In case you wonder too.....

People often ask us if (or have the assumption that) it gets easier having multiples as they get older.


Uhmmmmm, NO!!!


When they were babies we certainly got less sleep, BUT when we put them down some place (like in their beds), they would still be in that place when we got back.  Once they get mobile, everything changes.


Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that it's more difficult now. It's just not easier.


And, it doesn't get easier, it just changes.


Take this past week for example.

Monday: Abigail home sick so off to the clinic. Soccer practice.

Tuesday: Cheer practice.


Thursday: Dentist appointments for all four kids. Soccer practice.

Saturday: Wyatt and Abigail at school by 3 AM to leave for band competition.
Addison to soccer fields by 8 AM for all day soccer tournament.
Took Addison and Kirsten to dinner and a little shopping.
Pick Wyatt and Abigail up at school when the band returns from tournament. They were running late so didn't arrive until around midnight.

Sunday: Addison back at soccer fields by 8:00 for more tournament play.
Wyatt to hockey practice.


See, still plenty of activity and what is certainly feeling like not enough sleep. 


Addison's team did a fantastic job at the tournament. After day one of play we were a little nervous. They had gone into the tournament ranked 4th place for our division. On Saturday they lost the first game and tied the other two.

Incredibly that left them still in 4th place for Sunday's games. They won both of those games and finished the tournament in 2nd place!!!

I tried over and over to get an action shot of Addison, but it just didn't happen. :0)

This was from the final game on Sunday. It was so wonderful for the girls to beat this team because they played dirty. (It's the same team with the girl that bit Addison during a game.) Their coach was a terrible sport, the girls were, and they were fighting with each other. After the game he was arguing with the ref about some of the calls and I think the ref told him basically that if his girls were the better team they would have won.

I know the girls were happy to beat this team too.

 The girls were waiting to get their medals and this is when Addison realized that her Dad was drinking her smoothie.

 Addison getting her medal from her coach.

She is VERY proud of that medal......as she should be. Those girls worked hard to earn them.

She put it back on when she got out of the shower last night and I had to make her take it off when she went to bed.

She wore it to school this morning, too. :0)

Next weekend we're off for them to compete for the STATE title!!


So, even though it's not any easier, it is so very worth every minute of it!! We are so proud of all four of our children, and I certainly wouldn't change a thing!

They're back....again.

Picked the kids up yesterday.

Well, not all of them. They were in Houston last week and Kirsten decided to stay a little longer.


Guess she doesn't miss me yet.


Is this what I can expect from the teenage years?


I don't know whether to be hurt that she didn't want to come home yet or not. I guess I'll choose not.


We saw this when we were almost home.



But we didn't see any rain. Go figure.

Memorial Weekend

We had a nice Memorial Weekend. I hope everyone else did too.

The 4-H club here in town sponsors a rodeo every year on Memorial Weekend and we've gone the last two years. It's really a lot of fun to go and participate in the local activities (we just don't do it often.)

When we told the kids we were going Kirsten was beside herself because she didn't have any rodeo clothes to wear--a scary vision of what's coming. After much searching she came up with what she perceives to be the right thing for a rodeo:



I guess she's at least wearing denim and boots. God she loves those boots!!

Here's Addison's rodeo duds:



That skirt is so long I don't know how she managed to even get up into the bleachers. lol

By the jackets on the two you would think we lived someplace where it's cold. I mean, it was all the way down in the 80's but do you really think they need the jackets?

The rodeo was a lot of fun but we couldn't get the kids to participate in any of it. Last year they at least tried the calf scramble. At one part the clown was digging for treasure in the arena and found a bag full of gum and candy and this mob of kids runs out to steal it from him. So he keeps looking to find more treasure. He finds another bag and as he's opening it the kids all run out again. Only this time he drops a skunk out of it!! You should have seen those kids trying to stop and turn around. It was great.

We spent the rest of the weekend mostly being lazy. The kids had to go to school on Monday and the day was beyond beautiful so Dax & I took The Mistress out for a drive and had lunch and he even let me do a little shopping (without complaining even.) It was delightful.

