Saturday night shopping

Had to head to the local Walmart to get some dog food this evening or we would have had a very hungry dog tomorrow. I am not will not ever be a fan of the old Walmart, but convenience wins out... anyway, shopping with the kids is always an adventure. Highlights of the quick Saturday night stop were:
Elise chewed through the block of cheese wrapper while shopping.
Elise ran away while I was checking out. The lady behind me all of a sudden said 'uh, your girl just ran off.....'. I was somewhat oblivious to her since I always have the most well mannered obedient children - hahahahahaha!!! (but the bribery I had just used on Vinny and Addie was working wonders and the checkout was going very smoothly!). I looked and realized I was down one kid - ran off (leaving the other two) to fetch Elise who had already made it to the ride-on Elephant in the amusement area.
Other than that - great trip:)

Updates

Wow, it has been a long time. Not much chance that I could possibly catch up on what has happened since last spring.
So, now... School started. Vinny started 1st grade. He really likes it. His teacher looped, so he has the same teacher and same classmates as last year. He is very good at math and seems to enjoy it. His reading is really coming along and we are excited to listen to him read to us now. He is in flag football this fall. He had a game this morning. He is doing well and has a blast. It was pretty darn cold to watch today though!

Addie started 4k this year. She was so excited and was not phased at all. She is doing very well. She sat and wrote her name the other night. We have had a hard time getting her to write with us, so this was awesome to see!!! she sings new songs all the time. Memorizing is her thing! She quotes movies and tv shows all the time. She sort of speaks in quotes. We really don't let her watch all that much tv, but man she picks it up fast! She is in gymnastics this fall. She gets very excited for it and does great.

Elise. Well, Elise is 2 1/2. and she is a character. She took school starting this fall pretty hard. She wants to be 4 (or 6) so she can go to school, ride the bus, be in gymnastics. She has been boycotting the booster seat at the table, thinks she needs a big girl bed like Addie and wants to do all things big. She can be the loudest kid I have ever heard, but gives the best hugs and cuddles two minutes later. She has learned that loud will get you attention, but the things she does are very funny! She is not potty trained yet. She is very much physically ready. can hold it for hours, will not go in undies, but is terrified of the potty (all of them) so we end up letting her put a diaper back on. She can pretty much do her own diaper changes (not really a good thing, but is pretty impressive to watch) she gets her new diaper and takes off her old one, sits on the new one. The only tricky part for her is attaching the velcro on the clean one. Last night she decided to do a change for herself on our bed. I walked in and she was bare butt on the bed and the diaper was poopy. ewwwwwww. blanket got a HOT wash - yup, poo on the bed. This morning we tried the undies thing again, but then we had to take Vinny and Addie to their sports stuff. A strong effort on this will occur soon!!

New...

Background. Now I better find time to do a post now and then.... more soon... maybe:)

Silver Birthday

I was home with the kids yesterday. Vinny did not have school, so we spent the day just playing around. We went to the park (the 'big park') :) Vinny met some new friends, Addie loved the giant sand area and Elise just loves being outside all the time!
We had a really good time at the park, went out to lunch, and were home for naptime for the girls. Out of the blue after we got home from the park Vinny came up and asked me what a golden birthday was. I explained it to him and I think he was a little disappointed - his golden birthday was when he was one. A couple minutes later he comes up - when is my Silver Birthday?!
Such a cute kid!

blankie vs. blanket tidbit...

Elise has become rather formal in referring to her 'blanket'. Last night - well early this morning- she woke and was must have been looking for her blankie. I could hear 'daddy, daddy, blankie… blankie (tiny sob) blankie…oh, blanket – some ramblings I couldn’t make out - blanket' back to sleep she went. Sidebar: We don't go up there unless it gets real loud or someone has a legit reason for a visit from one of us. Daddy often doesn't wake up - I don't always either, but most of the time I wake and listen to the middle of the night inquiries.

Biggest Show in Town

We all headed out to the Zor Shrine Circus last night. Kids had a ball, we grossly overpaid for everything, successful night overall and hopefully proceeds get put to good use. Funny how taking in a show like that during the week becomes a logistical nightmare. I left work extra early to pick Vinny up from school rather than riding the bus, picked up the girls from daycare, Dave left early and had sandwiches ready for the kids by the time we got home. Kids ate and we were out the door.

Dave got sick this morning - hopefully no one else gets it! I let the girls sleep in and came to work a little late. Vinny has his big kindergarten music performance tonight. Grandma and Grandpa's are planning to come watch. Hopefully Dave is feeling okay. More on that later!

Vinny's school update...

