A Little Weekend Treat

So, this little video is kinda long, and mostly just squeaky babies. But if you don't like squeaky babies, just skip until about 1:40, when Katie comes in. She tells a pretty fantastic story.

Also, please note that there were boys (specifically Peter) who were climbing on me a lot, so their big heads may have gotten in the way and I might have had to move around a bit. So don't get seasick.

Welcome to the Popsicle Family (aka, Super Exhaustion-Fueled Post)

We've got another wind chill advisory going on tonight. Last night it was supposed to get down to -40 degrees with wind chill. There was ice forming on the inside of our window panes, then melting onto the floor when the heater kicked on. Tonight's not supposed to be that much better. Do you know how much I really love this freezing weather and staying in the house? That was a trick question. I don't love it at all.

Also, you should know that Joshy has 4 (FOUR!) new teeth as of the last, say, four days. So I'm running on about 3 hours of sleep from last night. Maybe that's a good thing for you guys because it means I will have little to no inhibition. Oh dear.

The good news is that my children are hilarious. Let's begin by talking about bedtime with Katie last night.

First, I *encouraged* her to say her prayers. (To clarify, "Katie Louise, if you don't stop bouncing and say your prayers and go to sleep, you're not going to get to preschool on time in the morning and your friends will start without you!") Now, you have to understand that although she's been able to say her own prayers for a while now (like, at least a year), she's not particularly good at branching out. For the last month or so, every single prayer said we were thankful for baths, shampoo, beds, Mommy, Daddy, Katie, Joshy, and Peter. Last week after her check-up at the doctor I was trying to get her to switch things up, and she added the doctor and preschool to the list. Every time.

Then, all of a sudden tonight, she got very creative. It was her turn for family prayers, and she was grateful for our bodies, our ears, our eyes, our mouths, our hands, and everything! And then, when she was saying her prayers in her room, she was grateful for soccer balls, teams, preschool, and Kool-aid. I think we're finally getting it.

Then, after I'd sung to her for a bit and was kissing her goodnight--

Katie: What's your name?
Me: My name's Mommy.
Katie: No, that's not your name.
Me: It's not?
Katie: Is it Cousin Wilbur?
Me: No, you silly. My name is Brittany.
Katie: Brittany?
Me: Yeah, that's what other people call me.
Katie: Other people call you Brittany? *giggles* Your name isn't Brittany!

Yep. She thought my name was funny. Thanks a lot, Dad. Now my children will never take me seriously. Geez, why couldn't have named me Eleanora or something totally pretentious and intimidation-causing?

Yeah, it's cool that you didn't do that. In fact, thank you for not doing that. Eleanora? Honestly, Britt? You should go to bed.

*Enter some kind of clever transition here*

One reason I know for sure that Katie is my daughter is that she LOVES books. Completely. She has a whole bunch of them all over the house. And I can't technically get mad at her because the reason they get spread out is that she is always *reading* them. Some of them she has memorized verbatim so it's almost like she can already read. (Remember how she just turned three?)

The best part is that the books have gotten into her head. She's begun . . . narrating. Like this little gem, as she ran the race track around my kitchen while I was making dinner.

"Katie ran around in circles and said, 'I love running around in circles!' And then her mommy ate an olive."

This is happening ALL OF THE TIME. It's adorable.

What makes it even better is that sometimes the story isn't just about Katie. You see, even before she started narrating, she began having an alter ego: Pepperjohn. He (she?) has been around for a while. I never know when it? will strike, and Pepperjohn is totally different from Katie. For example, Pepperjohn talks in a deep voice with lips together like she (he?) is trying not to laugh, and Pepperjohn isn't ticklish in the least. But Katie totally has all kinds of adventures as Pepperjohn. And with Pepperjohn. For example--

"Katie and Pepperjohn walking through the forest! Ooo-de-lally oo-de-lally golly what a day!"

Okay, here's my favorite. Then I'm done. Upon seeing a picture of a crocodile, "Oh no! It's a cocadog!"

