The Chicken Dance

Here is the video of Drew doing the Chicken Dance at the Mudcats game the other night! It was taking forever to upload and after being kicked several times in the bed (as in, "please turn the computer off and GO TO BED!") I finally shut the computer at 1am after waiting like an hour for the video to upload and still NO VIDEO! So here it is!


Love to all!

Oraganizing Madness and Mudcat Mania

Such a great weekend! Saturday we spent most of the day doing chores that take hours, but don't amount to much of anything! Kevin cleaned and organized the garage while I cleaned out and organized the pantry and dreaded "tupperware" cabinet. Uggghh! Not any fun, but had be to done! We then attempted to organize the toys in the bonus room - that chore was left about 3/4 done.

Nanny and Poppy came and watched the girls while we took Drew to a Mudcats game! We met some friends there and had a great time! It was so much fun and Drew loved it!

He was very observant and was taking it all in, asking tons of questions, and trying to figure it out...

once he figured it out, he knew when to cheer!


We only switched seats three time. It was very important that we be "higher" so that we could "see the whole thing better" according to Drew.

We got Muddy to sign our baseball...

Did the chicken dance...

And threw baseballs to see how fast we could throw...

Of course the big boys had to throw the baseballs too (and of course the thing that reads the speed was "so off" and "that thing can not be right")...

Fantastic night at the ball park!

Hope that everyone enjoyed their weekend!

Love to all!

Emmy is 1 month old!

It is hard to believe that it has been one month since we went from having two children (one for me, one for you) to having three children (who's got three?)! How time flies when you are having fun... or either so busy you don't have time to think straight ;) So here is a picture Emmy at one month old!


Here is a picture of her in the hospital the day after she was born. Hasn't she changed???


And here is what she is doing (more for me to remember than really entertain all of my interested readers - that's right, I have NO baby books for any of my kids (gasp, gasp!) so I felt it wouldn't be fair to Drew and Ellie for me to start one for Emmy ;)

-Weight: 7lbs 11.5oz (10%)
-Length: 20.5 inches (25%)
-she is eating about every 4 hours during the day and will eat around 9 or 10pm and then get up around 3 or 4am to eat and then go back to sleep until about 8 or 9 am (so I only have to get up with her once each night - knock on wood, don't want that to change, unless it goes to none)
-she is cooing a little bit and making eye contact with whoever is holding her
-she likes to be held (A LOT) and sometimes wants to be in my arms all day long!
-she is not a huge fan of "tummy time" but will stay on her tummy for a few minutes happily before becoming mad and screaming at the top of her tiny lungs
-she is smiling a lot while asleep and trying very hard to smile when awake, you have to be really quick to catch her doing it
-she is taking a bottle very well and still not a huge fan of the pacifier - but we are continuing to work on this, and YES we WANT her to take a pacifier (with Ellie, it was a god send in the middle of the grocery store when she decided to wake up and want to eat)
-she likes the bouncy seat
-she is not a huge fan of the swing

So thats a quick overview of what our newest addition is doing!

So I had planned on doing this post yesterday, but we had a very busy evening! We went over to some friends house to meet their puppy (Opie - he is sooo cute!), and then went to the Embers concert and had dinner afterward! So when we got home at 10pm last night (yes, Drew and Ellie were still awake - bad Mommy), I crashed! But we had a really good time and so far, the kids have been pretty good today (you never know what kind of day you are going to have when your kids go to bed 2 hours later than normal and still get up at their normal time - I have learned not to count on them sleeping later...tried that (many times), doesn't work!)

So the kids played in the water, danced to the music, went down a huge blow up slide, ate ice cream before dinner (again, great parenting I know)...


and tried to take their clothes off...

We ate Mexican as the concert was wrapping up and enjoyed some great food, great drinks and great company!

A good time was had by all!

Things around the house are going great and Ellie and Drew are continuing to be a great big brother and big sister!

Here is a video of Ellie, looking for Emmy...

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Love to all!

