It's Christmas Time

When we got back from California, it kind of threw me for a loop that Christmas was barely 3 weeks away. Admittedly, it was a bit overwhelming, since I hadn't even begun to think about what to get the kids. Sure, I had some ideas, but I hadn't decided on anything, and with only one car, I had only 2 days a week in which to get any preparations done (in between running the rest of the errands I usually cram into those 2 days).

Christmas got a whole lot easier with this unexpected purchase, of course:

We bought the truck on a Monday, but Sunday night we had zero plans to get a second vehicle until next summer. It was very much a spur of the moment purchase, but it gave me the freedom to run errands all week (which led to me overdoing it and being so exhausted I got sick last weekend, oops). Of course, one of the most important errands was taking the girls to see Santa. We stopped at Bass Pro Shop for the "Santa's Wonderland". The girls got to shoot toy bows, race cars, and color. Connor wasn't entirely thrilled with the experience, but the girls loved it.

At one point, it got pretty cold (well, for us, at least). To combat it, we finally cleaned out our fireplace and tried it out. Of course, you can't have a fire without some hot cocoa. Not that the girls really drank too much of it. More was spilled on the fireplace than drank. The cookies, however, were gone rather quickly.

 (He's actually eating a graham cracker, but he was stuffing his face so we took a picture)

Connor recently discovered that Taz is pretty much the coolest toy ever. He spent last night chasing her around and got pretty upset when she finally decided she was done and put herself out of his reach. I am constantly amazed at how tolerant she is of being dragged around by the kids. In fact, she seems to enjoy it and will walk up to them for attention, even though she knows what kind of attention they tend to give.

We also decorated our tree last night. We went tree shopping Friday night. We found a vendor that sells beautiful, fresh trees, but with the tree being up for less than two weeks, I wasn't willing to spend the money (they were a little pricey), so we hit up Home Depot. Next year, though, we'll get our tree at the beginning of the month and we'll definitely have one of those beautiful, full trees from the other place.

So, it's been an eventful few weeks, but always in a good way. We'll end this update with a picture of the kids playing together. Love!

California 2013

I almost don't even know where to start. 3400 miles, 11 nights, 4 different hotels, 3 congested reactions to Bakersfield air, 2 teeth cutting through, 1 baby with a cold...

We left Houston at 3 in the morning the Friday before Thanksgiving. The plan was always to get as many miles as possible between us and Houston on the very first day, expecting everyone's tolerance levels to drop drastically on day 2. Impressively, we put 1100 miles behind us and arrived in Tuscon Friday evening, though we ran into a few problems. The cold front hit West Texas around the same time we did and we had ice forming on the front of our car, the side mirrors, the antenna and the windows. Once we got through that, it was the strong crosswinds in New Mexico that ended in a dust storm James attempted to navigate while Connor, who reached his limit, screamed for the last 30 minutes of the night.

Munching on an apple slice as we drive through New Mexico

The original plan had been to leave Tuscon bright and early, but we ended up choosing an extra hour or so of sleep over an early start. Ate breakfast at the hotel, and headed out. Day 2, with its mere 600 miles, was a breeze as long as we stopped regularly to give Connor a moment to stretch his legs. We got in to Bakersfield later than expected and tired, but happy to see family. It took only a few minutes for our tired brood to relax and begin to explore the new toys Nana's house provided. More family showed up and it was a loud moment as Connor and Carter were introduced, I got to see Grandy for the first time in 5 years, the missionaries showed up, and we enjoyed a BBQ dinner for the evening (including the boudin James had us bring for everyone to try).

Two of three triplet cousins and their first meeting

Sunday was a quieter start. James and I snuck off for a date, since it was the only open time slot provided to us and our over-booked schedule with family for the rest of the week. We checked out a breakfast place suggested by Seth and Nicole and were extremely pleased with the experience. Good food and lots of it for a more than decent price. My chicken-fried steak was big enough I took half of it home for a filling lunch after church.

We went to church with mom. I wasn't sure how the girls would handle going to a different primary, but it went about as expected. I'm told Cadence did okay, which says so much about how much she has matured over the past few months. Megan, however, would not leave Nana's side. James and I sat in the foyer with a restless Connor and decided to leave after the 2nd hour (Though, after hearing how well Cadence had done, I wish we'd let her finish out the experience and go to 3rd hour, but Megan tends to get sulky and anti-social even in our home ward lately, so I doubt she would have flourished at all in the new ward).

Erin and her family arrived Sunday evening and the chaos doubled. The girls were exhausted by the whole experience thus far and put themselves to bed shortly after everyone else left.

