So Independent!!!

Drew came running up from the basement yesterday. He was all excited to tell me something. In his most excited and proud voice, he said "Mom, I scooped gunk out of my ear all by myself". He happily showed me his finger to prove it! Way to go Drew...I guess!

Don't worry, this is not a picture of Drew with his "gunk".

I like pictures with my posts so,

I included this cute one of Drew from last summer

June 2007

Conquering those winter blahs

The boys got a jumphouse from Santa a couple of years ago. It takes up a lot of room so, it is not something that we have out all of the time, but I pulled it out a couple of weeks ago and we are getting a lot of use out of it!! I don't think that Spencer is going to be thrilled with this month's electric bill, but at least we are surviving these long, dark, cold, winter afternoons.

The boys have been working on their flips (glorified summersalts). Today, Ben and Jack were convinced they were doing backwards flips. I was trying to explain to them that they were not backwards flips because they were still going frontwards. I told them that for it to be backwards, they would have to bring their feet over their heads and push themselves over with their hands. They told me that "nobody could do that, it is impossible". Well, I just couldn't let that go. I demonstrated on the hard basement floor that it was not impossible....stupid, but not impossible. My poor neck. :( And, believe me, they were less than amazed.

Winter makes these crazy boys a bit CRAZIER!!!

The day has come...

...to say good-bye to Charlie's red shoes.

I am a little sorry to see them go, but apparently Charlie is quite excited about his new shoes. After dinner, I took most of his clothes off as well as his shoes. He ended up bringing the shoes over to me and dropping them on my lap 3 times while I was sitting on the floor helping the boys with some work for school. I finally gave in and put them back on him.

The new shoes do look cuter with socks and ummm....pants, but Charlie does have a way of making everything look cute.

Brrrrr...

This afternoon, my car thermometer said that it was 47 degrees. Weather.com says that it is now 4 degrees, but feels like 19 below zero. How does that happen?!?!?! Why did my ancestors pick here to settle? Grrrr...

Birthday Parties

A little girl in Drew's class invited him to her birthday party that was afternoon. The party was at "Big Bounce" and Drew was "so excited!!!". He was "so excited!!!" yesterday that the party was only one day away and he was "so excited!!!" this morning when he came running into my room long before his brothers were even awake. It is always fun when boys get so excited about something.

Since the party was today (a Tuesday), and it was from 1 - 3 this afternoon, and Drew was the only brother invited, the rest of us were going to drop him off and then return at 3:00 to pick him up. When Drew got the invitation, I told him that he could definitely go to the party, but that I couldn't stay. Since this would be the first birthday party that Drew was going to without his brothers or me, I thought he would be a bit apprehensive...Nope!! He was "so excited!!!" when he got the invitation and his excitement was still going strong as he was waving good-bye to all of us. A little proud moment for mom!!

Jack, on the other hand, was definitely a little bummed to not be invited to the party...not that he even has a clue as to who Emma is. All he knows is that the party is at a bounce place that he hasn't visited and he likes a good party! He actually was trying to convince me yesterday that the four of us (myself, Charlie, Ben and him) should go to Chuckie Cheese while Drew was at the party. We happened to do that one other time when Ben was at a birthday party. Much to Jack's disappointment, Charlie needed a nap so, we were going home. Jack and Ben survived and ended up made the making the most of the time that Drew was at the party by taking extra long turns on Webkinz.com and then blowing up the jumphouse in the basement for their own bouncin' party. They even managed to put on their best happy/excited faces to share in Drew's excitement when we picked him up from the birthday party. Their happy faces paid off because Emma included Ben and Jack when she was handing out party favors. Whew!!

One side funny story about this is that I took all of the boys to Target yesterday to buy a birthday present for Emma. Listening to the discussion between the boys about what to buy for a "guwl" was pretty funny. Drew was a bit perplexed and appreciated all of the advice that he was receiving from his brothers. They really have no ideas what girls do for fun. I'm sure that conversation will even get funnier in years to come. ;)

Piano Men

Grandmom Adelaide signed the boys up for piano lessons last fall. This afternoon, they had their first recital. I was very impressed with my little "piano men". Their were 15 kids that participated in their recital. Ben was the very first child to play. When they called his name, he marched right up to the giant piano (rather than the small keyboard) and played his song. He did a wonderful job. Drew was next. He was so cute, you could hear him counting out the notes from our seats. "C, B, A,2,3...." Too funny and so cute!! Jack was third and also did a wonderful job. He told me in the car that "we all did a good job with our songs and none of us made a mistake". I was really impressed that they all marched up there and played their songs to a roomful of people and didn't seem the least bit nervous.

