Twins Turn 3!

The twins turned 3 in November!

Their birthday present from us was a SURPRISE trip to Great Wolf Lodge!  None of the kids had been there before, so it was so fun!  We had the sickies earlier in the week, so we thought we might have to postpone our trip.  Buddy actually did get sick in the hotel room overnight, but he felt fine right afterwards.  Story time in the evening was great, and they all loved the water park.  I was surprised that even the little ones could go on most of the slides, as long as a parent was with them.

We went with a Mickey and Minnie theme this year.  Our daycare provider made us these awesome cakes.  Man, she really is talented with everything she does, right?!

We had the grandparents and great grandparents over for cake and ice cream.  Little bro really wanted green candles (for some reason), so he was excited to blow them out!

Halloween 2014

So, let's backtrack a bit here...  Halloween came and went so quickly.  I think all of the hype with the Royals was a distraction from the fact that it was October and almost Halloween.

We carved one of our pumpkins in support of the Royals.  Although they didn't win the World Series, it was great that they were actually in it this year!  If someone would have told me the Royals were going to be in the World Series back in June, I would have told them they were N-U-T-S, nuts!

Daddy went on his usual pheasant hunting trip, and this was the first year I felt like I could manage to take the kids somewhere by myself.  Grandma is always a big help when Daddy is gone, but we decided to try Gary's Berries on our own.  It was fun, and we had never been before.  The pig races were so much fun to watch, and Buddy even got to be a squeal leader for one race.  He had to chase and yell at his pig to try to get him to win!

Our daycare provider has holiday parties every year because she is AWESOME!  We went to the Halloween party, and she had lots of fun activities like pumpkin painting, a bounce house, and a barrel train ride.  At the end of the evening, we took a hayride.  I love the photo bombers in this picture.  Later this week, we will go to the daycare Christmas party!  We are lucky to have such a great daycare for the kids.

Since Halloween was on a Friday, we ventured to Uncle Matt and Aunt Coco's new house for trick or treating.  Captain Hook, Tinkerbell, and Peter Pan came home with tons of candy!  Uncle Matt dressed up as a scary clown and had fun tormenting teenagers all night!  We will forgive him for giving kids nightmares.  After all, it was his 40th birthday...

Almost Christmas

It's almost Christmas!  I have not been blogging as much as I would like to!  We have been busy just doing normal stuff.  It is hard for me to keep up with work, 3 kids, laundry, etc, so the blog has been waaay last on the list.  I will see if I can get better at this!

Daddy's work had it's annual Christmas party at the movie theater last weekend.  The kids got to see Santa, get balloon animals, get sparkle tattoos, and see the new Penguins of Madagascar movie.  The twins were a little antsy during the movie, but we managed!

Disney!

We had a great time at Disney World!  We visited all 4 main parks.

Sissy loved seeing Cinderella and eating dinner with the princesses!

Our awesome hotel with several Cars characters!

We had breakfast with Mickey and his gang!

The safari at Animal Kingdom was really neat!

 

We had dinner at a nice Mexican restaurant at Epcot one evening.

The Lion King area of our hotel!  Our rooms were Lion King themed!

The Little Mermaid area of our hotel!

 

One of our better group shots at Animal Kingdom.  Check out the giant tree in the background!

Everyone loved seeing the castle!  We can't wait to go back soon!

The newest...

Miller graduate!  Can't believe we are already done with Kindergarten!

Here he is with some buddies and his teacher!

March-May

Wow, is it really May?  Is school really out next Friday?  Time is flying by.  Here are some recent happenings:

•  Trip to Deanna Rose.

• Playing outside.  Little bro never gets off of his John Deere!

• We took Buddy skiing in Colorado, and he LOVED it! 

•  Turkey hunting!

• We had Easter at our house again this year.  The weather was nice and the kids had a great time as usual.  I think my camera got switched to a weird mode before I took this pic!

• We dyed Easter eggs.

• We went to the annual PTO carnival.

 

• My tulips bloomed.  Even Buddy enjoyed going out every morning to check which ones opened up! 

• Sissy is finally potty trained, except for at night time!  We plan to work on Little Bro this summer. 
• Prepping for Disney World!  We got our Magic Bands!!

• We lost our Granny in April.  We were sad, but she is happy and in a better place.

• Baseball practice started, and we have our first game this Friday!  Yay!

I will probably overload this blog with Disney photos next!  Woohoo!

Update

I have not been good about updating this blog!  We have been super busy, and I don't see that changing soon.

We took Buddy skiing for Spring Break.  He did a great job and learned a lot.  The twins stayed with Grandma and Grandpa.  Thanks for watching them!  I know they had fun playing, going to the zoo, etc.

It is starting to warm up, and we have already been to the zoo this year and plan to go again soon.  Buddy will be starting baseball practice in a few weeks.  It's hard to believe this is his 3rd season.

The twins have still been working on potty training.  Sissy is doing great with number 1 and learning that number 2 also goes in the potty!  We sort of gave up on Little Bro, as he was peeing in the potty and 5 minutes later peeing on the floor.  I'm going to work hard on him in June, after school is out.

We are all gearing up for the big Disney trip in May!  Our dinner reservations are done, and we just fast passed our rides today.  It is weird knowing exactly where we will be eating and what ride we will be on at certain points during our trip.  It will be a wonderful trip, and we are all getting so excited!

6 Years Old!

Wow! 6 years have flown by!

 

Mom and dad got him Zoomer, the robotic dog.  You can tell him to do things like a real dog.  He even runs around and goes "pee" when you are not playing with him!

He got a squirrel call from grandma and grandpa which he was soooo excited about!

Buddy and his ninja turtle cake!  We had his party at a place with tons of bouncy houses.  So, the kids had a blast.