UPS store and Pool Play

Ok, so all I have to say about the UPS store is...Don't go if you are as cheap as I am! I had these forms that I needed to fax and they needed to be done like, oh some time last week...but anyway, I decided that Tuesday I really needed to get them in and I also needed to get stamps and mail a few letters so I thought I could kill two birds with one stone. Well, I thought that the convenience of the UPS store would be the easiest way to get the forms faxed, buy stamps (way to easy to keep stamps on hand - would rather have to work for them each and every time I need them...uggh), and mail the letters. It is literally a mile from the house, no lines, parking is really close, there is a "kiddy play table" and just overall very convenient. I had been there a couple of times to mail a few packages and been very pleased, so I figured why not use them to get all of my "to do" list tasks done. Well, can I just tell you that I had one document (2 pages front and back) that needed to be faxed to two different places - one local and one long distance. Do you know what they charged for this "FINE SERVICE"... $10.60!!! Can you BELIEVE that? I was shocked! Not only did they charge to first copy the document since it was front and back, but they charged $4 for the local fax and $6 for the long distance fax! Now I understand that they are a "specialty" store and they offer "exceptional service" blah, blah, blah...but really $10.60 to fax something. Never mind the fact that Kevin has a fax machine at the office and I could have had him fax it for FREE, or the fact that I even have a fax maching IN MY HOUSE but don't know how to hook it us/use it and was a little to lazy to try and figure it out! Had I known it would have cost this much to fax something, I would have probably tried to figure it out though. And one last thing about the UPS store, they charged me 55 cents for stamps! I thought that was illegal! Ugghh! What I thought would have been about a 3 or 4 dollar trip turned into a $14.65 "experience." And there is something about that store, every time we go in there Drew has to use the bathroom. While there is a lovely "kiddy play table" there is NO BATHROOM! Thankfully, there is a grocery store in the shopping center that we can all walk to! Needless to say, I will not be faxing with UPS anymore! But hey, on the brighter side, they are fabulous to use to mail packages!

So I was recently inspired by my friend Adrienne who also has a new baby, Bennett, who is just three days older than Emmy. Adrienne braved taking all three of her children to the pool yesterday and inspired me to try and get mine in the water for the first time this year! Check out her blog and see how she describes the whole experience HERE. In fact, she does is so perfectly that I will only say that my experience was nearly IDENTICAL to hers (the getting ready process, friends helping at the pool, babies sleeping). Thanks for the inspiration Adrienne!

Here are Drew and Ellie all ready to go (note the sword in Ellie's hand...she walks around pointing it at people and making this sound like she is getting you with it, so funny) also (note Drew's expression - he was actually much more excited to go to the pool than he looks in this picutre and just didn't want to stand still long enough to take a picture).


The kids did a GREAT job at the pool! Last year Ellie was too small to really do anything, in fact I remember he napping in the stroller - not so lucky this year! But she was like a little fish and loved "floating," doing Motor Boat, and kicking her legs in the water! Hopefully we will get her in swimming lessons with Drew and she will continue to love the water!


Last year Drew was very "uneasy" in the water and was not at all a fan of going in the deeper water, putting his face in the water, getting splashed, or pretty much anything other than playing in the baby pool. Well this year, he is a completely different child! He talked about taking swimming lessons all the way to the pool and he LOVED playing around in the "big pool" with his friends today! Don't get me wrong, his "swimming skills" are no different this year than they were last, BUT he is much more interested in learning to swim and actually likes the water this year! I was SO very proud of him today! He even put his head under water all on his on (a MAJOR accomplishment for him!). Here is a picture of him on the steps, I couldn't get one with him playing around in the deeper (the 2 foot area, so not really "deep") because I was trying to snap a picture really quick so that I could get back in the pool with them!



I was very lucky that Emmy slept the entire time that we were there, thankfully! I am not sure how things would have gone if she had gotten up!


