Comments from the peanut gallery

Over the past few weeks I've been realizing how soon my days of three young kids at home with me will be over. I know it's not overly common for moms in the midst of this stage (chaos) to already grieve this time, but I am. I can't believe how fast it's going. When I allow myself to get away from the "to do" lists and just listen to and enjoy my kids, I realize what an incredibly special time of life this is! They bring so much joy! (Lots of turmoil, too, but incredible joy!)

Isaac has been cracking me up with his "little adult" vocabulary lately, so I thought I'd share:

Just the other night I made a gourmet dinner of pizza, broccoli salad, and fruit salad. Isaac sat down at the table, looked at the bowls of salads on the table and said, "Wow mom, did you make all this? This looks delightful!" It was hysterical!

Then, just now, Isaac was working on the kids page from the newspaper. He was doing a dot-to-dot, which happened to be two dogs. He looked down at Soward and said, "Soward, you're a genius! It's two dogs!"

Too funny! Plenty of funny things come out of Austin's mouth too, I just have Isaac's on the mind right now. Needless to say, we're never lacking for a good laugh around here!

9 month update

Last week Elyse turned nine months! It's hard to believe how fast she's growing and these past nine months have gone. A friend of mine who shared the pregnancy with me, just emailed to say her 10 month old just took her first steps! I can't believe it. Elyse is far from taking steps or even crawling for that matter. Kurt and I joke that she's just "fat and happy!" Truly, the girl has no motivation to crawl, walk, or even sit back up after tumbling over because she's just so content!

She's a smiley little girl. Her smile lights up a room and she just beams at the boys. She gives great high fives, waves, even says "hi" with the wave, occassionally, and has her own word for dog! She's quite obsessed with Soward right now! All three of our kids' first word has been, "dog." Obviously Soward is a big part of their lives. (Let's just say the movie/book Marley and Me hit home a bit...)

Unfortunately Elyse welcomed the start of her 10th month with some scary moments. Sadly, she had her first ear infection (actually, a double ear infection) on her 9-month birthday, so we started her first round of antibiotics. The next morning she was a BALLOON. Her face was so swollen, she didn't even look like herself. Her eyes were so swollen they were little slits. She had hives all over too. Obviously she had had a terrible allergic reaction to the antibiotic. We were very close to having our first ER visit for any of the kids, but I gave her benedryl after speaking to a pharmacist and the doc on call and she started to get a little better. I couldn't bare to take photos because she looked so bad, but after two strong doses of benedryl and 8 hours, I finally took some. She looks 200 times better than she originally did, but this gives you an idea.
She's completely better now, after blood work and lots of benedryl. Now we know - stay away from penicillin!

Almost ready to swim with the big fish

We had swim lessons again today and I remembered to bring my camera. Isaac and Austin are both getting much better. It's fun to see their confidence increase and their skills improve. Here's some video of Isaac swimming. It's not overly clear, but you can see he actually swam across the whole pool!

Austin is really getting there too! Now, if we could only get him to focus!

Improvising

Unlike the rest of the country, Colorado is enjoying gorgeous spring-like weather. We're loving it - 70 degrees! The kids enjoyed a picnic lunch in their playhouse today with short sleeves on and no jackets! The zoo was packed yesterday, as if it were a summer day. We can't get enough of this! The only downside to this great weather is we don't have any snow for sledding. However, in the Eilmes household, we came up with a solution to that and are having a great time improvising. I thought we'd share our technique for the rest of you, craving some good ol' fashioned winter fun sans the white fluffy stuff!




I bought several organizing tubs during the sales after Christmas, in hopes of making things feel a bit more in order around here. I must confess, they've been used more as toboggans than organizers. Oh well, we may not be organized, but we're fun!

Holy Cow

A common shouted request heard in our household is, "May somebody please come wipe my bottom?!" We try to work with the kids on their manners and grammar, but it obviously doesn't show all the time. However, for some odd reason, Austin is always extremely polite when needing help in the bathroom. (The grammar isn't quite right, but he's trying!)

