Hello

Random pictures.

It started out great...
"look mommy. I want picture!" They climbed up by themselves and played nicely..

for 2 1/2 seconds. And yes Em is stuck.



Daddy and his 3 babies! -I love Logan's look in this one!



grummpy Emmy
I promise she smiles, it's just ONLY when SHE wants to!


I recently discovered that I can braid Kaitlyn's hair. I don't know why this didn't occur to me sooner! I have also done Emm's but do not have photo proof :( Although I have to say Em has my hair and it just doesn't stay anywhere near as well as Kaitlyn's BEAUTIFUL Dalton hair. Poor girl. I had high hopes that all my girls would get Dalton hair. Sorry Emms.

A Third’s First

This morning I decided it was time to get Logan’s hair cut! I got the kids all excited and told them we were going somewhere special today. We walked over to the salon and they were closed.  There was about a half hour until it opened. So we walked to a nearby thrift store and found some books to buy. Unfortunately they only take cash and I didn’t bring any. The girls were really good about putting the books back and not throwing huge fits. I decided this deserved a reward, plus we still had 15mins before the hair salon opened. There’s a really cute coffee shop on the square (the center of town) that I hadn’t been to yet, so I decided to take the girls and Logan and get some hot chocolate! I love hot chocolate. It’s one of the (very short list of) best things about cold weather. We walked in and right away they were very nice and happy to have us! I was so glad cause I’ve heard of some very un kid-friendly shops. We got a hot chocolate and a cinnamon roll to share. The kids were perfect little angels (hallelujah!) It was a perfect fall day outside. These are the moments I live for! I felt like we were in a movie or something, it was great. I had my camera with me for the hair cut, since they were being so good I took some at the coffee shop:




After we ate we went to the bathroom to clean our hands and faces and we passed a group of seniors that ewwed and awed over my babies. When we got outside Ryan called and he needed some help. Yes!! I get to come help him, it’s always the other way around! The car battery had died and he needed a jump. He had already walked back to his office because he didn’t have his phone with him (poor guy!) so he said just whenever. Since we were already out (with out the van) I said we’d rescue him after Logan’s hair cut. Well we went to the salon and they didn’t have any openings. Oh well. So we ran home and got the van. I told Ryan about the salon and he knew of one nearby so we went and checked there. A five minute wait. Perfect, enough time to go and jump Ryan’s car and come back. Ryan needed a cut too, so they both got one! So cute.

The people were SO nice at the salon! They just ate up the girls and Logan. I got the girls some candy and they sat and played with some toys most of the time while Logan and Daddy got their hair cut!! So cute. Unfortunately when I went home to get the van I dropped off the camera, thinking we weren’t going to do the cut today. Oh well. Logan sat on my lap with the little drape on and was perfect. He looked like such a big boy wearing that! He sat so still and at the end gave the lady a HUGE smile to say thanks for the handsome hair cut. So cute. Afterwards we went to pay and they gave Logan a really cute certificate that says first hair cut and has a sample of his hair. Adorable. AND since it was his first cut it was free. Pretty cool. When Ryan came home for lunch I had them pose together so we could see their cute new do’s!

Before:


After:

Happy Anniversary

My handsome husband and I have been married for 4 years now!!!
In those 4 years we have;
moved me from Texas to Iowa,
moved 3 times in Des Moines,
moved to Wisconsin,
started Law School,
finished law school,
taken the bar,
passed the bar,
Ryan became an official lawyer,
completed one full year as an attorney,
had a baby in Texas,
had a baby in Iowa,
and had a baby in Wisconsin. -To name a few things.
It has been an action packed, crazy, stressful, wonderful ride (so far!) and I couldn't have picked anyone better.