Don't they look proud!!

Grandmom with Drew, Jack & Ben

Celebration Pizza with Grandparents at Vito & Nicks.

Yumm!!

March! March! Clap!

Here is an oldie, but goodie.

I remember being so excited when the boys were old enough to walk with me, rather than me carrying them or using the stroller. That skill gave us so much more freedom. To just be able to get everyone upstairs at naptime in one trip was wonderful, not to mention being able to run into Osco for milk.

I believe that this skill emerged right around the time they turned two. The problem turned out to be that even when we reached the point that they could do it, their attention span of was pretty non-existent. In order to get them to follow me consistently, I discovered that if I gave them something to do as they were following me, I would be less likely to lose them (lose their attention, not physically lose the boys). So, we started marching and clapping all together. It worked beautifully, except for the fact that the "L" sound was not a sound that they could make yet and they would substitute it with a "W" sound. Well, since I was with them every day and was used to the way they talked, I didn't really notice what they were saying. One day, we were at Jen & Craig's house for a family birthday party. At one point, I was trying to get the boys to come with me so, I started with the march, march,clap. My family thought it was just about the funniest thing that they had ever seen. The boys were yelling "March! March! Crap!!" as loud as they could as they followed me. My dad took a video and I re-discovered it a few weeks ago. It is pretty funny and the boys are so cute and little!!

It's Quiet Here!!!

Well, except for the music that I have blaring from the tv. But, it is MY music and I'm not going to admit what music it is because that would be embarassing. It always strikes me when I have the house all to myself because it does not happen very often. Spencer took the boys sledding at the "park with the big hill" because it is finally warm enough to play in the snow!! Charlie is upstairs taking his nap. So, the house is mine. I don't even know what to do with myself....I guess I'll blog. ;)

Funny, In my Opinion

I received this in an email yesterday and thought it was cute. A dad in my Triplet Mom's group was pretty offended with this email. I ran it past "my" guy to see if it was offensive and he ok'd it. I'm putting it on here so that when these busy years are long gone for me, I'll have a reminder of what life was like. Seriously though, I don't think that it is that far fetched. Between swimming lessons, school, school concert, church, piano class, practice and recital, groceries, mitten shopping, ear infection, teaching religious education, cooking, laundry and playdates, our 'typical week', this week, is quite busy. And, 3/4 of my kids are still going in the same direction...and... the 4th is still just along for the ride.

Enjoy!! BTW, let me know if you are offended, I'll take it off. I wouldn't want to lose either of my loyal readers. ;) LOL!!

THE NEXT SURVIVOR SERIES Six married men will be dropped on an island with one car and 3 kids each for six weeks. Each kid will play two sports and either take music or dance classes. There is no fast food. Each man must take care of his 3 kids; keep his assigned house clean, correct all homework, and complete science projects, cook, do laundry, and pay a list of "pretend" bills with not enough money. In addition, each man will have to budget in money for groceries each week. Each man must remember the birthdays of all their friends and relatives, and send cards out on time. Each man must also take each child to a doctor's appointment, a dentist appointment and a haircut appointment. He must make one unscheduled and inconvenient visit per child to the Urgent Care. He must also make cookies or cupcakes for a social function. Each man will be responsible for decorating his own assigned house, planting flowers outside and keeping it presentable at all times. The men will only have access to television when the kids are asleep and all chores are done. The men must shave their legs, wear makeup daily, adorn himself with jewelry, wear uncomfortable yet stylish shoes, keep fingernails polished and eyebrows groomed. During one of the six weeks, the men will have to endure severe abdominal cramps, back aches, and have extreme, unexplained mood swings but never once complain or slow down from other duties. They must attend weekly school meetings, church, and find time at; least once to spend the afternoon at the park or a similar setting. They will need to read a book and then pray with the children each night and in the morning, feed them, dress them, brush their teeth and comb their hair by 7:00 am. A test will be given at the end of the six weeks, and each father will be required to know all of the following information: each child's birthday, height, weight, shoe size, clothes size and doctor's name. Also the child's weight at birth, length, time of birth, and length of labor, each child's favorite color, middle name, favorite snack, favorite song, favorite drink, favorite toy, biggest fear and what they want to be when they grow up. The kids vote them off the island based on performance. The last man wins only if...he still has enough energy to be intimate with his spouse at a moment's notice.If the last man does win, he can play the game over and over and over again for the next 18-25 years eventually earning the right To be called Mother!

