Friday, February 29, 2008

Bless His Heart!

So, it's naptime, and I'm going about my business, enjoying time to do things without anyone hanging on me or whining or beating up a sibling, when I hear the unmistakable cried of little Jonathan. Not help-me-now-I'm-in-a-crisis cries, just your everyday I've-thrown-my-blankets-in-the-floor-AGAIN-and-I-really-want-them-back cries. Only a little extra urgent. He's probably lost his bear too. Possibly someone else managed to get it and is taunting him with it. the beds are close together. It happens. So I go in, scanning the floor for blankets and bears, and discover that not only has Jonathan lost his blankets and his bear, but also his overalls. They aren't on the floor. Where could they be? I whisper to Jonathan, "Where are your pants?!?" Still crying, he waves frantically in the direction of the nearest bed. There, sitting quietly on the side farthest from Jonathan, clutching a pair of overalls that do not belong to him, and grinning broadly at me, is ...Thomas! I can only imagine how he got them in the first place. I take them away, unable to keep from smiling myself, and put Jonathan's clothes back on him. I'm sure he was so proud of himself when he managed to get them off. I can see him waving them about to show everyone. The look on his face when they suddenly disappeared from his grasp must have been priceless!

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Welcome to the Family!

JonZReaTom (especially Reagan!) would like to extend a very warm welcome to their newest cousin


Avery Caroline!

Born Feb.22 to Uncle Clay and Aunt Carey and proud big brother Tyler

I have some other pictures of her but for some reason I can't get them out of my email. I've never had trouble getting pictures off email before, but these are not working. This one will have to do for now!

Monday, February 25, 2008

A Visit to Jasper

Back sometime in Jan (I'm really awful at staying up-to-date, aren't I?) we took the kids to Jasper to visit Jim's family. Here are a few pics of our trip:
So big!
What a great picture this would have been if we'd had a better angle! They did this adorable pose all on their own!
Oh, yeah, I can take this guy!
It was a short trip, just there and back in one day. These pictures are from our time with Grammy Pammy and Great-Granny Kat, but we also got to go to Papaw and Nene's house and see more family there. What a busy day! The kids slept GOOD that night!

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Random Cuteness

This post brought to you by Thomas.
I had some unrelated random cute pictures I wanted to post. It wasn't until I started to upload them that I realized they actually were related because they are all of Thomas! Enjoy!


I don't have nearly as much fun with the laundry basket as Thomas does!
Nor do I find as much fun from smearing yogurt all over!
One of the best things about little kids is how they can have so much fun no matter what they are doing! Everything is new! Everything is an adventure! Wonder is all around you! It's a shame we as adults can't really remember what that felt like, nor can we often recapture it now. How nice to just do whatever you want without ever worrying about what other people might think of you if they saw!

He's just too cute for words, isn't he?

They all are!

Dancin' Dancin' DANCIN'!!

Okay, here's another post about a present we received back before Christmas that I'm just now getting around to mentioning! The Train Table! Our wonderful friends, Stephanie, Frank, and Knox, very generously handed down Knox's train table to us back in December. The kids have had a blast with it. I love it because it has these two great big drawers underneath that have become the perfect home for all our stuffed animals and mega blocks. The kids love it for several reasons:

1. It's close enough to the ground that they can climb onto it easily and they don't get in trouble when they do (unlike when they climb onto the kitchen table! Aargh!)


2. It's nice and big so as long as no one is being super-possessive about space, there is room for all four of them at the same time!


3. It's a great place to build a tower of blocks or roll cars around.


4. There's a gap between the table and the wall which is the perfect place the drop things, especially if you can then persuade Mom to fish them out for you.


5. It makes a GREAT dance floor!

Actually, I've got a cute video of Thomas dancing on the train table, but it's sideways, and I can't figure out how to turn it over. If I ever figure it out, I'll post it too!

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Movin' On Up!

Well, not terribly long ago, we upgraded the kids to eating at the table! That has made life both easier and harder. It's easier for us to eat as a whole family. We no longer block up the entire kitchen when the kids eat. Those things are nice. Cleaning up afterwards, however, is harder since you have to go all the way around the table, instead of just down a row of chairs. It's also harder to monitor table manners when I'm the only adult at home and two kids are on the other end of the table from me. But overall, we really like it! Their table manners aren't the best, but hopefully they will get better before too much longer! Here are a few shots:



Don't they look so big sitting at the table?

Cool Tricks!

Okay, the pictures aren't real great because Jim took them with his phone, but the trick is pretty cool, if I do say so myself! I was seriously balancing the tower of blocks on my head! I know it looks like I was holding the tower up,but that's just because I was placing the top block on. Pretty cool, huh! I know. I'm amazing!
And here Reagan has reached up and knocked the tower off my head. She thought that was the best part!

Happy Belated Valentine!

