our latest happenings

the kiddos have been sick. poor claire fell asleep in the office while I was putting ellie down for nap. ellie had actually fallen asleep the previous day in the office while I was putting claire down. besides these two incidents none of our kids have ever fallen asleep while playing. obviously, the girls were sick so that is why they fell asleep, but it was still really sweet to see them crashed out.

c lined up some cars.

eleanore gets a hold of the garbage can. yuck! (claire does it too – so gross)

I came home from a weekend workout to 3 kids who were actually happy to see me.

practicing charlie’s smile.

we had our friend’s the barlows over for an afternoon.

sibling love.

eleanore got her first mole.

driving cars – ellie.

charlie is enjoying some craft time.

with our illnesses we have been home a lot. to keep things interesting we had to change it up and playing with snow in the bathtub was good entertainment for the honey badgers and fun for charlie.

both girls love pushing charlie’s CAT truck around. ellie insists on holding a little ball in one hand. if you take it away she acts like she just lost a limb.

more proof of her attachment to these little balls. the purple one is from a friend’s house. when we got home I found it in her car seat.

claire is a future rock climber. she literally tries to scale anything in her path. here she is climbing up the end table. she flipped into the tub last night while we were running the bath. I have also caught her half way up our dining room chairs (feet off the ground) and up on top of the CAT truck. I predict an accident in our near future.

another shot of feeding the dynamic duo.

we are thankful for nana & g.pops who came to help out while bill is in miami beach for a conference. while they are here charlie started playing “the chasing” game with g. pops. he LOVES it! he runs around the island and when he comes through the sitting area of our living room my dad jumps out and tackles him. they were both breaking a sweat.

another action shot.

mid tackle

assessing a bonk. I think in this picture he bonked his head with his knee. he would brush off any bonk like it was no big deal even though I think some of them really hurt because then he could get back to the game.

I love these action shots. charlie continued to say “I like this chasing game g. pops” or “can we do more running g. pops?” or “thank you g. pops. I love you.” it was precious.

g. pops are you tired??

on top of taking charlie skiing today, my dad also sheet rocked and plastered under our stairs yesterday. it looks fantastic and we really appreciate it dad! charlie had a blast skiing and was exhausted (as you can see in the pic).

the girls love being near people. if you are standing up cooking they will both crawl over to your legs and climb up and hold on for dear life so you are basically stuck. today I was just trying to put my hair up and they could not give me a bit of space. my mom was able to snap a quick shot.

no relief. but I have to admit I love how much they want to be near me. they definitely enjoy having mom in an arm’s reach.

do you think my mom was busy? here she is trying to chat with my brother danny, read to charlie, keep claire from flipping off her lap and keep ellie entertained by her foot. prior to this picture ellie was actually holding onto her leg.

so that is what we have been up to these past couple weeks. a lot of boogers, whining, coughing, but also a whole lotta love.

the littlests

little eleanore

little claire. check out those lashes (both of the girls have them!).

wrestling over the rattle.

ellie loves smiling with her eyes closed.

I was trying to capture their top toofers, but it was impossible to get a good shot. claire’s top 4 teeth are peeking through and eleanore’s are bulging. 

outfit o’ shame

claire and eleanore are not known for keeping their outfits clean. they often each go through 1-2 (on bad days – 3-5 outfits) outfits per day! whoever ruins their outfit  first (or sometimes if I am being nice – their second) gets put into the “outfit o’ shame”. they ruin an outfit by peeing, pooping or spitting up on it. ellie had the privilege this afternoon after going through 2 different outfits previously.

she was pretty happy sporting the “outfit o’ shame”. she obviously didn’t realize how mismatched her browns were.

sadly, more often than not one of the girls is wearing this outfit. I guess it is their way of keeping me doing 2-3 loads of laundry per day. thanks girls for looking out for me!