29 Weeks

Jen is 29 weeks today. Yay!! I don't have a picture because we have not been to visit her in over a week. Hopefully, Charlie and I will be able to make it out there on Friday. She has been feeling very tired and is getting pretty uncomfortable. She said that her belly hurts holding up all of the babies. She had a doctor's appointment today and everyone looks good! It sounds like it is a good thing that she is at the hospital because she said that her trip to the Dr.'s office, by wheelchair, really wore her out. She is in the home stretch. Go Jen!!

Gloves

It is January 21st and it is 9 degrees outside. There is not a chance that winter is going to end any time soon. Why is it almost impossible to find mittens or gloves for little boys? The boys have misplaced a couple of mittens this winter and our old backups have seen better days. We cannot be the only family in Chicago that needs new gloves.

So, Charlie and I started out our kindergarten *free* time with a purpose. We went to Target first this morning because I love Target, its fun, and ours is a SuperTarget. So, in addition to the gloves that the boys desperately needed, I could also get all of our groceries and new socks and undershirts for the boys. Target turned out to be a bust for gloves. They had lots of girls stuff and some baby stuff and some adult stuff, but the pickings for young boys were pretty slim. There was nothing in the boys' size, or even close to their size. I couldn't be too choosy considering it is "off season" (?). I did see some cute swimming trunks though, but, I was a good girl and stayed on track...no bathing suits today.

Charlie and I continued our morning adventure, in the freezing cold and snow, by heading over to the mall. I went to Children's Place, Gymboree, GapKids, Sears and Macy's. This picture is the boys modeling the gloves that I ended up with from Sears.

The good news is that they were on sale, the bad news is that they are HUGE!! Needless to say, the boys did not last out in the snow for very long. They tried sledding down our hill a few times, but gloves came off, there were tears and it wasn't pretty. I guess that I should have just paid the stupid $15/pair and ordered the LLBean ones when I got their coats and hats. Grrr....

Mommy!!!

I think Jack said "Mommy" 1,000 times today. If not 1,000 maybe 1,100. I'm posting about it today because I know that one day I will look back on these days and wish that I could go back to them. I'm sure that as he gets older, I will miss him yelling, shouting, singing, whispering and even signing "Mommy" (and sometimes "MawMaw" grrrr...) over and over again from every corner of the house. But, I know that today I an not fully appreciating the glory of it. ;)

We finished our day with a phone call to "DADDY!!". Jack missed him and was so happy to talk to him. This picture of Jack was taken as he was finishing up his "stand-up routine" of knock-knock jokes for Daddy. I'm sure that Spencer appreciated the phone call while working late in his office.

Who LOVES Ice Cream?!?!?!

Grandmom Adelaide came over for dinner tonight. It was a last minute idea and it is REALLY cold out today. I really did not want to have to go to the store. I had already planned to serve chili today so, that would be fine for "company". Then I started to think about dessert. I have a box of brownie mix that I considered, but then I remembered that I had the makings for ice cream sundaes. I figured that would be perfect because Grandmom Adelaide LOVES ice cream.

Grandmom came and we all had a nice visit and enjoyed dinner. (Jack even really liked the chili...yay...he was so surprised!) After dinner, I started serving the ice cream sundaes and everyone was enjoying them. After a few minutes, I looked at Ben. He had ice cream all over his face and even in his hair. It was surprising because usually, he is usually my neatest eater.

Since we hadn't had ice cream in a while, I had forgotten that whenever the boys eat ice cream, they always drink the remaining melted ice cream out of the bowl before they are finished. Since today the ice cream also included chocolate and strawberry toppings, it made for some messier than usual boys. Now why would I mention this in my blog today?!?!?! You would never believe who they learned this crazy thing from??? Definitely not me...it was Grandmom Adelaide.

So, this whole crazy family had an ice cream drinking party on a day where the high temperature outside was about zero.

