playing with my new camera

Our new camera, a Canon Powershot G11, is AWESOME! It is still small and compact, but does a ton of things and takes the pictures in a huge resolution, something obscene like 10 megapixels. Here are just a few of the first pictures we shot.

The camera actually does this first one without Photo Shop. You can select a color and it will colorize everything in that color that it sees, but nothing else. Very neat!

Xander was especially photogenic this day! I am so excited for the better pictures that we will be taking with this new camera. I can't wait!!

Bathtub pictures

Here are a couple of pictures courtesy of Grandma Ellen. She has a recently remodeled bathroom with a big bathtub that the kids love to take bubble baths in when they're there on Wednesday. Apparently Grace said "Grandma, quick! Take a picture, then we'll put it on the blog." Here you go, Grace! Plus, they love taking baths there. I have been making them take showers at our house, because it's faster. At Grandma's they get to languish in the bath for a while. It's a luxury!

So, I was chastised for not posting often enough on the blog, so I guess I will try to be better about it. In my defense, this is a busy time of year and nothing really super interesting has been happening. I suppose then I will update and tell you nothing new has been happening and that hopefully will satisfy my critics.

So, nothing new has been going on and I'm not trying to be funny or sarcastic......really nothing new has been happening. We've just been holding our same schedule and going about our days. The kids took a field trip to the pet store with their preschool class. I got to go with, since it was on a Tuesday. That was fun. The weekend was a little cold and dreary, but we did go to Aunt Lisa and Uncle Chad's house on Sunday night to celebrate Brian, Ellen and Chad's birthdays. We had a yummy mexican dinner and the kids played hard.

We had a little scare at daycare. Apparently Gina's oldest daughter Anne (who is 13ish) has head lice. They think she got is a month ago in Kansas City over spring break, but didn't realize it until now. I have checked the kids and to the best of my knowledge they don't have it. I think it would be fairly easy to notice in the boys with their short hair. Grace's hair is another matter. I don't think she has it, but it would be hard to get rid of if she did.

We have started planning things to do this summer, if you can believe it. We joined the YMCA last week and enrolled the kids in a week long camp for preschoolers. It's just a half day camp, which is about perfect for them at this age. It's not until July, but they are already talking about it. We'll also enroll them in swimming lessons sometime in June or July. We scheduled a family vacation to Kansas City for 4 days and they'll go to bible school in June. Already our summer is filling up!

I do have some pictures I took with my new camera, so as soon as I get the drivers installed on the computer, I will download them. This weekend isn't too exciting, but next week/weekend is pretty busy with a lot of things happening. I will update with pictures and news as it happens. Thanks for checking on us!!

More Easter Pics

Here are some more action shots from our Easter Sunday. I apologize for the lack of newer pictures. We really haven't done much "photo-worthy" since Easter. We have finally gotten back into our regular routine after a few weeks of days off and vacations. The kids have been telling me they're tired of going to Gina's (daycare), but nobody can tell me why. I think they are just fine, they seem to do well there.

This is going to be a boring post, because really nothing notable has been happening lately. We are still in our "naughty-behavior" phase. Some days are good, other days, like today, are bad. I have no idea why they'll listen and be good one day and be total monsters the next, but they are. Xander was sick again two weeks ago. He took a trip to the doctor and ended up with some antibiotics. He was sporting a croup like cough, that had been hanging around for quite a while. He seems to have gotten over it and is back to normal. I have had some sort of nasty cough/bronchitis/sinus infection thing. I am currently taking antibiotics, but not much has changed. I may have to take another trip to the doctor. Everyone's allergies are acting up. Dr. Swisher is having us give Xander medicine daily and it seems to really be helping him. I should probably have him tested so we know exactly what we are up against. His chances of having seasonal allergies are high!

