Penguins, Publix, the Park

Penguin craft activity that came in our Kiwi Crate from Bobble Cole. We played with these for a long time. Our kind of craft is one that involves physical activity. (have you heard of KiwiCrate? It is this great site that sends you everything you need for crafts/something educational/a game/etc/ all for one theme. It is so, so cute and if you go through a link, it is only $10 shipped & everything. This one came with penguins/stickers/a ball/a penguin ice cube thing that is so fun/pastels/paints/postcard things/little scissors/etc) Or, they can accidentally send your sister 2 and you can just get a free one.

 Our penguins (Daddy, Bobble, Anderson, Max, Lily & Reese-he named them!).LOVE how many of them wear glasses :)

Anderson has "Show & Tell" on Fridays and I love it. Last week the letter was "D" and he wanted to bring his dogs.I decided that a chubby spaz and an overprotective wolf were maybe not what his teachers had in mind, so we took a really high quality picture instead & he brought that.

He just took a trip to Home Depot with JPa & was going to help him put up the lights. We are SO proud of JPA who has become a spokesperson for being awesome & battling lymphoma!

 Anderson was moved to the next class at his school & in addition to Show & Tell, they take pics of what they want to be each month. I was cracking up when I saw his plan. Have you seen Speckles on youtube? If you have, I will be shocked and if you have not, I will not recommend it. It is some kind of dinosaur movie that is narrated in first person by Speckles...I really am not going to explain this because it is awful. Anderson loves it.

Anderson had a series of "spa treatments" (coined by Clare) last week to treat his eczema. His skin has been an ongoing battle since he was about 3 days old and despite the ridiculous amounts of money I have spent on prescriptions and over the counter lotions/creams/etc., we cannot clear it up.  A new dermatologist (yes, we have been to more than one for our 3 year old...) gave us this oil that we had to put on his wet skin, top with wet pajamas and then wrap him in blankets to create warm heat. To say that I was gung ho about it clearly proves my desperation. At first he was such a trooper, but by the last night, he was NOT happy. Poor guy, can you blame him?? I will say that it did seem to work, so that is the good news. And, it was 3 days. Three. Nothing that lasts less than 7 years (patching time) will ever faze me again!

So, here is a not so fun story called "How to pay your deductible by backing up into a parked police car" As I told Brandon, I am just here to keep life interesting for him. Never a dull moment. 

We are constantly on a mission to get.his.energy.out and the freezing weather did not deter us from a visit to

the park.  

 Seriously, we made up games like, "Race to the Soccer goal and hop around it and the race back". Spring cannot come early enough for us. 

Here I am...27 weeks pregnant! (Now, I am almost 29, but have not taken that pic yet) I have the best pregnancy journal (The Belly Book by Amy Krouse Rosenthal) and it requires a pic/info each week, so I have quite a few weekly pics, but I realized I am not really posting them here. Do not be deceived-I am huge. I am about 4 inches larger than I was with Anderson at this point, so I don't just "feel" big, I really am! But, I just love being pregnant, despite the uncomfortable side effects and inability to move without panting. Feeling Max swim around is the greatest thing ever. 

 I have fallen DEEPLY in love with Publix. Seriously, I should be embarrassed. Nicole & Amanda have been telling me about the wonder of the store, but until I saw the green letters in Knoxville, I never really believed them. First, everything is GREEN! I am serious. For my green shirt, green glasses, green shoes, green Sonic slush kid, a green store is the way to go. Second, they give out free cookies, samples, stickers and balloons. They even have car carts that face out, but are high up, so I can talk to him while we shop.  Right. Third, their "buy one get one free" deals are amazing because so many wonderful things are half price each week. Fourth, they take all competitor coupons and will take 2 coupons (1 Publix/1 manufacturer) per item!! I have left on more than one occasion having saved more than I spent.

Another cute park pic. Love this boy. 

We did celebrate Valentine's Day around here, bit it was sort of uneventful, so it just gets a brief shout out. Brandon bought me my favorite candy (HAZELNUTS!!) and he surprised me, my mom and his mom with pedicure gift cards! He is pretty much a keeper, as he knows I am just not a flowers kind of girl. 

I was the mom who sent my kid to school with dinosaur valentines...and that was it. I actually bought fundip, but did not send them with the dinosaurs because I thought that would be unnecessary. The overflowing bag of stuff he came home with proved to me that even if I had sent an entire box of fundip per kid, I would be subpar. Who are these women who actually make the Pinterest valentines to send with their 3 year old?? I could barely get 18 out of the box of 40 to send to school without him freaking out about keeping them, so I cannot imagine if I had tried to send a pound of starburst per kid with a note that said, "I am bursting with love" like one mom did. 