The dumbest tattling ever!

We went into town earlier today. The kids had money and it was burning holes in their pockets. One of our MANY stops was at the pet store where they each bought things for their pets. (duh) Then we made the rest of our stops and headed home.

On the way home they started talking about the different treats they had bought for the pets. Addison was talking about how good the berry yogurt drops for the hamster smelled. Then the next thing I know Abigail is yelling at me 'He won't let me taste it but he licked it!! That's not FAIR!' Any guesses what she was talking about?


Wyatt had bough beef basted pigs ears for the dog. Abigail was all mad because he wouldn't let her taste the pigs ear!! Are you kidding me? They truly have lost their little minds....there's just no other explanation.

Westward Ho!

Today is Trails West for the kids. They dress in (sort of) period clothing and act out the trail rides west. They have been just about bouncing off the walls for the last week because they get so excited about this. All four of them just love doing this and everything about it.




Abigail didn't bring her costume home.


They have to earn points with good behavior in order to go. Then after they get their points, the classes draw to see who gets to be an Indian. As you can see, my blonde daughter is the only one that got to be an Indian. Since she looks nothing like the part she's devised a story to go with it. She told me this morning that her name is Mary and she was taken by the Indians when she was small. :0)

Can you guess?

Can you guess what these have in common?






What was your guess? Really. I want to know. Did you guess that we used dog treats to lure homeless dogs and shot them? Did you guess something worse?!





Well, they describe our weekend.

Saturday Addison & I made dog treats. She even insisted that we cut them out in shapes (I guess the dogs prefer them that way?)

On Sunday we took the to the closest animal shelter and fed them to the dogs there. Of course the kids wanted to bring another dog home and were not happy that the answer is NO!!! :0)

After the stop at the shelter we headed into Austin to the gun show. I found a little pistol that I really liked and it fit well in my hand but they wanted $875 for it. Yikes!! Needless to say, they can keep it for that price.


When we left the gun show we stopped and ate at Golden Corral on the way home. We haven't been there in ages and we certainly ate like it too. Everyone was misserable on the way home because we all ate far too much.

I hope your weekend was close to the excitement of ours.

Ugh!

So I had to go buy one of these for one of my daughters:







I'm so not ready for this. How do I stop it?



{cringing with my head in my hands}

Old Home Movies

Dax was looking through some video stuff the other day and came across this. It's from Christmas 5 years ago. I think the kids had just turned 6. Kirsten is the one pushing the box at the beginning of the video and then Addison gets started. We just died laughing at Addison in this video and both wondered why we didn't even remember this happening. Thank goodness for video cameras.

Mother's Day

I hope everyone had a happy Mother's Day. Mine was nice. The family let me sleep in. Dax got up with the kids (and pets) to keep the noise level down and the arguments contained to the part of the house that isn't right outside our bedroom door. (That's where they usually like to fight.)

They usually make breakfast for me and yell at me if I get out of bed too soon. So... I laid there for quite awhile waiting. Finally someone came in to see if I was awake yet and to ask if we could go to the cafe' for breakfast. HA! Figures. So we all got dressed and went to the cafe' and it was nice. We went home and opened gifts.

I got lots of goodies.



From Kirsten I got a cute chicken print for my kitchen. I've looked at these about a hundred times but never wanted to spend the money (and they weren't even expensive.)





From Abigail, I got seasons 1 and 2 of Seinfeld. Woohoo!! (I'm pretty sure her Daddy had a little input on that one.)




Addison got me some Turtle Chex Mix. Love that stuff!! Chances are I won't share either. :0) She also got me a 2009 Debbie Mumm date book. It's very cute.



(Do you see the poor dog getting squished in there?)



And Wyatt got me the next book in the James Patterson series. I think he's come out with #8 so I'll have to be sure to remind them of that when my birthday rolls around.




The rest of the day was spent pretty leasurely and that's just the way I like it.

They grow up so fast.

My babies are just growing up so fast. Just look at this...