We've been enjoying the great weather. We've spent lots of time outside. The Tuesday after Easter the kids didn't have preschool, so we took cousin Carter and hit the children's museum then ate a picnic in the park and played for a long time. They all had a lot of fun. My parents gave them real fishing poles for Easter, so one nice Monday night they took them fishing at a pond on the golf course. Apparently they didn't catch anything but moss, but they had fun anyway. The Niebuhrs like to take the kids on an "adventure" through a small wooded area behind the 56th Target, then on to the pet store and then for ice cream at Runza. They always enjoy that. They have been taking frequent bike rides with Brian around our neighborhood. They are getting better at riding longer distances and Grace is no longer afraid of her bike coasting (she used to get scared when her bike would coast down hills without her pedaling). They're much better at riding now and have been enjoying it more. Unfortunately, those little bikes we just got last year are getting too small and Will's has proven to be kind of junky. New bikes may be in the near future.

With the spring and nice weather, we have been noticing how our house is starting to have some problems. We've lived in here almost 7 years, so I suppose it's about time. We are entering a phase of small-medium home improvement projects. The redecorated bathroom was the first, a huge garage sale (purging ourselves of ALL baby-related paraphenalia) is another. The other projects will be done as time permits, but it's just little things like fixing broken outlets, repainting some exterior door jambs that are flaking, replacing broken light fixtures and fixing the broken screen door. A couple of bigger projects we will be doing this summer are getting the wood floor refinished, having the carpets cleaned and repainting the upstairs. I am looking forward to doing these, and as we do them, I am going to give our house a nice thorough cleaning in places that usually don't get cleaned. Hopefully by the fall, our house will no longer look like 3 babies trashed it!

The school year is starting to wind down and these next few weeks are hectic with concerts at school, my spring piano recital, the kids' spring musicale at preschool and tons of other things. I will try to keep the updates coming, but be patient if I don't! However, I have a new camera coming sometime this week, so I will try to take some pictures with it to experiment. I'm very excited. My camera is about 6 years old, so it was definitely time for a new one! Have a great week everyone. Enjoy the great weather!

Easter 2010

Just thought I'd post a couple of pictures of the kids in their easter outfits. I thought they were pretty cute this year. I'm especially in love with the little tutu and leggings of Grace's outfit! They got lots of compliments. Look for details about the Easter celebrations soon!

Church Egg Hunt

Here are the kids at church doing the egg hunt on Saturday morning. There were almost 100 kids there, which was fun. They divided it into 1/2 year olds, 3/4 year olds, 5/6/7 and 8/9/10 year olds. So, it was nice that the kids were in with their age group and not getting trampled for eggs. In true Will fashion, he announced seconds before the egg hunt was to start that he had to go potty. So, we ran as fast as we could, but we were still the last ones to start and finish. They still had fun and it was a gorgeous morning!

Spring has sprung and sprouted a newly redecorated bathroom

The towels that Grandma embroidered. Will insists that his "owl towel" (as they've come to be known) has one owl and one bird. Little does he know that an owl is a bird...

The main part of the bathroom. The new shower curtain that inspired the new paint color and new decorations. Gotta love Target! Some of you may be saying "I thought that bathroom was already green?" Well......it was. I just painted it a better shade of green. A little brighter and yellower. Much better.

Sorry for the late update. Last week was spring break and we had a fun filled and busy week. So, that is really my only excuse.....

Even though I was off from school, the kids still had preschool (which was a great bonus for me!). So, I got lots of errands taken care of and the kids had fun at preschool. The weather was great early last week, so we spent a ton of time outside on Monday and Tuesday. We hit 2 parks on Monday and a bike ride in the evening. We got to play with Sebastian a little on Tuesday, then Wednesday was off to Grandma Ellen's as usual. While the kids were at Grandma's, I took that opportunity to repaint the hall bathroom. I got it all painted in one afternoon, although, I will say that painting a bathroom is a huge pain. Painting around the toilet, shower and mirror is not fun. But, I did get everything done, cleaned up and put back together. Thanks Ellen for doing the new towels and watching the kids for me! Thursday, we had a nice lunch with Aunt Lisa, the boys and all our girlfriends. Friday was a great day (for me, especially). It started with a quick trip to the dentist (Grandpa Mike's office). The kids had checkups and did great and their teeth are fine. Then, Grandma Pam took them to her house for the day and I went to a scrapbook convention at the Event Center with Aunt Lisa, some multiples club friends and some of Aunt Lisa's friends. It was a great time. We scrapbooked all day Friday and Saturday. I don't know if I got as much done as I would have liked, but it was sure a fun time!

