One of those days!

Ok- so I know it has been forever since I last blog, and I can pretty much guarantee that it will be forever till I do again.  I want to blog, but in order for that a person has to have free time, and that is a luxury I am no longer allowed.  I do want to tell you all what I have been up to, but I feel I must spare you any depressing details.  So instead of boring everyone with my last 3 weeks I will explain 1 day this week and hope that this explains my last 3 weeks:)

Tuesday:

The day started of good- I woke up, got the girls out the door, and went back to sleep (Cole was still sleeping:)!!!!)  I thought to myself- WOW, I think it's going to be a good day!

Went for a walk- felt great!

Headed out to do some much needed (and deserved) shopping with a friend- Target here we come!

Got to the first store and Cole preceded to tell me that his tummy hurt.  Of course like any normal mom I rush him to the bathroom and waited for him to either throw-up or do his business.  Neither happened.

I then continued through the store with the thought in the back of my mind that he was going to throw-up in the middle of every isle.

Now- I would have just headed home had I not had errands that I really did HAVE to do.  So we continued to target where I got him Sprite and a hotdog and it seemed to cure him!  Crisis averted!  I thought- well, that was a close one, but it's still going to be a good day!

Then came the afternoon.....

Picked up girls, came home, yelled at them to finish homework, yelled at them to get dressed in gymnastics clothes, yelled at Cole to get REdressed!  Had just enough time to throw a few dishes in the dishwasher and ran out late for gymnastics.  Of course we would not have been late if I hadn't had children screwing around in our very short time frame!  

Still I thought, ok, maybe it will be a normal day:)

Got to gymnastics, missed seeing the cute baby I've been waiting all week to see!!!! Sorry Allison!  Sat down for some quite time heard Cole dump about 50 cars on the floor!  Told Cole very nicely to pick them up- with a smile mind you!

Waited 5 minutes- told Cole (a little louder so that I knew he heard me) to pick the cars up.

Waited 2 seconds- Slightly demanded Cole to pick up the cars!

Waited a mil-a-second- Cole glared at me!!!!!!!!  Now if I weren't in a public place most people who know me know exactly what I would have done!  I'm not proud of it, but I'm sure it would have gone something like- WHAT THE @#$^$#^%$%^&^%#$%^&^$##%^&*%$%&&*!!!

But... being in public I was forced to act as a perfect mom would...  I calmly said Cole please pick up the cars (VERY LOUD SIGH).

Well, I must have some form of persuasion in me, because the man sitting behind me started picking them up!  And of course once he started doing that I then felt obligated to help!  I believe Cole picked up ONE car.

At this point, I'm done for the day, but I'm an optimist and I thought, it's just a little hiccup in my day right?

Directly after gymnastics we head toward soccer practice.  We have about a half hour before it starts so being the "good" mom that I am I decide to pick up fast food.  Now, I NEVER take my kids into the fast food restaurants.  I mean- it's "fast food"- what's the point if your going to go and sit down and eat it inside:)  But, my kids are constantly begging me too, so I thought I would make their day great by doing so.  They chose McDonalds and I grimaced:)  We got the food and sat down in a quiet corner to eat it.  

Here was our meal:

Kids:  Where's my toy, I want my toy!

Me:  Leave the toys alone and eat we have 15 minutes!

Katie:  Hey (whining) I got Cole's toy, where's mine?

Me:  Ok- no one gets their toy until they finish eating!!!  (as I proceed to put all 3 toys in my purse).

2 Minutes later:

Cole drops is cup on the ground!  And of course like all children do... they all go into shock and watch it as it slowly drains on the ground!

Me:  PICK IT UP!  PICK IT UP! PICK IT UP!

Kids:  (silence as they are still in shock!) (it's as if they've never seen a cup fall before)

So- I run over and pick it up!  Oh, I also threaten Cole that if he drops anything else he will be in trouble.

5 minutes later-  

Me:  Cole start eating we have only a few minutes.

