Just some sentences

Well things are busy here as usual - hence the lack in blog posts.

The kids are getting big (sporting shirts made by Aunt Tricia).

Peyton is in full swing with baseball season. He just got the game ball last night for two good hits and for pitching a good game!

Right now in his level they play multiple positions. He has pitched twice and caught twice.

We are anxiously waiting for the weather to be consistently warm. I think we were spoiled with such a mild winter and this spring has been anywhere from summer temps to winter temps. Last night's baseball game was FREEZING!!!

We have gone hiking once already and the kids are asking to go again.

Paxton is talking SO much more now. We are really enjoying watching him turn into a little boy. I am already missing my baby!

The boys are anxious for summer...me not so much. Having to play referee 24/7 with no break of school isn't on my list of can't waits!!

Jeff is busy with work as usual - not as bad as it was a few months back, but still keeping him busy with long hours. He's getting ready to go on a business trip to Texas.

I am still running and have been working on improving my time. It only took me 6 .5 years to get the motivation to run any faster! I'm hoping to run a race or two in the fall.

I have been experiencing some trouble with my heart, but nothing like it was when I was pregnant. I guess its back to the Dr. I go.

I think that's all for now. Its off to round up the troops for nap time! 

Happy Easter

Happy Easter!

Family photo - Easter 2012

Peyton-7yrs

Parker-4 yrs

Piper- 2.5yrs

Paxton - 20 months



Scream if I want to!

Its my party and I'll scream if I want to! Or if you're Parker and you don't like to be the center of attention (so his mama's child) then you will scream at everyone when they sing Happy Birthday to you and make Mommy blow out the candle!

Spiderman was the theme.

Upset at everyone for singing!! The other kids standing there astonished! :)

Still unhappy!

Sissy eating her cake!

Spidey toy!

He loves his new Cars scooter! He is excited to have one that is all his. No more sharing Peyton's scooter.

He got a lot of bug catching things...he loves bugs. Mommy on the other hand....YUCK!!

Can you tell they had a good time?!

No more baby....

Its official! My baby is no longer a baby....at least he doesn't look like one anymore!! I was so sad to see him look like such a big boy. I wanted him to keep his baby haircut, but when we went he was freaking out and scissor cutting it would have been too hard! So we opted for the trimmers and low and behold we have a big boy now!

Parker turns 4!

Happy Birthday Parker!

We prayed and we prayed that God would stop the early complications in my pregnancy and bless us with him. And that He did! Parker, you are energetic, loving, smart, funny, sweet, shy, and a pistol! You add so much to our family and to our hearts. We are so happy to have celebrated you today!

A few St. Patrick's Day cupcakes for the birthday boy!

Our shy boy....not wanting to be in the spotlight during the "happy birthday song" - very much like his momma in this area.

Took 4 tries to blow out all 4 candles...he almost wouldn't blow them out because he was embarassed that we sang to him.

Holding two of his presents....a red basketball (no other color is acceptable) :) and his new airplane.

Going to be having his party next Saturday....more pics to come.

Soaking it up at the park

It has been unseasonably warm around here lately - reaching 74 degrees on some days. This was one of the "cooler" of the warm days, but we are spending a TON of time at the park soaking up the sun! Jeff is hoping for another snowstorm (I think we've only had 2 or 3, with only 1 requring any shoveling) but the kids and I are loving the nice weather. No hats, coats, boots, and gloves. No one playing in the snow on the way out to the car and ultimately falling in it before they climb in the car!! It takes much less time to get out to the car when there is nothing but shoes to put on. Sounds like a silly thing to celebrate, but not when you are a mom of 4!!

Princess Piper

I bet you don't have a princess at your table! She loves her princess crowns and tutus! We are often fighting with her over taking the tutu off for dinner. She can't stand to part with it.

Hey, at least she has her clothes on at the table....she loves to take her clothes off down to the diaper and then wear just the tutu! :) (She's going to hate me later for posting that!)

"Uh, Mommy?"

