A different kind of hard...

Andy and I will always say that there is no harder time then when the girls were babies, and there still isn't. But having 3 mobile 22 month olds and a 5 year old is not only physically exhausting, but emotionally trying... Now that Stevie is moving around well, they all go in different directions. Today our "neighborhood" had a block party - there are a lot of kids in our cul-da-sac and we've met some really nice people. So we ventured out with all the kids for the afternoon. I knew it wasn't going to be relaxing or that both of us would actually be able to have adult conversation, but I had forgotten how exhausting it is chasing 4 kids around. I kept eyeing up the tennis court thinking about how great it would be to have the party in there since it had fences all around and we could shut everyone in. Or any type of child jail would have been appropriate. I stayed with the girls for about 2 hours and then headed back - Andy and Declan went back to have more fun. Declan loved playing with the kids and Andy got to meet a few new friends :-) It's okay, I'll make friends when the girls are about 5 - only 3 years left :-) Here's some pictures from the day...

Declan is always helpful with his sisters (usually)...

Bria making a run for it...

And the other two - note, they are going different directions...

Bria trying to pull Declan...

I'll still take this stage over the crying, not sleeping and not able to hold own bottle phase, but I may seriously reconsider child leases...

I'm constantly reminded of the girls turning 2 and am cautiously optimistic that they won't turn into terrible monsters until at least 3. However, I'm reminded daily that it may happen sooner than later...

Point #1, they like to climb and jump on everything... Even Stevie - for as long as it took her to walk, she sure has picked up the climbing skill. Below is a picture of Aven getting ready to jump...

Point #2 - they get black eyes... Here's Stevie as a result of a little crazy time in the tub... 

Point #3 - they have temper tantrums... After a delightful morning grocery shopping with me, they all had fits when we got home. Clearly they preferred shopping (who can blame them?)...

Point #3 - 2 of 3 can now face forward in the car - yay!!! Stevie still hasn't met the weight restriction yet, but she'll get there!

Point #4 - they play with sharp objects. Here's Stevie with her brother's sword...

Point #5 - there are moments of sweetness... Here's Aven "reading" a book.  I'm sure she hit her sister with it 2.5 seconds later, but it was fun while it lasted...

Point #6 - Bria is addicted to her nuk and it's about time to take it away. I think Bria is the most addicted, and will likely be the most challenging. I'm dreading this day and thinking about drinking excessively the entire week in which we decide to take them away.

Download...

We've been busy these last few weeks which prevented me from blogging... I went on a work trip to the UK and Andy held down the fort at home with the kiddos. So I don't have a lot of recent pictures, but because I had to download the new OS for the iPhone, I had to take off about 1,000+ photos and videos... Here's a hodgepodge of random pictures and videos...

Aven giving her sister Stevie a hug...

Declan and Aven having a good talk...

Declan getting a double hug from his sissys :-)

Best big brother ever... Declan loves to help feed his sisters before bedtime - especially Stevie...

Aven and her can coolie obsession...

Bria being naughty... The girls climb on EVERYTHING!

Behind the scenes, me trying to get a good one of the girls - fail!

Walking home from the park - Aven and Daddy walking of course..

Declan relaxing at the park...

Here's our park play - it definitely takes 2 people!

Stevie dancing - love her!

Sisters being silly... The girls like to see themselves on video in my phone - too cute!

The competition begins...

So Andy and I witnessed something very interesting... Stevie actually faked being hurt for attention! Aven had hit her head on a table and she started crying. We of course hugged and kissed her to make her feel better. Shortly after, Stevie walked over to the table and then hit her head on it (on purpose) and then came over looking for affection. It was hilarious. Even more funny is that she kept doing it over and over again. I'm afraid this is just the start of them vying for our attention... Here's a video of it - since she did it so many times I could capture it :-) Note her awesome walking! She's now at the point when she starts crawling, we tell her to walk and she gets up and does it. She's pretty much walking 100% now and is definitely more confident about it.