We hope that you all had a lovely Valentine's Day! I wish I had a nice group Valentine picture to show off here for your viewing pleasure, but I don't...not that I didn't try! The kids were very uncooperative picture-takers that day. They wouldn't be still, they wouldn't smile, Jonathan wouldn't stop crying, no matter what kind of picture I tried to take, nothing turned out very good. As you can see...
Everyone stare at mom...she's so weird
These next pictures I tried to get them to lie down on the ground, thinking the change would be fun, and I would catch them all smiling, but no! First, you'll notice there is no pic of Jonathan. Every time I tried to get him to lie down on the floor, he started screaming. I would get one child lying down, but once I got the second child down there, the first was rolling away. So I gave up on group shots and tried to just get an individual shot. That didn't work too well either.
That would be Thomas' foot
Okay, here's half a smile...it's all you're going to get!
I hate Valentine's Day almost as much as I hate what lying on the floor does to my hair!
All my boys-the besyt pic of the day!
Jim and I had a special Valentine's Day treat. Cynthia called out of the blue that afternoon and volunteered her services for the evening so we could go out to dinner. She and her friend Leslie came over that night and watched the kids, and we went to dinner at Kanpai. We had a great time! The food was good, and we were seated next to a college couple who were super-nice and we chatted with them all evening. Thank you so much Cynthia and Leslie!
Okay, apparently Blogger is having spell check issues. Forgive the mistakes.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Words We Know!

Well, the kids are finally developing a recognizable vocabulary! Each of them has their own set of words that they use regularly (or irregularly) and it is really exciting! It seems we are adding new words all the time! For that reason, I am going to replace the Tooth Totals section of the sidebar (all of the kids have all 16 teeth that are supposed to have and we don't expect them to get any more for a good while!) with a Words We Know section. It will link back to this post where I will update periodically as the vocabularies grow.

Currently, here are the words that all four kids say regularly:

dada mama ball bubble banana bowl cheese
hat shoe snack baby bow cup wall car juice
keys remote tree
hi/hey bye no boo
woof-woof baa meow moo
done more hot down out go
mouth nose ear eye teeth

Each child has his or her own words in addition to these, but trying to keep an online list for each of them is more work than I want to commit to. So check back periodically for updates!

Hmmm...should I use a real word or just whine until they figure it out?

Getting Better?

Just a quick sickness update...We are no longer running any fevers nor are we spending our naptimes crying instead of sleeping. Yea!!! However, now our noses are running and a couple of the kids have developed some pretty nasty coughs. Luckily, they don't cough very often, but when they do, it sounds awful! Moods are all better, so at least this is mostly bearable. Hopefully it will pass soon, and we can get back to life as normal!

Friday, February 8, 2008

Sick Again

I haven't had time to blog the past few days because I've got sick kiddos. I don't really know what's wrong with them except that they obviously feel bad and have dr-confirmed ear infections. But no runny noses. Very strange. Runny noses have always preceded sickness before. Oddly enough, not this time. Thomas has been sickly since Monday, Reagan since Tues. Zachary has seemed a little off Tues and Wed, Jonathan seemed a little off yesterday. They all seem a little better today. Mostly there had just been a lot of fussiness and crying and poor napping. Overnight sleeping has been fine, but naps have been cryfests. Eating has been affected. We have watched WAY more TV than normal, but it's the only thing that can content them for more than five minutes, although not if I leave. I have to stay right there with them. Yesterday was so bad, Jim actually came home from work to help me with them because when he called to check on us he could tell I was on the verge of tears myself. It was naptime and I had two kids crying and not napping and I was trying to cuddle and rock them both at the same time and it just wasn't working and it was awful awful awful! Reagan is the worst too because she's hoarse and every time she coughs or tries to clear her thoat, she starts crying like it hurts so bad, and the cry is so pitiful-sounding because she's hoarse. It just breaks your heart to hear it! And she looks at you with those big doe eyes like, "Why can't you make it stop hurting?"

Sigh. But today is better, a little. I'm survivng. It's naptime and no one is crying. Jim won't need to come home early today. Hopefully tomorrow will be even better! Keep us in your prayers!

Okay for whatever reason, I can't get the spellcheck to work and I don't feel like checking it myself, so please excuse any spelling errors.

Sunday, February 3, 2008

Superbowl!


We are ready for the SuperBowl! We're rooting for the Giants and our second-favorite Manning! However, since we aren't typically Giants fans, we have no Ginats apparel and had to settle for just dressing for football. It's hard to tell on Thomas' shirt, but all three boys' have the same shirt, just in different colors. I was delighted to find we had three alike. They are all hand-me-downs, and I know that all three weren't handed down from the same source. What a treat! I had no matching shirt for Reagan though, so I had to settle for a sporty-looking shirt of the boys'. She looks awfully cute in it, especially with her flowered jeans. I'm sorry they don't show! And she was nice enough to tolerayte the bow, at least for a little while!