it was a pretty great day for matt!

we finished off the day with a pan of brownies (from a box, no extra anything per matt) and vanilla ice cream.  the kids were so exciting to sing to him.  i made him have some candles.  i didn't push them in deep enough and when he blew them out, one fell over.  mason then asked him to blow the rest over - um, that might not happen. :)

we are so blessed to have such a wonderful friend, husband, daddy, man in our lives.  we love you, matt!  love.

telling manning about jesus

since manning was eating breakfast when madelyn was telling mason and maddux about jesus, we had to set up a special class for manning.  i sat him in the bumbo on the floor in her room near the table she has the nativity set up on and left the room for a minute.  i overheard her 'lesson' when i came back and got the camer without interrupting.  you can really only hear them in the video but she was so sweet to introduce him to each member of the set (i missed jesus because he was first).  you might also notice that she says one of the three wise men are a girl.  she insists that one of them has long hair and eyelashes and must therefore be a girl.  anyone see a problem with letting that go uncorrected?  love.

pink eye - a self portrait

so happy together

madelyn set up one of our nativity sets in her bedroom (it is one that has been featured on the blog many times over the years - she used to sleep with the 1" baby jesus).  last year it got broken a few times from her piling the whole set in a purse or something to carry it around the house so i told her that this year it needed to just stay in her room.  so now she just convinces her brothers to play in her room with her.  (by the way, we do have a plastic little people set, but madelyn prefers this one because it is smaller.  i think it might actually be a plastic too so nothing dangerous.)

we stayed home from church because of madelyn's pink eye so the kids spent the morning playing her her room.  or as madelyn called it "teaching my brothers about jesus". 

don't you just love it when they all get along?  love.

writing

madelyn is so much like me, it is scary. (mainly because i know what i was like as a teenager.)  and, like me, she has a hard time trying anything she might not be 'perfect' at the first time.  (i am happy to report that i did outgrow this around my junior year of high school.)  this has been the main problem with getting her to read and write - she doesn't want to try and fail.

so i was more than delighted to find this paper in her room!  she wrote "God Love" over and over (in an upper/lower case pattern i just noticed as i was writing this post).  she has been writing a lot more often, but only with me spelling things for her or with her copying off something she has read - like a flash card. i asked her about this paper and she said that she knew how to spell "love" and then just sounded out the letters in "God" (she has a school phrase for 'sounding out' that i can't think of right now). 

i am not sure what i am more proud of - what she wrote, that she wrote or that she spelled it out on her own!

as i mentioned, she has been writing a lot more and, thanks to playing with some older firends, she now likes to make her own books (or just likes to use the stapler).  she has just started this one so only the cover is 'complete' but it was the example i could find for a picture.  she was able to spell all of the words herself but asked me to write them down on some scrap paper for her to copy them on to her book.  she spelled them for me as i wrote.

not totally related, but she can do some mean bubble letters of words too.  you know, where you draw the outside and inside shape of a letter so that you can color them in?  i should see if i can get a picture of that too.  she just squirels everything away to keep her brothers out of it and i can't always find it without her help. 

what self-made kid writing have you been most proud of?  love.

you should see the other guy...

madelyn's face continues to take a beating this weekend!  today's addition was pink eye and a lost tooth!  matt and i couldn't stop laughing when we looked at her and had to explain that she looks like she was in a fight because we were starting to hurt her feelings a little with all the laughing. 

her eye started oosing in the afternoon.  thankfully, we saved the drops from when she had it in february and we able to get them started right away.  i encouraged her to laydown and rest her eye for a while because she said it was hurting and she fell asleep - which is very out of character.  when she woke up it was nice and swollen.

but to end the day on a high note, daddy helped her pull that tooth that just wouldn't give up!  that thing could spin all the way around but would not come out.  i was worried about her swallowing it in her sleep so daddy helped her out.

we still put a dollar under her pillow after she went to sleep even though she knows there isn't a tooth fairy because she wanted us to keep that part up.  love.

big happy boy

and manning is around too. he just doesn't get many pictures when we are out and about - which is most of the time. so here is some happy boy... love.

he is very into his toes these days

this one reminded me of a bad staged picture pose with the mirror, clasped hands and reflective gaze

 

passing down the love of books

maddux pulled up a stool to read to maddux. does it get much cuter? love.

 

snow!

we didn't get a lot of snow but there was some and the flurries were falling fast (and large) enough that i thought i would take the kids out a few minutes. they got a little too excited and insisted on every winter clothing item they had - it took forever! once we got outside maddux was too cold and went back in.iI was able to get him back out after a few minutes and adding some gloves. love.