Grace did develop a sinus infection from her cold that never went away. I took her in on Thursday afternoon last week and she has happily improved on some antibiotics. Will had a pretty bad bout with his asthma last week. Sunday, he started coughing a lot and really never stopped. His treatments that were supposed to last 4 hours were only last 2, if that. We gave him a treatment that afternoon at 4:45, 6:45, 8:45 and 11:45 and he was just coughing his brains out. Couldn't sleep (no one could sleep) and he was just miserable. I was pretty close to taking him to the emergency room for a shot of steroids. Fortunately, he finally calmed down around midnight and lasted until 4:45 when I got him up and gave him another treatment, then he slept until morning. I called the asthma doctor that morning and they gave him oral steroids and an appointment for the next day. He thankfully got a lot better that day and we only got up once for the treatments the next 2 nights. I had been hoping we would make it a full year with no oral steroids (his last dose was last May!) but we didn't quite make it. Although, I think 10 months is pretty good. It would seem he is pretty under control. That same virus that gave Grace a sinus infection and Will the asthma attack also kept Brian under the weather for 2 weeks. It was pretty nasty!

I can happily say that our behaviors have improved somewhat around the house. As I reread my last post I realized how negative it sounded. That was because it was how I was feeling. I really was upset, angry and tired of the way they were acting. So, once I changed my attitude, I think things got a little better. We are still not totally there yet, we still have many time-outs in a day and lots of little problems, but overall, things are better. Grace especially has gotten better. It is still a huge battle (everyday) to get her hair and teeth brushed. I don't know why she chooses to fight over those, but she does. She even voluntarily makes her bed everyday!

Xander is another story. Boy, is that boy stubborn! He just has a one track mind and will focus on one thing and not let it go. Example: We had a jello salad for dinner on Thursday. He wanted a second helping. We told him when the piece of zucchini on his plate was gone (2 bites) he could have more jello. He absolutely did not want to eat that zucchini and he just kept pointing at the jello and saying "jello?" in his best baby voice. After a bout 3 minutes of this, we told him for the last time that he wouldn't get anymore jello until the vegetable was gone. He kept crying and baby talking. So, we just got up, cleaned up dinner and that was that. It would have been so easy for him to gulp down the piece of zucchini and get the coveted jello, but he had to be stubborn about it. I think he cried for 15 minutes about no jello. Will listens pretty well most of the time. He has occassional bouts of time when he will just purposely lay around and not do what you ask him. One time out usually does the trick for that.

A couple of funny things from Will's mouth:

(When Xander is crying over jello at dinner)
Will: For the love of Pete, Xander!
Couldn't have said it better ourselves, Will!

He woke up crying early this morning. Later I asked him why he was crying.
Me: Will, why were you crying this morning? Did you have a bad dream? Were you scared?
Will: I don't know. I don't have an answer.

They read a book about a girl finding oil in the ground. Will asked what oil was and Brian explained that people used it to make gas to run cars. I got gas in the van today and as we were pulling away Will said "Oil turns people into gas to run our cars". Not quite right. I said "I think you mean that people turn oil into gas." He cracks me up!

And the best one.....

The boys were on my bed acting out the scene from Lion King where Scar and Simba fight ont he cliff at the end. Xander was Simba and Will was Scar. Xander was hanging over the edge of the bed and Will had his hands over him and was pretenting to throw him down like Scar does. Then, Xander jumps back up and begins to fight Will (like Simba does). Xander tackled Will and they started rolling around. Will yells "I'm jealous of you Simba." I started dying lauging, which made them stop playing to see what I was laughing about. It was so funny to me, because Scar never directly says that to Simba but that's exactly what he was. He was jealous and wanted to be king. I don't know where Will comes up with these things! By the way, I keep trying to remember when Xander or Grace says something funny, but they never seem to come up with quite as funny of things as Will does. I'll try harder to get funny Xander or Grace stories in here soon.

So, that's about it (thankfully, right?) That was a huge post. Sorry about that. I'll do better next week (meaning, I'll make it shorter next week). Enjoy spring and Happy Easter everyone!

