have to remember to take the good with the bad

We have had quite an adventurous week! Daddy has been working lots of overtime, but we've sure kept busy! Hayden's new friend Owen came to stay the night on Saturday and they all had so much fun running around and chasing each other. Owen is really closeto the twins age but he was so much smaller that they thought he was a baby. They kept trying to rub his back and give him a binkie. It was super cute. Owen slept in Hayden's room and they 'talked' to each other before they fell asleep. It was Hayden's first big boy sleepover!

Earlier in the day Saturday, we had Michael's 5th birthday party to go to. Just Mommy and Hayden went and we took cousin Jake, too! Oh, we had a blast! Hayden thought he was big stuff getting to play in the play place and eat a kids meal with all the big kids. He got to eat a whole cupcake all by himself and he sure loved it!

Poor Adriana was sitting onthe floor yesterday and all of a sudden started screaming! I looked over because I thought maybe Hayden had hit her, and I saw she was grabbing by her ear. I looked for a red mark or something, and saw nothing. She kept pulling at her ear all day, but since it was a Sunday, there wasn't much I could do. I called her pediatrician this morning and he said to bring her in.Of course, shehas another ear infection.Full blown double ear infection actually. He gave us a referral to another ENT since the last one was a quack. He said she definetely needs tubes in her ears, so now we are on antibiotics and are waiting for our appointment with the ENT. She sure takes it like a trooper though! She's such a sweet girl. Everyone who sees her no matter where we go comments on how sweet and pretty she is. Her smile makes everyone else smile. I was so stressed out today and she just came over and sat on my lap and gave me her goofy grin where she scrunches her nose up and her eyes close. Who knew you could be so in love with someone?

Trinity has learned how to squeal at people. She will squeak, then laugh because she thinks she is so funny. It makes me laugh too every time. She'll be fussing for attention but if you don't respond fast enough, she'll squeal because she knows it's new enough that everyone will look. Then when everyone is looking she gets all proud and sticks her tongue out and giggles. I can't believe she is 7 and a half months old. She is my newborn. Shecan't be well on her way to one yet! It's not fair. I feel like i'm always so busy that I miss out on all those little baby moments with her. I could just sit and snuggle with her all day if I had the chance. Now when you put her on her belly, instead of rolling right back over like she usually does, she will push her tushie in the air and try to slither foward like a snake. She hasn't mastered moving in the directions that she is trying, but she usually moves somewhere! She'll start on her mat and end up on the other side of the room.

The room swap is still going good; the girls do so well in a room by themselves. Hayden, however, is another story! He kept getting up over and over and sneaking into the girls' room and playing in the jumparoo. I bet I was putting him back to bed 20+ times every naptime and bedtime. Today, our wills finally clashed and I ended up putting the gate up in his doorway, which he promptly knocked down or climbed everytime. So I decided to turn his bed around so the wall was the other side of his crib. He was FURIOUS! He screamed awful and tossed everything out of his crib. Everything, that is, except his baseball pillow Grandma Vicky got him for Christmas lastyear. He somehow managed to rip the seam open and throw the stuffing all over his room. Oh Lord, I just wanted to throw my hands up and run for the hills! He finally gave in and took a short nap (not that he had much of a choice) and woke up in a great mood. We decided to give him another chance in his big boy bed tonight and his nap in the crib must have done the trick! He didn't get out of his bed even once! He even yelled for me when he dropped his baba because he didn't want to get out of bed to get it and get in trouble! SMARTBOY! <3

We have Christmas pictures on Wednesday, so hopefully Addie will be feeling better and everyone will be in kind and patient moods! We have our tree up and all the kids' presents are wrapped. I love the Christmas season. Thet wins have already unwrapped a couple presents that I've had to rewrap, so I'm excited to know they will be able to mostly unwrap their own presents this year! YAY! This will be the very last 'very first' Christmas I will ever have with one of my children. God certianly knew what he was doing when He blessed me with each one of my babies. I can't imagine life without a single one of them and I often dream about what life could have been like with all 5 of our gorgeous babies! Dominc and Donovan are in our hearts this holiday season and always!

thanksgivings, room swap and santa!

Oh my how quickly life is flying past me! My babies are all growing up so quickly and I don't want them to.Wish I could find a magic potion to puase them growing up. I say pause because I may one day want to let them grow up so Ican see graduations and weddings and grandbabies. Well, let's start with our thanksgivings! We went to Daddy's cousin Sherry's for thankgsgiving day and had a really nice dinner with Daddy's side of the family. They all looked adorable in their little outfits. Addie was shy at first, but warmed right up with all the toys and family who wanted to hold her! Hayden was on a mad dash to fit in as much playing as possible from the moment we got there. He and cousin Brayden were little buddies. He made Brayden push him around in a stroller for a good while. They were having a blast. He didn't even want to stop long enough to eat. This was the first year they could eat food at thanksgiving and they even got to sit at their own little table! Miss Trinitywas so tuckered out, she slept away most of the dinner, and cuddled with Great Grandma Hempen when she was awake. Then we had Mommy's side of the family at our house for dinner that Saturday. When Grandpa Mike got in town he took us Christmas shopping and said to pick whatever the kids wanted for Christmas! We filled almost 3 carts! We got back and hid the presents in our closet to wrap later and finished getting ready for the rest of the family to arrive. We had a really good turnout and the kids had such a good time playing with all the kids around, especially cousin Jake. When it came time to eat, we put the twins in their highchairs and let them pig out on their own plates. It was quite a mess, but so adorable! They seemed to like everything, but they both ate pumpkin pie like it was going out of style! Miss Trinity slept most of this dinner too,but made an appearance right at the end. What a princess!!

