Alice is three - The Birthday Questions

Alice's debut with the birthday questions!

1. What is your favourite color?

            Black (Um what? You've never said that before?!)

2. What is your favourite toy?

            Black toy, my black toy named Spencer. (Again, what?!)

3. What is your favourite fruit?

            Strawberries and blueberries. (True! She calls blueberries, blueblerries)

4. What is your favourite tv show?

            Avatar: The Last Airbender (Her latest obsession on netflix)

5. What is your favourite thing to eat for lunch?

            Chicken noodle soup

 6. What is your favourite outfit?

            Jake and the Neverland Pirates outfit (We bought her a Jake shirt for her birthday)

7. What is your favourite game?

            Despicable me (She likes to play Minion Run on my phone) (Upon completion of the questions she told me that her favourite game is hide and seek - which makes more sense.)

8. What is your favourite snack?

            Black snack (Seriously bizarre child, what is with the black obsession?!)

9. What is your favourite animal?

            Sheep

10. What is your favourite song?

            Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

11. What is your favourite book?

            Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (This is a book of nursery rhymes that we have.)

12. Who is your best friend?

            Kate (Aw.  Make me cry!)

13. What is your favourite cereal?

            Corn bran squares

14. What is your favourite thing to do outside?

            Throw out the snow (Not sure what this means? I think she means shovelling the driveway.)

15. What is your favourite drink?

            Apple juice

16. What is your favourite holiday?

            Friday (Then I asked her if she knew what a holiday was, which she didn't.  After explaining holidays she said Christmas!)

17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night?

            A stuffy (our name for stuffed animals)

18. What is your favourite thing to eat for breakfast?

            Eggs and toast

19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday?

            Pancakes (We will have this at her party tomorrow.)

20. What do you want to be when you grow up?

            I don't know.  (Then I gave her some options and she said she wants to work with computers like Daddy and Mommy too.)

Family Day Fun!

What happens when you send Dad to make the bed and the girls are playing upstairs?!

I'm still a little sad that I didn't get any pictures of the fun pancake breakfast and the tobogganing that took place this morning, but this makes up for it a little bit!  I love my family and I love FAMILY DAY!!!

The Day of Love

After yesterday's post I felt so ungrateful.  No, I don't like you know what, but I'm so grateful, so grateful for my little people and my guy.  So today, I remember to be grateful for love.  For the love that fills my house, for the hugs and kisses, for the cuddles, for laughter.  I am so grateful to my Heavenly Father for Ken, and for trusting me with three sweet spirits to raise.  I love my little family.  I am grateful for their love today and everyday. 

Happy Love Day!!

All things POOP!

Being a mother of young children means that my days are filled with lots of poop.  Literal poop.  More poop then I want really.  I mean honestly, who likes poop?  Yes, I have already said poop far too much, I get that, but I'm illustrating a point here!

In the month of January I finally decided that I was ready for Alice to be toilet trained.  She's been ready for a while, but I haven't been.  Toilet training is a lot of work.  Way more work than diapers.  Alice has by now, figured out how to pee in the potty and in the toilet.  She's quite independent about it too.  She can even wash her hands by herself.

The sad thing is the poop.  She used to go to her hallway to poop.  She actually calls the hallway by the side door of our house "the place I go poop".  There she stands, hidden by the pantry shelf and poops.  She's been doing this for months now.

She has pooped in the toilet and in the potty, but not yet consistently.  As of today it had been four days and for Alice, that's a long time.  So today when I was on the phone with my sister and Alice disappeared, it didn't surprise me that she'd gone off to poop.  It made me a little sad that it was in her underwear... but I'm just glad she pooped.  Kate had very similar issues.

What is it with poop?  Why is it so hard to poop in a toilet for my little people?  I must say though, if Fiona continues her present course, I think she'll have the easiest time.  She loves to poop sitting down.  She poops in the bumbo, and when she's just sitting on the floor.  And while graphic, I just want to document, the force with which she poops is quite amazing.  So amazing in fact that the poop just shoots right up her back and out of her diaper, pretty much every single time.  I know it's time to launder her clothes when the pile of tide soaked onesies is getting too high on the washing machine.