Since Andy had a Daddy Declan day (Learn to Skate in the morning, followed by lunch, an oil change and grocery shopping :-)), I got a lot of video's of the girlies... Last night Andy and I had a date night and our neighbor's daughter came over to babysit - we put the girls down and then she just had Declan to play with while we went to dinner. She watched the girls when they were little and we just haven't had an opportunity to have her back (since we basically have no life). Declan had been asking her to babysit, so we jumped at the chance :-) So last night she came just before we put the girls down and it was hilarious how the girls reacted! They were showing off, dancing, laughing and just being plain silly! Bria kept waving and saying bye bye (like she was telling us to leave), so today I got one of her doing it - she's just so darn cute!

And then I was probing Aven & Bria to talk more... Here's a video of both of them - they liked watching themselves on the phone...

22 Months!

It's true... Our babies are 22 months old today. It's literally insane that they are going to be 2 in a few months. I still have nightmares of these first few months and then the first few months at home with about 20 minutes of sleep. Now we have healthy, happy babies who are great sleepers! My how time flys...

Here's what the girls are up to...

Stevie: I'm starting with Stevie this month... Stevie's walking has really improved - I'd say she's walking about 90 percent of the time now - and that's a dramatic improvement just this week from being back from Wisconsin. She's always been able to walk (since the last few months), but her issue is that she's just so tense and her muscles are always stiff. This past week she's really just relaxed and has been walking everywhere... She's been more chatty lately too, not saying any specific words, but they mean something to her. She does like to say "ahhhhh" when anyone hugs her or she hugs her sisters - it's pretty adorable. She has her 6 month assessment this week for her PT (it started last week) and we're pretty sure that we will start tapering her off of the twice a week sessions with her therapist. I'm sure we'll go down to once a week or perhaps not at all. We'll know more this week. As part of this assessment they are evaluating her communication skills to see if she will qualify for speech therapy. So more to come on those two fronts. Other than that, Stevie is doing good! I'm dreading the fall / winter as those always bring on sickness and respiratory issues for her - so fingers crossed this season is better than last :-) Stevie currently loves her brother (the most), remotes, cell phones, tiaras, her little tikes car, their little tikes doll house and books.

Bria: This girl is just happy... It seems like she's the one lately that is just always in a good mood and not throwing temper tantrums... She currently loves remotes, cell phones, purses (or anything with a strap that could be used as a purse), little people, drinking water from a bottle, tiaras and sitting like a big girl at a table. They are all chatty, but Bria's the one that you can understand the most... You just need to get a little creative. Both her and Aven say "ma ma ma ma" - this means both momma and "more." She still says "catch" for when she wants to jump off something or throws something. She has her own language too, which comes out most when she's pretend talking on the phone or when she wants to have a conversation with you. It's really cute. She just started running as well like her sister - which provides for all sorts of fun when we are outside :-)

Aven: Our little mini-Declan... Not only does she look like Declan did at that age, but she also acts just like him (we are going to have our hands full!). She currently loves remotes, cell phones, purses (or anything that can be a purse), tiaras, hats (or anything that can be a hat - i.e. buckets), jewelry and being on the couch. She's a jabber jaw as well - always talking, but you gotta be creative to figure out what she's saying. She definitely tells you what she wants with her head nods or shaking it no. She runs, climbs, jumps and is our wild child. She's also our most animated, as in when she doesn't get what she wants, you'll hear about it. She's also the domineering sister that pushes her sisters around a bit. BUT, she's also the most loving as well. When you ask her to hug her sisters, she automatically does. She's a snuggler and loves the lap. The other night her and Bria were sitting on our step to get into the living room, I was watching them and Aven just leaned her head on Bria's shoulder... they both giggled. It was ADORABLE! The one time I don't have my camera, of course!

All the girls - still not any easier to get them all to sit, look and smile together... L to R: Stevie, Bria & Aven.

Princesses!

Well we've been back not even a week and it feels like we were never gone... It's amazing how 4 kids completely makes you lose time, energy and your mind :-) It's been a very busy week and a little challenging getting the kids back on schedule and Declan ready for his first day of school...

