THANK YOU!...

A great big THANK YOU!! to my mother and father-in-law for coming out yesterday.  They came out to watch the 3 littles for us so we could go out for the day to celebrate our anniversary :)  How sweet was that?

What did we do?  We went shopping, and we ate, and we shopped, and we ate, and then we shopped some more!!  Our first stop was the mall.  We walked around arm in arm, hand in hand...you know, the stuff teenagers do when they go out (without the necking in public, yuck!).  We had an awesome snack of Auntie Anne's pretzels with cheese dipping sauce and a soda.  Then we held hands and walked around the mall some more!  We then loaded up the car (read that? car! NOT van! car!:) and we were off to the next unknown destination, which ended being the Hobby Lobby.  I had never been in one before but let me tell you we WILL go back!  It was awesome!  We ended up getting a tractor cake pan for the twins birthday and a christmas stocking for our little peanut.  We then went for some supper, then to an educational toy store (and dreamed!!), then to Meijer's, then headed back home to tuck in our babies for bed.  On the way home we stopped for ice cream and then drove around looking at houses that were way to large for anybody's family but ours!!  We were laughing saying these people probably only had 2 children and that's why they could afford such a large home :)  These homes were gigantic!!  Then, we came back home.  It was an absolutely awesome day!! 

My two favorite moments of the day?

1.  Holding daddy's hand and having him all to myself!

and...

2.  Coming home to 3 very excited little faces!

Talk to ya soon...

Our Week in Pictures...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Busy Week...

Like most weeks here on the hill, this is going to be a busy one.  Yesterday we had our Dr. appt and Sissy had practice.  Here is how the rest of the week will smoothly run :) (Hopefully).

Tuesday -home learning, Sissy game

Wednesday -home learning, Sissy physical therapy, Daddy volleyball game

Thursday -home learning, Sissy game

Friday -home learning, Sissy game, Sister K and Sister E come for the weekend.

Saturday and Sunday To do list -chop firewood, winterize camper, clean up garden, prepare new garden spot for rye planting, Mass, clean breezeway, finish painting girls room and rearrange littles (probably won't all get done, but by-golly we will give it a whole hearted try!!  Hopefully I'll get some pictures posted somewhere in there too :) 

Talk to ya soon...

Dairy Days...

Yesterday was our visit with the gastroenterologist!  I was quite anxious about 2 things yesterday.  1: I was taking all 3 little's out by myself (something I rarely do :) and 2: we just purchased a BEAUTIFUL 12 passenger van that is quite tall and I wasn't sure if we were gonna fit in the ramp.  If we couldn't I didn't know where we were gonna park!  I wasn't concerned about little peanut's dairy issues, I actually figured if nothing more she would be able to continue on the 16 oz. (yes, we made it to that point!:).  I thought maybe they would give us some sort of paper telling us what to introduce and when though.  On our way I realized that if God gave me these 3 littles under the age of three, He must believe I can handle it.  If He has faith in me than why should I doubt?  Anxiety #1 - Solved!  There was still the issue of the van and the ramp though.  Well, long and behold we DIDN'T fit!!  Thankfully, there was a parking lot, with no restrictions, across from the ramp.  I put little peanut in a stroller and the twins each held onto a handle with my hands over theirs.  They were amazing!!  They did so well!!  They oohed and aahed over all the cars, trucks, tractors and buses on our walk there.  Brother S pushed the big blue button to open the doors for us to get in and Brother J  pushed the button on the way back out.  They never once attempted to run off or fight staying with me.  They even behaved like angels in the Dr. office!!  The Dr. came in to assess our little peanut and said she is CURED!!!!!!!!!  We no longer have to monitor what she eats (for dairy anyway:)  She can have whatever she wants - cheese, ice cream, yogurt, bread, butter!  All the yummy things we take for granted :)  He wants us to follow the new pediatric guidelines for other high allergenic foods: eggs at 2 years of age, peanuts/tree nuts at 3 years of age and seafood/shellfish at 4 years of age.  Not a problem!!

So, all in all, this was a VERY BLESSED day!!

No more dairy days!  EXTREMELY well behaved 2 year old twins!!  A parking lot right across from the ramp to park our beautiful, new, HUGE van :)  What more could a Mama ask for?

Catholic Vote 2008...

Dairy days...

Today is day 8 of our dairy days!!!  Can you believe it?  She is doing SO well with it!  Today our little peanut will get 4 ounces of milk.  She has had 3 ounces in her oatmeal this morning and I will mix the last 1 ounce with her rice milk when she wakes up from her nap.  Yesterday we used the last 2 1/2 scoops of her Neocate.  Yaaaaaa!!!  Can you see daddy's wallet getting plumper?  We haven't started the coconut milk yet (we might not if the dairy continues to go well!), so we have to ensure she gets an appropriate amount of fat each day.  Truly not an easy task!  She doesn't seem to mind the rice milk alone though, it is really quite sweet.

Sissy had her first volleyball game on Tuesday night.  We all went as a family.  The littles had a blast playing with the basketballs and volleyballs off to the side of the church gym.  Homeschooling families have LOTS of kids!  There were so many littles running around :)  Our little peanut even got involved!  Believe it or not she was able to keep up with them!!  She has a new pair of soft shoes, and she really thinks she is something.  Once daddy put her down with the other littles, she was off!  It was tougher trying to keep track of her than it was the twins.  Daddy said he won't make that mistake again :)   He says he's not letting her down at the next game (yeah, we will see what she has to say about that)!  Well, they won the first 3 matches (they play 3 out of 5)!  What a way to start the season!!  Sissy played great!!  She started the game out serving and got 3 or 4 points right off the bat :)  Yahoo!!  I took my camera to get some action pics but the only action pics I was going to get was of us chasing the littles!  Maybe next time.  Her next game is tomorrow against a really tough team.  Keep your fingers crossed. 

Home learning with the littles has just mainly been a review from last year so far.  I put out on the shelves everything we ended with last year.  I wanted to see what they were still interested in, what they needed presented again, blah, blah, blah.  The practical life activites were a hit again.  I have definitely figured out we need more pouring and sorting activities out!  Brother J spent alot of time sorting and pouring.  Brother S spent most of his time with the cylinder blocks (his favorite from last year).  I'm taking the time to prepare more activites that we will put out for next week. 

Today is going to be busy!  Preparing a menu and grocery list for daddy, me and little peanut have doctor's appt.'s, Sissy has school (she is going with us this afternoon to sit with the boys :)  Better get busy!!  Here are a couple of pics from our first day of learning:

 

Brother S pouring, Brother J matching

Brother S with the cylinder blocks

Brother J sorting

Talk to ya soon...