DC

Our trip to DC was COLD!!  but the kids did great.  At one point we had all 4 in the double jogger - that was fun to push!

We walked the mall, rode the merry go round, saw the Lincoln Memorial, and went to the museum of Natural History.

The kids loved the dinosaur bones and the big whale.  Overall, I think their favorite part was the Metro - they loved riding the subway.

A few pics of our trip.....

The reflecting pool is under construction so we watched the diggers for a while.

The weather was great today so we played outside for a while..

These two are four months apart....and they are totally into each other.  Connor is here all week with us and it has been a blast.

We have the BEST friends!

I has been a long week....and it is only Thursday.  Getting home from vacation, Jackson being so sick, trying to get back in a routine, kids activities, trying to get workouts in, not feeling great....I think I have seen Ryan is passing a few times this week...he comes home and I am out the door or visa versa....

So this was an AWESOME surprise when I went to pick the girls up from preschool this afternoon.  What is it???  A cooler filled with meals from our friends in North Carolina....Thanks Peck and Susan what an awesome surprise.  I had no idea what we were having for dinner and now I do!

The best part about having great friends is you don't have to talk often...we catch up when we can but our lives are so busy.  Add in kids with broken bones or breathing issues and poof your catch up time just seems to disappear.  But they know when you need them...and they deliver- and that is simply the best part of having great friendships..

Wordless Wednesday

Someone is CLEARLY feeling better!

Lesson Learned

Today is Alys 5th brithday.....I should know by now not to ask my high maintenance, princess loving, tulle wearing 5 year old what kind of cupcakes she wants to bring to school. 

She will simply reply - fairy cupcakes with glitter wings and they need to look like me.......

Right on sister...especially when your brother is super sick and we just got back from vacation.....but who can say no?  Certainly not me.

Happy 5th Birthday Aly - you truly are the princess I never thought I would have!

All good things must come to an end

I always knew with as much traveling as we do our luck would run out.  We usually travel pretty prepared for health issues with the kids.  We had antibiotics, steriods, nebulizers....you get the picture.

Jack started wheezing on Wednesday...it was bad by Friday.  Aruba hospital here we come.  Luckly, the ER pediatrician had done his residency in Texas.  We got xrays and he seemed to think there might be some pnuemonia...he did not want us to fly home on Sat.  Finally, we put a plan in place.  We could nebluize on the plane - there were outlets, we got a new antibiotic, and some other drugs and we were on our way....

Poor little man...he is still not right.  After todays visit the US Drs are leaning more towards RSV - either way we are on a 24 hour watch.....hoping that he will start drinking more and breathing better!

Here are a couple of pics before the frenzy...

Enjoying our week

We have been enjoying the weather, the pool and the beach.  We really have not gone anywhere or spent much time anywhere but the pool and the beach.  Thank goodness our kids like to swim.

Brianna has been full of spunk like normal.  She talks to everyone and everything.

We have had a couple of cloudy mornings but the sunsets have been good recently.  It is nice to eat outside with the breeze blowing and the kids playing.

Aly loves the flower...she picks up the ones on the ground everytime she finds them.  We have flowers all over the condo that we are saving for home.....

Baby beach

We spent the morning at baby beach which is on the other side of the island.  The great thing about this beach is that the water is shallow all the way out to the reef.  There are no real waves and the kids snorkeled and played for the morning,

Jack at about 1lb of sand along the way!

A glimpse of my morning run..

We arrived yesterday afternoon.  Of course not without incident.  We had friends from AL and CT meeting us here and staying with us.  Ryans parents came as well.  The night before we left we stayed in NY because our flight was at 7 am....we sent emails to all those traveling with us with flight info and such.

Fast forward...1:30 am I get the following text from our CT gang..."ummm, we have a problem.  We booked our flights for next week March 19-26"  oh dear.....

Off to Aruba we went...when we arrived here I did some major negotiation with the hotel...finally we got them to switch one of the rooms to next week..  All is well.