Jelly donut. He ate way more of it than I expected. I snatched the last bit away, which he was not happy about

Monday through Wednesday were a touch quieter. Monday we spent the day at dad's house, visiting with him, Grandy and Chad. I took a moment to duck out and get my hair cut for the first time since June, as our recent pictures had only emphasized how much I hated my hair as it was (too long and unstyled). I brought back pastrami sandwiches from Frosty King, something I had been craving since my 2nd trimester with Connor. James then left to go spend the afternoon with his grandfather and we continued our quiet afternoon with my dad and Grandy, finishing off the visit with some gumbo, before once again going home so the girls could beg for pajamas and bedtime.

Coloring at Grandpa's house

Tuesday and Wednesday we spent the mornings and afternoon in Taft to visit with James's family. Tuesday evening we briefly met with Emilee and Jeremy at the park after moving in to our hotel and Wednesday evening was busy with Thanksgiving preparations.

Swinging at the park in his snazzy new jacket

Thanksgiving was... chaotic, as was most of the week, but pleasant. Between trying to get some family pictures taken and playing board games with family and just sitting in the living room and trying to keep the kids from destroying the place, everyone was kept busy right up to the moment dinner itself was served.

Only a small portion of the chaos Tuesday night

By Friday, we were ready to go home, at least I was, emotionally/mentally. James, unfortunately, got sick from the stress of traveling and had to stay at the hotel to recover. I took the kids out to Taft for one final visit on our last day, then we went back to the hotel for lunch and a moment to get as much packed/prepped as possible for our departure the next day. Then it was back to Nana's house for one last evening. I left the kids to pick up a few things for James and drop them off, then swung by the hospital to visit Grandy (who had picked up Chad's cold and had to be admitted on Thanksgiving, unfortunately). James, by this point, was feeling a bit better, so he ventured out with me and spent the last couple hours at my mom's house, where we had a drawn-out cutthroat round of Uno before we herded our tired brood back to the hotel.

Cousins +1 at dinner Tuesday night

Saturday might be the longest day we had all week. Though we were out the door an hour earlier than initially planned, the day took way too long. Connor did not have the patience he'd had on day 1 of travelling. We landed in Phoenix for a visit with an old friend of mine and a chance for the kids to run around for an hour or two, but it wasn't enough of a break. Our goal was Las Cruces, but between sleepy truck drivers making us nervous and Connor getting extra fussy, we pulled over about 120 miles short of our goal. The receptionist was sympathetic and gave us a discount, though considering we had pre-pair for our hotel in Las Cruces, it was the most expensive EconoLodge we ever stayed in, but it was clean and the beds were comfortable and we were tired. It was perfect.

Grandpa Jim & Connor. This picture is so getting framed.

Sunday went surprisingly well. Partially because Connor had picked up his uncle's cold and as long as we kept him supplied with tylenol, he was fine with sleeping most of the way. We made it all the way to San Antonio in decent time. Knowing we were only 3 hours from home and had no need to rush, I think we were able to really relax for the first time in awhile. We ordered pizza, watched movies on the TV and even dragged our suitcase out instead of our overnight bags so we could all shower/bathe and dress in clean clothes.

Connor and Carter "fighting" over a toy

We took our time leaving the hotel Monday morning, enjoying the breakfast (where I almost broke their waffle iron, oops). James and I browsed the "things to do" brochures and discussed a return to San Antonio for a simpler family vacation in the future. We meandered our way back to Houston, even stopping about halfway to rearrange the carseats, hoping having his sisters back beside him (instead of in the backseat as they had been for the rest of the trip) would ease Connor into thinking all was back to normal to give us the last hour and a half we needed. It worked, by the way. He fussed a bit, but lulled himself back to sleep until we got home as long as Cadence reached over to touch him and talk to him.

Complete meltdown because I left him behind to run into the gas station and pee.

We are glad to be home! I might be a bit happier if Connor had slept well or if the laundry was already washed and put away, but the kids are in a good mood and I'm giving myself permission to take it easy today. The kids are also liking the fact that I took out my bucket of Christmas decorations and have already put up our stockings and James's shotgun shell lights around the fireplace. We'll go tree shopping next weekend. I also browsed Cyber Monday deals and found an great option for buying dolls I'd been considering for the girls (I got both for $50 instead of the $80 total they were originally!) and picked up a few things for Connor that James really wanted to get him.

There are more pictures, but they're on other people's cameras and I don't have access to them yet, which is why there are so few of the girls. I do have video I shall attempt to upload for a "California 2013 addendum" post.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it (Doctor stats)

Mostly posting this because these are numbers I want to keep and this blog is my way of saving many memories. (Seriously, eventually, this will be printed out as a keepsake memory book for the kids down the road).

