Paw-paw goes to Ft Sill - voluntarily this time!

While the folks were here we made a quick trip to visit Ft Sill, the Army base where my dad was stationed for a couple of weeks when he was called up in 1972. I think things looked quite a bit different from when he was last there -- the old stockade he worked at no longer exists. And when Dad was last there he didn't have a car so he was limited to seeing things that his feet could carry him to. We took advantage of our set of wheels to see some sights. We took a quick spin through the base (fort? I don't know Army lingo...), checked out the Ft Sill Museum, walked around the historic fort, and saw Geronimo's grave.


After a couple of hours at Ft Sill, we continued through rural Oklahoma to the children's hospital in Oklahoma City so Maddie could have her surgery (more on that in the next blog post!).

Gramma and Paw-paw's last Altus visit

My parents managed to squeeze in one more Altus visit before our upcoming move. They were here for Easter, which was SO wonderful! We hardly ever get to be with family (other than the five of us) on holidays, so it was a special treat. The girls even got to dye Easter eggs with their Grandma. They were around for three of our five aforementioned egg hunts, so they got to see their granddaughters in action!

One of the girls' favorite things to do with their grandparents, though, is to snuggle up with a book. You'd think we never read to those girls! They pounce on Gramma Bethie as soon as she walks in the door to get out her story book and start reading. I think Gramma Bethie is usually hoarse by the time they leave here.

Colin has taken his own approach to getting grandparent-bonding time. He managed to not take a single nap in his crib the entire time his grandparents were here! I can see how it would be nicer to be snuggled up on your gramma or paw-paw instead of in that boring old crib. And his grandparents weren't complaining too much about the extra snuggles, either!

Click on one of the photos to see more pictures from their visit!

Egg Hunt, Takes 2-5

I know it's common practice for parents to complain about how good their children have it. Things were always tougher when we were kids. Seriously, though. My kids went to five Easter egg hunts this year. Five egg hunts!!! When I was a kid we got ONE egg hunt. And we really had to search for our eggs. Up hill. With holes in our shoes. In the SNOW!

Anyway...

#2 Squadron egg hunt

From 2010-04 egg hunts

#3 Base housing egg hunt

From 2010-04 egg hunts

#4 Church egg hunt

From 2010-04 egg hunts

#5 Easter bunny egg hunt (with traditional hard-boiled eggs)

From 2010-04 egg hunts

If that's not enough egg-hunting for you, feel free to click the above links to see them in action!

Egg Hunt, Take 1

The girls both had their school Easter egg hunts today. The temperature was good outside, but we had the signature Oklahoma wind - about 25 mph. The kids all brought eggs to school and the parents got to be "bunnies" and hide the eggs. They were mostly on the ground because the wind kept blowing them off of our more clever hiding places! I think the girls had a great time:




Next up: squadron egg hunt tomorrow!

Where are you, Gramma and Paw-paw???

This is Colin, on Mommy's computer. I need my grandparents' help. You see, I have recently learned to crawl and I have things to do. VERY IMPORTANT THINGS! My mommy does not seem to understand this fact. You are not going to believe this, but she even tries to make me take naps. Sure, I'm tired -- but as I mentioned before I have VERY IMPORTANT THINGS TO DO now that I can crawl.

I've heard rumor that my grandma and paw-paw are coming to visit. Please get here quickly. Someone needs to rescue me from this crib and my insane mommy who thinks I have time to nap!

I want my Gramma and Paw-paw!

Sleepy Baby

So we're on baby number three. For the most part, we feel like we've done a decent job with most of the "parenting" stuff. We even had the gall to be proud that we never had one of those classic baby-in-the-highchair-sleeping moments. We own countless How To Get Your Kid To Sleep books so that our kids were generally well-rested.

Then came Colin. His big goal in life so far seems to be to show us how little we know about babies, parenting, and just life in general. He refuses to nap. He's not huge on night sleep, either. He's exhausted. He obviously hasn't read any of our books about how babies are supposed to sleep (maybe I should buy the audio versions and play them in the van???). This has happened twice this week:

Of course the little monkey woke right up as soon as we put him into his crib. And his big sister Maddie has chosen this week to permanently stop taking her afternoon nap. We're drinking a lot of coffee these days!

Look out world...

...'cause here comes Colin!

(Please disregard the fact that he's only wearing a diaper. He was in the process of getting on his jammies when he decided to start moving. I swear he's usually clothed!)