The dessert this evening also reminded me of the first time that Grandmom Adelaide taught the boys the "proper" way to eat ice cream. We had brought over some McDonald's ice cream to Grandmom's house shortly after she moved to Aurora, when the boys were 3 years old. We sat out on the patio of her new house on the beautiful August evening and ate our ice cream. As everyone was finishing up, Grandmom showed the boys that they should drink the melted ice cream. She neglected to mention that if a bee lands on the rim of your ice cream cup, to wait for the bee to fly away before finishing. Jack was so excited about drinking his ice cream and determined to drink every last bit of that ice cream that he did not notice the bee sitting on his cup that also wanted a taste.

Jack ~ August 2005

That rotten bee got poor Jack right on the eye lid. His eye looked awful, but it definitely has not detered him from finishing future ice cream sundaes.

Smart and Sneaky!!!

Here is some work that Drew brought home from school last Friday. I was pretty impressed. The class is learning the word "to" as their new sight word. I am not eactly sure what the directions for his assignment were, but it was something along the lines of practicing writing their new word.

A copy of Drew's work is below.

On the front of the paper, Drew wrote: "My family went to school and the McDonalds's PlayPlace and then Piano lessons and rellay rellay rellay rellay last of all is to my house"

On the back of the paper, Drew wrote: "I went to Grandmom and Grandpa's house" Then he drew a picture.

Drew's teacher was obviously happy with his work because she wrote a big "Awesome!" in orange crayon. When we were going through Drew's backpack, I saw his work and told him what a great job I thought he did. He was like "whatever". Well, apparently even though Mr. Smarty Pants acts all cool, it turns the praise is very important to him.

This is another piece of school work that Drew brought home a few days later. I was flipping through all of the stuff that the boys had brought home from school and noticed it said "Nice Job" on it. A few minutes later I happened to give it a second look and wondered what was so "nice" about it to make his teacher stop and comment. I looked closer at the writing and realized that Drew had taken it upon himself to write "Nice Job". It sorta made me laugh. It is a very nice job Drew and I am so glad that you are proud of yourself!!!

28 Weeks!!!

Jen and Craig's babies reached 28 weeks gestation today. We are all so relieved and grateful. Here is a email that she sent to family and friends today.

Hello Family and Friends...

As you probably remember, Craig and I wrote you in July in hopes to get on your prayer list, as we were struggling with infertility for quite some time, and needed a little help. Well, as you know, God listened to all of our prayers and blessed us with a triplet pregnancy.

Even though I have had a very challenging pregnancy, spending the last 43 out of 46 nights in the hospital, all of our little boys continue to do fantastic. Today we reached HUGE milestone, one that we did not think we were ever going to get to....28 weeks!!! We are hoping to make it a great deal farther, with a delivery date of approx. March 5th if everything goes perfectly, but consider ourselves very blessed to have made it to this point. We truly appreciate all of the prayers that you have been saying on our little guys' behalf, as we don't think we would be in this amazing situation if it weren't for them.

Our next big milestone will be week 32, which is February 13th. At that time, I will send another update on my pregnancy (hopefully), or the birth of our little miracles. Until then, please continue to bless us with your prayers... they are working!!!

Love,
Jennifer
FYI- Average baby weights for a 28 week pregnancy is 2lbs 6ozs. Following are our approx. weights:
Baby A: 2lbs 11ozs
Baby B: 2lbs 1oz
Baby C: 2lbs 4ozs

Don't tell the pregnant mommy, but prayers for another 7 weeks would be appreciated. ;)

Thanks you!!!

Jack must be reading my blog!!

This is Jack at 8:37 this morning. If you read my blog yesterday, you know that 8:37 is 3 whole minutes before it is even time to put on coats, hats and mittens. I don't know what Jack's motivation this morning was, but he was READY TO GO!!! I hope it continues!!! Oh, and I lost MY mitten on the way to school today. How weird is that?!?!?! It is turning out to be a strange day.

Who wants to hang out with a mom that has a lot of kids???

Other moms that have a lot of kids.

Can you match up the 3 sets of triplets?

There are also 2 siblings of the triplets and one friend included in the picture.