Here are all of his friends at the party!  Little bro would not cooperate for the picture because he didn't want to stop jumping!

Potty Training

Since we had 3 snow days last week, Mommy took the opportunity to potty train the twins.  We were trapped anyway with a foot of snow, so why not?  With dad out of town for the week, it was quite the undertaking.  It was by no means easy.  In fact, it was a very difficult and long 3 days.  Buddy helped as much as he could which was nice.

Mommy did the same thing she did with the Buddy: naked for 3 days straight.  All we could do was watch them very closely and as soon as they start to potty on the floor, throw them on the potty chair.  It was hard to do much of anything else like laundry, cook, etc because you want to "catch" them at every opportunity.

We gave them stickers for going on the potty and reminded them VERY often.  Sissy struggled at first because she held her pee.  Little bro did great, but he walked over to potty about every 5 minutes.  Opposites as usual, but that is for another post...  By day 3, they were both doing well with a few accidents.  Friday, Mommy and Buddy returned to school.  The babysitter kept up the routine, but they had 6 accidents total throughout the day.  Sissy only had 1, but little bro was peeing everywhere still.

Saturday wasn't a lot better for little bro, so we debated whether he was really getting it.  On Sunday, Mommy was tired of being at home and ventured to Grandma's.  To her surprise, they made it the entire way in the car without peeing (an hour drive).  They did great all day.  Little bro had one incident of pooping and peeing on Grandma's floor after supper.  They made it all the way back home without any incidents!

I checked in with the babysitter today, and they have done great today too.  Sissy even pooped on the potty!  I think they have turned the corner and are on their way to being potty trained!  Yay!

For those who are wondering, we do diapers at naptime and bedtime because they just have to "learn" that with time.

100th Day of School!

Buddy is celebrating the 100th day of school today! Glad we didn't have a snow day today, so he could celebrate and wear his shirt!

Looks like we might be out the rest of the week for a BIG snowstorm!  A widespread 6-10 inches with some places maybe seeing a foot of snow!  WOW!

iPad Fun

Sissy has become a pro at the iPad lately!

She loves the puzzles on it.

...until little bro comes over and starts pushing buttons.  I don't think he even gets what he is supposed to do.  It is so funny how much girls and boys are different.  Sissy knows several colors already, and we can't even get little bro to slow down long enough to teach them to him.  He just gets bored!  Buddy was the same way.  I don't think he knew his colors until he was almost 4.

January Zoo Trip

We visited the zoo this past weekend, since the temp was above 60 degrees! Buddy stayed to help dad cut wood, but the twins and Mommy went with Grandma and Grandpa to the zoo.

We saw the red pandas playing!

One of our other favorite spots to visit is the polar bear exhibit.  Nikita was having fun with the barrel.

 Little bro's favorite animals to visit were the penguins.  It is a new exhibit, and it is neat to watch them swim around.  His fascination might come from the fact that they watch Happy Feet all the time!

December 23

December 23 is always a special day every year. It is when Mommy's family has always done Christmas. With many celebrations on Christmas Eve and Christmas day, December 23 is the day Mommy and her immediate family have celebrated Christmas for over 20 years. Tradition is to go to Nikko's Japanese Steakhouse for dinner, and then come home to open gifts. With our family growing much larger with the grandkids, Nikko's may get moved to another time of year.  There just isn't room around the grill!

Memorable December 23rds of years past:

• Mommy remembers getting a hamster as a kid.
• Daddy proposed to Mommy nine years ago.
• Uncle Matt was sick with the stomach flu several years back.
• Uncle Matt and Aunt Cori made the announcement that they were having another baby 6 years ago.
• Nani (Cori's mom) joined us this year for dinner and presents!

The annual pic near Grandma and Grandpa's tree.  It actually turned out pretty good!

A pic of all the kids!

Grandma reading Twas the Night Before Christmas to the big kids

Here, the twins are playing with their new bowls and spoons.  They literally carried those things around all night.  Another hit gift was the little high chair/swing that sissy uses for her dolls.  Here, they are feeding Minnie imaginary food.  Excuse sissy's outfit.  She cried until I put on all of the clothes she got as gifts!!  I thought maybe just the Minnie/Mickey t-shirt would satisfy her.  No, she had to put on the other shirt and sweatpants too!

Miss Ariel or cousin Alli!  Can you tell we are all gearing up for our Disney trip in a few months?!  We are all SOOOOO beyond excited, it is ridiculous.

Grandpa finally got his ove glove.  I guess he mentioned that he wanted one last year, but nobody got the hint (or didn't actually believe someone would want one of those for Christmas!!).  He was so happy!

I'm thinking we may need to start a new meal tradition, since it will be hard to eat at Nikko's with such a big group next year.  We left the twins with Aunt Maggie again this year, but it doesn't seem fair to do that another year!  Another teacher at our school had a grandmother who always had chili and cinnamon rolls for their Christmas dinner.  I'm thinking this might be a nice idea!  We will just have to see what next year brings!

Christmas with Shelley

We had our annual Christmas with Shelley on the 22nd! We weren't sure if everyone would make it up the driveway in the snow, but they made it with a little push.  I guess Matt didn't make it, but he hitched a ride up!

The twins got the hang of opening gifts rather quickly.  I think their recent birthday helped with that!  The days following this, we had to keep a close eye on Carter as he opened or started to open many gifts that were not his!

Buddy wanted to play trouble, and the game lasted nearly an hour!

After Shelley, Derek, and Sarah went home, we headed to the Topeka mall to ride the train.  Grandpa wanted to ride up front.

Grandma rode in the back with the kids.  They really liked waving at all the people as they rode around the mall!