Anyway, the other day, I answered his plea and met him in the bathroom. He bent over and said, "Wook (look) Mommy, that's a Holy Cow!" I tried really hard not to bust up laughing, because he was referring to his poop. Whenever Kurt helps in the bathroom and notices an oddly large BM from such a little guy, he says, "holy cow." Just another reminder that kids are always listening!

A Day of Blunders

It's only noon and I've already had a day that needs to be written in red and then burned. I'm seriously starting to think I'm losing my mind. That whole joke about giving birth to part of your brain with each child is starting to feel way too real. I guess it's a third of your brain with each pregnancy. (For those struggling with fractions, that leaves me with NONE!)

It started by me rushing to the grocery store to get $5 cash to have in my wallet as a tip for the massage therapist I was on my way to see. (I'm only just getting around to using a gift certificate I received Christmas of 07.) Kurt assured me, if I did the self-check-out, I could use my credit card to buy something and get cash back. Well, that didn't work - the machine didn't ask if I wanted cash back and the transaction was done. Then I grabbed a diet dr. pepper, to do it again with my debit. AGAIN, it didn't ask me if I wanted cash back. So, I walked out of the grocery store with items I didn't really need and still no cash, which I needed. Did I mention I was in a hurry?

Kurt then, being the great guy he is, said he'd meet me with $5, because he wasn't far from where I was headed. He also said he had coins for on-street parking. So, I waited for him just a few minutes (the timing was perfect), he handed me a $5, and several quarters, and I threw the quarters in the meter and off I went to get my massage.

As I returned to my car, after a great massage, I saw a LOVELY city-provided envelope with a $10 ticket in it on my windshield. Apparently after that whole ordeal, I paid the WRONG meter! You've got to be kidding me! Just a reminder, I'm THIRTY, not EIGHTY.

I grabbed the ticket off the windshield, hopped in the car, told my girlfriend (with whom I was talking to on the phone) what had happened (in utter embarassment), and then put my keys in the ignition. At that point my car alarm starts blaring.
Why? I have NO idea.
How to stop it? I had no idea!
What the heck!

I finally got it to stop and pulled off to head to a friend's house who had picked Isaac up from school for me, in case the timing was cutting it too close to get him on time. When I got to her house, she wasn't there, so I thought I'd call her to see if I should meet her at the school. I found her in my phone, pushed call, and started talking to the wrong friend! I had called Bethany, rather than Buffye! Seriously! I think there is need to worry! Hopefully it's just a sign of too much going on in my head and in life, but please put me in a nice place, if it's more than that!

Tomorrow I'll start again - clean slate!

Christmas 08

We had a fabulous Christmas! We were so blessed to have the Helms, Bunkas, and my parents with us! What a treat! It was seriously one of the best Christmases I can remember. Lots of good memories and fun times with family. The kids had a blast with their Auntie Lisa and Uncle Dan, too. Below are some photos of our festivities. The first is a video of Elyse's first Christmas morning.
She had a great time unwrapping.

Christmas 2008

We went to the Firefighters' Museum on the 31st with the Bunkas and the Helms.
The boys got their very own laptops!!! HUGE hits! Now they can both go to their meetings with their "puters" in hand!
A hike up Cutler trail.

Preschool Christmas programs

It's been a while since I've posted, but I wanted to back up a bit and share a song from Isaac's preschool program. If you listen carefully, you can hear his voice amidst the other kids singing. He did a great job and was very "serious" about doing exactly what Ms. Laura had told them to. MiMi and PopPop, as well as Auntie Megs, Daddy, Mommy, and his siblings proudly watched! It was a great little program of songs they have sung all fall.
Austin also had a Christmas program at East United Methodist's Love Club, but in true Austin fashion, he chose not to wear a costume and not to participate...except when it came to the food and party afterwards!

I love the expressions of the faces on these preschoolers!