My Little Whine-ster

Mike has been calling Mia, "Meemster", since she's basically been born. He has started calling her, "Whine-ster", now. She has been whining non-stop for almost a week. Her bottom right molar finally started poking through. These molars have been hard for her! And us too!

This weekend at work went so-so. My sister, Kelly, watched the kids on Friday night. I guess Riley was a pain! She woke Kelly up at midnight, 2:00am, she was awake from 3am-5am (and woke the twins up at 3am because she was crying), 5:15am, and she was up for the day at 6am. It breaks my heart that she has such a hard time when I leave! There's nothing worse than knowing your baby is crying and you can't do anything about it! I'm hoping as she gets older, she'll get better about me leaving! I do think she has gotten a little better since I've started working. The twins had a rough day on Monday. Mia's molars are still bothering her and Ethan's fangs are starting to come in. Plus, they're both getting over colds. Poor kids!

Nice Snotty Runny Noses

YUCK! I hate snot and I hate boogers. All three kids have somehow gotten a cold. Their noses are running non-stop. This will officially be Riley's first cold. Poor kids! I don't see how I'm going to avoid catching it. Ethan and Mia love wiping their noses on me! I hope I don't get it before I have to work on Friday.

The infectious disease doctor at Sanford sent an email out about the H1N1 virus (swine flu.) He said that the second wave is going to hit when all the kids go back to school. They are expecting the second wave to be much worse than the first wave. They expect 40% of the workforce to be out sick. The virus is targeting babies and young children more than the elderly. It's pretty scary if you think about it! I thought I'd pass on the warning! Everyone wash your hands!!

Mike went to Phoenix today for business. I have all three kiddos on my own until Friday. Uncle Mark came over today for an hour to help out with the kids. Ethan and Mia love their Uncle Mark. He completely shaved his head and the kids are fascinated with it. They constantly run over to him and rub his head. Mia called his head a "ball" today. I guess I can kind of see where it would look like a ball! Mike's Aunt, Sharman, came to Sioux Falls today and brought the kids one of those hummers that you drive. Ethan and Mia are absolutely going to love that thing! We also went out to supper with Sharman and Gary, so the night went really fast.

I think I'm going to bring the kids over to Aunt Sarah's house tomorrow. The last time we were there, she had to completely rearrange her house because Ethan and Mia were getting into all of her little trinkets and picture frames. They also kept turning her tiffany lamp on and off, which was driving Sarah crazy! I haven't quite told her we're coming over. Maybe we should surprise her! :)

Mia, the Scratcher

Any ideas on how to get Mia to stop scratching? We do time-out when we see her do it. Half the time, he never cries when she scratches him. The only way we know she did it is when we see the red welts. Mia has drawn blood a few different times! Believe me, Ethan needs NO help getting bruised and scratched!! He does it enough on his own!

The culprit!

Holy Crabbiness!

Ethan and Mia are CRABBY! Mia's left bottom molar finally came in, but she's still super fiesty. Ethan's working on his upper right canine. I hope these teeth come in quick! Aunt Kelly is watching them Friday when I go to work. I'd hate for them to be like this when she's watching them. Riley is going to be enough of a handful!

20 Month Update

I can't believe they're almost 2 years old! It seems like they've been with us forever. I don't know what we did with ourselves before kids. We had so much spare time on our hands! We no longer have spare time, but I wouldn't trade them for anything. (I sometimes want to give them away when they're naughty, but not for very long! :)) Ethan and Mia aren't ready to start potty training yet. I'm so sick of changing poopy diapers!! I once changed 8 in one day (3 for Ethan, 3 for Mia, and 2 for Riley.) It's going to be so nice when they're potty-trained. Both kids are picky, picky, picky. They waste so much food! Ethan is worse than Mia. He hardly eats anything all day. His favorites are anything sweet, pediasure, juice, chocolate milk, fruit loops, crackers, muffins. Mia's favorites are fruit, pediasure, juice, chocolate milk, crackers, granola bars.