These were from my run this am....

Check out this guy!!!

Off to the pool!

Getting Ready

Guess who is diggin his new swimsuit.  Ryan picked it out...not a big fan of the skull print....oh well.  How about the fact that the suit is 24 month suit for my rather small 9 MONTH OLD!!!!

Three out of five of us have bronchitis....so much fun. Jackson and Bri were diagnosed on Wed and then by Sat I was in the Dr.  This is a huge bummer since I was looking forward to getting in a great week of training prior to leaving for Aruba. 

Speaking of Aruba.....6 days...I have been working on packing.. and you can tell that I have a whole lot of help

I think Ryan is the worst...he was all encouraging the kids to have a beach party tonight.....so off they went to dig through the piles that I had laid out to be packed....of course they thought it was awesome...why am I always the no fun parent??

Check out my birthday gift

My good friend Tanya found this for me....so cute.  We will have lots of fun reading this in Aruba

We made homemade ice cream last night for Aly's science project.  The girls measured and took turns pouring the ingredients.  Holy sugar.....we had 9 kids under 5 here today to enjoy our homemade treats!

This and that

Why is it that there is always ONE child that is constantly TROUBLE.  This would be the container of blueberries that he got off the table - seriously I have no idea how.  He was alternating between smashing them in to the carpet and eating them.

Is there a boarding school that  accepts 1 year olds?

Meanwhile, these two are reading so nicely...

We had a crazy weekend.  Ryan changed his flights around and then got delayed in NY waiting for the flight to Boston.  He got in at 5 am and we left my parents around noon for the cape.  I spent the morning in the ER with Jackson who was sick with bronchitis.

We got to the cape, ate dinner and had everyone asleep for 9:30...not too bad for sharing one room and having sick kids. 

Sunday was the Hyannis Half Marathon.  I have been waiting for this for a long time,  I finally broke 2 hours and ended up with a 1:56.....it was nice to have everyone there.  We jumped in the car after and headed home to PA!

Living in the moment....

Sometimes when you can't find your binky the wooden puzzle piece seems to work just fine. 

This weekend I am supposed to run the Hyannis Half marathon.  Ryan is in Thailand until Friday night.  It was my weekend away - after a LONG week.  Thank goodness my mom was here to help.  Plans changed and now I am taking the kids to NH.  We are leaving tomorrow and driving to NH.  Ryan will hopefully be in NH when we wake up Sat am.   

From there we are going to head into Boston for the day with the kids and then go to Hyannis Sat night so that I can run on Sunday.  Hopefully the kids will sleep well on Sat night, so that I can sleep!!!  The weather forcast for Sun on the cape does not look to promising...boo for rain! 

It will be a whirlwind trip as we are headed back to PA Sunday afternoon....off to get packing.

Fashion Forward

On Thursday Aly was getting ready for preschool...it is always such a process.  This needs to match that and so on.  She came downstairs with this dress on and the belt in her hands.  I thought she wanted me to tie the belt on the dress...the way it is supposed to go.  She informs me that she wants it in her hair....and demonstrates the headband look. 

As I was following her instructions, she says...you know mom belts can be used for other things...they are like an accessory...gee who knew.  CERTAINLY not the one who almost NEVER gets dressed before I pick them up at noon.  I asked her where she learned all this fashion advice.  She says - no joke "At school, you know it is not all about learning your ABC's or 123's."

Apparently we are currently enrolled in the fashion preschool of Lansdale. 

How nice it is...

It hit 60 today...the girls thought it was summer.  They wanted to eat lunch on the deck, put on flip flops and parade around in their bathing suits.  Don't worry I only said yes to lunch.

It was nice because everything Jackson threw on the deck...the birds would eat.  All was well with the world until the boys next door came home from school.  At 7,9, and 11 apparently 60 felt like summer to them to.  They started playing basketball in the driveway and soon their shirts were off.