Let's just say that, yet again, God knew what he was doing when he sent me 2 boys as I do not see myself ever getting excited about this holiday. 

 Giant inflatable T-Rex from Bobble Cole! Again, we are not spoiled at all around here.

 We "dug" dinosaur fossils in the yard and then had to clean them. We found some pretty legit stuff, like a leg bone and an elbow bone, according to Anderson.

He.Never.Sits.Down. 

**My FAVORITE thing right now is how we are able to see how we act through his actions. While this is frightening when he says, "Chloe, you are so annoying!" as she scratches on the door to go out for the 14th time in the last 5 minutes, it is mostly precious. For example, he will kiss my forehead when we are playing or say, "Bobble, did you know I love you?" Makes me so happy to know that I clearly am stalking my child and he is aware of it. 

A little video of preciousness. I love, love how Anderson says, "Keputch" and the fact that I am his Bobble. It hit me that one day he will not do these things and I really want to capture it. So, I randomly recorded him as we pulled into the church parking lot, which sort of negates the thoughtfulness of planning to do it. But, whatever, it is cute. 

the BIGS

My niece, REESE, is here!! More on that on a later post, but first I want to give a shout out to the BIG sister & her BIG cousin. Nicole & I decided that we are 1. lucky as all get out because who gets to have built in BFF/cousins for their kids and 2. going to start calling Lily & Anderson the "Bigs" and Reese & Max  the "Littles" because it is too cute. And, we totally stole it from the Hill family who have their own perfect sets of bigs & littles. 

When Nicole went into labor, Anderson & I booked it up there (after my 28 week doc appt that is, because she was only 3 cm and I really did not want to have to reschedule. Reese clearly was not in a hurry, so it was ok) and I took over duty of the BIGS. 

My parents were, of course, there and my mother would have never left the hospital, but let us just say that entertaining a pair of 3 year olds in a small waiting room was not on my agenda for the day. So, we went to McDonald's where we literally spent almost 3 hours on their playground. Hilarious. We had a few snacks, I had to maneuver my giant belly up the slide when Anderson got stuck and I did a bit of people watching. Good times were had by all. 

                                      

 Dr. Seuss week at school is the reason for the cat face paint.

 Then, it was back to the waiting room for just a bit while we waited for Reese to FINALLY make her appearance! We colored, had more snacks,

played games with Noni, 

 played a game on the ipad (LOVE his hands resting on my belly)

 and drew on Bop's head!

The next day we tried to keep the BIGS entertained again, which was pretty easy because they actually played together at Lily's house! Here is a little tea party action

 Then we made another 2 hour fast food visit. This time it was Chickfila. I am not sure where Lily is in this pic, or what Anderson is doing.

 Contrary to what it may seem like, our kids DO need a nap. They are grumpy and tantrumy when they don't nap...but the alternative is the fact that if they nap, they stay up until midnight. It is called "The lesser of two evils". Look how their little heads are leaning in toward each other. Love.

 Last stop was a jumpy place that is pretty awesome. Anderson made himself at home.

And, Lily showed us the ropes. Literally.

I had such a fun 2 days just hanging out with these 2 and, of course, meeting Reese. It is rare that I get a day other than the weekend to see my Bug, so I really enjoyed the extra time with him. And, I love when Lily and I get to have Sissa & Lily time.

As soon as Nicole does a blog post on Reese, I will post pics, too!! She is precious!

BLeyeSSINGS

I could not figure out a title for this post, but I knew I wanted something EYE related and that was the best I could do. 

I find myself not really noticing the EYE much anymore. Who knew?

Hear me out, patching is definitely still a huge part of our everyday lives. Anything that involves 12 hours of the day will always fall into that classification, I think. But, after 2 solid years of daily struggling to keep it on, the bad days are very few & far between. 

I love, love it here. 

And...I would have never known how nice this particular piece of paradise is if we had not been trapped on the sinking island of hell for so long. 

That is generally how perspective works, isn't it?

We still have moments where he refuses to cooperate. I think this particular day there was no reason, just" I will NOT wear the eyepatch!" 

Most of the time there is a reason and it is usually, "My eyepatch is sweating." Sometimes about 8am he will ask if he can take it off because, "I have had it on ALL day!" I have to break it to him that while it does seem like we have been up all day already, it has been less than 3 hours, so good try, but no luck. 

