Saturday of GrandmaOf4's Visit!

We had a fun day today! When the kids woke up, they played for quite a while inside. The Knight woke up at 5:30 - yawn! The Prince and the Princess slept until 8:00 - almost unbelievable - especially since they had a sleep over last night. They did a really good job with that though. GrandmaOf4, the kids, and I headed out about 10:00 for a fun time at the park and a picnic. The Prince rode his trike the entire way. We played for a while at the park on the swings and slides and then settled down for a peanut butter and jelly and juicebox picnic. It was a fun time and everyone ate their lunch - it doesn't get any better than that! After lunch we went for a hike. Even the Knight was able to keep up without being carried. A first! The Princess liked hiking so much that she wanted to go a second time. The boys didn't want to go so I took the Princess for another go-around. She was a little tired by the time we got back. She is in such good shape from all of her running at school though! We met back up with the boys and Grandma playing in the sand and then headed home to see DadOf3. He stayed home and worked on the deck all day long. The kids asked if they could help DadOf3, and he agreed. They were very good helpers and DadOf3 was able to get lots done! He is making some good progress. I will add some pictures. These blogs are turning into more of a play by play than any intellectual thinking. Maybe someday I will get my mind back and surprise you with my insights into Motherhood! :)

Friday of GrandmaOf4's Visit

Friday was a busy day for us. Princess went to school as usual, then I took GrandmaOf4 and the boys to MOPS. It was our last MOPS meeting of the year and our group brought hot food so I didn't want to skip. Plus, I was elected Secretary of the group and they were going to announce it on Friday. It was fun to have Mom there for that! The boys handled Moppets very well with no fussing or crying at all. Friday night we made chicken fajitas that Mom and I had made at Dream Dinners Thursday night. They were declared delicious by all of the adults and too spicy by all of the kids. After supper we went outside to play in the backyard and show GrandmaOf4 some of the changes that we had made to the backyard since she had last been here. The kids had fun playing on the tireswing and vying for Grandma's attention. After that, we went for a nice, long walk through the neighborhood. The kids did great! The Prince rode his trike the entire way. They were tired when we got home. It was good for everyone and I got over 15,000 steps on my pedometer! While on our walk we ran into the miniature horse that lives in our neighborhood. We do not know if he is friendly or not so we didn't get very close - just close enough to take his picture! When we got back inside, it was allowance time. The Prince and the Princess both spent their allowance money this week. MomOf3 had stocked the store full of some new items. The temptation was too great. The Prince and the Princess had a sleepover Friday night and they did a good job. The Princess fell asleep right away but the Prince came down a couple of times. I think he was just bored after the Princess fell asleep! The Knight slept like a baby!

GrandmaOf4 is here!

GrandmaOf4 arrived very late Wednesday night/Thursday morning. Her flight was a little delayed so she and DadOf3 came home from the airport around 1:00AM. The next day the kids were SO happy to see her! Princess had to go to school, but GrandmaOf4, the boys, and I met her for lunch at her school. The boys were really good! We purchased a meal for each of the boys and of course a meal for the Princess too. They were having spaghetti so the Prince LOVED it! The Prince especially thought that it was neat to be able to eat lunch at school. Usually I ask DadOf3 to come home and watch the boys while I go to lunch with the Princess. The Prince and the Knight were both moved to SUPER STAR when we got home. That night, I took GrandmaOf4 to Dream Dinners with me. We made 7 meals and that should last us for a while. Princess was sad and grumpy that she could not go along. Grandma and I had fun and were even back before it was time to tuck the kids in for bed!

Extreme Multi-tasking or ADD?

Have you ever tried to do too many things at once. That is where I am right now. My mother, GrandmaOf4, is coming into town tonight! I am trying to get the house ready for her, get through the laundry, entertain the boys, and plan activities to do while GrandmaOf4 is in town! She will be here for an entire week and, while we could happily sit and talk for that entire week, I want to show her a little bit of the City. We actually told the kiddos that GrandmaOf4 is arriving tomorrow morning because she gets into town around 11:00 tonight and hopefully the kids will be asleep by the time DadOf3 brings her home from the airport. Well, it was on my list to post today so I can check that off. I am including a cute picture of the Prince and the Knight too. They are settled in and watching Cars while I run around like a chicken with its head cut off. Hopefully I will be more entertaining later in the day!

Don't tell the Princess!