This resulted in an all out battle.....Aly and Bri were watching the game from our deck and they wanted to take off their clothes too.  In fact, they also wanted to play basketball with their shirts off. 

Eventually the prospect of Dora on the big screen took priority over the boys.

He just may be the end

Look at that smile....pure TROUBLE....  I have little experience with boys..I can tell you all about raising little girls.  I can name the princesses, know about matching hair bows to dresses, how they love their stuffed animals and dress up. 

However, this boy is going to be the end of me.  Emptying cabinets, pulling out entire book shelves, climbing stairs, you name it.  He beelines for my bike, outlets, and the dogs water constantly. 

On Friday, I asked Aly to feed the dogs, while I was getting some things put together for dinner.  As I was packing things up and the kids were getting coats on, I noticed that Jackson was gone.  He was sitting in the mudroom with the dogs, right by their side, eating the dog food. 

Moving Forward.....Making Progress

So this morning we were flipping through old pictures of the girls....Brianna loves to look at pictures when she was little...she will often climb into my lap and say...lets look at pictures of me as baby.. like this...

It is hard to believe how fast they grow...onto the real point of this:

I came across our 2009 new years resolutions....one of mine was to "like running more".....I laughed.  I think it will always be on my resolution list.  I like the feeling when I am done.  I certainly like the benefits it provides me, but man the actual task at hand I do not often like. 

 I have worked hard all winter on my running and this morning I had a run on my schedule....all the kids are home, so it meant that we head to the gym so I can use the treadmill.  While the treadmill usually epitomizes boring...it was my only option and I have found myself there more often than not this winter. 

Drumroll...it was actually okay.  Still no comparison to laying by the pool in Aruba, but during the entire run I felt good and I never once thought "ohhh how I hate this"  which did happen hundreds of times during my 1:40 run on the treadmill on Sat.

Progress...little by little...

 

Oh she makes me laugh.

Is it possible to get kicked out of church....we may find out.

This morning I took the girls to Jr. Choir practice for 9 am.  We then stayed for the 10:15 service but in my head I knew that that was a LONG time for Brianna to sit.  I even asked her before we went into the church to sit in the pews if she wanted to play in the nursery, she replied that she is NOT a baby...

Ryan was home with Jackson since it was just going to be too much for him to try to skip his morning nap.

Service started....the girls colored, had a snack, and FINALLY got called for the Childrens message.  All went well, they talked about favorite things.  Someone said they liked dogs...someone else replied they were allergic to dogs.  Aly pipes up and says - well you can never come to our house then we have dogs..all in the spirit of sharing...

Anyways, the minister dismisses them and all of the kids start walking towards to exit...except Brianna.

No Joke - she stands up and starts dancing.  No music - just the minister she is totally busting a move.  He quietly walks over to her and lets her know all of the other kids have gone downstairs for Sunday School.  She lets him know she is not done dancing...

So there she is entertaining the whole congregation with her moves.

Strawberry Pizza

So I have been trying new recipes this week.  Last night I made a whole bunch of kinds of pizza, tomato and veggie, spinach and feta, ham, bbq chicken, and cheese.  Aly was so helpful - she is going to love the kitchen like I do I think.  I had some more dough, so tonight we made a dessert pizza, strawberry. 

The verdict was YUM.  I thought it was too sweet, had it been chocolate I would have eaten a whole lot more.  Everyone else loved it, Ryan thinks I should make it without the whole wheat dough - go figure.

Brianna would have eaten like this if we let her

Chinese New Year, 100 days, and Sumo Wrestling

This week has been BUSY.  We celebrated the chinese new year this morning in school.  The year of the rabbit.

We also celebrated 100 days of preschool.....in true Brianna fashion

Meanwhile Jack was brushing up on his Sumo wrestling technique.  Man he is a bruiser.  My money is on him that ends up in the emergency room first.   No fear, total determination, and big siblings...enough said.

Wordless Wednesday - help at home