Some Catch Up

Augh!  So I finally sat down to update the blog and I had maxed out my photo limit?!  Whaaaat? After some googling, I figured out that I could create another gmail account, add that account as an author, and then get more storage.  Apparently it's all account based and not blogged based? We'll have see how long this works.  I mean, I have 4 kids, there are many, many, many pictures!

 

So, first up - Thanksgiving!

We did Thanksgiving with Brian's parents and Allison and the kids on Wednesday night.  Pretty good looking group of kids, aren't they?  Dinner was delicious, and while the children were definitely seen and heard, everyone had a great time.  Pretty rowdy bunch (cough, cough - Wyatt).

Here's Miss Finley Quinn enjoying her first Thanksgiving on Daddy's lap.  This girl is all cheeks!

And how cute was Finley's little turkey shirt?  Love it!

On Thanksgiving we (no lie) went out and grabbed breakfast at Wawa, and then came home to watch the parade.  After the kids took naps we went over to my parents' house to have dinner with my family.  The kids had a lot of fun, and dinner was yummy.  And I got to have some of my aunt's pecan pie (my absolute favorite)!

 

Wyatt and Reese have been operating in two phases - either they absolutely LOVE each other and want to be together, or they fight.  A lot.  It's driving me to the brink of insanity.  I've tried about a million things to help them get along.  Here they are one morning playing school.  I thought the magna doodle was a nice touch as a chalkboard!

And um, this is them later that day after they smacked each other.  I saw something like this on Pinterest one day (I'm pretty sure it was a joke), and I figured, what the heck?  As you can imagine, this was not their favorite thing.  It also didn't prevent them from hitting each other again the next day.

I've been trying something new with them over the last couple of days.  When Reese (for example) smacks Wyatt, they both get "punished."  Instead of the typical solution (naughty step for the offender), they must work on some type of chore together. Yesterday they had to work together to pick up some things in Wyatt's room, this morning they had to clean up clothes in off laundry room floor, and after school they had to pick up and stack books.  While neither of them are thrilled about being "punished" when the other does something wrong, they're learning to work together.  And also, as a parent, I'm one hundred percent positive that there is never a situation where the child that gets smacked is blameless in the assault.  Ha!

This little guy is just well, kind of amazing.  Do I gush about him too much?  He is so sweet, and honestly, I haven't encountered anything terrible about his two's yet.  Every one of the kids is in a pretty fun phase (Wyatt is reading, Reese is getting better at her phonics, Finley is hitting baby milestones), but he is just a joy.  It's nice to know that just because I've already "done" two twice, it's still a fun stage!

 

She is wonderful.  She's smiling, she cooing, she's sitting up in the bumbo, and she's staying awake for longer periods of time.  I still love her snuggles, but I am not a fan of her hatred of tummy time!

Last weekend I was getting the big tree up, and I had to pick up some of the mats off the playroom floor.  The boys made "doghouses" with Daddy's help and they were laying down watching football.  They looked so sweet laying down together!

 

In a story unrelated to this picture, the word "boo" is our nickname for a blanket.  When Wyatt was little, he couldn't say "blanket" and instead just started calling it a "boo."  The nickname stuck, and that's the word we all use for blanket.  Brian and I use it when the kids aren't even around! The kids have a ritual in the morning of getting up, getting dressed, making their beds, and then watching TV before school.  The other morning Brian was grabbing them some milk and cheerios, and Wyatt told Reesie, "Hey Reesie, I'm going to go grab us some boo's."  You might have to actually say it out loud to get why it's so funny, but it cracked us up!