The boys and I met some friends at Chuckie Cheese tonight. I think everyone had a really good time. We didn't end up leaving until about 6:45 and we were all wiped out on the way home. Everyone that is except Jack. Jack talked non-stop the entire way home about the 52 tickets that he *won* at Chuckie Cheese. He found every possible way to talk about those tickets. Needless to say, he was very happy and quite proud!

Charlie is not sure what to make of a GIRL!!

Drew and Ben

Great form Jack!!

Going to school...

The most stressful 15 minutes of our day is between 8:40 and 8:55 every morning. No matter what we do to prepare for those 15 minutes, they never go smoothly. Maybe our approach is all wrong or maybe it is just the result of having 4 little kids...I'm not sure.


The majority of our mornings run relatively smooth. Charlie and I get up at about 7:15, Spencer is long gone. Charlie drinks his milk on my bedroom floor and plays while I take a shower and get ready. We go get the boys about 7:45. The assembly line of baths begin. The boys go one-by-one with each bath taking probably less than 5 minutes. Charlie is thrown in the bath tub at any point during the process when he needs to be contained or entertained. The boys get dressed as they get out and Charlie is always the last one out and I dress him and go downstairs. When we get downstairs, the boys decide what they would like for breakfast from our wide assortment of frozen breakfasts. I warm them up and pour their milk while they are supposed to be getting their shoes on. They have until 8:40 to eat. I sometimes get a chance to peek at my blog for comments ;) while they eat breakfast.


At 8:40, it is time to put on coats, hats, mittens, backpacks and get in the car. This is where the breakdown of our not-so-well-oiled machine begins. Someone forgot to put their shoes on, someone can't find a mitten, someone can't find their box-tops, someone forgot to zipper their backpack and everything falls out. I'm not exactly sure what exactly happens and where everything goes, because it was all there and ready to go 5 minutes earlier, but something/everything always goes wrong.


You would think that we could all relax when we are finally in the car, but not quite yet. Something important always needs to be discussed between the 3 of them before they can buckle their seatbelts. (?) The car is running, Charlie and I are buckled and the boys are talking about 'who knows what'. No matter how many times, I say "sit down and put your seatbelt on", it takes forever!! When we get close to the school and in the car line, I remind the boys that they should put their backpacks on and make sure that they have all of their stuff ready to get out when we get to the front of the line. Somehow, mittens and hats get lost, noses start running, shoes get untied all in the 2 MINUTES it takes to drive to school! We are always holding up the car line. Most people have one or two kids getting out of their car. We have 3 and they are all kindergarteners, kindergarteners that on more than a few occassions come running back to my van after they have gotten out because they have forgotten the ONE thing that they have to bring in with them...their BACKPACKS!


I have got to find a new way to manage those last 15 minutes. Our morning adventure always ends with me yelling "get out, get out, get out!, oh yeah and have fun, I love you". And, on some days, it takes me the whole 2 hours and 45 minutes of kindergarten time to recover and put the
house back together.

The first day of kindergarten, August 2007

Just a Sunday

We have been going to TGIFridays pretty consistently after church on Sundays for the past couple of years. The boys think that it is hilarious that we go to "Fridays on Sunday". Since I started blogging, I thought it would be the perfect thing to mention one day because hopefully it will trigger a memory of those lunches when the boys get older, but I keep forgetting my camera. I love blogs with pictures! We did manage to snap one picture today of Charlie at TGIFridays on Spencer's cell phone and it was too cute to not include it on my blog today. He has a silly face because he is signing that his macaroni & cheese is "hot". I guess it was not too hot though because that is his bowl in the bottom of the pictue and notice that it is almost GONE!! Charlie obviously fits into our family and weekly lunches at TGIFridays quite nicely. He actually ate more of his mac & cheese than Ben did today.

I snapped a few other quick pictures tonight.

Drew and Ben playing Hot Hoops.

A benefit of having 4 kids is hearing

"I'm playing the winner" more often than

"I don't have anyone to play with"

Jack is turning out to be a math genius, just like his daddy. He was counting by 11's tonight and made it up to 1400-something. This is Daddy checking to make sure that whatever number Jack was up to was still divisible by 11, and it was.

Charlie was practicing drinking out of an open cup at dinner. That is why he doesn't have any clothes on, but he is still lovin' those red shoes...us too!!

Triplet Mommy in Training...