So I am upstairs in the attic going through some clothes that I am planning to sell. All of a sudden I hear the thud thud thud of someone running up the stairs (presumably Peyton or Parker who were in the basement playroom when I left). I am fully expecting to hear some sort of whining (the norm for this time of day - the witching hour before Jeff gets home) but instead what do I hear? "Uh, Mommy? Why did you let Piper and Paxton outside?" says Peyton. "WHAT?" screams the panicked Mommy.

I knew exactly what had happened....there is a babygate blocking the sliding glass doors to our deck and our backyard that sometimes comes loose. Often the kids will play with it and it will pop out. Well I race down the stairs expecting to see two toddlers on our deck and much to my surprise there is NO ONE on the deck!!! I hear little voices and the pop of the sandbox being opened followed by shrieks of joy! I find Paxton still working his way down the flight of stairs (thankfully he has "mastered" walking down the steps if he has a railing to hold on to) and Piper ready to dive into the sandbox! I scoop up Paxton and race Piper up to the top of the stairs trying to explain to a 2 yr old why you should never go outside without Mommy or Daddy. Which is clearly not getting through the cries of disappointment from having their fun interrupted!

Peyton was a tough baby, but a fairly easy toddler when it came to knowing his boundaries. We didn't have to have locks on the cabinets. We didn't have to put the loft ladder up on the wall in our apartment because he never attempted it. We didn't use babygates past 17 -18 months. We could trust him for the most part.
As for the rest of them.... YEAH RIGHT!!! They are into EVERYTHING!!! I often wonder how much of it is their personalities and how much of it is learned, at least for Piper and Paxton. Parker, still at almost 4, he can't be trusted. He regularly gets into something he shouldn't - he's the reason we put the babygate by the doors in the first place!

Although I would often like to have another baby (*gasp* I know!) but I think another toddler would put me in the looney bin! I don't want to rush the fun times of this age group, I could do without all the chaos that goes along with my toddlers' choices!

Fun at our house

Piper is all about her dresses and skirts! (mommy is too!!)

Pax loves to sit on the boys!

Nevermind Piper crying in the front of this photo - I think its a cute one of Peyton and Paxton.

I crack up everytime I see this pic of Parker!!

Those eyes are just too much!!!

My poor bubba with an abrasion on his face from the tape holding his oxygen tubes in.

Didn't you hear? Applesauce is the latest and greatest form of shampoo.

Daddy and his princess.

Go Phillies! We are very excited for baseball season to start again in this house!

Love him!

A day in our jammies

A few weeks ago we spent the day in our pjs....

(his favorite two things to do...steal cups that aren't his and climb!)

Couldn't resist taking one of them actually sitting still and together!

A very LONG winter

It has been a very long winter of sickness in our house!! I think the warm weather is just not allowing things to be killed off! Poor Paxton  has had more illnesses than I can count. Most recently has been fighting a double ear infection since the end of Jan and was just hospitalized for a few days for a virus that caused severe wheezing and the need for oxygen.

We went to the pediatrician on Saturday morning and then were sent over to the Phoenixville ER (next to the drs office). After a few hours there we were transferred by ambulance to GrandView Pediatric unit - Phoenixville doesn't have a pediatric unit. He was admitted Saturday afternoon and we didn't leave until Monday afternoon. His oxygen levels kept dropping throughout the night on Saturday and he needed to have oxygen. Needless to say he WAS NOT happy about tubes being shoved in his nose! During the day he was on blow by oxygen which was MUCH easier on both of us!

 He spent quite a few hours awake that night. Finally by 4:30 we were both able to go to sleep for 2 hrs! He received breathing treatments every 2 hrs for 24 hrs and then was taken to every 3 hrs and then finally before we left on Monday we were to every 4 hrs. Thankfully my parent's and Jeff's mom were able to watch the other kids for us until bedtime and then Jeff went home to be with them.

We were both VERY grateful to be home on Monday afternoon. Bedtime couldn't come soon enough- I was running on about 10 hrs of sleep over 3 nights/4 days.