We had Parent/Teacher conferences for Vinny last night. He is doing a great job at school. He does get himself separated from his best buddy Alex now and then for a little too much talking and playing. He is doing great with all the academic and social aspects.
We wandered around school a bit to find his artwork on the wall. His was of a surfer dude. J we ended up talking with one of his PE teachers (she is from my hometown, so it was more of a little social chat, but we talked about Vinny too) and his music teacher. Vinny wanted to show us his art teacher, but we needed to get going.
I headed off to book club and Dave went home to get the kids fed and do all the nightly tasks. Came home to everything cleaned up. Thanks!!

Bath Time Talk

Last night the kids were in the tub and Dave and I were asking Vinny about school and the bus. For quite a while we kept hearing tales about the neighbor boy, but lately he had not been mentioned, so we were asking about him.
Dave: Vinny do you sit with Ethan on the bus anymore.
Vinny: No, I am not allowed to.
(Dave and I really trying not to laugh)
Heidi: Vinny, were you and Ethan being naughty on the bus. (my attempt to make up for my laughing)
Vinny: NO, I am not the one in trouble. I tried to go sit with Ethan, but Donnie (the bus driver) told me I couldn’t sit with him. He is in the naughty seats.
Hmmm, not sure if we will find out for sure what the deal is with all of that. We have parent/teacher conferences tonight so we may get the scoop on what goes on at school anyway.

The kids LOVE the whirlpool tub these days. They have always liked it, but we have a hard time getting them out without ‘bubbles’ lately. They all try to swim in the tub, so fun to watch them.

Vinny - 5 1/2

Vinny. What to update on him. He loves school. School leaves him pretty exhausted, but he seems to be doing a good job. He was in basketball this winter and he took ice skating lessons. He has a lot of fun in all the activities he has done. He wants to play soccer again like he did last spring, so we will see if we can work that out again this year.
He loves animals and all things to do with nature. His nature books are very cool. Lots of things for me to learn too.
He has gotten to be more adventurous (makes mom very nervous). He had a ball last weekend at the water park and seeing how many crazy ways he could find to go down the slide. he was going down headfirst on his back. it was pretty mild slide, so this was not too much of an issue!
He plays with his sisters a lot. He does very well with both of them. He and Elise are often buddies. Never know what they will get into!

More to come, but at least this is a start!

Addie.... 3 1/2

Addie. She is our little quiet princess... most of the time. she has her headstrong grumpy moments!
She can be so quiet and reserved and then the crazies come out and you never know what she might do. She really has always been easy to calm and entertain. She loves her princess toys and barbies, but also loves to play with her big brother and run and chase. When Vinny gets to his decided finish line and proclaims 'I win' she will boldly state 'I lose'. Very happy about her accomplishment.
She LOVES movies and quotes lines from them all the time! we stayed in a hotel last Friday night. She was the last to wake up Saturday morning and the first thing out of her mouth was 'they are going to the dropoff, the dropoff!!!' - line from Nemo. She is way better at movie quotes than I am. I think there was more to this one. Super cute though. Most things can be convinced to do willingly if you offer up a movie time after.
She really enjoys going to Big girl School - this is Sunday School and it was a way to get her to go and now she really enjoys it and is so proud of the color projects she does in there.
She is still sleeping in a crib and we have not had any problems with it yet, but she can now get in and out on her own. We will probably look to move her into a big bed soon. oh, how I love having her in a crib. ho hum... More on that in a later post.

Elise at 23 Months

Elise is quite the character these days. Trying to keep up with her is almost impossible sometimes! she really gets into everything - and I mean EVERYTHING. She likes to do things on her own. Apparently, she is very independent or she just got fed up with waiting her turn. She will find 'stools' of all sorts to reach high places, she learned if the shakes the cabinet doors real fast she can get past child locks (that is what we get for getting the cheap ones - the other kids were not so persistent!), if she thinks the dog looks hungry she will go find her some food (Beasley is her new best friend). She is really talking now and she gets very upset when you can't figure out what she is trying to say. One of my favorite is 'deeper' or diaper. she will go get a diaper and the wipes and bring them to you when she needs a change and sometimes when she doesn't. She has tried out the potty a little bit. One day last week Dave had picked up all the kids and was doing some normal afternoon stuff and elise went to the potty chair and pooped all on her own.

This week she has had a cold. This proves to make sleeping VERY difficult when you must suck your favorite fingers to sleep. Last night she finally made it through the night and stayed in her own bed. Thankfully, we were all getting exhausted from these past few up and down nights and ending up with a little stuffy girl in our bed for a few nights - no one sleeps well that way!!

So now fast forward a week. I have gotten so bad at getting posts done! Elise is much better in the stuffy nose department. Back in her own bed. Had some definite crying streaks to get back on track, but much better to have everyone in their assigned sleeping stations.

I have to get better at posting some of the funny things she does! My new goal.