As for the boys, I can only say that I can not wait for them to be done cutting teeth. Holy cannoli. They are pretty cute, though. Josh likes to sing, and Peter likes to shriek so loud your ear drums burst. They both are super fast crawlers and are immediately attracted to open bathroom doors and open wipe containers (whereupon they will empty the wipe container together, while shrieking and giggling). Peter likes to bounce, whether he's sitting, kneeling, or (heaven forbid) standing. Josh has figured out stairs. They both are cantaloupe monsters. I'll tell you more when my brain is firing on all cylinders again.

Want some pictures? That's probably safer than trying to have me say more words. I might not even caption my photos. Well, most of them, anyhow.

Oh you know, just feeding her babies . . .

Yes, I let Katie choose the color and paint my nails. She was very proud.

There you are. A sneak peak into my life. Happy January. I'm going to bed now.

Three is the Magic Number

My baby is three years old. I'm only having a little bit of a panic attack. No big deal.

In other news, we've had quite a week of partying. Tuesday was Katie's actual birthday, right? So, of course she wanted a cake then. And not just any cake.

That's right. Belle cake. I'm so cool. Every time I asked her what she wanted for her birthday, anything at all, she said BIRTHDAY CAKE. Well, there you are. Oh, and spaghetti and meatballs. Or, as she calls it, noodles and sauce.

That's not to say she didn't get all happy crazy when she discovered that her grandmas loved to spoil her rotten (because you both do). She spent the rest of the evening making pancakes on the little plastic dishes that I gave her and serving them to her Rapunzel dolly (courtesty of Grammy). And then she'd hold Rapunzel's bottom up to her nose and say, "Oh, you have stinky buns! We'd better change you!"

THEN, after we got boys to sleep and we were skyping my mom, all of a sudden here comes Daddy with another cool present. Ya know, maybe, a bike. Courtesy of Grandma.

Please note that we let her go back and forth in the house that night (on account of HOLY COW IT'S RIDICULOUSLY COLD OUTSIDE ALWAYS). And then I promised her that we'd ride her bike another day during the brothers' afternoon nap. And Wednesday and Thursday I was doing things during the boys' nap. More on this later.

Then, this morning was her party. That's right, party. Well, really I just invited her friends over and set them all loose on the house and then got to spend time with their moms. It's all cool. But with a happy little twist on account of the weather was back below zero today, we had a beach party. And I didn't take enough pictures. But I did get the fish cupcake-cake.

Naturally, the curly straws became drumsticks. Also, those kids are so cute together. I love them.

As soon as the party was over, she'd had some more noodles and sauce for lunch, and the boys went down, she cashed in.

We finally went inside, after much coercion on my part, when she looked up at me and said, "My face is turning red." Yeah, no kidding kid.

And now, because it's 11pm, and my brain is mostly shut off, here's just a cute little tribute to my adorable baby girl. 

 She's pretty much the cutest thing ever.

Happy birthday, beautiful lady. Slow down. You're breaking my heart.

My Children are Magnetic

Hey y'all. Sorry it's been so long. You'd think I'd have written a post while I still had access to the cool, fast computer. Nope. I waited until I had to use the dinosaur computer and now it's taking me twelve years to get this done because of how slowly it chugs. But it's a new year, and it's time to get started. Here we go.

I'm totally serious about my kids being magnetic. Specifically to me. Their goal in life is to invade my personal space as thoroughly and as frequently as possible. Here we go.

Case Study 001: The Suction Cup

Katie's never been a super cuddly kid. Ever since her brothers were born, however, (surprise!) she's been super cuddly. She will immediately climb into my lap, wrap her arms around my neck, and stick her cheek against mine as soon as I've sat down, in any form whatever. This includes but is not limited to reading a book on the couch, eating lunch at the kitchen table, and sitting on the floor while trying to change a wiggly boy's diaper. On occasion it makes things slightly more difficult. You know how people with cats joke about how their cats have to always be on their laps or on their shoulders or be involved somehow? Katie's worse than that.

Case Study 002: The Piranha

So imagine: the boys are happy, wiggling around on the floor chewing on blocks or power cords or whatever, perfectly content while I do things. I finish my task and go sit down on the floor to watch them. Immediately upon seeing me, both boys furiously army crawl across the room toward me, and immediately start gnawing on whatever part of my body is closest. I then have giant soaked spots all over my jeans, and frequently a hickey on my elbow or wrist. Yeah, every single day.