Wyatt decided that it's time for him to have coffee every morning. After he finishes his breakfast, he sits at the table sipping his coffee until 7:00, when it's time for him to go get dressed. Now Abigail has decided to have coffee too. Only, she usually goes to get dressed while her coffee cools a little and then forgets about it. :0) Next they'll be wanting the car keys!


Oh, and don't worry. It's decaf coffee with cream and sugar. Nothing too bad.

The good, the bad, and the ugly....

The good.

On Saturday we adopted a cat from the shelter. No, I absolutely do not need another cat. So, yes, I must be crazy. He's an older cat and I don't know why I was drawn to him but I had been in there at least three times before Saturday to look at him. I guess he was waiting for me...that's what Dax says anyway.

We've named him Gibbs. He's about 10 years old, very friendly and loving, and weighs about 20 pounds. He's huge!!





The bad.

In the wee hours of Sunday morning I had to have my dog put to sleep. His stomach had twisted and after trying different things to correct the problem, surgery was the only alternative left. Because of his age (13 years old) and severe arthritis in his hips I decided that it was best for him to have him put to sleep. I know it wasn't best for me because I'm heartbroken. He was a good dog and a good sport when the kids messed with him and I miss him terribly.




The ugly.

I don't really know if this qualifies as ugly or not, but it's the best I could do. Mostly, I guess it's a lesson on how not to sit when you're out in public. I was going to say that you shouldn't sit like this in a bikini, or by the pool, but then I realized that I couldn't really think of the time or place in public that it might be appropriate.




Besides, you never know who's got a camera and a blog. Mmmmwwwaaahhhaaahhhhaaaa!

Turning point...

I knew this day would come, but I really wasn't quite ready for it. I thought we would have a few more years before it became an issue. I don't know what to do. I may have to pull the kids out of public school and home school them. (Of course, I would have to hire someone to come to my home and school them. lol)




What's happened to bring this on, you ask?




Wyatt informed me yesterday that he is aware that the shirts he's been wearing (and buying with his own allowance) are not real Under Armor shirts. Another kid at school has pointed out to him the difference between name brand and what's on sale at Target!!!




Can you see now how horrible this is?




I'm sure that eventually he'll tell his sisters about this too.....then it's all over. We'll be done for.




I guess it means that they won't buy into this being a cool look either.






Do you think there's any hope that off brands will become the next cool thing? That's all I have left to hope for.

Concert

Last night the 4th & 5th graders had a concert at school. A recorder concert!!





It was really fun and the kids really enjoyed it. (Wyatt was there but not in any of the pictures because he was hidden behind the teacher.) Although, I have to admit that during the first song I had to turn my head the other way because it was so awful that I got the giggles and I didn't want them to see me laughing. I made Dax take the video camera and tape it though because I felt like the grandparents should have to suffer, uhm, I mean get to enjoy it just like we did. To give you an idea of what this was like, when they practice at home the cat bites them. lol

I do notice though that there are usually only of handful of kids that participate in these types of activities and it's always the same kids. Kinda' sad.

On another note, last night at dinner Wyatt was talking about in PE that he would have been one of the top 5 runners but he slowed down to let someone else in front of him. The reason....because if he was one of the top 5 he would have to do special things to work harder at improving that thing he was good at!! GAAH!! There's nothing like having your son point out that he's underachieving on purpose. *sigh*

Weekend away....

I planned ahead! It's something that I never do but this time I did it. Addison had soccer games that were out of town on Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon. So instead of driving back and forth I kennelled the dogs and booked us a room for Saturday night at the Riverwalk in San Antonio. Great idea right? and Woohoo! to me for planning ahead, right? Well, as it turned out the game on Saturday got cancelled (see preceding post on the invasion). So there really was no reason to have the dogs kennelled or to spend the night in San Antonio. The big problem, though, is that the dogs had to be at the kennel on Friday afternoon (didn't cancel the game until Saturday morning) and when I booked the room I had to pay for it then. Oh well, that must be why I don't plan ahead.

So, we headed off to San Antonio anyway to make the most of the weekend. It was supposed to rain on Saturday too, but didn't so it made for a good time.

