Am I Crazy????

So here's the big question: to make baby food or not to??? With Evie it was an easy decision. One kid=less baby food...make it myself. I enjoyed the task and felt great 1. saving money and 2. knowing what was in her food.

With these guys I am not so sure. I would like to and in fact have made both peas and green beans both of which were loved by the babies way above that runny baby jar food. They didn't appreciate the canned stuff to much unless I disguised it with pears, bananas or other fruits. Not to mention the weird color of the canned stuff compared to the stuff I made. Makes you question the validity of the ingredients. So I am seriously contemplating making it for them myself. Most days I don't have time to shower, add in making my own baby food and even I think I've jumped off the deep end. I think in the ends it's going to be make the veggies, buy the fruit. Can we get a YA-HOO from the babies??

Anma's and Anpa's

Evelyn LOVES her grandparents. To the point that if we say "guess who's coming over tomorrow" (answer most often: best friend Abi) her first guess is anma and anpa. She even asks to go to their house every week sometimes more then once. We love it, as I'm sure her grandparents do.

I love my parents and my in-laws. I think that they are awesome parents, and have raised some pretty great children, if I do say myself. However, one of the MOST AWESOME things is watching them as grandparents. They ADORE my children (who wouldn't) and it's so fun to watch them interact. They get on the floor with them, they read to them and all of the amazing things that grandparents do. It is such a special relationship and I feel lucky to have two sets of loving grandparents. Grandparents who take the day off just to come and watch the babies while I go to a rheumatoid appointment. Grandparents who call to ask me to post about Evie, because "I miss her." Grandparents who bought so many clothes for the boys, I ran out of room to put them. Grandparents who can barely wait til the babies wake up to pick them up. Grandparents who spend over an hour in Evie's room being bossed around. Grandparents who drove 5+ hours to be at the hospital when the triplets were born. Grandparents who stayed up all night, or slept in cramped chairs, or froze in the hospital to be present when Evie was born. Grandparents who bought a camper so they'd have something to stay in when visiting (though they also wanted it for camping). Grandparents who volunteer night shift duties. Grandparents who change messy diapers and help a toddler on the toilet. Grandparents who get excited to take them out on the tractor, boat, lawn mower, zoo, etc for the first time. Grandparents who take 100,000 pictures every time they see the kiddos, almost as many as I take. Grandparents who write down statistics such as weight and length of every checkup.

I admire my parents and Shawn's for many reasons. They both have sacrificed for their families. They've both maintained loving marriages for over 30 years. They've dealt with physical challenges. They've been amazing, loving parents. They've cheered us on and prayed for us. In this new season of grand-parenting they've shown another facet of themselves I've come to admire, appreciate, and respect. Love you guys!!!!!

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Love, Evie, Ella, Henry and Grant

Cookies for Santa

For Christmas this year Evie and I made sugar cookies for Santa. It was a special Christmas activitiy as it was something just Evie and I could do and it involved using my Grandma B's sugar cookie recipe. We used to make them with her for Easter. I even made her special icing and they turned out quite delicious. We left two for Santa (the only thing I didn't get a photo of), goat's milk and some carrots for the reindeer. Evie was quite thrilled Christmas morning to see that he had "enjoyed" her treats. She also wanted to leave out some for "baby Desus" but I told her that the treats were for Santa only as he only visited once a year. Jesus on the other hand was with us all year long. I told her that Jesus lived in my heart. Now she repeatedly tells me and others (including my mom who was quite confused because of her mispronunciations) that "baby Desus bibes in my heart."

Another, quite adorable story of Evelyn took place as I was putting up our many nativity scenes. We were talking about the characters and asked Evie who Jesus' mother was (Mary) and who his earthly father was (Joseph). Then I explained that Mary had baby Jesus in her belly like I had the babies in my belly. To this Evie explained, "I've got baby Desus in my belly too!" It was a Christmas miracle! She is always making me laugh!!


Mixing together the sugar cookie ingredients.

