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.

I am an Expert Present Stasher

Want to know how? I leave them in empty diaper boxes in my bedroom and explicitly tell my family not to look in the box or they'll ruin Christmas.

I said "ruin Christmas" quite innocently, but Katie seems to have taken it to heart. A box arrived at our house (probably because someone to whom we are related ordered it online and had it shipped directly here) and Mike told me not to open it. I jokingly picked up the scissors to tease Katie, who burst into near-hysterics because I was going to "ruin Christmas" by opening my present. Geez, little Drama Queen. I don't know where she got that.

In other news, I need to go get some fudge that I made yesterday. Hold on a second.

Aaah, that's better. What was I saying? Oh yeah. Christmas angst is really accelerating around here. Even with Katie's serious "ruining Christmas" panic issues, it's obvious that her curiosity is nearly getting the best of her. More than once have I come into the living room to find Katie holding one of her presents close to one of her brothers, saying, "Here Joshy, want to see my present?" And you can see on her face the little, "If Mom catches us, you'll be the one in trouble." Little stinker.

Lucky for you, I have a notepad full of ridiculous Katie quotes I can try to relate. But my brain is only slightly functional tonight on account of I just COULD NOT sleep last night, until 3 am when Katie decided she wanted to get in bed with me and "snuggle." So if it seems kinda ramble-y, forgive me. And come back later when I've written a moderately more coherent post. For now, this is what you're going to get.

So, the last couple of family home evenings, we've been trying to talk to Katie about different parts of the Christmas story. Last week, I did a little lesson about the wise men, and how they followed the star and brought gifts to Jesus because they loved him. She totally got it, by the way. I caught her telling the story to her brothers with her little Fisher Price nativity. In puppet show format.

Wise Men: Here, we brought you some sanks and myrrh.
Baby Jesus: Oh, thanks. That's great.

On a (sort of) related note, we've also been trying to help Katie expand her prayer abilities. She's been saying her own prayers for a while now, but it's gotten to where she says the same things every time, and speaks almost unintelligibly quickly and quietly. So Mike and I have tried to explain to her that you don't have to say the same thing every time. You can say whatever you're thankful for. So now, every single prayer of Katie's, she is thankful for Daddy, Mommy, Katie, Josh, Peter, a bed, and shampoo. But you know what? So am I.

She has also been expanding her exercise repertoire. Now she does ballet. Watching it, I thought to myself, ninja-gorillas doing parkour. But she performed multiple shows for me the other day, and announced their names as she did them. I got lucky front-row seats to "France and Nancy," "Super Doo," and "Frankenboobie." You know you're jealous.

Two more short quotes:

Looking back at her hard work: "Look, Mom! Those are handsome, good-looking poopies."

After cuddling on the couch, when I had to get up because the boys woke up: "Oh! My body hurts! Your body was making me nice and warm, but now your body got away from me! Oh my heart!"

See what I mean? Drama queen.

As for the boys, I think they're starting to get this mischief thing down. They totally double team me all the time. And if I notice and say their names, they turn and look at me with the rascal face. The rascal face! At their age! Geez, I'm in for it.

The other day, Peter found the tube of Desitin. Rather than smack it on the floor, like he does with pretty much everything else, he started hollering at his brother, and they both army-crawled to the middle of the room (from opposite ends) to work on opening it together.

If I'm ever holding both at once, it automatically becomes a wrestling match, with each boy trying to both push his brother off my lap while simultaneously stealing his binky. Luckily they're still pretty evenly matched.

Oh! And Joshy is finally gaining weight, but I'm fairly sure he's never going to be chunky. Want to know why? He's got a whole inch on his brother. Peter still has the weight advantage, but Joshy's getting super tall! Also, he has the metabolism of a hummingbird that runs hurdles. He is a bottomless pit. I can only say that it's a good thing Mike's going to be a doctor because any salary smaller and we'd go bankrupt just trying to feed these guys when they're teenagers.

Merry Christmas, you guys. Next time you'll probably get to see a bunch of pictures or hear ridiculous stories about our Christmas shenanigans and tomfoolery.

Merry Christmas Card 2013!

Merry Christmas!

It snowed ALL DAY yesterday here in Chicagoland, and now it officially feels like Christmastime. (Sing it, Bing.) Luckily, I spent Saturday afternoon trying to bribe the heck out of my kids so they'd be cute for some Christmas Card photos. Since I don't think I'm going to be sending out physical Christmas cards to everyone, this is what you're getting. Here ya go!

Summary 2013:

Mike is now in full swing as a medical student at Midwestern. He LOVES it. He comes home ragged and exhausted and stressed but still all excited about all the gross things he's seen and learned. He's even got a best friend/racquetball buddy. Because he's all stressed and we have way too many babies for real jobs, he's now been called as a sacrament meeting greeter. It's only difficult because they've discovered that I play the organ.

Katie is almost totally potty-trained. (YAY!!!) She is now 3' 2", but still pretty skinny (except for after dinner). She had her first haircut about a week ago, loves to wear her puffy coat (always with the hood up), and really just wants me to get off the computer and go let her play in the snow on our porch. Maybe after lunch. Her favorite food is definitely still noodles and clementine oranges (they're like candy!) and her favorite Christmas movie is Frosty the Snowman. Oh, and Curious George: a Very Monkey Christmas. But sometimes Mommy needs a break from that one. Her favorite Christmas song is "Jingle Bells," but she only sings the first half of the chorus and it turns into the song that never ends. Oh well.