Unfortunately on Saturday night he got another fever!!! I was ready to scream! Back to the doctors on Monday we went! He still has an ear infection (the same one from back in Jan). So right now we are trying another antibiotic and hopefully avoiding the next step - an ENT doctor. He is still on one breathing treatment a day - mostly preventative to help build strength up in his lungs while he battles this ear infection.

Needless to say I am ready for this winter to be over!!!!!

These photos were taken with a cell phone so with his movement they are rather blurry. By the end of our stay he was a little maniac running the halls of the pediatric unit!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

This was an attempt at trying to get them to sit together. If I could have gotten them to sit and look at me long enough, I would rather not have the babygate in the background or the couch, but they're all looking! :)

PS - Piper insisted on putting the headband on herself!

Crazy?

So I was going CRAZY trying to find this book I lost that I mentioned in Overdue. We looked EVERYWHERE and when I say everywhere, it really was everywhere. I looked in the most impossible spots, but I was determined to not have to pay for this book!

I went to the library to return the movie mix up from Overdue and I get there and they can't find the case to the movie I had. They say I still had it! I was getting really irritated, because I KNEW I didn't have it. I went back to the kids section and while chasing a 17 month old around and keeping an eye on the other two, I am scouring the movie section to no avail. They tell me that I need to check at home again.

While I'm looking for the movie I decide to look for this "missing" book and what do I find??? THE BOOK!!!! You have got to be kidding me!! So now they are starting to second guess themselves and this whole movie debacle!

Maybe I'm not as crazy as I thought! Just maybe I have a little more organization to my life that I thought!!

Overdue

A place to see what we are all NOT up to on Not Me Monday is over on MckMama's blog.

Here's what I'm NOT up to...

In one of my many recent trips to the library where I did NOT come home with 30 plus books between me and my four children, I did NOT discover that 3 books were more than 2 wks overdue! I did NOT want to blame the library and say they were mistaken because I would NEVER be so unorganized! The whole car ride home I'm trying to think about where these books could NOT be hiding and which set of grubby toddler fingers could have picked them up and walked off with them.

Two days later I have found 2 of 3 and decide to go the library with the videos that were due too. We get to the library and I have to wait for them to open (should have been a sign for what was to follow). I ask the library to see if the book I can't find is actually on the shelf, but much to my dismay it is NOT. I pay the late fee for the two I did return to NOT see a library employee come out from behind the book drop with an empty movie case of a movie I just returned. I sink knowing that that movie must still be in the VCR in my house. :( I then have to renew that and as I'm doing that I do NOT get told that I have 3 other books that are due today and do I have them? UGH!!!! I could scream for looking like such an idiot and for not doing a more thorough check of all the rooms before I left! I fortunately had one of 2, but the other two had to be renewed! I get home, go to the VCR in search of the missing Winnie The Pooh movie, to find The Muppet Show! You have got to be kidding me!!! I do NOT have the movie I need, but have a movie that belonged in another case I already returned!!!!! Winnie the Pooh was NOT in the Muppet case and now vice versa! AHHHH!!!! I'm NOT such a procrastinator that I wait until the kids are pushed to their limit and beyond ready for a change of pace to go looking for the library items I need to return. This would NOT be the reason for my delinquency!!

Speaking of NOT being a procrastinator...I did NOT wait until 10:35 the night before I was to go to wedding to pull out my only nice "wedding type" dress and realize its been hanging on the hanger for a year since my last winter wedding. I did NOT pull it out to see hanger marks and dust on the shoulders. I am NOT beyond tired at this point and grumpy that I now have to stay up to wash it and dry it! :( I am definitely NOT the one who will always be saying "I will figure that out tomorrow!" Much of my life with 4 kids, 3 of which are toddlers, is one day at a time, often one minute at a time. So, I tend to live this way all the time, and it obviously NEVER catches up with me!

And I would NEVER wear my 2 yr old daughter's hair clip in my hair to the wedding! I'm much classier than that!

So what have you NOT been up to?