The girls had their dual appointment today. It was a bit hectic, since two nurses jumped in and at one point Cadence was in the room having her hearing checked as I answered questions about her allergies and Megan was in the hall being measured while I was trying to assure her I wasn't leaving her behind.

Cadence did worlds better this year, though considering the mess she was last year, she would have really had to try to be worse. She obsessed about the shot, of course, but seemed pretty happy about it in general. She was even happier when the nurse told her she wasn't getting shots this time around. While this was true, she neglected to mention Cadence would be getting a finger prick. Megan covered her ears and shut her eyes every time shots were mentioned, especially once learning she would not be spared like her sister.

All in all, the girls are in great health. They were able to do both the hearing and vision test on both girls. Their eyesight was 20/16 and their hearing test passed. Both are things we want to keep a close eye on as they start to age, thanks to poor family history in both areas, but for now we'll continue to cross fingers and toes they inherited my eyesight and hearing.

Megan surprised me by gaining 6 pounds! (For reference, she only gained 1.5 pounds the year before) She's still a skinny miss, but she's 40" (50-75 percentile) and 31lbs (10-15 percentile). She's more or less the same size Cadence was at age 4, minus 3 pounds.

Cadence is on her usual curve. She gained 4lbs and a couple inches, rounding out at 38lbs (30-35 percentile) and 42 3/4" (50 percentile even). Admittedly, I'm surprised she's so low on the scale, since until all the boys in her class hit their growth spurt last year, she was the biggest and youngest in her primary class. However, they did hit their growth spurts and she's now average sized (and no longer the youngest, due to the population explosion in our ward primary).

The doctor kept asking diet questions and I hesitated. I do try to make sure they eat healthy, but this morning we ran out of milk, so I went to the donut place to pick up donuts and orange juice for breakfast. It's a fight to get them to eat any vegetable other than corn (and currently, Cadence claims to hate it). The only vegetable they eat with a relish is ice berg lettuce coated with ranch dressing. I don't think that's what the doctor meant, but I do try! And milk? Yeah... it's a hit or miss. One day they'll drink the whole cup with breakfast, the other it's untouched.

Do peanut butter and jelly sandwiches count as a balanced diet? Because that's pretty much the only thing I can say for sure they eat on a regular basis. *sigh*

Oh well! They take a multivitamin and I keep trying. Dinner is usually pretty balanced, there's just no guarantee they'll eat it. :-P

Family Pictures!

Thanks to a groupon deal and our upcoming trip, we got some family pictures done the other night. Unfortunately, between Cadence's face smile and James blinking, there was only one that was even really usable as a family picture (and sadly, that one was the only one Connor wasn't grinning in). I will admit, Cadence's fake smile is rather cute (especially in the family picture with the white background), but I didn't want it on my wall, lol. Megan, of course, looks cute in pretty much all of them and Connor is the biggest flirt, so he grinned a lot too.

Birthday Weekend!

In the near future, I might manage to successfully separate the girls' birthdays, but it did not happen this weekend. Both girls anxiously counted down and asked about their birthday since I changed the calendar to November. With our California trip right around the corner and everything, we didn't make a big deal (again) this year, but we had an enjoyable weekend nonetheless.

Saturday morning, Cadence woke Megan up with the news that it was her birthday and they both rushed out to tell me. I was inundated with "whose birthday is it today?" and "whose birthday is it tomorrow?" from both ends.

We went to do family pictures since it's the only weekend that worked out, and then went to Chili's for Megan's birthday dinner (she got to pick the restaurant and chose Chili's based on their picture of pizza). The girls feasted on pepperoni pizzas, salads, and apple juice. Actually, Cadence ate more of her salad than her pizza and Megan picked at both. Unfortunately, I left my camera's memory card at home and my camera has no internal memory, so a bunch of cute pictures were taken and subsequently lost. We topped off the meal with a "skillet cookie", which was basically a small cast iron skilled filled with a chocolate chip cookie and topped off with ice cream. Cadence burned her hand a handful of times and Connor demanded his fair share of the dessert (after filling up on the potatoes and corn from my dinner). Mmm.

At home, Megan got to unwrap her present.

While it wasn't the Barbie she had decided she wanted, upon recognizing the "Sofia the First" design on the box, she was ecstatic. The girls LOVE Sofia the First. I daresay it's overcome My Little Pony as their favorite, mostly because we watch it more often and their love is a fickle thing when it comes to TV shows. Cadence was so excited about Megan's new toy we were constantly hounding her to give Megan her toy back. So, we decided to give her present to her early rather than constantly getting on her case.

