Sweeties

Oh the sweeties are doing good. We've had a super busy week. My friend Robin, and her 3 kids: Marlee 6, Reilly 4, and Ollie 10 months, came and stayed with us for a couple of days. We went to Chuck E. Cheese for a long time Tuesday night and had a little birthday party for Marlee, we came home and the kids played toys, video games and watched movies until they crashed on the couch. Robin and I stayed up until 4am talking!!! I woke up at 7 and worked on some pics... Dad brought us over Hardees biscuits at 8-- how thoughtful is that?? Thanks dad! At 9:30 I went with Alyssia and Vivian to shoot Vivian's 3 year pics, it was SOO HOT! Poor Robin watched all 6 kids while I did that. After I got back we went to Grandmom's and swam. It was hot for Ollie and Robin, who weren't in the pool, so we came back home and the kids were hungry, so we went to the mall and ate Geno's and the kids played in the playland. After that we tried to shop, but with 6 kids, go figure how much shopping we got done. After the mall, my sweet husband watched the kids who were awake and me and Robin and a few kids passed out. I couldn't hold my eyes open as hard as I tried. After my wonderful nap, we got them loaded and we went and did their pics. After that was done, they got on the road, and I picked up the boys from Granny's house. Poor Granny was exhausted... the boys were bad, mixing up the cat and dog food and Noah apparently peed in the dog water (which I didn't find out until yesterday)... or he'd have gotten into big trouble. Updates: When Noah gets in bed he said he needs the cold, and we have to flip all the pillows over to get the cold side of the pillow.... he learned that all on his own. His favorite show right now is "My new water game" which translates to "WipeOut" he loves it and watches the episodes over and over and cracks up. When they are panning over the course he brings me in and points to it and said "I can win this" and wants to try it so bad. Juddson is really into the wii and loves to play boxing and baseball and tennis. He has to use the Juddson Mii though, or he gets mad. He acts out the boxing scenes and when his wii gets knocked out, he falls to the floor and lays flat and still. Harper is still trying to not suck her thumb, and she's doing super during the day, but having a hard time at night. She loved playing with Marlee. They played dolls and painted nails and played with Marlee's schnoodle, Shelby. I so wish I could get her a little dog or kitten. Last night I had a photo shoot and Josh watched them, he said they had a blast playing blocks and hide and go seek. He said that he was hiding and they couldn't find him for a while and he heard Harper say "Daddy went to work... Mommy and Daddy both are gone." Isn't that terrible, after that he made noises so they'd find him.

Weekend

Noah is going thru a talking phase, which is wonderful. The other night I was on the computer and he walked in here and said "mommy, we told you many times" in a stern voice... I guess that meant to get off the computer.
HJ had something under her shirt and said "see my new boobs?" I said "yeah, i like those, where'd you get em?" and she said "WalmarK."
Harper is big into singing and dancing and making clapping shows-- I need to video it so you can see what I am talking about.
The boys are big into playing Wii together, except Noah takes the clicker from Judd and switches them right when it would be Judd's turn to play, so Noah gets every turn and Judd just gets to hold a clicker.
Harper is on star 5 towards her, now baby doll, not growing puppy (thank goodness because apparently that are expensive and hard to find) quitting the thumb sucking. She remembers more than I do. Sometimes I look at her and her thumb will be in her mouth, but it won't register to me (because I have seen her with that look for 3 years) and she'll remember and will pull it out real quick and smile. She's such a good girl.

This week

The days have been spent at exercise school in the mornings, home for lunch, and then a trip to Grandmom's house for a swim. The pool has warmed up, and it' been very nice to go play with them for a couple of hours. Judd has started putting his whole head under and is soooo proud of himself. Harper will do it a couple of times, and get excited that she's not crying. Noah is crazy and loves to be thrown in and will get a running start and do crazy flips over the side to get in.
Yesterday we skipped the pool and took an afternoon trip to the Nature Center. We stopped and got a pizza to eat there, but it didn't make it there, we ate the whole thing in the car on the way there. It was so hot, and all the kids wanted to do was throw rocks in the water. It was making me nervous watching all 3 of them by the water by myself, so I finally coaxed them inside. Hollie, Paul, Levi and Hollie's mom and sister and some kids she babysits were there also, but they were up by the building having a picnic, and after they were done they came inside with us. The kids enjoyed playing in the "big room" (i don't know what it's called) with all of the stuffed animals and live animals. There were a few snakes, and turtles and fish-- stuff like that. We stayed until 2pm "Critter Crunch" time and were excited about watching the alligators eat lunch... however, we went to the feeding room and realized it was only 1, 1 ft. long baby gator. The kids did love it, and watched it eat 4 crickets, and dead frozen pinky mouse and a couple of minnows. Noah was laughing so loud, he loved when it would chase the bugs. Judd would come up and get my hand with a very concerned look and say "Awigator eat'n PIDERS!!!" (that would be alligator eating spiders!) He liked to watch it too, and they had a front row seat and got to see it up close. Overall we had a good time, but it was hot and the kids were tired and thirsty and I was ready to go. HJ and Judd fell asleep as soon as they got into their carseats and Noah came home and played games. I got a lot done while they were occupied and then I had a photo shoot. Daddy stayed with them and took them all to Chick Fil A to play and eat dinner. I got home shortly after they did and we all crashed.