Well, supper is ready. All we need now is DadOf3. The Prince and the Princess are playing upstairs and the Knight is playing down here. All is well in FamilyOf5Land! DadOf3 ended up taking the Prince, the Knight and me out to lunch today! It was a surprise and kind of fun. We did not advertise the news to the Princess but she gets to do lots of neat stuff at school every day without us. The Princess came home on SUPER STAR again today - and she was the only one in her class to get that. What a good girl. Princess also brought home a neat piece of artwork that I am posting. It is a dragon that she made while studying about China. I thought it turned out great! The Prince and the Knight were good boys this morning and played really well. I am adding a picture of them playing in a truck that GrandpaOf4 (my dad) sent to the Prince. This truck is used every day. Kind of neat that I got them together. At the end of the day, I got a picture of all three kiddos. A very nice way to end a very nice day.

View from the Prince's Seat

The Prince actually slept in this morning! In fact, DadOf3 had already delivered the Princess to her bus and had come back in for breakfast before the Prince came downstairs! I am suspecting a growth spurt because the Prince does not normally sleep in. He woke up really happy too and ate his breakfast without incident. He balked a little bit when I told him to change out of his wet pull-up before breakfast, but, all in all, it has been a great morning! He is still working on staying dry during the night. I am not all that worried though. The Prince is a great sleeper. I would much rather have a good sleeper in a pull-up than a light sleeper who is dry all night and up all night too. All in good time... We actually have been keeping track of when the Prince is dry at night and at nap time. He does not wear a pull-up to nap and is dry 99% of the time. He gets a check mark for every time he wakes up dry - either from nap or from over night. If he is wet, the check marks get erased. If he gets 5 check marks in a row, he earns a shake and go car that we bought at the grocery store. They are all shaped like the Cars characters. He can earn a Doc, a Mater, a Romone, and a Lightning McQueen. The highest number of checkmarks he has gotten in a row is 3. We don't make a big deal about it if he is wet. We just erase the marks and start over. Since the Prince was having such a good morning, I let him take a picture. I will add it to this post. This is the view from the Prince's seat. :)

Cheese - it's what's for breakfast!

The Knight is developing a picky side. I am not sure if it is just being two years old or if he will be a particular adult, but he has been boycotting "normal" breakfast foods lately. He used to love apple oatmeal for breakfast. In fact, if I made him oatmeal other than apple oatmeal, he would throw his little hands down to his side, scream "apple!" and run out of the room. The melodrama, I am used to after living with the Princess for almost 6 years and the Prince for almost 4 years. Today, however, the Knight snubbed his apple oatmeal and started yelling "cheese tick" (cheese stick) at the top of his voice. While not exactly the ideal breakfast food, it is a good source of calcium. After making him say "Cheese tick, peas" (Cheese stick, please), I gave in and let him have a cheese stick. I guess there are worse things that he could ask for. So, here is the Knight with his breakfast of champions: a cheese stick!

Princess Goes to the Treasure Chest

I finally figured out why the Princess was working so hard to be on Super Star every day for the last month or so. Her substitute teacher stocked up Teacher's treasure chest with some high ticket items, namely sidewalk chalk. The Princess went to the treasure chest right before Teacher was out for a month, so she had to be on her very best behavior to fill up her Good Behavior Chart before all of the sidewalk chalk had been chosen. As of last Friday, the Princess needed one more sticker to go before she could visit the Treasure Chest. She earned that last sticker yesterday and was lucky enough to visit the Treasure Chest before one of her classmates who also had her eyes on the sidewalk-chalk-prize could get it. To make a long story short, Princess came home with the coveted sidewalk chalk last night. She was PROUD! She carried it home on the bus instead of putting it into her backpack. She explained to me that it was very fragile and that the boys could not play with it until she had played with it first because she had earned it. It has been rainy for the last couple of days here so we could not go out and play with it last night, so I let the Princess and the Prince used the chalk on our inside chalkboard. This has a white board on the other side and we usually use the white board - less mess for MomOf3 to clean up. This was a very special day. Princess does have a competitive steak! I am happy that she met her goal and won her prize!

Bubba-Napping 101

Today was a drama day. We are always busy on Mondays doing not-so-fun stuff (if you are 3 1/2 or 2 years old). It is laundry day/bathroom cleaning day once again and I managed to get both the Prince's and the Knight's bubbas and throw them in the wash. The Knight was devastated, but his bubba was stinky! I feel mean, but Bubba was only out of commision for a little over an hour. The Knight and his Bubba were reunited after that and all was right with the world. We had a nice Monday morning. The Princess woke up very nicely and was ready to go back to school. She has had a sub for a month because her teacher had an operation. Teacher is back at school today and all is right with the Princess's world. The Prince didn't like me washing his Bubba either but he got to put the soap into the washing machine and throw his Bubba into the dryer so he was OK with it. Lots to do today and not much time to write. I will add some pictures of the boys and their Bubbas post Bubba-bath!

Deck Work - Construction 3

More progress...

Deck Work - Construction 2

Here are some pictures of the work DadOf3 has done on our deck after Grandma and Papa left.

Deck Work - Construction with Papa

Here are some pictures of the new deck going up.