Once both girls had new toys, they scampered off to create new adventures with their new characters and even took them to bed with them.

Today, Cadence was thrilled to tell everyone she was 5! She danced with her new Barbie while we got ready for church and couldn't wait to get to primary and tell her teacher all about it. And, sure enough, the moment her teacher sat down, Cadence was chatting her ear off. Her teacher is absolutely amazing and just gushed with the same enthusiasm. When the primary sang to them both, their shy side came out and they both glowered at the floor, and I wished for my camera to capture it. Ah, well...

Cadence's request for dinner was "hot dogs cooked outside by mommy". Alas, our charcoal was old and we were out of lighter fluid, so mommy cooked them inside on the griddle instead while she frosted the cake last minute. It all seemed to be enjoyed, though. Even Connor ate his fill!

So, now they're 4 & 5. Yikes!

There's a very funny story somewhere in there in which James saw a spider on the car and freaked out, or as I describe it "screamed like a girl". I was laughing so hard it's a good thing we were at a red light. Unfortunately, the story ends with me giggling and saying "you just had to be there". So, for now, I'll leave you with the image of my big manly husband screaming and jumping (while buckled) as far from the spider as possible and taking off his shoe to try to squash the thing and demanding I open the window so he can try to brush it out. I got my ab work out from laughing so hard.

She's reading

Shortly after my last update, Cadence made the leap into reading.

It started with "OK". I told her to push the "OK" button and she sounded it out "ah k" before pushing it. Once I heard her do that, it was full-steam ahead, while trying to remain casual about it since she gets overwhelmed with new things and I didn't want to scare her off.

We started with words she already knew by sight, encouraging her to sound them out, and then branched out to words she wanted to know (for example, she began to recognize the word "fox" from 20th Century Fox's logo and has recently become obsessed with the word "fat"). I opened up our copy of "Cat in the Hat" and began pointing to words she knew (cat, bed) and then to a few words she didn't, that I would sound out and she would read (cup, red).

A week later, she's reading. I picked up another Dr. Seuss book the other week and yesterday we sat down and "read" it together. I would read most of the words, point out sight words for Megan to recognize and encourage Cadence to sound out and read some of the CVC words.

I also put magnet letters on our back door and will leave words for her to read and let her spell out her own words. Yesterday, she easily read "fix" and "jump".

She has a little trouble with connecting "stop" beginning sounds (k, d, b, etc.) to the second half of the word, for example reading "cup" as "up" even though she sounded out the /k/ in the word, but we're chugging along.

Just last night she was giggling as we "argued" over the proper way to spell but, in which she fished out the correct magnets but put them together wrong (at one point turning the U sideways, etc.) I commented to James it's a good thing I didn't teach her how to spell the anatomical "butt", because I'm pretty sure she might write "but" on her papers at Church on Sunday...

Trunk or Treat

Our ward's Trunk or Treat was last night. It was a fun night, though a little chaotic, since I was in the presidency in charge of the event and showed up early to help set up and then stayed to help tear down (though we left earlier than most since I had the youngest brood of the group). The girls showed little interest in most of the carnival activities, in fact they protested quite a bit when we attempted to get them to do the hanging donut eating contest. They didn't quite understand the cupcake walk either. Cadence obediently walked in the circle, but Megan walked in a circle to the cupcake table, helped herself to a cupcake and left the game.

Connor refused to wear his entire costume. He grudgingly left the bandanna in place, but attempt to reattach his beard and he knew how to grab and pull. The entire night was off for him. I hadn't fed him in a few hours and rather than fuss about that, he went to sleep in the middle of the crowd of screaming kids at the carnival. He wasn't too happy to wake up when I put him in the stroller for the actual trunk-or-treating portion of the night, but as long as we kept moving he was fine. It was until we attempted to strap him in his carseat that he decided to inform us of how hungry he was.

Unfortunately for us, in the midst of his screaming, we realized I had misplaced my keys somewhere. Though James has his, losing mine was extremely upsetting. Thankfully, I got a phone call tonight from someone who found them. Apparently, when I stopped to help someone pick up some items of theirs that had fallen, I dumped my keys, along with their buttons and thread, into their bag and walked away. After a frantic 24 hours of not knowing where they are, they are secure. Thank goodness, since replacing car keys is a little pricey nowadays and requires a little more work than just driving down to Walmart and having a key cut at the sporting goods desk.

Anyway, we do have a family picture! We're working on getting updated professional pictures in the next month or so, but for now, this is it.