SO- Cole proceeds to take out his fries UPSIDE DOWN!  Half of them fall all over the POP that was already on the floor!  I'm livid!

Me:  Cole- what the heck is wrong with you!  Don't pick those up, yuck, leave them alone and start eating, and if you drop anything else you will NEVER eat at McDonalds again for the rest of your life!!!!!!!

Cole:  (very quietly) ok.

2 minutes later-

Cole likes to split his hamburger into 2 pieces.  Well, for some odd reason... I'm sure you all see what's coming... he drops one of the halves onto the FRIES that are on the POP that is on the FLOOR!!!!!

I thought I had 2 choses- be sweet and nice and understand that he is little and it was all an accident... or run to the van as fast as I can and leave them all there!  I tried to think about how mad Kenny really would be.  Hmmmm.

Well, their comes a time when you are so mad that all you can do is stay calm.  So, I calmly walked over to Cole and grabbed the rest of the food from him.  The most interesting part was what he did.  He put his hands up like he was shielding his face from me! Ya! Like he knew that I was so mad that I might actually smack him!  I almost laughed!  I mean, I'll admit I have spanked my kids and their has been the occasional flick to them, but wow- they kids actually thought I was going to really lay into him! :)  I guess he could see all that anger in my face:)

Well, for the rest of the evening, which included soccer practice and then a church meeting, I just tried to remain calm.  Kenny met me at soccer practice and asked why I looked so mad... all I did was look at him and then back at Cole... I think he got it.  Needless to say I finally got back home at 9:00 and went straight to bed!  

Wrestling

Our kids love to wrestle.  They will take any opportunity they have to attack one another, pull them to the ground, and wrestle them until one of them ends in tears.  It always starts out as a game, but during the process, someone gets hurt and it turns into revenge.  Kenny and I find it fairly amussing, and we are pretty good at knowing when to stop it before it gets to far.  Still, I do enjoy seeing Cole take the girls on even though they can be almost twice his size.

One of my favorite pictures as you can see that Cole has managed to over take BOTH of his sisters!

Good News & Bad News

THE GOOD NEWS:

We got some new furniture!!!!!!  Who doesn't love new furniture right:)  Well, first we decided that Cole was really out growing his toddler bed!  I guess when his head and toes touched opposite sides of the bed at the same time, that was our first clue:)  We have actually been looking for the last 6 months, but we were pretty picky about what we wanted!  Cole, of course, wanted a car bed, but we were looking for something that he wouldn't out grow in 2 years:)  We really loved the idea of a white bed, but all the ones we looked at were way too girly.  So, last week we took a trip up to Raleigh to search their furniture stores and we found this:

It's exactly what we wanted- White, Captain's bed, and not girly looking:)  The kids favorite part is playing under the bed!  We've only had one pinched finger so far, and it's great storage for all his big toys!  As you can see he HAD to have the Hulk sheets!!!!

AND HERE'S MY NEW TOY!!!!!!!!!

Finally we have a table that seats the whole family!!! (And guests!)

We have had our little 4 person table for years, and once Cole got old enough to sit at the table we would use our computer desk chair:)  Well, again, we are picky about furniture and we have been disagreeing on tables for a long time!  We haven't been able to settle on one that we both liked (and that would fit in our small dinning area).  Well, at the same store we found this!  I love it because of the dark brown color and that it's square and tall, and Kenny likes all those things and that it has storage underneath and a bench!  It's perfect!!!!
Here's a picture of the bench!  It's great, heavy enough that the kiddies can't move around on it! I had never seen a tall table with a bench before!
This picture shows the storage underneath!  Just a cute little cupboard!

Here's a picture with the leaf in- it's a fold down one which was also a must because I didn't want to store it elsewhere!

THE BAD NEWS!!!!!!!

Ok- so I have to tell the sad news now.  I knew it was going to happen at some point since we have a small boy, and we all know that they are very unreliable.  Well, I guess I just didn't expect it to happen so soon!  Two (YES, 2!) days after we brought our new table home... before we had our first "real" family dinner at the table... this is what I found...