About 6pm each day we have this conversation:

Us: You can take it off...

Anderson: (as he yanks it off) Because I have been so good!

It is a daily ritual and here is how I know that we have made progress: I don't try to save the patches anymore! When we were going through what seemed like hundreds at a time, I could salvage even the most crumpled one, but now I don't even try. 

That, my friends, is called progress. 

I caught a glimpse of this frame the other day and I was momentarily shocked as I realized what was happening. This has been in our house for 3 years, so it is not new. I actually remember my mom buying it for me at Kirklands when I was pregnant. I love the quote & I love the picture that was captured by Aunt Manda on Anderson's first day here. 

We look so confused as we sort of awkwardly lean in to kiss him/stare at him. I think I saw a pic like this somewhere, only it looked much better because the parents weren't terrified of their own kid who might have actually been dressed. But, I digress because none of that matters. 

What matters is the precious little LEFT EYE aka Cataraact Eye that is opening just a bit, sort of checking things out. There we are-the whole family posing for the first time: Daddy, Bobble, Anderson & the EYE. We had no idea what was in store for us with the EYE and that precious little 7 lb bundle that was carrying it. 

But great love will make it ok. Doesn't it always?

Perhaps I am thinking a bit more about this because I keep thinking about Max & picturing his eyes. Most people probably just wonder about their kid's eye color, not if their lenses will be clear, but imoms are blessed with extra worries:)

This week (27) I read that his eyes are starting to open while he is swimming around in there and I want desperately to see them. Just to know. This was a paragraph in my pregnancy book this week, too!! I imagine myself 3 1/2 years ago totally glossing over this part of the book because who cares about this when there is a comparison to what size vegetable he is on the next page!

But seriously, I am a bit more aware that things can wrong this time around, but I am also even more grateful that this was our "wrong". Since every pregnancy book seems to be focused on the negative things, there are all kinds of statistics that I have read about disorders, random problems, etc.-1 in 88, 1 in 150, 1 in 500 and even  1 in 1000. 

Odds of a cataract? 1 in 10,000. 

I remember the old me, before I became an imom, thinking how unfair this seemed. This is SO rare and yet, it happened to us. Pity. Party. 

Now, with Max on the way, I think how much I would take that statistic over the problems associated with the other ones. 

**HEAR ME NOW, jinx gods! I DO NOT WANT A SECOND PEDIATRIC CATARACT KID! I am just making a statement!**

But, really, it is true that we dodged a few bullets with this one. 

And, for my last EYE rambling, I share a picture with you that was taken a few weeks ago at Anderson's school. First, the fact that they "learn" sign language is precious, but that is not the focus. 

There is no way on earth that my kid did not win the largest gold star around for this objective!

TWO snow days, Stella & some other things...

**I realize that I have A LOT of blog posts. This is because I am really addicted to words, I like hoarding memories and, mostly, because I do not sleep. As I type, I am sitting outside of Anderson's door (it is almost 10pm) waiting on him to fall asleep. You know my toddler bed curse and our best solution for a year was to sit in his room until he fell asleep, but now I am trying to move into the hallway with my goal being the kitchen so I can at least put the dishes up and make lunches for tomorrow. But, instead, I am sitting here typing.I might not actually be able to remember the last time I slept 6 consecutive hours, but, I will always have these memories on my millions of blog posts:)

 There can never be enough pregnant twin pictures. (The people at Buy Buy Baby were very intrigued by us. It was sort of hilarious.)

Snow day!! We had quite a freak snowstorm in Knoxville last week, which resulted in a snow day! There was literally no snow at our house, but it was so bad in Powell that I would have never made it home without 4WD. It was terrifying.But, I had to much snow on my car from the Powell parking lot that we were able to play with quite a bit. The next day Anderson ran to the garage and said, "I want to see the snow you brought for me!" We had a nice lesson on how snow does not stay snow in a garage.

Max at 23 weeks:) He was in deep thought. I am not actually paying for the 4D one, but they did this little shot during the regular one, which was sweet. And, yes I realize that I am destined to birth children who look exactly like my husband. (I am totally ok with that. Have you seen my husband? He is pretty good looking :)

Some college friends came into town and we visited the new TriDelta house! They have a chef for their meals and coffee available all day. What on earth? We lived in dorms all 4 years of college and ate easymac from our microfridges and shoved clothes in our one tiny closet. But, we decided that we got the better end of the deal. Let's just say "pretending to be your sister and getting a lock out key when she & her roommate are gone and then stealing all of the toilet paper from all 13 floors and rolling their room." Anyway, we have almost been friends for 14 years, which is crazy!