When I was looking through my old pictures for yesterday's entry, I came across this one. This is Aunt Jen (27w3d-now, not in the picture!!!!!) with my boys when they were about 8 months old. I think she'll do just fine. ;)

January 2003

I've been talking to my sister quite a bit recently about our experiences when the boys were born and very young. Apparently, reality is starting to set in for her. ;) Anyway, it is pretty neat for me to have such a captive audience while I relive my memories. We were talking about the early days of sleep deprivation the other day. I did not meet any other triplet moms until the boys were about 6 months old and I discovered Triplet Connection about that same time. So, the early days, it was just Spencer and I whinging the whole triplet thing. We were so tired. I never did figure out how to feed more than one baby at a time. It took about 1/2 hour to feed Ben and Jack and anywhere from 1/2 hour to an hour to feed Drew. They all ate every 3 hours, around the clock, for months. Did I mention that we were tired?! I was telling my sister that it was a nightly occurrence at our house for one of us (Spencer or myself) to wake up frantically during the night and tear apart our bed because we were sure that there was a baby in there and we had suffocated him. It was so ridiculous because we never brought a baby into our bed. But, we were so tired, I don't think our minds could keep track of when we were up feeding and when we were asleep. It definitely was a crazy time, but we survived and the new Mommy and Daddy will survive too. Good thing God made those tiny babies are so darn cute!

July 2002

People can be so rude!

I have always heard friends of mine complain about receiving unsolicited parenting advice. I don't really remember anyone being so bold with me when the boys were younger. I always thought that maybe it was because I must look like I have a bit of a 'Mommy Attitude' that people just didn't want to mess with. When I started going places with just Charlie, I realized that either my 'mommy attitude' isn't what is used to be or there was a different reason that people left me alone.

I cannot believe the rude things that people say to moms. This morning, Charlie and I were running errands. On the way into Target, some middle-aged (OLDER THAN ME!) guy, felt the need to shout to me from about 20 feet away "that kid needs a hat!". Who says things like that to people that they don't know!?!?! It was 37 degrees outside, we were parked 3 cars from the front of the store and Charlie was wearing a turtle-neck, overalls and a bulky winter coat that had a hood. Unfortunately for my mommy ego, Charlie thought it was a funny game to keep leaning his head back to knock down his hood. To top it off, this guy looked like he didn't have a clue how to take care of a baby. He looked like he was a 45 year old bachelor that drives a truck. Did I look that incompetent as a mother, a job that I have been doing all day, every day for the last 5,1/2 years, that some guy has to tell me that it is cold out?!?!?! How rude!

Last spring, Charlie pulled off his socks and shoes constantly. I always put socks on him when we were going somewhere but he would always pull them off. I would put them in my purse while we were in stores and then put them back on him when we were leaving. I could not believe the number of strangers that would make comments to me about him not having anything on his feet and not nice, friendly comments either. Some people are so mean and bold and probably need to get a hobby or a job! ;)

Obviously, I don't have any cute pictures to go with the theme of my post today. So, I thought I would just add a few old pictures for fun.

September 2003

Parental Controls!!!

I really have got to sit down and figure out how to set up parental controls on the computer. The boys absolutely love being on the computer. I have no idea where they got that from!!! :)

They are regulars on their favorite sites. PBSkids, nickjr, and a couple of other cute kid sites are their favorites. They do bop around the internet pretty well. Recently, they got very interested and involved with Webkinz. Jack actually got one for his birthday back in May and we really did not know anything about them. We did register it on the computer, but he rarely went back to that site to play with "Jack5" (Jack5 is the name that he chose for his Webkinz(?)). Well, apparently in kindergarten, Webkinz are all the rage. The boys wanted nothing else but Webkins for Christmas. Lucky for them, Santa came through. Now they each have 3 Webkinz.

Our "family" of Webkinz

(l-r) Jack5, Ben5, Mr. Big, Snow, Blackie,

Sophie (don't ask!!), Mr. Snow, Allie and Cokker

They webkinz site is pretty cool. They register their Webkinz and then play with them on the computer. The Webkinz can play games, earn Webkinz$, go shopping, eat, go to the Dr., play with their other Webkinz friends and lots of other cool things. The boys really enjoy the site and are constantly finding new things to do there.