Mixing the cake batter for Jesus' birthday cake. I was delicious too! Evie was at first scared of the mixer but then grabbed hold and mixed away. We did this as the cookie dough chilled.

Mmmm....chocolate batter! One of Evie's favorite parts!

Cutting out cookies. We had stars, trees, angels, snowflakes, bells, candy canes and of course a moose.

Icing the cookies, hard to resist eating all of them at this point. Evie and dad each had one before Evie went off to bed.

The bakers!

Evieisms

One of her purses. She loves to stuff all her bags and purses to the brim. Then she tells me she's going to "peskool."

With her "triplet" stroller from Anma and Anpa V.

"No pictures please!"

I am a bad parent, I admit it. For even though Evelyn is slightly behind in her language skills, I secretly LOVE her mispronunciations. They are adorable. I have a hard time correcting her. For instance, I think that "namies" are a lot more comfy and enjoyable then plan ol' pajamas. I love to put off today what I can do "manara." I have a hard time just calling the babies Grant, Henry and Ella instead of "Nant, Enry and Ayla." And finally my parents and Shawn's will never be known as anything other then Evie's and the babies "anma's" and "anpa's." Here is some other Evieisms.

Peskool: preschool
Do-Do-Dora: Dora
Andy-ane: Candy cane
Not et: Not yet!
Darbage: garbage
I wan ugs and isses: I want hugs and kisses.
Can I hab some ocen, peas?: Can I have some lotion, please?
baby Desus: baby Jesus
Q-numbers: cucumbers
Pebutter an delly samich: Peanut butter and jelly sandwich
Ot-og: Hotdog
I'm Hungee, mommy: I'm hungry, mommy!

Obviously she has a little difficulty in the "hard" consonants like "k" and the like. She also has problems with the first letter to words. My name is Tawnda and she pronounces it "Awna."

Other completely adorable things she does is every morning da-dee asks Evie "where's my hugs and kisses?" Pointing to her lips and then chest Evelyn tells da-dee "here and here!" Evelyn gets up at about 7:30a everyday. By 8am all of her toys are out and lined up all over the house, including her cars. She then gives them books or food to "eat." Maybe she believes as Sara Crewe does, from the story she and I are reading together: The Little Princess, that dolls and toys come to life when we leave the room. Her favorite movie, Toy Story, certainly confirms this.

Nearly every toy she owns has a mama, daddy and baby. Including her cars, animals, dolls etc. Anything she sees either gets labeled mommy, dadee, baby and sometimes if they look a little older anma or anpa. Lately she has at least been playing with toys other then her babies. She builds robots, plays with Mr./Mrs. Potato head (usually she dresses up a spud as me, the other day I had a pig nose for eyes, a tongue for one ear among other interesting features-not sure how I should take her demonstration of me), reads books among other things. Playing house is by far her favorite activity still, even if the only toys she had were rocks.

Up next a few pictures of Evie and I baking cookies for "Santa."

Shawn

I spend a lot of my time and energy focusing on the kiddos and thus some people are often neglected not only on this blog but also in our scrapbooks. Thus my post today. I finished these 3 pages about Shawn. I wanted something to document where he is RIGHT now. Simple things like favorite food (pepperoni pizza) and more complex like his favorite verse right now (Romans 15:13). The third page is dedicated to something I talk about all the time to people and Shawn: my ideal man list. This is the wishlist I always had in my mind about characteristics I wished my future husband to have. Would you believe that Shawn fulfilled 9 out of 10??? I guess I can live without a Scottish accent!! Check out #10. That was truly something I thought would be great after watching Titanic. I thought the name was (admittedly) dreamy and sexy. What can I say? I heart Shawn!

Xander

Missing my nephew, Xander, a whole bunch-especially after completing these 2 pages of him when he was 4 months old. It was the first time seeing him in over 3 months and he'd changed so much. It's kind of how I feel now, knowing he's growing and maturing and I'm missing out. Enjoy the pages. Xander, I miss you buddy!! Love you FOREVER! Auntie Tawnda