Sugar and spice...

As Molly grows up, it's been such a joy to see her little personality develop. She can be such a sweet sister, and is always very concerned when the twins are upset. That is, unless they are eying her toys... then her feisty side comes out. It's also been such a joy to have her speech improve, and hear what has been rolling around in her head. I hear many of my own phrases coming out of her mouth. A few days ago she was trying to put a toy together and while getting frustrated hit the toy and grumbled, "Come on dude". I asked her when she had heard that phrase and she told me that I say that when I drive. Ha! Good thing I don't say worse things behind the wheel!

Cousins...

We are so blessed that our kids have cousins close in age to them. This weekend we had a quick visit from Christie's family (Steve's sister) as they were heading home to Portland from Southern California. Cousin Debbie and her son Brody also joined the fray, and it was so much fun to watch all the kids play together. And Debbie is pregnant with baby boy #4 who will be a great playmate for Garrett and Paige. Yay! Here's a cute video clip of the kids having fun together.

The Dog Days of Summer...

The summer may be "technically" coming to an end, but this time of year around the Central Valley is not that cool. In fact, it's still stinking hot... which is always an adjustment for this Canadian girl. This weekend our travel plans got canceled due to illness (colds for me and the babies), so we enjoyed a relaxing time at home. Steve filled the pool and the entire family spent some time cooling off. Each child enjoys the water in their own way. Paige preferred to float around in her "froggie" and chew on her fingers.


Molly spent her time practicing floating with her entire body under the water and nothing but her eyes and nose poking out.


And Garrett does what Garrett does best... splashing everyone and everything within close proximity.


We're getting in a good groove with Molly's new school schedule and the twins FINALLY getting on a decent two nap schedule. And of course Garrett and Paige seem to be growing and changing daily. Paige's favorite thing right now is standing up. And Garrett has learned to push up into a sitting position from lying on his belly. He's also getting up on his hands and knees and rocking, so he's in the starting gates and should be crawling fairly soon.

Six Flags Discovery Kingdom...

Today, we took my sister Michelle and our kids to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. We got there when the park opened at 10:30 and were there until the kids' bedtime. And I'm happy to report that it was a fabulous time and the kiddos were all great!


The babies were happy to be out of the house, but the most excited person was definitely Molly. She had a blast enjoying the animal shows, particularly seeing the elephants and tigers up close!


We also enjoyed some of the rides. Molly is finally tall enough to ride most of the kids rides, which she thoroughly enjoyed.


And even Michelle and Steve enjoyed some of the "big kid" rides!


We also found some time to relax along the way. And Shell and Molly got to have a photo shoot with one of the sealions!


But one of the highlights for Molly was when we stumbled across a water spray area. She had such a great time, and I could hear her squealing across the courtyard while I was feeding the twins.


We sure are having a wonderful time with my sister and will be really sad when she leaves us on Monday. She should arrive home thoroughly exhausted...

Happy Birthday to ME!

Well, today I turned 34 years old. I had a wonderful day, including lunch out to my favorite Mexican restaurant and dinner at my favorite sushi place. My wonderful husband got me a camera cleaning kit, camera trigger release and background stand. I was so excited about the background stand that I just HAD to take it for a quick whirl...


And here's a few of the photos that I snapped while playing!


My sister also bought a couple of cute little cakes to enjoy, primarily because Molly insisted that we can't sing "Happy Birthday" without cake and candles. She's a girl after my own heart!


Thanks to everyone's phone calls and warm internet wishes!

Seven Months Old!

Garrett and Paige turned 7 months old yesterday. They are growing in leaps and bounds and so much fun! Here's Garrett showing his fun personality...

And sweet, sweet Paige...
And for comparison, here's Molly at the same age. Looks like the twins need to catch up to Molly in the "hair growth" arena.

As for Molly, she had her first week at her new preschool and adjusted like a champ. After her first day, she told me all about the fun time she had. And then she said that some kids were sad and that they were crying. I asked, "Were you sad? Did you cry?" and she happily said, "nope". She loves Miss Sharon and the first thing she does every morning is goes over to Pokey the turtle to say hello. Love that kid!

We're all enjoying a visit from my sister, Michelle. It's been such a big help to me having her around. But more about that in a future post...

Love her!