We decided one day last week that we wanted to switch everyone's rooms around since we had the bigger room. We decided it would make more sense to give Hayden the small room all to himself, and give the girls the big room, so they could share all their girl toys and have a pretty room. So we moved everyone all around and turned Hayden's crib into a big boy bed! He would always throw such a fit when you put him to bed in his crib, but listens so well when told to sit somewhere until he is told he may get up, so we thought maybe he would stay in hisbed better if he knew he could get up, but wasn't allowed to. It was a wonderful idea because now when he crawls in bed, he only fusses for a minute, then falls asleep. Instead of crying in the morning, he gets out of bed and plays in his room. When he wants to come out, he stands in his doorway and says 'Mama!' My smart little boy. The girls love their room too because they are both still in cribs and since Hayden was the noisy one at night, they can both sleep peacefully without him to wake them up. After Christmas, we are going to paint their room a pretty pink and green and make it fit for the princesses! Thinking about doing blue for Hayden's room.

With Daddy's deployment coming up, his unitdecided to have a Christmas party at the armory last weekend and answer our questions about their deployment and things. They told us mainly that they will be leaving late next summer for a year and that their mobilization station before they go overseas will most likely be in Mississippi. We will most likely be outofcontact for over a month when he first leaves, which is scary. But they did have one nice surprise.....SANTA! Santa came to see the kids and they got tosit on his lap and get pictures and he gave them a goody bag and an ornament frame to hang their pictures on the tree. Our polaroids with Santa didn't turn out very well, but a friend took pictures on her camera for us (my stinking batteries in mine died RIGHT when we got there, although they were fine when i checked them at home). They turned out so cute.Trinity loved sitting on Santa and even played with his beard. Hayden wasn't sure what he thought and wouldn't sit on Santa's lap, but smiled at him for a picture while sitting on Mommy's lap next to him! Adriana wasn't having any of it. She screamed bloody murder when we sat her on Santa and she lunged for me. I think poor Santa almost dropped her! We tried sitting her on my lap next to Santa like we did with Hayden, but she still wasn't convinced. We finally distracted her enough with her goody bag to get a picture of her not screaming, but I don't think we ever managed to get one of her looking at the camera or smiling! Maybe next year?

Hayden has this new word that he started saying. He calls me and Daddy "Honey." He says it clear as day and it's so hilarious! He must hear us call eachother that enough that he now thinks it's our names instead of Mommy and Daddy. How cute, right? He's been talking so much more, I can't even believe it. He was playing on the computer and Daddy said, "Hayden get away from the computer." Hayden looked at him. Daddy said, "Get away from it now." Hayden smiled at him. Daddy said "ONE!" and hayden says "TWO!" It was so funny but we had to try so hard not to laugh since he was in trouble for not listening but I was so proud! I practice counting with them everyday and today he was running around saying "One, twoooo, teee!" I can't believe how smart he is! He will pull the chairs out from the table, climb up on them and play on the table and if you tell him to get down, he will get down and push the chair back in all by himself!

Thank God my Addie still wants to be a baby! She finds Trinity's binkies all around and will put them in her mouth and climb into the swing or the walker. It's so stinking cute. She's all about being my cuddle bug. But she's smart too! She's starting to say the sounds to animals when we play with our flash cards. She will "EEE EEE" like a monkey or pant like a puppy. Oh how I love that little girl. She knows how to melt your heart with a hug and her little kisses. She will drag her dollies out and rock them in Trinity's swing, or feed them their baba. She tries to give trinity her binkie or pick her up off the floor. She's going to be such a good mommy one day, but she's already a great big sister!

Trinity is growing so fast, too. We went to the doctor a couple weeks ago for her check up and she is 14lbs 4 oz! Last night on the floor she was wiggling around like she was trying to figure out if she could crawl around. In another month or so, I'd bet she'll be cruising along! She grabs toys and flings them around so happy! Her favorite is the linkadoos and this teeny tiny baby doll my dad got. She's getting super close to sitting up too. She'll balance for a second, then just slowly fall to the side. If you prop her arms on her legs, she can balance like that for a lot longer! I put her in her swing this morning that has a tray on the front. She likes it because she can sit up and see everyone and have toys on her tray. The twins always go over and play with her so I didn't think anything of it when they did today. A few moments later, the tray just falls off and she falls foward onto the ground on top of the tray. That poor baby only cried for a minute, but she now has a big red mark on her chest and chin and cheek,which i'm almost positive will turn into bruises! I felt so bad for her, but she sure took it like a champ!