Just the girls (and Adam)

On Friday I pulled out of our driveway as Jason stood there with all three kids with a look of total fright and abandonment. You see, he was nice (and brave) enough to let me go visit Chelly, Allie and Adam for the weekend while he stayed home with the kids. I will leave him to tell the stories of their weekend (I heard rumors of snakes, batman soup, no electricity and sleepless nights, but that is for another blog), here are some pictures from our weekend.I think Allie likes me. Not sure about Adam, he just slept or cried when I held him. :) He is a cutie (so is Allie!)!!

We went shopping on Saturday and even though we had two little kids, it was fun. That night we made chicken fajitas with homemade tortillas. Allie had a blast helping roll them out.

The pictures of the food are for mom, she taught us well! :)Adam was no help at all with the dinner preparations.
After dinner we laid on the couch and read, watched the Penn State game and folded laundry. Wild weekend, huh?
Right before we left to head south. Since Chris is away, Chelly and kids were my ride home (I drove down with another friend who was visiting someone in NC too). They are staying with us until we both can't handle all the kids in one house any longer! :) Our trip home was filled with singing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" more times than I can count. Allie always noticed when I stopped singing. Then she would yell "Sing! Annt Errn! Sing!" I also developed great new arm muscles from jiggling Adam's car seat to keep him happy.

We have taken lots of cousin pictures, so stay tuned!!

Letting Go

Aiden went on his first field trip today. I wanted to go but, it was to a pumpkin patch (muddy, buggy pumpkin patch by the way) and I figured Kyle, Ryleigh and I would be more of a hindrance than a help. So, he went without me. It was hard. I knew he would be riding the bus there and then be in a public place without me to watch over him. I felt like Marlin the Clown Fish from "Finding Nemo" "WHAT? The DROP OFF?? Why don't we just fry them up and eat them for dinner?" So yes, I am having a hard time letting go. The first step is admitting you have a problem right? I drilled Aiden last night about sitting down on the bus and not playing around. I drilled him on staying with his class, on not wandering off, not talking to strangers and listening to his teacher. I asked his teacher what kind of system they had for keeping track of everyone. I know, she was probably rolling her eyes in her head thinking "Lady, I have been a kindergarten teacher for x amount of years, I know what I am doing", but she was very nice and explained how they do field trips. She put me at ease, somewhat. I didn't tell her that I was thinking about following the bus and watching the field trip from my car with binoculars. I also didn't tell her I had a nightmare about the field trip. Now you all are rolling your eyes.
He returned safe and sound. Full of stories and covered with dirt. That's my boy. He must have had a good time. And I survived another test in letting go.

A Little (ok, a lot of) Dirt Never Hurt

As long as I live I will never understand boys. This does not look remotely fun to me, but for the boys it was heaven on earth! Yesterday afternoon Jason put up pull up bars in our backyard, (no Marine Corps home is complete without them!) and the boys joined in the fun. First they dug two holes in our nice sandy soil. This is when Jason told them how he cut off one of his brothers toes while digging when they were kids. Jason said you should have seen their faces. Their first question was: "Did it grow back?" Then they got to mix cement. Pure joy for little boys.Then they went to the back yard to put it around the pull up bars.The finished product.Of course what is the best thing to do after you are all wet from mixing concrete? LAY in the dirt of course!Now for some major clean up! It was a bit hard to get the cement out of their hair. It had started to harden.

If you can not tell what Aiden has in his hand, it is a fish head that he found while digging somewhere behind the shed. Nice. He was thrilled "Bones!!!" he yelled. Now I know where Jason throw out their fish from their fishing trip.
Yesterday afternoon was also filled with catching spiders. Aiden ran inside and got some of my Tupperware and some aluminum foil and then ran back outside. Moments later he was bringing it inside and wanting to keep it in his bedroom. "No, you can not keep spiders in your room." I said. "BUT MOM!" I later conceded after we used a baby food jar with holes punched in the lid. Seemed a little more secure than aluminum foil. Next Aiden ran in the house and started out the door with the blender. Of course I stopped him. "Aiden you can not have the blender outside." There are just some things you never really imagine yourself saying until you have boys. "But Mom, we NEED it!" I was afraid to ask what for. Maybe to make spider milkshakes??

15 Months old

Ryleigh turned 15 months old today! I can not believe she has been here that long! :) She is not very cooperative, picture taking wise, like she used to be. It is all part of that our kids won't sit still thing. She just wanted to stand on the bench and throw the pumpkins.