Fun Night

Here are some pictures from Fun Night at preschool on Sunday night. It was just for the preschoolers (3, 4, and 5 year olds) and families/siblings, so there weren't a ton of people there. They had a lot of age-appropriate games, like bowling, face painting, hopscotch, fishing, bingo, musical chairs and ball throwing. The kids had a blast going from game to game and getting a bag full of prizes. The boys got their hands painted, instead of their face. Grace is the only one who got her face painted. We made an evening of it and ate dinner at Valentino's afterwards. The kids were well-behaved that night, which was a change from what we've been experiencing for the last week or two.........

So, the kids have been in a phase lately. I'd love to say that they have spring fever, or they're tired or sick or some other excuse, but the truth is, there's no excuse for how bad they've been acting lately. And, I have to qualify this, for the most part, they've been acting fine in public. We've had the occassional problem, but for the most part they're good everywhere but at home. At home we have major backtalking and non-listening issues. They are becoming pros at "selective listening" meaning, they pretend to ignore what we say and keep going on with what they were doing, even though they totally heard what we said. The other thing they're getting good at is back talking and a little bit of lying. Grace says NO! when you ask her to do the simplest things lately. Xander will do a couple of things, he'll either say NO or he'll start backtalking and yell about how he's not going to do it. Will pretends he's going to do what you've said, but then gets "distracted" and never actually ends up doing it. We've even caught them in little lies lately. We will ask if they've washed their hands before meals and they'll say yes when they actually haven't. They'll also lie about going potty. All this leads to either 1) me yelling 2) counting to three or 3) threatening time out or confiscation of toys/things. This is making for some very unhappy parents and even more unhappy children. It seems that we've been butting heads a lot lately and no one is very happy with each other. We've been trying to give positive reinforcement whenever we can, but it's just so hard when you're so exasperated saying anything nice is a huge chore. We're also not quite sure what we can do to solve this problem. I am hoping that if we just "stay our course" (I hate that phrase) that things will get better. I am hoping that they're just testing us, testing their world and developing their personalities, I'm hoping......... I'll let you know what we do to solve this, I am thinking of some sort of incentive chart. It's in the works.

Our other news is pretty much the same. Xander is in the middle of a cold, which is probably turning into a sinus infection. He may get a trip to the doctor next week, which is fine because it's spring break! Thankfully the others are not sick, except Brian who is a little sick. We also spent some time last weekend at Brian's boss' house, who is our age and whose wife teaches with my mom at Pyrtle. They also have a 4 year old son. The kids enjoyed playing together and we had a nice evening chatting with Brian's co-workers.

Our daylight savings time transition has been the smoothest one we've ever had. Sunday Brian had to be at church early, so I stayed home with the kids and let them sleep. They slept until their regular time 8:00 (felt like 7). They took a shorter nap because of Fun Night at preschool and went to bed at the same time as normal. They have been sleeping slightly later in the mornings the last 2 days, but that could have as much to do with the fact that it's still dark as anything else. The clock experiment is working fine. They walked into our room on Saturday at 7:00 on the dot. I think they were just waiting for the clock to say 7.

Best quotes of the week:

Just to preface, if you don't know, SpongeBob SquarePants has a friend named Patrick.

When Daddy was telling the kids about St. Patrick's Day, for whatever reason.....

Will: Daddy, when's SpongeBob day?

Brian: What?

Will: When's SpongeBob day? There's a Patrick day, so when's SpongeBob day?

(They don't even watch SpongeBob at all, although we occassionally check out a SpongeBob book from the library. Will always cracks me up.)

Will: Mommy, Mrs. Thimijan gave you a word.

Me: What?

Will: Here's a word from Mrs. Thimijan.

(Hands me a piece of paper.)

Me: Oh, you mean Mrs. Thimijan wrote me a letter?

Will: Whatever.

OK, so that's about all for now. Let's hope having spring break next week and spending a little more time with the kids will help our behavior problems. We'll see. Thanks for checking up on us!