Well, the other day, I heard a lot of commotion in the computer room. The boys were all yelling and sorta laughing. Jack came out of the computer room as I was coming down the hallway. I asked him what was going on. He said that "he was blowing up Webkinz". I know that I have not thoroughly investigated the Webkinz site, but I thought that would be a strange thing to have on there. I asked him who was blowing up Webkinz and he said the "guy on the computer". I asked him why and he said "he doesn't like Webkinz, I guess". Well, I went in the computer room to see what was going on and they had typed Webkinz in the search box instead of doing the www thing and they ended up on a Youtube video of some crazy guy literally blowing up Webkinz. OOPS! Well, that could have turned out much worse and the boys don't seem traumatized so, I guess it was a good lesson for me to get the computer 'kid proofed'. There will definitely be no blowing up Webkinz in this house, at least not any time soon.

My Good Catholic Boys

We started working on learning the prayer "Hail Mary". They are proud to have learned almost 1/2 of the prayer. So far they have:

Hello Mary, full of rice
The Word is with You
Blessed are you and women
And blessed is the food of your warm Jesus

I guess we are starting over tomorrow. ;)

Charlie's Room

As promised, here are some pictures of Charlie's room. When we painted and decorated the room, we did not know if he was going to be a boy or a girl, so we had to be neutral. Spencer made really sure that it was not too girlie and I made sure that it was not to boyish. I really wanted to find out just so that we could paint it pink or blue.

As you can see, Charlie has his own room. He actually has his own bathroom too. I'm not sure how that is going to work out as the years go by...he better enjoy it while he has it. For now, his big brothers think sharing a room is better.

55 Degrees and Rainy....

A perfect weather day for January 6th in Chicago!!! And, the Coyle Family thoroughly enjoyed the nice weather! It is so hard to believe that the snow is gone!!! The boys were not disappointed that they could not use the new sleds that Santa brought because they were able to use their new scooters. That Santa guy is a smart guy!!! They also were able to drag out their big wheels and play a little catch. A good afternoon all around.

In other news, Charlie still seems to have his stomach bug. We were optimistically hopeful that it was gone, but he proved us wrong. YUCK!!! The weird/cool side effect of this bug is that it has brought back his love of grapes. His favorite foods were grapes and hotdogs until his last stomach bug at the beginning of November. Since then, he would not touch either food. Well tonight, Charlie was watching Spencer make his lunch for tomorrow. When Spencer started packing his grapes, Charlie started babbling and throwing every sign that he knows at him. We sat him back in his highchair and he gobbled up all of the grapes that we would give to him. We had to cut him off because we didn't want to be seeing them again later. Here is a picture of him emphatically signing "more" while he had one in his mouth and some still on his tray. Too funny!!

Our Grape Monster

Christmas Break is over and the boys are back in school tomorrow. It has been a quick 2 weeks!! Happy Monday!

Saturday Fun

Well, our real Saturday fun was going to Vaughn Athletic Center swimming pool, but I forgot my camera. We had a good time, but they imposed a 48 inch height requirement for the big slide which was really disappointing for the boys. They really enjoyed that slide on other trips. The slide is actually a tube slide that goes on the outside of the building. We pass the athletic center everytime we go to my mom and dads and the boys always get excited to see the slide. They'll have to wait a few years to ride it again now. :(

Other highlights of the day included Ben getting a Eagle AND a Hole-in-One on Daddy's Golden Tee Game. I bet Grandpa will be impressed! I did not get a picture, but Jack was there to witness and verify both accomplishments. They are all really enjoying the game!

After yesterday's post, I decided it was really time to clean out the toyboxes. That was a project, but we got rid of a lot of junk. Yay!!! The boys were quite proud of themselves!!

Did someone say their room looked clean yesterday?!?!?!

Finally, I have started using the Signing Times videos again. They are videos to teach sign language to babies/kids. We used them when the boys were little because it really helped them start to talk and increase their vocabulary. I had gotten rid of ours, but I borrowed some from friends to use for Charlie. Of course, the boys have been watching them. They love all of Charlie's movies...ugh! Anyway, Jack was sitting at the kitchen counter eating and he called out to me "Mom, guess what I'm saying?". He had both of his hands flapping around. I had no idea. Well, he was signing "yes" with one hand and "no" with his other hand. He said, I'm signing "maybe". LOL! Charlie is going to be so confused!!

Life is never dull here!!