And, I GOT TO MEET STELLA!! Seriously, this girl is precious. Emily is such an amazing mom and it is clear that she passed her generally awesome genes on her to her daughter.

Nicole & I have a serious hoarding problem and we were both so excited about snow so that we could dress our kids in the snow gear we got them on clearance. A snow suit and brand new snow boots for $5 was a price I could not pass up, so we definitely were ready when the snow came!

Once upon a time, I had an amazing intern named Jessica. She is genuine, hard working, dedicated and literally the hardest working person I have ever met. Flash forward a few years and we are still friends and she is even MORE thoughtful. She always gives Anderson the most thoughtful gifts (the "How do Dinosaurs...?" is adorable!) and she gave Nicole and I these amazing gifts of hospital gowns, matching gowns for our babies AND matching shirts for the older brother/sister. HOW GREAT IS SHE??

Because deep down, the real reason I wanted all boys was so there could be super elaborate sword fights in my house.

 Our house has become Jurassic Park. LOTS of dinosaur fighting, playing, roaring, reading, attacking, snuggling, etc. "Bobble, please play dinosaurs with me!" or "I want to watch Speckles on the ipad!" or just "ROAR!

Chloe was enjoying a nice nap on a snow day & Anderson decided to crash that party.

 We celebrated Uncle Curtis' 30th birthday! We had a delicious seafood boil and lots of fun with family. We keep telling Anderson to enjoy these days when he is the only kid at the parties, so he pretty much gets to blow out all of the candles because his days are numbered...

Sweet little sleeping face. (Aquaphor on his cheeks adds that glisten.) Don't be deceived...he now is averaging closer to 6 or 7 hours of  (interrupted) sleep a night . Whenever I think "his sleeping cannot get worse", I am always very unpleasantly proven wrong. I figure by the time Max gets here, I will be used to 2 hours of interrupted sleep and will be ready.

 We made a short (8 hour) trip to visit Bobble Cole & Lily! She is due any minute (AAAAAGHHH!!) and we wanted to see Reese's nursery and her belly one last time before our next frantic drive that way when she is actually in labor. We met at a really great Children's Museum where they happen to have a traveling dinosaur exhibit that was so, so much fun! Anderson ran around quoting facts about each of the different kinds of dinosaurs that had displayed. With the exception of trying to pronounce their names, I really digging the dinosaur stage. (Digging...get it...) The rest of the museum was great-a little store, an airplane to play in, a craft room for Lily, etc.

Then we had a Valentine's party at Lily's! I love Lily's focus on making all things festive. We had decorations, pink everything and cupcakes.It was such a quick trip and it is so exciting to think Reese will be here soon!

Check out Reese's nursery and be amazed at how awesome and creative my sister is! It is perfect and I can't wait to see her in there!

And, for all of you with high energy kids...here is a glimpse of ours. It is entirely past a normal 3 year old's bedtime, yet, here he is in full force. I am seriously cracking up during the video, which is clearly how we are tricked into repeating this whole sleep deprivation thing with second children. Normally, we make him lay down around 8:30 or 9 at the latest, but we have learned that some days that means we will just be sitting in his room for 3 hours until he actually falls asleep, so we just let him get some energy out and hope he is asleep by 10 pm.

Goddaughter in the house!

Lucy Marie Brimer, my very own GODDAUGHTER, joined the world on Jan. 26 after basically a 2 hour labor adventure!

 **Seriously, you have never heard anything like Clare's labor story where she went to the hospital at 4pm and had a baby by 6:30pm! This baby girl decided she was ready and it was go time! I am IN SHOCK at how much Clare just rock starred through that whole process!**

Also, Clare asked if I made the above sign...love her for thinking I could do that. Thanks to my sister for sharing her crafty genes with the rest of us.

 She is seriously even more adorable in person, if that is possible. Look at her little face!! I am a teeny bit terrified of her because she is so, so tiny. But, there will be many wild and crazy adventures to post of this little girl as she grows up surrounded by boys (her brother, her boy cousins, my boys:).

 Clare is basically in pre-baby shape already and is doing awesome things already during Round II of this baby gig. She is totally my guinea pig for testing out this 2 kid thing.

Love this one of Big Brother Jack!

Stay tuned for lots more pics including Baby Lucy!