I love Paige. She has such an unassuming observant personality, and loves to watch everything that goes on. She makes you work to get a laugh or smile out of her, but when she does smile it simply melts your heart. And not only is she super cuddly, but she's learning how to kiss and will grab fist-fulls of my hair to pull me close and smear her open, slobbery mouth all over my face. I love it! And her latest trick is the discovery of her tongue, which she likes to stick in and out like a little reptile. I love that kid.

Paging Dr. Molly...

Yesterday Steve had sinus surgery to fix his deviated septum and "rotor rooter" out his sinuses. It's ambulatory surgery, so after coming out of the anesthesia he was discharged to go home. Unfortunately, he was pretty sick from the anesthetic but this morning he's doing better. And after chatting with his surgeon (who even called him at home last night to check up on him), it sounds like there should be a big improvement for Steve. All the vascular tissue on his right side had turned blue (anoxic) because the sinuses hadn't seen air in a looonnnggg time because they're were chronically swelled shut. This surgery should fix this permanently and put an end to his chronic sinus infections. Special thanks to DeAnna who took Molly yesterday, and to Aunt Nancy who helped me with the babies. I was so thankful for their help, because not only was I caring for Steve, but I was dealing with the effects of Paige's newly discovered soy allergy. We were trying to use up one of those free cans of formula, and it just happened to be soy-based. After she threw up three bottles in a row (the first time at the hospital all over Aunt Nancy while we were admitting Steve) we finally figured out it was the formula. She didn't have a fever, and when we switched back to the old formula she was fine. Needless to say, I dealt with way too much puking yesterday.

Anyway, Molly was quite concerned for her Daddy, and this morning she gave him a thorough medical evaluation, including checking out his heart...

taking his temperature...
and checking his blood pressure.

We're happy to report that Dr. Molly feels that Daddy is on the mend. Please be praying for his quick recovery. Thanks!

Molly's first day of school...

Well, today was Molly's first day at her new preschool. She was very excited when getting ready this morning, which gave me peace about her adjustment to a new environment. Here she is just before we got in the car to leave.


There are 27 kids in the class and 4 teachers, but the kids will often be in smaller groups and these groups won't change. Her group teacher is Miss Sharon and Molly seemed to like her immediately and told Miss Sharon all about the ladybugs on her new school shoes.


The highlight for Molly was definitely seeing the Science area, which included a fish tank, a class turtle named Pokey, nests, snake skins, etc. I think Molly and Pokey have become fast friends and she's all Molly could talk about when we left.


Molly felt comfortable after 10 short minutes and the tears came when we had to leave after only an hour. She wanted to stay. So I feel pretty happy that she should be fine when she's there all by herself on Tuesday.

On the baby front, they are growing in leaps and bounds. Garrett FINALLY started rolling over yesterday. Ironically this is a day after the developmental specialist called me to declare that he's "just fine" and will probably roll over any day now. And yesterday Paige popped her first tooth. It was actually there the day before, but the swelling came back up. But today there's no denying there's a tooth there. Even more exciting is that Garrett slept completely through the night TWO TIMES so far this week! Yup... a 12-hour stretch from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. And both those night Paige just got up once. Whoo whoo! They're growing up so fast and it's scary to think that before we know it they'll be crawling. Time to invest in some baby gates!

Giggles

Molly the "Giggle Maker" strikes again. There's just never too many video posts of laughing babies in my opinion.

Molly's last day with Miss Kristina...

Well, today was Molly's last day at preschool with Miss Kristina. Her teacher is having a baby and is taking a break from the preschool gig for a while. Kristina's home-based school has been perfect for Molly over the last year and a half. She started at one morning a week so I could do some consulting work, and has graduated to two mornings a week. She benefited SO much from going there and being with the older kids, all of which have been there together as a group from the beginning. Here's her class picture and individual photo from this year:

And here's their class picture from last year. Notice that they've calmed down quite a bit in a year!

And here she is with Miss Kristina on her first day of school!

And here they are together today on her last day of school.

In the last 18 months Molly has learned so much - from her colors and shapes to her letters and numbers. She's started cutting with scissors, which I would have NEVER let her use before I saw her doing it at school. Together we've taught her to be "binky free", how to use the potty, and even how to speak in sentences! Even more importantly she's developed great social skills and she no longer fears being away from me. What a change in 18 months! Thank you so much Kristina for the impact you've made on my little girl's life. You've been invaluable to our family!