Yes- I cried.

(Side note)  It's actually not that bad- the table is dark so you can't see it very well, it's just that the flash really makes it stand out in these pictures.

Winter Has Come To North Carolina!

It was Christmas morning all over again in our house today!  Not because of Santa this time.  Old man winter brought us this surprise!  I  woke up to the kids screaming, "It's snowing, it's snowing!"  "Can we go outside?"  (keep in mind this was at 6:30 am!)  Luckily I knew it was suppose to snow and had already got a call at 6 telling me school was cancelled.  Ya, I know school cancelled for a little snow, well you forget where we live!  So, we got to have a great day and the kids got their snow this year!  Cole has never really gotten to play in this much snow, so he loved it.  I not sure what he did more of, throw it or eat it!  We went out twice today and Kenny got to come home early from work too since they were closing down most of the hospital today!  The snow should stay through tomorrow, but after that I think the 50 degree weather that is returning will dissolve it pretty fast.

 

I thought I would add the video of the kids "sledding".  At first we weren't sure what to do because they don't sell sleds over here. Ever.  So after I get me creative juices going I decided to pull out the bottom of an under-the-bed tupperware container.  Well, as you can see here, it worked, but only short term:)  The snow got piled up in the front and that was the end of that.  Of course, we aren't the ones for giving up, and it only took a few seconds to realize that out body boards we use at the beach would work just as well on snow!  They worked great, I just forgot to record that part too:)

It was Christmas morning all over again in our house today!  Not because of Santa this time.  Old man winter brought us this surprise!  I  woke up to the kids screaming, "It's snowing, it's snowing!"  "Can we go outside?"  (keep in mind this was at 6:30 am!)  Luckily I knew it was suppose to snow and had already got a call at 6 telling me school was cancelled.  Ya, I know school cancelled for a little snow, well you forget where we live!  So, we got to have a great day and the kids got their snow this year!  Cole has never really gotten to play in this much snow, so he loved it.  I not sure what he did more of, throw it or eat it!  We went out twice today and Kenny got to come home early from work too since they were closing down most of the hospital today!  The snow should stay through tomorrow, but after that I think the 50 degree weather that is returning will dissolve it pretty fast.

New family pictures

We recently had a friend come over and take some family pictures of us for a Christmas card.  Let me just start by saying that it was quite the event:)  We kept it really simple and easy, and with any "normal" children it would have been fine.  But, of course, we failed to remember Cole yet again.  We should have known that he was not going to allow us the pleasure of a normal picture.  Not that he doesn't take good pictures- he's probably my most photogenic child.  Cole, however, like to goof off, and he enjoys making other people laugh.  He really likes to drive us crazy as well!  So....

we started taking pictures and Cole seemed good for the first few frames.  The problem came when he realized that he could make the photographer (AKA Jav) laugh.  It all went downhill from there:)

Here he is with the first "funny face"  of course he had to make his goofy eyes, and for all those who haven't ever seen them...well... it's hard to explain but he can make them go into two different directions.  And it's pretty impossible not to start laughing.

Here we are as the girls start getting annoying at Cole's endless torture.
As any little 3 year old boy knows...what's funnier than a picture of you with your finger up your nose, right!
The finger thing was happening for way to long and Daddy had to finally step in.
Obviously you can see the tension of all of our faces (except Cole, of course).  Must have to do with whatever Kenny is saying to Cole:)

Cole- laughing at Kenny's last threat (and at how funny he thinks he is).  Somehow this kid takes nothing we say seriously. 
Again we have Cole doing something odd!  The kid decided to try a few interesting poses on his own.
When we told him to stop laughing the only way he could do it was by covering it up.
And finally this is what we all felt like in the end!  I'm sure you all have felt this way right?!?
I figured I would show the pictures that did turn out great.  Jav did an awesome job and all the pictures are priceless:)