Hailey's first drawing

We have a magnetic drawing board that the kids love. Hailey has been using it a lot lately, and really focusing on becoming better at drawing. We had Hailey in her crib drawing before bedtime just now, and I went in and saw this drawing!!! This is her very first real drawing... she has never drawn anything close to resembling a person until this. It even has eyes. :) I am so tickled! I love it!!!!!!

Crafts, Runny Noses... and some Whine

We are starting to be on the mend from the awful flu that has ransacked us over the last 10 days. But alas, as soon as the flu disappeared, all of the kids got colds!! What? We are so tired of being sick around here! I am wiping off so many runny noses, you wouldn't believe it.

So, we are home here again today, and therefore, it was time to pull out the Craft Box! I have a big box in my closet that is chock full of every craft supply you can imagine. I stocked up a few months ago at the craft store, and now I just pull it out and we invent things to make. Today I was bold enough to pull out all of the new paints. Scary! The kids loved it, especially Hailey, .... and we didn't even stain a thing!









Before we did the painting, we made stick figure people out of pipe cleaners, googly eyes, puffy balls, and glitter glue. It is fun for the kids to experiment with doing this kind of fine motor detail.


In other news:
- Greta got her first tooth on the day she turned 10 months old (May 14th). It is popping up!
- Greta has finally gotten the insight about what sign language is! She now knows "milk" and uses it often... yea!
- The twins turn THREE next week on June 1. We have a stash of presents here, and they keep asking, "Can I open my presents now?" They are sooo hyper for their b-day party already!

The whining in this house as a result of flus, colds, and runny noses has reached an all-time high. I have never heard the needy whining be this bad. If you want to borrow my kids for the next few days and return them to me in a cheerful state, I would be much obliged! HA!

"Is it 7:30 yet?"

This has been a totally brutal week, as this flu has ransacked our children... but we are on the mend. Andrew was the first to get this sickness, and as of today, he is about 90%. So that is great. The girls still have the "intestinal malfunctions" which include having ridiculously stinky and messy diapers. (oh, and leaky, too!) Two nights ago, Greta woke up at 2:30 am covered from head-to-toe in 'brown stuff.' And earlier that evening, Hailey puked in our bed. Yes, our bed. I had to wash the comforter, blankets, sheets, and mattress pad. It was a 3-laundry load puke! I have never done so much laundry in the middle of the night in my life as I have over the last 7 nights!

The other thing about this sickness is that it renders the victim completely exhausted. My kids are sleeping so so much. They have all taken two very long naps each day for the last week, and then are sleeping until 8am. Two days ago, Hailey slept 2.5 hours in the am, and then 4 hours in the afternoon. It was crazy, but I know that is what their little bodies need. They are also hardly eating.... not even a single goldfish cracker. They are refusing some of their favorite foods, which is just so bizarre. And they each went about 24-36 hours with eating literally nothing, so they have lost weight and energy from that.

The biggest blessing of the week is that Greg and I did not come down with this awful flu.... thank the Lord!

Today was the first day that we didn't have any crazy messy events happen, since we still had puke around here yesterday. But since the kids are so tired, they are also pretty cranky and needy. That has left us a bit tired from this whole thing. Can someone please return my three precious delightful kids?

I think that tomorrow we will begin to be mostly back to normal. Although I know that Hailey is still wiped out - she wanted to go to bed at 6pm tonight.. with no story, no song, ... just bed! Poor girl!
Thank you all for the emails and phone calls. We are grateful for the support this week!

Normally, we put the kids to bed at 7:30pm. When we tell them it is bedtime, they always exclaim, "But it's not 7:30 yet!!!" as though they could tell time, which is pretty funny. But the other morning, Hailey woke up, and then came into the kitchen and said, "Is it 7:30 yet? Can I go to bed now?" That shows you how tired we all are!!