My 'newborn' baby

I have this cute newborn baby. He's sweet and cuddly and loves to nap in his mommy's arms. He has the most beautiful blue eyes that he uses to convince me to take him out of his crib when he should be sleeping in it. His smiles and squeals light up a room. But there are a few things about him:

I've seen other newborn babies and they are much smaller than him. My guy has outgrown his bouncy seat and bassinet (seriously, shouldn't these things last a little longer?) and he fits into some 12 month outfits. The other newborn babies seem quite floppy, while my newborn baby prefers to sit up by himself and play with toys. He even manages to scoot around and grab toys that should be out of his reach. And he has teeth. Four of them. Other newborn babies don't have teeth. Also, other newborns seem to cry a certain "newborn" wail, while my newborn baby prefers to say, "Dadadadadadadada" and "Babababababababa".

You see, I could swear my new baby was born yesterday, or maybe even a few weeks ago. But according to the calendar it was eight months ago today. How can that be? Where does the time go?



PS - a special shout-out to my niece and nephew, Keira and Connor, who turn 3 today! I'm pretty sure they should still be babies too...

Spring Break 2010! Woohoo!

I have some great memories of really fun spring break trips to the Bahamas, Cancun, Daytona... It's funny how the meaning of the phrase 'Spring Break' changes, though, when you're the mommy. Before mommyhood, it conjured up images for me of beaches, friends, some (very responsible, of course) partying, time away from all things stressful... Now I hear 'Spring Break' and think, "Oh, for the love of everything holy, what am I going to do to entertain these kids for a whole week???"

Life in this town pretty much stops during breaks. There are no dance lessons, no swim lessons, no horse lessons, no base playgroup. EVERYTHING stops and takes a break during spring break. How can this be? Don't these people understand that my children (and I would wager other children) need fun things to look forward to each week to keep them sane? A trip to Oklahoma City would be fun, but some genius made it so ALL Oklahoma schools go on spring break at the same time. This effectively turns the zoo and everything else kid-friendly into a MADHOUSE this week. So we have to improvise:

Monday: backyard play (still a novelty because it has just recently been deemed "safe" after our ice storm, thanks to Phil's tree-pruning efforts last weekend)
Tuesday: day in the big city of Lawton (the van needed some service so we et some friends and shopped and played at the mall playground, which was, according to my children, not as fun as the Dallas Galleria mall playground. Go figure.)
Wednesday: sick day after the aforementioned day of play at the mall playground. I think my hand sanitizer must have expired or something because it's not working.
Thursday: base bowling alley for lunch with Daddy and then play on the outdoor playground there. Surely the sun's powers have killed any viruses living on that thing.
Friday: Ummmmm... still thinking.

I guess we're doing alright. And it has been nice to sleep late (well, later) and not worry about getting Claire (and sometimes Maddie) presentable and off to preschool by 8am. Claire and Madeline have been playing nicely all week, and they've even entertained their brother from time to time. It's been nice to relax and play together without any real plans. So, while spring break isn't the same, it's still FUN!

Happy St Paddy's Day!

The kids were so excited to wear their St Paddy's day clothes. And a little leprechaun turned our milk green and brought them Lucky Charms cereal! Now, I know none of that is REAL Irish tradition, but it's fun for the kids.

You want Colin pictures?

You want Colin pictures? We've got Colin pictures!

To appease the grandparents' requests for more pictures I will indulge in a cute-baby blog post. If you don't want to see gobs of photos of a super cute little-baby-who's-not-so-little-anymore you should navigate away from this page ASAP. You've been warned.

I found a toy!

Lookie what I can do!

Thinking about crawling

Smiley boy

Chillaxin' at dinner

Where's my food???

Eating leaves in the yard

Books of the Bible and the Crazy Dancer

We've been a little busy around here lately, trying to get prepared for our upcoming move to New Jersey. I've spent most evenings going through the rental listings and trying to decide which town to live in, which school to send Claire to, which preschool to send Maddie to, etc, etc. The kids have been a little squirrely too, probably because they're sick of being cooped up in the house. They're definitely ready for Spring, even if Phil and I aren't yet ready for our move. There have been more sister-fights than usual, more sassiness at naptime, more fabrication of reasons to come out of bed at night from the girls.

But in spite of all that, they are still SO DARNED CUTE! Please excuse my gushing and obvious parental bias regarding the cuteness of my own kids. I just feel so lucky to have been blessed with these three wonderful people to raise. Their youth and enthusiasm for life keeps me feeling young (even if they're giving me wrinkles and making me look older every day!).

Anyway, here's a little video of the girls being crazy. Claire had been singing a song she learned at school about the books of the Bible (Old Testament) when Maddie decided to join in and shake her thang. You can hear Colin singing along too. It makes us laugh every single time we watch it. Hope it makes you smile too.