Some moments made us laugh (Aven's dookie on the floor) and some made us cry (or me rather on Declan's first day of school). So on to the funny stuff. Here's the text exchange between Andy and I mid-week or so (mind you, Andy had all 4 kids solo all week during the day with me working - them all being back from vacation created a very wound up bunch of kids and one tired daddy!) K: I signed Declan up for learn to skate starting this Saturday. A: Cool. Aven just shit on the floor. K: What??? LOL A: yea, she shit on the floor, her diaper was off for a few seconds because Bria fell and I had to go check on her and I came back and there was a pile of turds. Hilarious - honestly, since I didn't have to clean it up, I laughed all day about it.

Now for the crying... So this year Declan is going back to Pre-K. He's a July birthday so he'd either be the old kid in class or the young kid in class. After going back and forth several times, Andy and I decided that it would do him some good to stay in Pre-K for another year and wait on Kindergarten. But we did switch schools for him and he's going to the elementary that he will go to next year for Pre-K. The big thing this year is that he will be taking a bus. I honestly didn't think it would be too big of a deal because he was excited that it was only half a day and he didn't have to take a nap during school (yay for him and the teacher that used to have to move him all the time!). But I had a momentary lapse in remembering who our child was. You see, Declan is pretty much scared of anything the first time when he has to do something on his own.... Swimming, going to school, riding a bus, meeting people for the first time, skating, playing soccer - you name it. But once he does it once, he's golden (hence learning to swim the 3rd week we were in WI and never stopping once he got the hang of it). We've seen this with everything he does. So nonetheless, we talked to him all week about the bus and the new school, he seemed fine, until about 2 hours before he had to leave for school. That's when all hell broke loose. I stayed home this day knowing that we had to juggle the getting the girls down for nap, feeding Declan lunch and getting him on the bus off to school. Well the getting the girls down went just fine. The rest was a challenge. We weren't able to get him to eat lunch between the tears, but we did coerce him to get out of the house by looking for bugs before getting on the bus. To make a long story short, there were a lot of tears, there was some physical restraining of him on the bus and there was 2 parents sprinting off the bus trying to break away from him (me near tears). I just felt so bad that he totally didn't want to go to school. I worried about him for the 4 long hours he was gone. Then we packed the girls up at 4 and walked the 1/2 block down to the end of the road to pick him up. He got off the bus with a smile on his face and said "it wasn't that bad!" Whew!!!!!! Him saying that pretty much meant that he loved it but of course wasn't going to admit that to us (since we told him he would have fun). No idea how he behaved while there, but he seemed in a much better mood! I'm hoping after the weekend he doesn't forget and gets right on the bus for Andy on Monday - but I'm certain it's better Andy than me - I was a wreck! So all these parents that got smiling happy faces of their kids on the first day of school and blasted them all over Facebook - we did not, but we got some pretty good shots of him after school :-)

His sisters waiting for him :-)

Getting off the bus - he was so excited that he forgot his backpack on the bus... How I'm going to handle kindergarten next year and when the 3 girls go is beyond me...

His cool backpack!

There was also some really cool ideas all over facebook to recognize kids first day of school - this was my version - cheaper, easier and able to do at home :-) Yes, he wants to be in the army (at least that day he did) and Jessie is some teenager show on Nick that is likely inappropriate for him, but apparently it's his favorite show :-)

There's the Dec we know and love :-)

Meanwhile, we changed some things in the play room (aka former dining room) and brought in the kitchen set and I found a box of tiaras and other things that a friend of ours got them when they were born. Well they LOVE them... And they won't stop wearing them. This is a picture of Bria with hers on.

And Aven was making it as a necklace...

Stevie (Left) and Bria (Right) happy in their crowns and thrones!

Even Daddy likes to wear one... ha ha ha ha!

And Aven again with her crown necklace... And you can see behind her that we have gotten a lot of use out of our bouncy - So glad we brought that back from WI!

Bria enjoying a little jumping!

All the kids - Stevie (far left) especially loves the slide. The other two girls like laying there and having Declan jump around and bounce them...

Here's to a week with less tears from Declan and less shitting from the girls :-)