We reall did have a great time, it was not nearly as stressful as I had anticipated and the kids did great! Although, I could not have done it without Robin and Michelle! It is always nice to have a friend with helping hands when you are chasing around three little ones! Thanks guys!

So the only minor hiccup of the day was that Ellie was determined to do "that" and wanted to throw a little fit when I told her no. I heard the word "that" a hundred times, I swear! No maybe it was a thousand! Can you guess what "that" was?

I am telling you, the child has NO FEAR!

Hope everyone is enjoying their week! We sure are! My how I love summer and being with my little ones :)

Love to all!

Camping Chaos!

You guessed it! We picked the hottest weekend of the year to do what...go camping of course!!! And I say we, but the girls and I chose to sleep with the comfort of air conditioning, electricity, and running water. We were troopers by day and wimps by night. While the boys were roughin

it in the woods, the girls and I slept at Nanny and Poppy's house.

The weekend started off at Nanny and Poppy's house while we waited for Kevin to get off of work and then go and get the campsite ready. Emmy slept, as she does most of the time...

and Drew and Ellie played in the pool (yes, in their clothes - their bathing suits were still packed in the car and I was lazy :)

and convinced Nanny to get in the pool in her clothes too!

Kevin got home and the boys went to get the campsite ready while the girls finished getting the last few things at the house and ran a few errands (which was just fine and we took our sweet time getting out there, at least long enough for the sun to go down and the temperature to drop 10 or 15 degrees). The boys had the tent up, fire blazing (yes, we had a fire in the dead of summer - you can't camp without a fire), and chairs ready for us by the time we got there. Kevin was attempting to blow up the air mattresses - success with one, not so much with the other. There was a "small leak" around the place where you blow it up - but "not a big deal" according to Kevin. Needless to say, Kevin told us the following morning that he was laying on gravel by 1am (guess the "small leak" turned out to be a little larger than he thought).

Here is our first attempt at a family photo. This is the best that we could get (the best of about 25 pictures or so). Never mind that we are in our camping attire, plastered with sweat, smelling of insect repellant and very sleepy (i.e. Ellie). But here we are, all five of us!

I must say, I was very relluctant to go this weekend. I could use the excuse that it would be too hard with a newborn. Or I could say that since it was so hot I didn't want to go. Or I could say that Ellie is just not old enough to camp yet and we should wait a few years. But no, I will be honest and say that I am just not a camper. The idea of sleeping outside in the 80 degree weather, waking up in the middle of the night and having to WALK 150 yards to the bathroom, having no running water, no electricity, wildlife... lets just say, its not my thing. However, I must say that we had a lot of fun and I was perfectly content "camping" during the day (when it had cooled down a little, of course) and sleeping in the comfort of Nanny and Poppy's house :) I loved watching the kids enjoy the whole "camping experience."

We made Smores...

Ellie wanted nothing to do with the marshmellows and graham crackers. She wanted nothing but what? Yep, the chocolate! What can I say, she's mine!

We rode bikes... (Well Drew rode, Ellie sat on his bike while he was doing something else.)

played in the rocks...

cooked hot dogs over the fire... (with only one minor incident -- Joan and Steve ran into town to get something and said "Do you want us to take one of the kids?" to which we of course answered "No, we will be fine." Let's just say that they had not yet gotten out of the park before we had them on the phone asking them to bring back some Solarcaine, or anything for a burn. See Drew knew not to touch the fire or the hot dog that had been in the fire, but he did not know how hot the skewer had gotten :( Poor buddy burned his thumb. Nothing that a little cake didn't cure though.)

Ellie would have rather used her hot dog as a sword!


Poppy and Drew went on a nature trail...

Drew and Ellie played in the tent with Jesse...

And played on the steps with Ann...

It was a fabulous weekend and we are all officially exhausted! But it was a great way to spend Father's Day weekend.

We got home today, unloaded the car, and started unpacking. All of a sudden I hear Kevin say "Andrew Herman..." and I stop dead in my tracks. I knew that sound. This is what I saw when I turned around...