As for little family updates: Cadence is showing an interest in reading. Once I changed gears and worked on sounding out words to write instead of read, she has done well. She still needs a lot of prompting, but she's picking it up. Megan also recognizes words we've worked on and I expect once Cadence is reading, she'll be more interested in learning it herself.

Connor is 7 months and some change. He's learned how to get himself to a sitting position and how to climb (his favorite climbing apparatus is, of course, me). He's talking up a storm (combining consonants, ba-la-ma-ma, into mock-words instead of repetitive consonants, ba-ba-ba-ba) and recently realized the food everyone else eats is far tastier and more interesting than what I've been giving him. He continues to charm everyone he meets. Just the other day he got his 2nd flu shot (infants need to get 2 in one month to be fully vaccinated) and seconds after he had been crying about it, he was flirting with the nurses.

Zoo Boo

Despite some potentially bad weather, the kids and I braved the Zoo for their annual "Zoo Boo", where they have a few extra Halloween-themed activities. It wasn't anything fancy, which is to be expected when there's no additional cost beyond the entrance fee (or your membership fee, in our case), but the girls got to wear their costumes, paint pumpkins, collect a bit of candy, and still see their favorite animals. I had hoped the potential rain would keep most people away, but the place was more crowded than usual for a weekday morning. Still, we had fun.

Connor's costume didn't last long. He kept trying to eat the beard. The pieces ended up in my purse before we even reached the zoo.

Missing Megan's arm and leg warmers, but here's Pinkie Pie and Supergirl!

Hanging out while the girls painted their pumpkins with paint pens.

He was more excited by his reflection than the chimp only a foot away from him.

Brushing the goats.

Megan protested riding the carousel initially, but once we were on it she loved it. (Cadence refused to smile for the picture)

Lunch time. He's mastering his pincer grasp.

  

They had a few photo op places, so I took advantage of one while we were all still in a good mood. :-)

Dewberry Farm 2013

The original plan for Dewberry Farm was to go later in the month, but when James was given today off, we decided to go ahead and move our plans up by 2 weeks. In the end, I think we all wish we had just waited the extra two weeks. It was hot out. Not just hot, but muggy. A storm rolled in this afternoon and the air got nasty real fast and zapped our energy and enjoyment of what should have been a great trip.

It was so warm the girls had no desire to go on the big slid, swing off of the big haystack, run through the Fort DewHickey or any of the other exciting things to do at the farm that our entrance fee gave us access to. Cadence did swing a little and the girls held my hand as I dragged them through the barn to look at the pigs, rabbits and baby chicks. I was looking forward to doing the corn maze this year, but there was no way I wanted to go in there and have even the occasional breeze blocked off. Poor Connor was extremely uncomfortable in the stroller, even though we poured water down the back of his shirt to help him cool off.

In the end, we used a coupon to get the girls rights to 2 souvenir cups they could fill with wildflowers. James walked them through the field to pick out their flowers. Then we opted to walk to the pumpkin field rather than wait for a seat on the overcrowded hay wagon and its mini-tour of the Christmas tree lots. Patience faded quickly as we all got overheated on the short trek and we were back in the car and on the road not much later. We ran into the storm (the source of the mugginess) halfway home, and it lasted long enough for all of us to cool off a bit.

Unfortunately, I left the sunscreen at home, sitting on the counter and it seems Connor has inherited his dad's skin (my fingers are still crossed I got my little freckle-faced redhead after all!) and both boys came home with a mild sunburn. I'll be more vigilant next time (like our zoo boo trip next week)

She's a Writer, not a Reader

Cadence has known her letters since she was 2, so admittedly I'm a little surprised she's nearly 5 and has shown no interest in the reading I've tried to encourage her to do. Try to get her to sound out words and her eyes glaze over.

I recently realized I've been approaching it all wrong with her. This realization came when she brought a piece of paper over to me. It had been covered with drawings and letters. She settled next to me with her pencil and paper and asked me how to spell "lips". I took a closer look at her paper and realized she had written the 4 words we've used in preschool (Each week, we have a simple sight word, "cat", "bed", "ant" and "dog"). She had written each of the words and drawn an appropriate picture. She had also written her own name and a picture. Then written "BRAVE" and "GISNEY" (with lots of loops, just like the Disney logo).

Something suddenly clicked in my head. Cadence doesn't have the patience or motivation to sit and learn how to read words on the page, but she does have the patience to sit down and sound them out with me to write them.

So, I coached her through the word "lips" by sounding it out with her. Then through the word "doll" and a handful of other words before Connor demanded my attention.

I'll make a reader of her yet. But first, I'm going to make a writer out of her.