This year our anniversary landed on a Thursday. Lucky for us, Ryan's boss who has season tickets couldn't make it to the Badgers game the Saturday before. Ryan told me Friday morning and I spent the day racking my brain to find a way to go. I found some sweet wonderful teenager (who even did my dishes!) to watch our girls for us. I picked her up at 3 in the afternoon and we didn't get home until 11! I felt like such a partier. Staying out tell 11. How cool. Those of you with children will understand, those without- someday. It was awesome. We drove up to Madison and had dinner and walked up to the stadium. We got to see the opening show and the first half. Then we headed home. It was so fun to see all the red and enjoy all the excitement. We had a blast even though we got STOMPED on. I think the final score was 7 to 41, but we did see our team get the touch down. Logan did awesome the entire time. I think he really enjoyed his first game. I loved watching the cheerleaders and listening to the band and watching the crazy fans. The game was fun too, it's just not as much fun to watch when your team is getting creamed. I'm really glad we got to go, and it was so fun to get out with only 1 kid! Now I know a great babysitter so we can go on more dates.
Well I thought that Saturday was our celebration, but I was wrong! At work on Thursday a bouquet of flowers and a nice card came for me from my sweetheart. I ran home on my lunch break and made Ryan a smoothie (food is my husbands 2nd love-me being his 1st) and left that at work for him when he got back from court. We both loved our gifts. I'm so glad I have such a thoughtful husband. We also stayed up late after the kids went to bed and watched a movie together. And I didn't fold clothes or anything, I just cuddled with my hubby. It has been a great anniversary and I'm so blessed to have my wonderful Ryan. I love you babe!

Then:




Now:

Apple Orchard and others stuff

The 1st of October a playgroup I attend made a trip up to Gays Mills to go to the Apple Orchard. I had never been up there and it was a BEAUTIFUL drive. I tried to capture the beauty, but it's just not the same. Might have something to do with the fact that I was driving and trying to take pictures all at once. lol. Oh well. Here's some of what we saw:



The whole group getting ready to do the maze:


Kaitlyn and Emily loved this porch swing. Probably their favorite part. Go figure.


Logan:


Some Apples:


The View in front of the orchard.


The best part of the trip. I wish I was kidding. It was a rough morning.


Other Random Stuff

They started out in their beds with the lights out. This is how we found them.

Is the floor just more comfortable?

The other day The girls and I did our nails:



There were 5 in the bed and the little one said; roll over, roll over. So they all rolled over and one fell out.

This is our bed almost every morning! Logan comes in between 3-5 for his morning feeding and the girls trickle in starting at 5:30. Craziness. Ryan has been cracking down though. SO this morning I woke up to ONE in the bed. Me. Yea! (Ryan was already at work :(

Logan's 2 mo

Here's a quickie.

Logan had his 2 mo check up. Most important news: he is a healthy happy baby. Boy do I love him!

Less important but still fun

head and height: 50% -don't ask the actual numbers I was in small room with 2 loud little girls, a baby, a doctor, and me. Also I was nervous about the shots he was about to get.

Weight: 13lbs! 75%. He sure is a chunker and I love those checks!

Sorry no pictures today.

But for a reward for reading this picture less blog: a juicy secret! Well not a secret any more- this is a blog.

WE GET TO COME HOME FOR THANKSGIVING!!!!!!!!!!

I'm so excited. I love my husband. He knows what is truly important to me and bends over backwards to help me get my way. -Coarse, we are going to his family for Thanksgiving. I couldn't be happier. I love you babe! Thanks a million.