Ethan is still busy as ever. He never ever sits down. I wish I had a fourth of his energy! I wish I could teach him how to clean the house. It'd be a win-win situation for the both of us! His physical skills outweigh his vocab skills. He does talk but we don't know what he's saying! His new words for the month are, "du" for duck, "boob", "bb" (bellybutton). Speaking of bellybuttons, Ethan is obsessed with them. He is always touching his bellybutton. He'll also poke at Mia's, mine, or Mike's when he gets the chance. He's also very interested in his boy parts! Enough said on that! :)

Ethan is a very clever boy! He's very interested in how things work. He loves turning the light switches on and off. He tries to unlock the doors and can open a lot of our doors. Ethan loves to play with "non-toy" items, which really bugs Mike! He figured out that he can reach my kitchen utensils, so he enjoys carrying around the can opener, spatulas, ice cream scooper etc. He also figured out he can reach my silverware drawer. I found Ethan and Mia with 15 spoons and forks! No wonder why my house is such a mess! Hands down, Ethan is the one that makes the mess. Mia is more a bystander. She'll watch him do it and then play with whatever he just threw all over the floor.

Mia is still my lap girl. She loves to sit by me wherever I am. She likes to be right next to Riley when I'm feeding her. She's nice to her for the most part, but she does get a quick hit in there when I'm not paying attention. Mia's been pretty feisty these past couple of weeks because she's getting more teeth. Ethan gets the brunt of her feistiness. She is constantly scratching the poor guy. I get after her whenever I see her do it, but she won't stop. Ethan has about 5 scratches on his face right now.

Mia is really picking up words. She can say, "Riee" (Riley), "pretty", "bb" (bellybutton), "boob." I've been trying to read to them more so they can pick up more words. It can be difficult because they always try and take the book away from me and throw it! I've caught her a couple of times reading to her babies. It's really cute. You can't understand anything she's saying but she uses a really high-pitched voice!

I gave both kids a granola bar the other day. Ethan scarfed his down as fast as he could. Mia was slowly eating hers. Ethan saw that she had some left and quickly grabbed a chunk of hers and ate it. Mia threw herself to the floor and screamed bloody murder! I couldn't help but laugh!

Taking a bath in our whirlpool tub. Mike cracked their tub, so we'll be using this for awhile. The kids love it!

Trying to eat peas with an ice cream scooper. It didn't work out too well!

I put a pony tail in Mia's hair. She actually left it in for about 5 minutes. She doesn't like things in her hair. If she doesn't rip it out, Ethan does!

Saturday morning in their pj's. They look grumpy, don't they?

Ethan, Mia, and Rhea. Some of our good friends brought their little girl, Rhea, over for a play date. She's a month younger than them. I, unfortunately, had to work that night. Mike said it went well, but Ethan kept making Rhea mad over a ball.

Riding my vacuum cleaner.

Ethan's turn.

Nice cowboy hat, Mia!

Go get 'em, cowboy. He had a fat lip in this picture. I'm losing count of all of his injuries. He fell off our bed and hit his lip on our table. Poor boy!

She loves playing/sucking/biting on my good make-up brushes.

Let me do your eyebrows.

Do you need your eyebrows plucked?

Eating cereal out of a bowl for the first time. He did pretty good!

Eating cereal out of a bowl for the first time. Mia also did pretty well except that she dumped hers out all over her tray.

Eating Some Green Beans

We decided to give Riley some vegetables for the first time today. She ate the green beans, but I don't think she was too fond of the taste. I paid for it later because she literally was up all night long. She'd sleep for 30-45 minutes and then wake up crying. I'd rock her back to sleep and the cycle would start over. Poor thing! I think she had a stomach ache. Needless to say, she won't be getting any veggies for awhile. We might try again in a week or so, maybe longer. I don't want to pull another all nighter any time soon!

5 Month Update

My baby is getting so big! Riley still loves to be held and carried around. She's pretty happy and smiley as long as you're doing this. She'll kick on the floor for a short while and then she's done with that. She's getting really close to rolling over. She rolls onto her right side and just about does it. Maybe a couple more weeks! She is getting closer to sitting up by herself too. If I prop pillows or her boppy around her, she can sit up, but she topples over if I don't. It's really easy to make Riley laugh. She really likes being played with and lets out a big belly laugh. She's very ticklish!