Lately

Harper has been trying to stop sucking her thumb. I told her if she could do it for 7 days she could get that growing puppy toy she's been wanting. She is doing phenominally!!! She'll put her thumb to her mouth and then remember and pull it out real quick and look up at me and smile. I know it's hard on her, bless her heart... but she's doing so good! She'll say, "well, I just poop in the potty." and I think that means, she realizes that she's a big girl since she poops in the potty now!
Some of my Juddson favorites right now... He puts his little hands out and says "eat it all dawn." He wants to play "baseball tv" for Wii baseball. He boxes-- I just have to get a video of this. He put Marshall (the green hippo) on the table and started boxing it... Marshall fell backwards and Judd goes "3,2,1" When he and Noah play boxing on Wii and Noah KO's Judd's man, Judd falls on the floor and acts it out.
When the phone rings Noah says "Who's calling" When I clean Noah says "Who's coming today?" He still says "That's my mommy" when he's happy.
We went to mom's last night to see Jeff and the boys. Harper was so excited to see her cousins. She loved Jeff and wanted to tell him everything about everything... She started everything with "guess what" For example: "Guess what?" "We got a house a big house and 2 cats Savannah and and and and (and look at me, I'd say and Cooper) Yeah, and Cooper and when I a baby, cooper scratched my eye and a dog and I a princess" etc etc etc...

Date Night

Well, last Thursday Harp got to go on date night to "the restaurant and the mall" so last night was Noah's turn. We let him pick and he picked to eat Geno's pizza first, and then go "shishing". We ate pizza and then we played tag and hide and go seek at the mall playland. After that, we went to Carol Ann Cross Park and he fished with his Spiderman pole. That got old pretty fast, so we bought 30 min on a paddle boat. We saw a big funny shaped log and Noah thought it was a hippo and got scared of hippos being in the water. Of course, he had to pee and stood on the side of the paddle boat and peed in to the water, with a big audience-- thats my Noah. After the paddleboat ride, we let him play on the playground, then we had to go home. When we got home..... Kara had cut Judd's hair into an almost mohawk-- without my permission, and I got mad. Oooh, that made me mad... so-- she had to pretty much shave the rest of it off... I admit, he looks really cute with short hair, I just wasn't ready for his long hair to be gone just yet. Harper announced "Kara helped cut his hair".... Thank you Harper-- news anchor for filling me in!

Swimming and Weekend

We've been spending a lot of time in our pool. Noah can go under for a long time and likes to get coins off the bottom-- you'd think he found treasure down there, he's so excited when he gets back up! Harper went under 1 time and didn't even cry-- she says, and Judd went under once, and we've had a hard time getting him back in the pool... He's ok as long as he's not thinking about it... They all must take after Josh because they seem to be very good swimmers, they race back and forth across the 12ft. pool!
Josh was out of town Saturday night Pa came over and hung out with us. We went and got each kid a movie and then got icecream and fries and came home. Judd was sitting on the arm of Pa's chair and leaned over and kissed the side of Pa's head (above his ear) and said "Kiss Pa Ear, Ommy!" It was so sweet!
Yesterday was Kara's church shower and I took HJ while Josh played outside with the boys. She was a big helper and delivered the gifts to Kara and helped her open them. She decided all the ladies needed a mint, so she delivered one to everyone there, one by one-- she made trip after trip and worked so hard. At one point, several women were getting ready to leave and were up walking around and HJ was yelling for everyone to play ring around the rosy, but no one listened. Kara gave each hostess a little Bath and Body works bag with a soap and lotion in it and Harper helped hand those out... When she was done, she said "was that all the presents?" and looked around... (Because Kara got a bunch, and all the hostesses got one, but she didn't and I could tell) so I snuck my bag to Kara and Kara said "there's one more, it's for you Harper!" and she was so excited "Oh, thank you Kara, and opened her soap and lotion and we put lotion all on her and made her smell good, and made a big deal out of it. She was proud, and content and carried her little bag on her arm the whole rest of the time... We were loading Kara's gifts and Harper said "I ti -erd, let's go home" and we did, and she took a big nap!

Summer is here

We officially started summer this Sunday... We set up a 12' by like 3' kiddie pool in Grandmom's backyard (where Hoover couldn't destroy it) and also a slip n' slide. We stayed over there all day Sunday, until the kids were passing out. Juddson fell asleep in a towel and it was the cutest thing ever, of course I didn't have my camera though :(
We went back to "the pool" yesterday after Jennifer/Michelle school. First we stopped and got snowcones. The kids sat in their little lawn chairs and ate those, then slipped and slid, then swam. Pa came over and played for a little while. He was picking Noah up and throwing him into the pool, Noah of course loved it. I think he was going too high and getting a little scared, so he was explaining how he wanted to be thrown and pointed to the sky and said "Not to da bwu ski, and not to outer space, just wike dis" and held his hand a little ways over the water... So, we threw him softer and lower for the rest of the time. Harper and Judd both pooped in the grass and got their rears cleaned off with the hose, they thought that was cool... I was just thankful it was in the grass and not in the pool!
After swimming, we made a Walmart trip for groceries and we got pool noodles and rings, so I know we'll be back at "the pool" today... It sounds so high class doesn't it!