Mom! and Chicago

My mom got to come up and visit again. It was such a blessing to have my family visit just before Logan was born and I'm so glad my mom got to come up again to meet him. Ryan and I decided that since my mom was with us we should brave a trip up to Chicago so we could go to the temple and while we were there check out the city. Here was the plan: go to Chicago (check), go to the temple, go to the aquarium, and go to church there on Sunday. Pretty simple plan, apparently we aimed to high. We accomplished 1 of the 4 things on the agenda. At least we made it home safely and are a little more wiser for the ware for next time.
So we got checked in to our hotel Friday night and Saturday morning the girls slept in. Normally this would be GREAT news, they have been waking up at 6 am pretty consistently lately and are ALWAYS up by 7. So I didn't even think of setting an alarm. Well by the time we got up and dressed we would have made the 10 session, which meant the kids and mom would have been coped up in a hotel tell after noon. I didn't want to do that to the kids or my mom, so we came up with plan B. Go to the aquarium first and get back in time to make the 3 o'clock session. Plenty of time I thought. So we drive to the CTA (Chicago Transit something)-the bus system. We get on the subway and things are going great. This was my first time on a subway and I thought it was pretty cool. Well turns out they were working on the rail that weekend. Our trip downtown ended taking like an hour and a half! It was crazy and VERY stressful. We wouldn't have made it with out my mom. We needed someone to carry the stroller up and down the stairs (what happened to ADA requirements?) Someone to hold the baby and someone to chase the girls. We went from subway to bus to subway to getting out and having to walk to the next point-which totally sucked cause we got lost and it took forever to find, to getting back on the subway to getting on to another bus... you get the point. By the time we finally made it to the last stop, (well there was one more bus you could catch that would have taken us to the aquarium-but it just wasn't worth it) we realised there was no way we could make it to the aquarium and back before the temple closed. It had been such a stressful trip there and there was a chance we wouldn't have even made it so we continued onto the aquarium. Along the way we saw this cool art park-I don't know what else to call it-and decided to stop there and eat lunch. This was a GREAT idea because things always look brighter with a full stomach :). Logan decided it was time to eat too, so while I feed him the girls and Ryan and my mom checked out the art.





The girls were checking out some birds so Ryan decided to give them a treat-his words (I thought it was cute) and he got the rolls we were eating and feed the birds and let the girls feed the birds. They LOVED it. It was so cute and they had such a great time.




Oh, random experience. There was a bench near the one we were sitting at that had a bunch of stuff on it. I thought it was probably a homeless persons things but didn't see anyone around. Just before we left the pile started moving! Someone had been sleeping there the whole time and I didn't even know it.

So after everyone finished eating and feeding the birds we walked the rest of the way to the aquarium. So when we got there we saw this beautiful view.




After checking out the view we went to go inside. Um, yeah there was a HUGE line just to check into the aquarium. So we moved on to plan probably D by now. There was an advertiser there for a water taxi to the Navy Pier. I didn't know what was there, but I did think the girls would love the boat ride. I was right they did! This was the one thing that worked perfectly. We walked up and bought the tickets and the taxi showed up just then. It was wonderful.

Here's us inside the taxi and checking out the views.





One shining moment amongst the ciaos was a great mother daughter moment I had with Kaitlyn. She is talking really well now, but what I usually get from her are demands and wants for the day. But while we were on the taxi I took Kaitlyn out to the open part and we enjoyed the breeze in our hair and on our faces while she pointed out things she saw to me and we talked about it. It was really sweet and a great pleasure. One funny thing she kept talking about was the white water. She thought the wake was really cool because the water turns white. We also enjoyed looking at all the other boaters out and there was this really cool yellow speed boat that drove by. It looked like a really fancy car. I really enjoyed that moment and just tried to focus on that to help with all the stress of the day.


Me and my Mom at the Navy Pier


While we were enjoying resting and checking out the view we found some more birds to feed, and watched a jet skier show off for the crowds.



After that we went inside to check out the mall. They had a little stage and we saw a performance. Afterwards Em and Kaitlyn got on stage so my mom could take some pictures of them. I was nursing so I didn’t get any pics. All of a sudden the girls were surrounded by tourist paparotsi! There were at least 10 people taking their pictures and telling my mom how cute they were. Now I am a proud mom and I like it when people adore my girls as much as I do, but this made me pretty nervous! My mom handled it really well and no one touched the girls so they were ok. They were all telling mom they looked like perfect American girls. Too funny.