Sick, Sick, Sick

I titled this blog post Sick, Sick, Sick... one for each of my three children. They are all SOOO sick! We have been ransacked my a horrible bout of the flu - and the kids have all been puking, enduring fevers, and lots of other stuff. It has not been fun!

Drew got the sickness on Friday, and puked for about 15 hours off and on. Then Saturday he had a fever all day, and then Sunday, it turned into other yucky stuff, coming out the other end! Last night about 2am and 4am, Hailey woke up puking, and then has puked about 6-7 times since then. Oh, and then Greta did an enormous puke fountain all over me this afternoon. We are not happy! I think I have done about 10 loads of laundry in the last 3 days, just from this sickness. I have washed bed linens, crib bumpers, blankets, stuffed animals, changing pads, tons of pjs and clothes!

Here is a snippet of 3-4pm today, my "worst hour of motherhood," which is what it shall be called from this point forward:
- Hailey wakes from sleeping. Pukes everywhere in living room. High fever. Put her in the shower to wash off.
- Start to give Greta a bottle. Two minutes later, she pukes an enormous amount all over me, the couch, the carpet, etc. Put her in the bath to wash off. My clothes are soaked, so I change.
- Go back to living room to check on Hailey, who is now clean. She starts screaming and crying, and I grab her and run to the sink. Too late, she pukes the whole way across the living room. Big crying spell. Put her back in the shower.
- Drew wakes up. He says "mommy, my shirt is dirty." Yes, he is right, as he has "brown stuff" from chest to knees. (sorry for the detail.) This is about the 4th-5th time this has happened! Put him in shower. He is not happy.
- Meanwhile, Hailey's puddle of puke in the kitchen floor is still there. Greta crawls right into it, and starts slipping, and then crying. Yes, this is right after her bath. She is soaked again. Clothing change. Greta starts to have fever.
- I finally send a text to Greg, asking him to come home right away.
- All three are finally clean and changed. Everyone is exhausted. I finally put the girls down for naps, again. They crash. Drew has calmed down.
- Right about now, Daddy arrives. I have a huge pile of laundry to tackle, and carpet to clean, and kitchen floor to mop, stains to get out of sofa... etc.

I am going to bed now. I am exhausted.
Please pray that this sickness leaves us! I am dreading the fact that Greg and I might be the next victims. Please pray this doesn't hit us! If the girls have the same pattern of this sickness that Drew had, then we have a lot of fever and runny diapers ahead of us - yuk!

A parental rite of passage

Yesterday we experienced a rite of passage that all parents inevitably face.... what is that, you ask? Oh, YOU have probably had it happen to you..... It is the "I-am-pulling-my-car-to-the-side-of-the-road-so-my-kid-can-vomit" rite of passage!!! It happened to us FIVE times yesterday as we were driving home from a week's vacation at Whistler! Poor Andrew was SOO sick.. he was like a limp wet noodle, and he has the flu so badly. He puked all of the way home, on us, on him, on the car seat, on everything... oh, we will spare you the pictures of this one! After sleeping 14.5 hours straight last night, and then sleeping at least 5 hours today, we are hoping he is at the tail end of this sickness.

We did, however, have a wonderful time in Whister. We celebrated Mothers' Day on Sunday, then our 7-year anniversary on Monday, and then Greg's 35th birthday on Tuesday. So it was fun! And we lucked out with warm sunny weather the whole week.

We discovered a new park that the kids loved...

We got a babysitter one night so we could go out to dinner for our anniversary. A treat!

A&H enjoy their very first Rice Krispy bars on the deck:

We ate dinner at the Brewhouse on Greg's birthday. Drew and Hailey LOVED it because there is a model train that circles the inside of the restaurant. (hopefully you can see it in this pic). Needless to say, they were easily entertained during dinner.