Here's Abigail with some of the local talent:


Addison by a waterfall that goes along the edge of some stairs (we were lost so I don't know where these are. lol



This is what they enjoyed most (as usual):





Here's Dax having a good time:



You can see it on his face, can't you?

We stopped for breakfast on Sunday at IHOP.



(If it's good enough for Niki Hilton, it's good enough for me.) Is there an IHOP in this country anywhere that isn't like a zoo at all hours of the day or night? Seriously! This place was packed (with a waiting list) and was loud as all get out. But, surprisingly, the staff was all very cheerful and pleasant. I probably would have been ready to boot people out with the chaos in there.






Kinda' makes you wish you were there doesn't it?

A Good Weekend

It was a hectic but nice weekend. It was beautiful all week and then cold again starting on Saturday morning. It was freezing sitting out at Addison's soccer game (they won 6-0)and the wind was blowing like crazy. I think this might be the third weekend in a row that it's happened that way. I guess I need to start carrying blankets in the car - that would ensure hot weather for sure. lol

By the time I got everything taken care of it wound up being about 9:00 Saturday night by the time we got around to getting this done. You can see that they're in their pajamas (although, there's a good chance they wore pajamas all day. *giggle*)





Then it was time to set up the trap to try to catch the Easter Bunny. Addison spends much time each year trying to figure out a better Bunny trap. Somehow the trap fails each year. Go figure! Anyway, there was a trail of baby carrots leading from the front door to this:


Even though they try to capture the Easter Bunny every year, he still hides lots of eggs (180 this year) and leaves baskets with lots of goodies.


We had a nice Easter. For (at least) the second year in a row it rained starting in the wee hours of Easter Sunday (around 2:00 a.m. - and I know this because I was STILL up) and it continued to rain (throw in a little hail too) until about 45 minutes after the kids finished hunting eggs which were all hidden in the house. Oh well, they had a good time.





But poor little Daisy was feeling a little left out. She saw plenty that she would like to have eaten but nobody would share, no matter how sneaky she tried to be.

Wildflowers

Yesterday when I got to Addison's soccer practice I noticed some bluebonnets beside the field so I made Abigail go let me take her picture 'in' the bluebonnets.




Here's a closer picture so you can actually see the bluebonnets.




As you can see, the dry, dry winter here has made for a sad display of wildflowers this spring. Oh well, maybe we'll have better luck next year.

Monsters

We went to see Monsters Vs. Aliens last night.

In 3D.

We were going to go see the matinee but it was already sold out when we got there. We could have just gone to see the regular version but the kids really wanted to see it in 3D. So we waited (for TWO hours) until the next showing. We decided to go have dinner while we waited. That didn't take nearly long enough so we ended up sitting in the restaurant talking and sipping on our drinks for awhile. We still got to the theatre way early but hey, now we know the answers to those same 5 trivia questions that they show over and over. lol

Anyway, it was a cute movie and the kids really liked it. There were parts where I could hear them all laughing out loud. (or should I say, laughing quite loudly?)

These boots were made for wearing.

So, as a parent when exactly do you step in on your children's 'fashion' choices? I hate to say anything because the girls really do get their feelings hurt pretty easily about their wardrobe choices. But, honestly, some of the things they pick just make me shake my head and giggle. For example, Kirsten LOVES her boots. She has a couple of different pairs and will wear them with anything.

Case in point:



She wears them with shorts (as seen above), with skirts, with capris, and with regular pants (sometimes out, sometimes tucked in). Dax just keeps asking why I let her leave the house like that. I guess I just figure that they're not dressing slutty, or goth, or whatever so it's okay for now. Eventually they'll get better, right?

Sharing

I do try hard to teach my kids to share. With everyone being the same age it becomes really important that they share (especially with the girls' clothes.) However, there are times when it just goes a little too far and I have to be a little more clear about what I mean. For example, here's Abigail sharing too much....




And believe it or not I had to stop her from eating it afterwards!! There's no telling what's going on when I'm not looking.