After that we rode some more public transit back to the hotel. While this went MUCH smother it still took 45 mins. with all the transfers. By the end of the day we had traveled on all most all types of transportation: bus, train, subway, boat, taxi (water), trolley, of course walking, our van and probably others I can’t remember. It was crazy. There were times I was terrified for my girls safety (mostly Kaitlyn) because she wanted to run around while waiting for the next train/bus. There were usually lots of people around and we were in Chicago, not exactly the best place to roam free. So of coarse since mom and dad were under a lot of stress and her safety was in danger she decided it was a GRAND day to acert her independence. Grrrrr. Oh I love that child, but sometimes she has WAY more will power than I can deal with. This of coarse raised my stress level even more. We were all glad to make it back to the hotel and take a much needed nap! Then dinner and then back to bed. Sunday we got up and read for church and left to arrive in plenty of time. Well the address we had was a second address for the temple not a chapel near the temple. I was very disappointed. After such a stressful day and not making it to the temple, I was really looking forward to attending church. No such luck. And Chicago is not a city that you could just drive around until you stumble upon a chapel so we headed home.
On the ride home we got some frosty’s for the girls. I assumed when we ordered that they’d give us straws, no such luck. Oh well. So the girls ate ice cream, in their car seats, in their Sunday dresses. Lol, here’s the result:




And Logan looking like a super stud in his church clothes Grammy brought for him



Baby Logan and his favorite Grammy



So a few lessons I learned from this trip:
• Don’t count 100% on public transit
• Check the website for updates on if and where work is occurring (I’m sure they have one)
• COMMUNICATE, communicate, communicate. If I had told Ryan that we needed to go to an 8 or at the latest 9 o clock session we would not have missed it
• Don’t assume people can read my mind. (see above)
• Expect delays
• Find a chapel online BEFORE you leave. When you get there your laptops wireless may suddenly stop working
• What is obvious to me is not always to others and visa versa. Again the communication thing
• Expect to be on plan Z by the time you make it home.
• One thing we planned well- food. It saved us many times! Having tons of healthy snacks on hand was a huge blessing.
• Concentrate on the small shining moments.
• Learn to roll with the punches and enjoy it.

Next time will go much better, however that won’t be for quite a while. If you ask Ryan not until our youngest is 5. Lol, I think we could attempt it again before then.

Here’s another catch up

As a mom of 3 I’m always playing catch up. So here we go again.

A while ago Kaitlyn lovingly reminded me (by coloring on all our walls) that I do not offer her art time very often. I went to the store and got a bunch of art supplies. We did a lot of coloring with markers and colored pencils before I got the courage up to do the finger paint. Last time I did paint with Kaitlyn she refused to paint on paper and tried to wear it like makeup. This time she did better. Emily mostly ate it and tried to cover the house with it. It was fun, but defiantly a –only when mom has lots of energy- activity. Here’s clean up. Em was less than pleased with the impromptu bath time.




Cute picture of Logan sleeping. Supper baby!


Mindy (my sister-in-law) look a really cute picture of her family like this. Hers was much cuter, but considering my kids ages I think it turned out pretty cute.


Emily just moved into a toddler bed. We were given matching toddler beds, so Em thought it was really cool to be in the same kind of bed as Kaitlyn. Here’s her first night as a big girl. (No crying or anything, she was happy to be JUST LIKE big sis)


Logan sitin’ in his bumbo (love those things)


Ryan came home for lunch and put Logan to sleep for me. He was holding on to his tie, so cute. “Don’t leave Daddy!”


Proof of Logan’s chunkiness. I worked hard for those chunky cheeks!


Em asleep in her highchair. This has been happening a lot lately…


Kaitlyn holding Logan, so cute.


Ryan was a little less than pleased with this picture! Kaitlyn had fun “playing” with Logan and he was a great sport and slept through the whole thing!


Ryan liked this a lot better. Logan looks like he’s hugging it. Again, Kaitlyn playing with Logan while he slept.