finally, a post!!

Wow, I can't believe that it has been three months since my last post. I feel like for me, facebook has been the new blog, but it just doens't capture as much as what is going on in our lives, so hopefully I can keep this up!

Emma 5 1/2
I can't believe that soon, Emma's Kindergarten year will be halfway over. Like most things in her life, she has a love/hate relationship with school. She loves her teacher, loves learning new things, loves homework, loves "guidance" (her favorite special), loves earning "gator bites" and buying things at the school store, loves seeing Miss Diana at school throughout the day and giving her hugs. She hates PE (way too much physical activity for this girl!), she dislikes most of the boys in her class (sadly, it won't stay this way forever!), and she hates that Madeline and Claire are at home all day with Mommy and she is not.
The hardest part of the schoolyear so far has been her giving up her naps. She is EXHAUSTED when she gets home and she looks forward all week to her naps on the weekend. One day, she told me that I ruined her life for making her "be in this grade where she goes to school all day and doesn't get to nap". Most of the time that she is not in school, she just wants to be at home. If we try to go out in the afternoons or on weekends, she usually begs to just stay home and have some "peace and quiet". I think that for this quiet, reserved little girl, a nonstop week at school is about all she can handle.
I am amazed at how quickly she has learned to read! She wants to practice her "sight words" all day long, and she tries to teach her little sisters and gets frustrated when they don't want to learn. She's at the point now, where she can pick up a little book or random things aroung the house and read to me whaever it says...CRAZY!!! I am so proud of her :)


Madeline/Maddy/Mad/lulu/baby Kate 3
Oh, Madeline! Where do I start? Mad continues to be our source of entertainment around here. She just cracks us up all day long...mostly because of her "accent" and the hilarious way she pronounces words. She is our entertainer that will dance or put on a show for anyone at anytime.
For about a month now, Mad has decided that she is "baby kate". For the most part, she is never out of character...NEVER. When she remembers to, she crawls instead of walking (even at 3am if she wakes up and wanders into our room), she asks before she eats anything if baby kate can eat that or will she choke?, when she goes to the bathroom, she tells me that she's "potty training", when she puts her undies on, she reminds me that they are not undies, they're diapers, she can be screaming and throwing a fit about something and I'll say, "Madeline" and she'll calmly stop, look at me and say "I'm not Madeline, I'm baby Kate" and then proceed with her fit. I can use this obsession to get her to do almost anything....the other day we were at the mall and she wanted pizza for lunch, but Maria and I wanted to go to Panera....so, as Mad starts crying and begging for pizza, I tell her that Panera has soup and baby kate loves soup and immediately, she stops crying and smiles and says, "Ok, let's go!". The worst thing that someone can do is tell her that she is not really baby kate and she's just pretending (and by someone, I mean Emma!) and she can't handle it...she gets sooo upset until we agree that yes, she is in fact baby kate. She's such the middle child having an identity crisis!! I would be concerned, but when I was her age, I was "baby India", so who am I to speak?!


Claire 17 months
.....and still crawling! She has been creeping around the furniture a lot more lately, and is starting to try to stand on her own, so maybe there is hope for her future :) She has been talking a lot lately...I LOVE that stage...there is always something so precious about when babies start to speak and interact with you in that way. The other night at the dinner table, she imitated her sisters and said, "big fat booty"...nice. What baby can say big fat booty before she can walk?!?! She is hooked on her pacifier that she calls "nuny". She loves to yell at me to stop or go whenever I am changing her diaper, dressing her, or doing something she doesn't want me to do. I think she's gonna be my feisty one....when she gets mad, she gets mad....and bites, pushes or grabs to get her way...nice. And all this time, I've been deceived by her sweetness! But when she's sweet, man is she sweet. She loves to cuddle and snuggle and I can't get enough of it :)


We have settled into a new routine with this schoolyear and it couldn't be better. Emma's school doesn't start until 9:15 and the girls wake up at the crack of dawn, so it gives us hours and hours in the morning to be lazy around the house, play a little, clean a little, enjoy some coffee...it's been great not having to rush out the door!! She gets out at 3:30, so I put the little girls down for their naps right after lunch and they sleep right up until we need to leave to get Em....giving me a few hours of peace and quiet in the afternoons. By the time we are home from school and get Emma's homework finished, it's almost time for daddy to come home (the best part of my day!). I feel so blessed with the family that God has given me...my life is often tiring, often frustrating, and ALWAYS messy!!! But I wouldn't trade it for anything :)