This morning when I got her dressed she pointed to her bows like she wanted me to put one on her. She knows the routine, we don't go anywhere without a bow!! lol I guess she figured I might forget. Not a chance. :)

She loves her daddy and whenever he is outside and she can't be, she stands at the door and watches him. The below picture I was trying to get a photo with her, as you can see, she really is not interested.
One of her favorite things to do right now is "write". She loves to have a pen and a piece of paper. She will color with the boys and of course I have found her crayons have made their way to other places besides the coloring books. :( She makes her way into the bathroom every time someone forgets to shut the door, it is like she has radar or something, and proceeds to unroll the toilet paper, empty soap or drop things in the toilet. Her favorite place to play is in my bathroom, she goes in the cabinets, finds all sorts of interesting things and drags them out. She even handed a tampon to a guest one day. Her favorite basket of things are my hand bands, rubber bands and my large wooden brush. She puts them all on at once and goes around brushing her hair. She also tries to brush the boys hair, but usually ends up using the wrong side of the brush which results in more of hitting, than brushing. Remember, it is a large wooden brush! They cry, she tries to hug them and they run away from her, scared she will hit them again. She loves to wave and is starting to say a few words. "Baby" is her favorite so far. She calls me "Maaa", and know how to say it very loudly when she wants something. She is very lovable and throughout the day she will just come up and hug your leg then go back to whatever she was doing. She has reached the stage where she poops in the bathtub. All the kids have gone through this and it truly is an horrible phase. Since I bathe them all together, when she does this the boys totally freak out (I really don't blame them) and jump up and straddle the two sides of the bathtub. Screaming and splashing water everywhere. Ryleigh just looks amused. It adds at least a half hour to bath time. By the time you get it all out, clean all the toys, scrub the bathtub, and refill......fun times. Of course by this time 3 naked kids really can wreck a bathroom. But, those leg hugs and squeezes she give you around the neck totally make up for it all.

Happy Birthday Liz!!

Growing up with with three girls in a row was not always a walk in the park. Contrary to popular belief, we were not perfect and did have an occasional fight. One fight in particular involved a very large blue book that somehow ended being used to hit me over the head. To hear Liz's side of the story, I deserved it, I only remember being attacked. :) But from the time we were little, until this very day, my sisters have been and always will be, my best friends.November 2000 - Disneyland, CANovember 2000 - when Chelly and Liz came out to visit for a few days.
September 2001 - our first night in our first home was shared with Chelly and Liz. We even all slept in the same room cause someone (I won't say who) was scared! :) Liz was a big help during that time, coming down to help move and paint several times. Christmas 2006 and Liz's new game from us. She loves games and usually wins. She always beat us in Dutch Blitz. :)I won't tell you what was going on here, because it will cause us all to get in to trouble!! hehe Remember this?
Liz - winter 2006 - with Ryleigh. All my kids adore Aunt Liz. This morning they had to call first thing and wish her a happy birthday.

Summer 2007 - doing what we all love to do best, hang out!


Liz, you amaze me with all your talents and strong loyalty. I am glad you are in my corner! :) I love the friendship you share with Jason and the fact that our friendship continues to grow. I love a good shopping trip with you or working on a baking project together. I can't wait until we all live close again so it can be a weekly thing instead of a few times a year! Thank God for myspace, blogs and cell phones!! We all love you dearly and hope you have a great birthday!!

Love, Erin, Jason, Aiden, Kyle and Ryleigh

Thank God they are Country boys......

Since Jason and I both grew up hardly watching any TV, we both have things that we want our kids to love to do instead of loving TV and video games. For me it is reading, and I really don't have much hope, since it requires sitting down, but Jason seems to have a chance on his. Which is making them boys that love the outdoor sports of life. I believe he has succeeded. Since this morning at 4 am, Aiden's arm hurt too much to put on his own shirt, but he assured me he could cast with it just fine. But, before you think that I am anti TV - let me assure you that I am not! In fact I am pro -TV! TV is a absolutely wonderful babysitter that does not charge me an arm and a leg. :) Anyway, this morning Jason got them up at 4:15 am, took them to work with him (he had to do ELCO - which is really just too much military mumbo jumbo to explain). And afterwards they went fishing for a few hours. They came home proudly carrying a string of fish, dirty, and very tired. I took the string of sunfish and oohed and ahhhed at how many they caught. Then cause' I have no brain cells, I carried the long string of fish with me as I was looking (everywhere) for a bucket to keep them cold in. It wasn't until Jason pointed it out that I realized I was dripping fish juice and pond water all over the house. Where are those brain cells when you need them? I never did find a bucket on my own, my toddler suggested that I use a sand bucket. I would have never thought of that, even though I passed several of them at least 3 times. So anyway, they came home, and of course with Daddy it is all fun and games. As soon as they see me, it is meltdowns left and right. "I'm hungreeeeeee (why can't they just say it, why is it always a whine?), I want to eat my fish now." "Can we go to McDonald's? Pleaseeeeeeee?" "I'm NOT dirty, we DON'T need a bath." You could draw pictures in the dirt on their faces, hands and legs if you wanted too. They say all this as they get out the play dough (Kyle in just underwear and a sweatshirt, to paint you a picture) and begin to make play dough "eggs". Then pure exhaustion kicks in and Kyle cries and Aiden whines NON STOP, and they both fight, verbally and physically, until I can get them in the bathtub. They don't look too bad in the pictures, so I am guessing they thought they better get good and dirty while daddy loaded up the boat. That way mommy wouldn't be disappointed that she didn't get to scrub pond muck off them while they screamed because I was hurting their legs that have so many scratches and wounds on them that you all really should go out and buy stock in whoever makes band aides. They are all asleep right now, well Aiden is almost asleep, he is watching TV........