She still prefers to nurse over the bottle but is much much better about taking it. She gets cereal right before bed. She's still not overly fond of the cereal, but she definitely likes the oatmeal cereal better than the rice cereal. We're planning on starting vegetables in the next couple of days.

Riley is sleeping through the night. There are times when she wakes up in the middle of the night wanting to eat, but these are far and few in between. She usually goes to bed around 10:30pm and wants to eat around 7am. She usually goes back to bed for a little bit and is up by 9am. She still isn't a big napper. She likes taking little 30 minute cat naps throughout the day. Every once in awhile, she'll take a good 2 hour nap in the afternoon.

One of Riley's favorite things to do is watch Ethan and Mia. She sits on my lap and watches everything they do. She likes to be around all the commotion! Maybe she'll be like Ethan in that respect. Her personality is still in between Ethan and Mia. She's definitely not an easy baby, but she's not as difficult as Ethan. She is still a big momma's girl. She'll go to dad, but she tends to cry if anyone else is holding her. I hope she grows out of this fast!

Smiley Riley.

Sitting in the boppy.

Having fun!

Having fun in her boppy.

Just woke up from her nap.

Happy and drooling!

Tolerating her car seat.

Mia is Working on Some Teeth

Mia's bottom left incisor came in today. Her bottom molars should be coming through soon as well. Hopefully, the kids are good for Mike this weekend as I have to work. The last weekend I worked, he said he'd rather work two jobs than watch the kids. :) I guess they were pretty tough on him! My sister, Sarah, is coming over tonight to help out. I think Friday's are the toughest for Riley and plus, it's bath night for Ethan and Mia. Extra hands are always nice!

I actually got some sleep the last couple of days. Mike got up with Riley, so I could sleep in. These weekends I have to work totally wipe me out! I get about 12 hours of sleep in 4 days. I don't know how people do it full-time!

Sawyer Brown

The country band, Sawyer Brown, put on a free concert in my hometown of Watertown. My parents invited us all down for the concert. My sister, Sarah, niece, Janai, and nephew, Noah, rode with us. It definitely wasn't the most fun car ride. Riley cried off and on nearly the entire 1 1/2 hours. (She hates her car seat.) Both Ethan and Mia were getting antsy close to the end and they were whining. My 3 year old nephew, Noah, kept covering his ears. I'm sure Sarah regretted riding with us!

The concert was outside and the weather actually cooperated. The kids had a blast! My mom had an endless amount of candy in her purse, and Ethan took full advantage of that! He knew he hit the jackpot when Grandma pulled out a nutty bar. My mom is to blame for us all liking sweets so much!

The concert was really good. We were pretty far from the stage so our view wasn't the best. We could hear perfectly fine, though. Ethan and Riley had meltdowns close to the end of the concert. I thought they did pretty well for the 1 1/2 hours that we were there.

Wearing Dad's cowboy hat.

This is Grandma telling Ethan there isn't anymore candy left. Do you see his sad face?

Mia always double fists everything she eats. Ethan scarfed his nutty bar down, and Mia carried hers around forever. I think she did this on purpose. Ethan wanted some of hers, but she wouldn't budge.

Licking my lips after all of that chocolate.

Mia and cousin Noah. Noah is their frenemy. They have a love/hate relationship.

Grandpa, Mia, and Noah. Noah didn't like it that Mia was on the sidewalk, so he escorted her back onto the grass.

Aunt Kelly giving Ethan sprite. Nutty bars, candy, and sprite. Can it get any better?

Still carrying around her nutty bar.

Noah and Mia playing together.

Eating mints out of Grandma's purse.

Some pictures

I realized I haven't posted in awhile. There isn't much going on here, so I decided to post some pictures of the kids. I didn't realize until I was done that they're mostly of Riley!

Something is amusing!

In the big tub for the first time. I outgrew my little tub! Loving all the room to kick around.

Taking my bath.

Playing on the floor.

Having fun.

Being good. What color of hair am I going to have? It looks red in the sun.

Loving the tub.

Check me out!

Sporting my sun glasses.