My Bucket List

OK - So I try not to post about myself very often, because this really isn't a blog about me. But, every once in a while, something cool happens to me and I have to share it with you. Last week, I was able to cross something off my "bucket list", you know, the list of things you want to do before you kick the bucket. Chad and I got to see Bon Jovi live in concert at the Qwest in Omaha. Bon Jovi you say? Yes, it's true, I admit it. I love a hard rock band. I pretty much love everything about them. The last two times they've been in Omaha I haven't been able to go (one time I was on bedrest with the triplets!). So, we seized this opportunity and went. I was Tuesday night, not the best night and we didn't get home until 1:30 in the morning, but it was TOTALLY worth it. We both loved the show. You will probably have to click on these pictures to see them close up. We had seats that were really high up and my camera isn't that powerful. But, you can see the general set up of the stage and what they looked like. It was great. Thanks Chad for going with me!!

Problem Solving

As you all know, Grace can be a little OCD about things. Her latest thing is that she hates pants too long. So, she'll roll them up at the waist. She always instantly rolls up her pajama pants (even though they're not too big anymore). I'm trying to talk her out of this habit and so far I've had a little success in getting her to break the habit. But, today, she was wearing some pants that have a low rise on the waist, but are too long. So, rolling them up didn't do any good, because the waist was too short. So, this is how she solved her too-long-pant problem. She tucked them into her socks. I told her she could leave it, unless we went somewhere. Eventually, I got her to untuck them and I rolled them up at the bottom. What a goof. We've really got to get her to tolerate clothes a little too big, because she is never going to be round enough to fill out pants, but will need a bigger size for the length!

Superhero Obsession

Superman and Batman shooting webs out of their wrist like spiderman.

Buzz Lightyear wearing a cape.

This is how tinkerbell flies....

This is how Batman flies.....

This is how Superman flies......

The closest Grace gets to wearing something with a cape...

We have a huge superhero obsession in our house these days. It began at Halloween with Xander being Batman, and has gotten much worse. Santa didn't help with all the superhero things he brought, including the pajamas, t-shirts, batman toys and books. We check out all sorts of superhero books at the library each week and it seems the only pajamas they want to wear are the batman and spider man ones. Their main games they play lately have to do with flying around, building forts for their heroes and fighting each other (this last one is quite annoying as they are always tackling, hitting and laying on each other.) Poor Grace gets left out of this trend a little bit. There aren't a lot of superhero girl costumes. But, she is getting a Supergirl t-shirt from the Easter Bunny, which I think she will like.

Things have been going along well, not any unusual or exciting things to tell. Will had a slight cold last week, but seemed to get over it in only a couple of days with minimum nebulizer treatments. The kids went to Aunt Lisa and Uncle Chad's house on Friday night for dinner and a movie with them and Carter. They had a good time and got to watch their favorite movie "Cars" for the hundreth time. Thanks Aunt Lisa and Uncle Chad for showing them a good time and giving us a night out!

The weather has gotten a little warmer and we actually made it outside on Saturday for the first bike ride and walk of the season. Grace and I walked down to Target, and she skipped/ran the whole way. Then, they went on a walk around the block and Brian said she ran the whole time. I think they are ready for warm weather and playing outside, I am too!

Another new development in our house, which is not necessarily a welcome one is that they have started voluntarily getting out of bed in the morning. They used to never do this. They have almost always waited in their beds in the morning for us to come get them. This does not mean that they're quiet in their beds, but they always stayed in bed. Lately, they have been getting up and coming into our room and waking us up. This is fine on mornings where we need to get to preschool or daycare early, but this is not fine on Saturday. I remember Kara telling me about an article she read about how to get your kids to let you sleep in on Saturdays. Most of what the article said were suggestions that the kids are too little for, but one of the was good, so we did it. I dug out an old digital alarm clock from the storage room (Grace got to pick out a little cheap pink one at Target) and we taught them how to read the numbers and wait until the the first number is 7 or 8 before they could get out of bed. We practiced with various times on the clock, and then I set it to the right time. It worked well on Saturday morning. They came into our room at 7:07, which is probably the best we could have hoped for! They like their clocks. I heard Grace say as she was getting into bed tonight "I love my new clock. I'm glad it's here." We'll how this clock experiment pans out in the future, but so far so good.

I think that's about all our news for now. We have some fun things planned this weekend, fun night at preschool and a get together with some people from Brian's work, so I'll post about that next week. Thanks for looking!