Josh is the cookie monster. Whenever I put crackers or puffy snacks on his tray, he goes at it two-fisted. He's still the skinny twin, but he's gaining weight like crazy and now has a little bit of neck-fat that gets all wrinkly when he's giggling. Oh, and he definitely has more than an inch on his brother (not to mention the most stylish hair in the family). He's got sitting up and doing the inchworm DOWN. He's got two teeth (the bottom front ones) and he LOVES bananas and graham crackers. Also, he ate two of the ginger snaps from relief society all by himself.

Peter is SUPER mobile. He army crawls like a boss and can almost really crawl. He's also super vocal, and while both boys said "mama" first, Peter's favorite sound to make is "dadadadadadadadadadada." (grrrr.) He loves food but still would rather that I pop them in his mouth for him. It's okay, he's got the weight advantage. I'm not going to say he's chubby (heaven's sake, he's one of my babies!) but he definitely looks it next to his brother and sister.

One thing they all have in common, though, is the gorgeous sparkly blue eyes with long lashes that just make you want to die. (See above pictures.)

As for me and my black-sheep-brown eyes, I'm sticking it out. I managed Thanksgiving all by myself, and I'm planning Christmas like a real live grown-up Mom. (It's weird.) It still makes me all sad that we're not going to go see family over the holidays, but at the same time it's kind of exciting to do Christmas all by ourselves like a real family. Katie's certainly excited. I'm fairly sure one of those before-the-sunrise things is going to start happening just like my siblings still do. Geez.

Besides that, the ward has figured out that I'm musical, so I've been playing the organ once a month, I'm participating a lot in the Christmas program, and I'm still on the Relief Society fellowshipping committee. I've made some pretty awesome best friends who have everything in common with me and who make my life a lot brighter and happier. And somehow I'm managing to stay alive with these ridiculous kids all over me (quite literally--Katie sees me with both brothers and decides to join the pile, saying "Mom, now we're a big pile of people!")

One thing that I've been thinking about recently is that even though this is probably one of the hardest times of my life so far, I have way more to be grateful for than I ever have. I'm grateful for three beautiful, healthy children, even when they wake me up at 4:30 every night. I'm grateful for an amazing, handsome, ambitious husband who is only not around because he's studying hard so he can be a good doctor and take care of our family. And I'm super grateful to be here with such good friends and neighbors who have welcomed us, even though we're so far away from family. Even with the trials, I've got a pretty good life. And as always, I have the Savior, who came to this earth to save all of us, which is the whole reason we have Christmas. I just need to keep remembering that.

Merry Christmas everyone. Be happy. We love you.

Vacation Spoiled Me

So there's this magical thing called Mike's school gave him two whole weeks for Thanksgiving because it was also the break between quarters. You know, bolstering morale and all that. It was beautiful.

For the last two weeks, Mike has been more available to help with kids in the night, diaper changing, nap time, and Katie tantrums. And we've had lunch together and I've taken a few naps and it's been great. And after the kids were in bed, when Mike would have been studying while the quarter was in full swing, we got to play games and watch grown-up movies (you know, like Phineas and Ferb). And talk to each other. Sigh . . .

And unfortunately, Monday is school again. And Mike's feeling the pressure, so he's downstairs studying. At least it's good for you guys because I'm blogging. (But not cool for me because I'm using the almost dead computer and it took about 45 minutes for me to get blogger up and running. I've also been spoiled about getting to use Mike's fancy new laptop for the last couple of weeks.)

Enough griping. Let's talk about what we did over vacation!

First of all, we did close to nothing some days, which felt SO GOOD.

Second of all, we did cool things because we live next to a giant 'ole big city. Like go to the Shedd Aquarium, which is the largest indoor aquarium in the world. Also, a few times a month it has free admission for Illinois residents (woot woot!). So last Monday we went for free. Never mind that it was in the middle of a huge blizzard and we had to park in the Soldier Field garage which requires a walk (through the blizzard) to the aquarium. Brrrrr. I'm shivering just remembering it. Totally worth it, though.

Unfortunately, they have cool mood lighting in all of their exhibits so I didn't get a lot of pictures where you could actually tell what was going on.

This is probably the closest thing I got to her looking at the camera.

Then, there was Thanksgiving. It was AMAZING. I made pies on Wednesday, then spent all of Thursday morning cooking, but it turned out fantastic. I've never done this much by myself before, but somehow it all worked. AND the boys were totally napping for the meal so Mike and I got to eat in peace!

Mike was like, "No, stand in front of the table!" So I look all proud of myself. Well, I was.

 After dinner, we all just kind of collapsed in a food coma, even Katie (she was pretending to play on the floor, but it quickly turned into playing sleep).

Things I learned about this Thanksgiving:

• I really miss my family, but sometimes it's possible to do things on my own.
• Katie LOVES LOVES LOVES cucumbers.
• There is way more to be thankful for than we tend to think about.
• I should never use the recipe I have in my box for Chocolate Chiffon pie again--it tastes like chocolate jello. Not bad, just too weird.
• Holy cow, Chicago is cold. And it's not even all the way cold yet.
• I'm a seriously good cook. And it's all my mom's fault. Thanks, Mom, for the lots of pounds I just gained in the last three or four days. Now I have to start some serious working out before Christmas when my friends start bringing over the treats they've already threatened us with.
• Even though medical school is really hard on all of us, we are together, safe, and healthy, and we have lots of family that loves us. I can do this.

This picture is only clear because we ruined the lighting with flash.

And now that Thanksgiving is over, guess what it's time for? (YAY!!!!!)

Yeah, Katie definitely helped decorate the bottom of the tree so she could play with all the little plastic ornaments. (Yeah, you know you have had M&Ms on your tree too.)

Merry Christmas!