Woman Driver

Greta has become a fabulous female driver.... no need to worry about having her cut you off in traffic! Check her out in this video below... where she drives her car on the deck. She giggles and smiles the whole time she rides in this thing, because she loves the freedom it has given her. She circles the table, puts her hands in the fountain, runs around, etc.... it is so cute! If you remember how Drew drove this car two summers ago... it is very similar!

Women drivers, unite!

Tea with the Queen

Greta is so dang funny.

She recently learned how to wave bye-bye. But, she does it the exact same way every time, and it looks EXACTLY like she is having tea with the queen. She has her pinkie up, and her other fingers pinched together, and she does a little twist of the wrist. Watch it performed flawlessly in this funny video.

Hailey

I am so crazy in love with my sweet little Hailey these days. Wow - she has just matured and grown in so many ways lately, and she is already growing into such a wonderful, kind and funny person. She has shown so many signs of her bright intelligence, and her vocabulary has skyrocketed in the recent months. She is so kind to both Drew and Greta, and always looks out for them. She so kindly helps Drew put his shoes on the right feet, since he seems to get them backwards most of the time. Also, I can tell that she is such a thinker, always processing what is going on, asking questions about it, and then talking about it again at a later time. I think she is going to be a great problem solver, because I can already see how she assesses a situation, and then acts on her ideas. I am also especially drawn to her these days, because I can see so much of myself in her. She is an independent little girl, and loves to learn and figure things out on her own. It is delightful to watch her as she does this. She is dressing herself, using the little potty, and can get her own milk out of the fridge, do puzzles by herself, set up the train set and even control the mouse on the computer to advance through photos. (scary!)

Here are a few funny and smart things she has done lately:
- The other day, Drew got his ball stuck under the couch. He sat there whining about it, and then Hailey promptly got up, went to the pantry and grabbed the long flyswatter, and then got on her knees, and pushed until the ball came out. I thought that was such great thinking!

- Today, I had all three kids at the doctor, because Greta had a fever. I told Hailey she could bring her new Dr. Seuss book. Then we were reading it for a bit while we were waiting. I said, "Now the doctor is going to come in, and you guys have to be quiet while I talk to her." Hailey said, "Is it Dr. Seuss?" I laughed out loud at that one!

- Sometimes when we go somewhere without all 5 of us in the family, the twins will say "We forgot Daddy," or "we forgot Greta." The other day we were all taking a walk, and Greg, Drew, and Greta walked out the door without us, because Hailey and I were still putting on shoes. She looked at me with big eyes, noticing that the others had already left, and said, "We forgot.....US!" It was so cute!

Other things about Hailey:
- She has a very bad sweet tooth! She lives for the occasional cookie, and drools over anything that resembles C-A-N-D-Y. Today she had M&Ms for the very first time, and she was in heaven. She is still talking about it and telling me which colors she liked best. She went to sleep tonight and said, "Mommy, I am a chocolateaholic."

- She is sooo into her baby dolls and stuffed animals. She also loves books. Some of her favorite books she has memorized, so you can turn the pages and she already knows what they say. Her love for kitty cats is still holding strong. She is a very good helper, and always wants to help me cook, water my plants, fold clothes, work on the computer and even clean. She figured out how to spray the Windex bottle, and then proceeded to clean all of my bathrooms for me! I didn't stop her!

My favorite thing of all is that both she and Drew say "I love you, Mommy," a hundred times a day. I never get tired of hearing that. I wish I could bottle that up.

We love you, precious sweet Hailey Grace!

Music class

I have recently started taking the kids to a "music class" that they love. It meets an hour a week, and they get to learn all kinds of new instruments, like mallets, triangles, drums, shakers, etc, and then they get to sing, too. Greta comes with us, and she is the most attentive of the three of them! The teacher is great, and it is a good setting for the twins to learn to follow directions. Then they talk about the class for the next few days. I love to watch their little brains learning!

Greta "Rockster" Lang

Hi all- Greg here. Little Greta is shaping up to be a fine drummer. She's got the beat, as you can see in this video. :)