time saver & dad comes home from work

I have finally mastered the art of bathing all 3 of my little rambunctious chitlins at the same time by myself! it has been a few weeks now that I have been doing it and it has made my evenings go much smoother. bill is rarely home before 7 so every week I get all the kids stripped down around 6 pm and load them up in the tub. eleanore and claire are squealing with delight while the tub is filling and trying to climb in. then the second they get in they both start crawling around, standing up and dropping back down into the water (I don’t ever remember charlie doing this, but they love it).  charlie is the only one who actually remains sitting in the tub. but all 3 of them are really loving the time together – splashing and giggling together. and it is a great way to move the evening along for me. then I wrestle both of the girls out of the tub (which is a sight – trust me) and bring them into their room to get them dressed (it is so much easier to just wrestle them both at once) while charlie plays with his cars in the tub. since I am busy keeping all the kids above water I can’t take any pictures of the 3 of them. maybe I will try to snap some pictures tomorrow night when bill Is home.

after the baths I give the girls some of their bottles in the living room. here is the strategy for that.

then after they take about half of their bottle I let them cruise around for a bit and then put one in the office and take one with me into the nursery to finish off the bottle and lay them down. charlie loves this time because he gets to watch george.

if bill is lucky he makes it home in time to see the badgers. the girls light up when they see him and will not stop for anything to get to him. they just keep crawling and babbling and whining after him. charlie is also pumped to see dad and has a hard time splitting the attention with his sisters (bill probably has a hard time dividing it properly, but he does a fantastic job just soaking them all in!).

here is bill getting attacked on the big bed. you can only see charlie’s feet because he was diving into the pillows.

more dad time.

bill is such a wonderful dad. I love how he can walk through the door and forget the stresses of his day, the work he still has to do, the pager beeping as he walks in and just soak in the kids and their love for him. he does a great job being present for them and pouring love into them. thanks weyam. I love you!

double trouble

the girls continue to get into more and more trouble at home. they mostly focus on trying to take down our book shelf or climbing into weird places. here are a few that I caught on camera.

claire climbing into the middle of our stool. she also is sticking her tongue out, which she did for about a week as she got used to her new teeth on top.

she was pushing the stool around the kitchen like this.

loving the tupperware cupboard.

then we get to the bookshelves. this is about the age that we started setting some boundaries with charlie and sure enough the girls are needing the same direction. the problem is it is a lot more difficult to set boundaries with 2 babies and a toddler around.

eleanore with her determined face.

here is claire making her way to the bookshelf. I stopped her and told her not to touch the bookshelf.

she sits back to assess.

desperately wanting to climb the bookshelf.

claire always trys to stick her head through the gap between the chair and the wall. she will not back down so I just move the chair out a bit.

and it is only tuesday afternoon…

I don’t think I am prepared for this week. it is only tuesday afternoon and ellie has had the stomach flu, charlie got croup and claire woke up from nap covered in vomit. oh these are the days…

edited on wednesday evening: things are looking up. charlie is doing better. he still has a really sore throat and has a hard time communicating because of it. and he is having major meltdowns as a result of the oral steroid they gave him, but at least he is feeling better and not hacking. c & e are over the stomach bug and thankfully bill and I have not gotten anything yet. becca willingly came over last night to help with the kiddos and give me some adult conversation and auntie dotesy drove down from northfield to spend the evening with us tonight. so blessed by loving friends and family!

UGH!!!

the packers lost to the giants AGAIN tonight in a playoff game (they lost to the giants in 2007 – we were at that game)! it was brutal. near the end of the game when bill and I were so sick to our stomachs we weren’t even hungry (and it was well past supper time), bill drew this picture of a packer player dropping a catchable ball/fumbling/somehow giving up the ball to the giants. we were all “ree sad” about the loss and how horrible they played. but they still played a great season and went 15-1. we still love you packers! Go Pack Go!

d5100

with our christmas money we purchased a new camera. our point-n-shoot was on the fritz and after surveying all of the options we went with a nikon d5100. we just got it this week so we have been taking more pictures than usual to test it out. here are a few that turned out cute.

sweet claire chewing on charlie’s blood pressure cuff.

the badgers.

this isn’t an exceptional picture – just cute of all 3 in a row.

playing hide-n-seek around the table.

claire stunned by watching eleanore and charlie play.

ellie-stunned by a belly tickle her dad was doing. this is her classic lip look.

I have never seen her lay so still for so long. she loved this little baby massage.