 

working off thanksgiving dinner

 

am i crazy?

madelyn's school sent home a flier for "no school skates" this weekend. i thought that i could take madelyn and mason (since i have at least two hands) and let them give it a try. matt has zero interest in skating and was more than happy to stay at home with a napping manning and maddux.

i thought that it was just madelyn's school, but, no, it was all of the schools in the area and there were lots of middle school kids there racing around. at least it wasn't super crowded so i was trying to stay optimistic. we got our skates (it took two tries to get the right sizes for the kids) and i got all three of us tightened and tied. i was practically sweating already!

since neither of the kids had ever been on skates, i thought the best plan was to skate up and down on the carpet several times until they got a feel for having wheels on their feet. it might have backfired on me a little because they were a little overconfident when we decided that everyone was ready to try the real thing. it took us about 3 minutes just to get all three of us onto the rink (because there was so much flailing about by the kids and i was just trying to stay upright without the use of my hands). they were a mess of limbs and falls during the 15 or 20 feet to the next opportunity to exit the rink. the surprising thing was that they wanted to try again!

no matter how much madelyn cried (more out of fear than pain), she wanted to try again. they never felt confident enough to go the whole way around the rink during the 1-1/2 or so we were there, but they got to be good enough that no one fell (mason got there much, much quicker than madelyn, but he has a lower center of gravity). madelyn said that it was much harder than she thought it would be but that she had fun and wants to try again.

it was quite a workout for me and somehow i stayed upright the entire time! there were points where i had both of them trying to climb up to standing on my legs and madelyn kept throwing her skates into my wheels when she would try to hold my hand with both of hers but i did not fall.

matt is definitely going next time! love.

 

the real reason

but their real favorite are the multiple nativity sets. Jesus is our focus. Love.

 

up goes the tree

i love our tree. it's fake, is pre-lit and twinkles. the kids love it too and couldn't wait to decorate. i let the three bigs loose on the bottom of the tree with the unbreakable ornaments and i hung the glass ones near the top. the overall effect is a colorful bottom half and a light and sparkly top. the bottom branches are so heavy that the ornaments are touching the ground.

dad supervised as his contribution. oh and he carried the bottom piece of the tree up the stairs for me.

the tree looks great. within hours we had our first casualty due to a flying reindeer (read: maddux was tossing a stuffed reindeer in the air too close to the tree). i think the broken glass and danger talk from matt and i helped them understand to be more careful near the tree.

let the festivities begin! i just love christmas! love.

 

manning's first thanksgiving

manning actually slept through thanksgiving dinner. but it was still a special day for him. he ate his sweet potatoes with a new tooth! now he has three lower teeth. love.

mason with markers

after breakfast, matt and i found that the boys had thrown markers over the top and behind the bookcase in the basement. some of them went over without lids per the marks on the wall above the bookcase. we also found stickers completely coving one the kids' play chairs with pieces of sticker all over the carpet too. at least there weren't many problems with getting all of the kids to help (well, manning got a pass on this one).

but the markers aren't all bad. mason has been doing some really nice drawings on his own. i thought that this one was good enough to share. he drew this fish all on his own; without having been shown how or copying anyone or any picture. and then he drew some more and wrote his name! (he forgot to write the "a" but knows its there when you ask him to spell his name.) once again, he had no help and wasn't copying from anything.

we are so proud of our little man. love.

 

always the face

and madelyn's streak for facial injuries continues... this time she had a lot of help from mason. apparently, he ran at her and put the top of his head into her mouth. her upper right tooth has been extremely loose all week but even this blow to the face didn't knock it out. it did, however, loosen up two more of her top teeth. this picture was after she had been cleaned up for a while. there was a lot of blood and the crying only made it worse, which then made the crying worse. once i explained that there is a lot of blood when you hurt your mouth or head in general, she calmed right down. i think that tooth's days are numbered. love.

 

thanksgiving placemats

 

christmas tree festival 2012

this is our ohio thanksgiving tradition - the christmas tree festival. we weren't going to go today because it is only open a few hours and we have been rushed the past two years due to it closing for the day. but somehow my turkey defrosted more than usual (it was only slightly icy when i put it in this morning) and we ate in the early afternoon instead of closer to our usual dinner time.

mason actually remembered going last year and has been asking about going again. it is funny because madelyn didn't really remember until we got there and she usually remembers everything.

i would guess that there are at least 100 trees and probably another 100 wreaths, dolls and other christmas themed items

i think this one was one of my favorites made from newspapers and water bottles

madelyn's favorite was this princess pig tree - pink piggy banks with tiarras

maddux wanted his picture with this less impressive tree

mason picked this one at random as his favorite

we all liked checking out this circus miniature display - madelyn said that she wished she could go there

we found a purple one for nana

this one was daddy's favorite - i really liked it too

madelyn was torn about this eloise tree being her favorite but stuck with this princess pigs

apparently, this was the "good" santa. just another reason not to do the santa-thing - who wants to think this guy is coming in your house while you are sleeping?

madelyn and mason made gingerbread men to hang on this kids' tree

maddux did not want to make a gingerbread man, but he was interested in getting a picture on his cheek. they had several images to choose from, but he was very set on the red candlestick. odd choice i thought. he almost picked the christmas lights but stuck with the candlestick. the girl doing the face painting was excited about his choice - she said it was her favorite to do. he did a great job holding still which was good because the girl was going for perfection.

and she did a really great job too. after looking in the mirror to see his cheek, maddux went back to show it to me on the sign again. and rubbed most of it off his cheek in the process. oh well.

madelyn prefers to have them paint her arm so that she can watch - clever girl.

to help mason hold still i asked him to try and guess which part she was drawing (they had the images on the table in front of where he was sitting. i think he did a pretty good job tracing on the picture what she was doing on his cheek. the picture had a red nose, but mason asked for brown instead.

i love looking at all of the trees and that we can see them for free. such a fun tradition to kick off the christmas season. love.