Case Study 002A: The Heat-seeking Missile

If I put the boys on the floor, freshly fed and napped and such, Peter will scoot off to get into mischief. Josh will appear to be content with whatever toy is closest, at least until I leave the room. If I step into the kitchen to start dinner or whatever, Josh will follow me. I'll put a pot on the stove, and when I turn around to open the fridge, Josh has wriggled all the way around the corner and is gunning for me, pausing only to eat things of mysterious origin off the floor. Seriously, that kid is fast. Once he's in the kitchen, he follows me back and forth. I walk to the pantry, he wriggles over to chew on my ankles. I walk back to the stove, he wriggles over and sucks on my big toe. I go to an empty bit of counter to chop something, he wriggles over and chews on my ankles again.

Case Study 002B: The Alarm Clock

Peter doesn't chase me down very often. Quite the contrary. When he's tired or hungry or feeling otherwise emotional or needy, he doesn't come for me. He collapses down on his belly, waves his limbs around, and starts shrieking. You know those obnoxious alarm clocks that keep buzzing until you smack them? You know how you learn to ignore it, but only to a certain point, and then you have to make it stop or go completely mad? That's Peter's tactic. It's pretty effective.

That's my life. Oh, the other thing Joshy guns for is anything that I forget to close, like the bathroom door or gate-less stairs.

As for Katie-isms, I only have a couple today. 

The other day, Katie wanted to read stories, so I told her to go pick a few. Rather than any of the hundreds of picture books in our possession, she went over and got my Folger editions of Antony and Cleopatra, Hamlet, and Love's Labors Lost. What? Well, she handed me the first one, and just jokingly, I flipped through it and told a very abridged and simplified version of the story of Antony and Cleopatra's war and suicide. Mike looked at me and said, "Gee, that's really kid friendly." I looked back at Katie, ready to make up some other story, but she said, "Oh, that was great!" And handed me Hamlet. Maybe we have another English major on our hands. Sorry, Papa. I'm sure you'll get one of the boys in the engineer camp.

One night during the break, at like 1:30 in the morning, Mike and I both woke up because we heard a little voice in the hallway singing a song about "I love my Daddy! I need to get my Daddy!" When Katie came into our room, she climbed into our bed and settled down between us, and said, "I was just sad sitting in my room without any parents, so I came in here to get some parents."

One more! You know how with most children their favorite movies are the ones that have recently come out? Like how Katie watched Tangled almost every day for the entire 9 months of my pregnancy with the boys? Well, turns out it's more like the most recently acquired. She still loves Tangled and Wreck-it Ralph, but her favorite movie right now is Robin Hood, which one of us got for Christmas while it's out of the "vault." In fact, she's watching it right now to stay out of my hair (aka off the keyboard).

I guess those weren't really Katie-isms. More like examples of Katie's goofiness. 

Now I guess I should put up some pictures of Christmas so you guys will keep coming back to my blog, huh?

Katie's new haircut! (I couldn't remember if I put pictures up, even though this was like a month and a half ago.)

Church is just really exhausting, okay?

Immediately following this picture, Michael had a near-death experience.

Dressed up for Christmas program Sunday

There's just something about a guy in a bow tie and dress coat . . .

She insisted on going out on the balcony to help Daddy hang our icicle lights even though her nose was instantly red.

Making cookies to leave for Santa

Smiling at Daddy and the camera quickly turned into a game of cheek-push

Christmas Eve night: reading Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree several times over to stall bedtime

Katie got the most loot from Santa, Grandmas, and Parents. By far.

Peter got yogurt melts in his stocking. He's good.

I think people know these guys pretty well: they got like a billion baby snacks.

Josh just making out with a spot on the wall. No big deal.

"I'm going to send this one to Mr Papa." Thanks, Grammy, for the finger paint! If I ever get them in the mail, we already have masterpieces to send to all the grandparents.

Happy 2014! Do you guys remember those furniture commercials that were like, "Buy now, and pay no interest until 2014!" And we were all thinking, "Whoa, 2014 is, like, 70 years away!" Well, 2014 is now. I'm going to go try not to freak out now.