Do you see it? Look a little closer in the front of his hair. Yes, that's it...GUM! Gum in his hair. Apparently, it wouldn't stay in his mouth when he was "doing his flips." So, Drew will be getting a haircut this week to even up his now uneven hair!

Hope everyone had a great weekend! Happy Father's Day!

Love to all!

26 pavers, 6 yards of mulch and lots of ibuprofen

The title says it all! The older two kids were with their grandparents this weekend, so Kevin and I tackled a little weekend project. I, like most women, think that all home improvement projects are simple. I think that Kevin and I can do just about anything that a general contractor can do. I mean, how hard could it be to lay a few pavers to make a walkway. Dig it out, level it, throw down some sand, place the pavers, fill it in with sand, and be done before lunch right? Not quite. It wasn't too bad, and yes I was out there with Kevin on my hands and knees laying pavers, spreading sand, leveling sand, digging dirt, leveling sand AGAIN, and leveling sand AGAIN until I wanted to BREAK that stupid level and all that fun stuff. All things considered though, it wasn't that bad and the walkway turned out looking pretty good... just don't walk on it ;) Mark my words though: We will NOT be laying our own patio (unless we decide to make it 2 x 20 ... a width of 2 pavers is our MAX).

It is still a work in progress, but we did get a lot accomplished this weekend. I say we, but Kevin did do most of the work... I was obligated to feed a baby every 3 or so hours. And that was just fine with me...it was 72 degrees in our house and 92 degrees outside. However, I did try my hand at a pickax (sp???), a rake, a shovel, a wheelbarrow and a hoe. Lets just say that I much prefer "directing" than actually working.

BEFORE:


AFTER:

Hope that everyone had a great weekend!

Love to all!

Just Another Day...but with Mommy AND Daddy!

So I am getting the hang of this "three against me" life and I have to say...I kind of like it (or love it)! We are trying to get into somewhat of a "routine" around here (and you all know how I feel about these) and things are going really well. Of course, some days are better than others (i.e. a one glass of wine day vs. two glass of wine day) but all in all we are doing ok :)



But today we had the BEST surprise in the world -- Daddy stayed home!!! It was SOOOOOO nice to have him here. Don't get me wrong, I love being home with the kids, but it is also very nice to have Daddy here to entertain Drew and Ellie while I am feeding/changing/rocking/holding Emmy.

So we started the day of outside to get some things done. We are doing more yard work this weekend to avoid being talked about in the neighborhood as being "those neighbors" with "that yard." Kevin is very about keeping the yard and doing the landscaping/planting/mowing etc., but quite frankly, this year we just have not gotten around to it yet. So we are mulching and planting this weekend, but Kevin wanted to get a headstart today and Drew and Ellie were more than happy to help him out a bit!

Hopefully I will have some good before and after pictures to post next week of our weekend work.

We went on our first walk as a family of 5 tonight! So here is how it started out.

Drew on his bike (this lasted just past Shawn and Cathy's house - yes, that is literally right next door - then he resorted to walking for a few minutes, then made Kevin get the double stroller out so that he could ride for a bit!)

Ellie started in the single stroller, was switched to the double stroller (after Drew's pleading to ride) and actually stayed in the entire time, a HUGE accomplishment for Ellie, as we usually end up carrying her and pushing an empty stroller.

And Emmy was right where she likes to be, cuddled up next to Mama (again, perfectly fine with me).

Last night some friends came over and brought pizza (I must say, I officially LOVE Mellow Mushroom). So I made a salad (or actually I kind of copied it from my neighbor Michelle, who brought it to us last week) to have with our pizza. It was so pretty I just had to take a few pictures to share.

Isn't it pretty?

So here are the ingredients I used (you can use just about anything), layered in any order you want: spinach, grean peas, red onion, tortellini, tomato, bacon, feta, crutons. We ate it last night and for both lunch and dinner today - it was really good with Balsamic Vinegar dressing! A perfect summer recipe - Thanks Michelle!

Hope everyone is doing well!

Love to all!