And no, there is not a picture to accompany this post.  But I should take a picture of Alice on her beloved froggy potty.  It's pretty cute!  And that would be the only thing cute about this post.

(Oh and don't even ask me how much Kate and Alice love saying poop, or that Kate still likes help when she poops... UGH!)

Playing in the Snow

It has been a very cold, very snowy winter.  I have not encouraged the girls to play outside at all.  After school Kate wants to go home and go inside.  I think that before today she's asked to play outside maybe once.  Today I actually had Fiona in a snow suit and not in her bundle bag in her car seat.  So when Kate asked to play outside I thought sure, why not.  I use the baby as an excuse to not play outside with the girls.  And while it is difficult to play outside in the snow with a baby it can be done.  I've been a real wimp this winter.  Next year Fiona will be walking.  I plan on being the opposite of a wimp next winter. 

I suppose I'm not a total wimp though.  I walk to pick up Kate and I push the girls in a stroller through the badly plowed street and slightly better plowed sidewalk.  I take it back.  I'm not a wimp!  I'm awesome! 

Fiona is 8 Months Old

This past month Fiona learned to...

Crawl Forwards - not cross crawl mind you, she's doing an army/inchworm shuffle and as of this morning, it's getting pretty fast!
Sit Up - she still falls here and there, but she can sit up for long periods of time
Eat More - (kind of...) I let her try almost everything, she really wants to feed herself and if she can feed herself, I let her
Babbling - she continues to babble lots - b, n, l are the consonant sounds I hear

I am so grateful to be home with my sweet baby, babies really!  My heart breaks for Mommies that want to be home and can't be home.  Being home with my girls is my happy place.

Here are a few more photos of this past month. These photos are all from January.

Cookie Time

Ken and Alice went grocery shopping.  One of the purchases was a container of cookies... then I'm not exactly sure what happened.  I was doing something, Ken was doing something.  I gave the girls one cookie each and left them at the table.  At some point I thought I should go check what was what, I think I heard the water running... this is what I found.

The sink was overflowing - but thankfully into the next sink, not on the floor. The purple fork is floating in the water.

Sadly I didn't get a picture of the other guilty party!

January Funnies

January
Alice: Mommy you're going to die.
Me: Why?
Alice: Cause I cut your skin off.
(Later that day, before she was going to bed)
Alice: (While hugging me goodnight) I'm sorry Mommy.  I love you.  I'm not going to cut your skin off, you're not going to die.
The funny thing was, she wasn't angry with me.  It was just matter-of-fact.

Alice: Is Auntie Jennifer dead?
Me: No, why would she be dead?
Alice: Because she is getting old.
Jennifer's response: I don't know what to say… other than I do feel old most days. But I happened to be dancing like a fool at a girlfriend's birthday party last night so I wasn't acting too old last night! You can assure her that I'm not dead.

Last night we were listing things that we were grateful for before bed.
Kate: I'm grateful for when Alice doesn't touch my stuff.
Ken: I'm grateful for everyone making my birthday special.
Me: I'm grateful for my family.
Alice: Fart.
Me: What did you say? What are you grateful for?
Alice: Fart.

Kate: Mommy, I'm going to name my first born child, my name is still McCartney, Nutsy Michaela Bubbles Nutsy Flower McCartney. I'm so excited to grow up and have a baby. Except I think breastfeeding is boring. When Nutsy is 4 and a half and wants to play and I'm breastfeeding or Blossom is in my uterus, I'll say just wait, and I'll play with you. I'm going to name my second baby Blossom Elizabeth McCartney. Mom, what kind of a name is Nutsy? A boy name or a girl name?
Me: I think it's a squirrels name.
Kate: (Laughs) Oh, maybe I'll pick a different name then.

Kate: I have a secret crush on Aiden Wallace, I'm only going to tell you in this house, not in school.
Me: That's good because if you tell people at school they might tell everyone. If you want to get married in the temple you can't marry Aiden Wallace, or you have to bring him to church.
Kate: I don't want to marry him, I just want to kiss him.

Lovely dinner conversation this evening...
Alice: (Between bites of her pizza) I'm going to barf! I'm going to barf!
Kate: Alice, don't barf.
Alice: (Giggles) I tooted. I didn't need to barf. My body needed to toot. Silly me!
Thank you Alice.

Ken: I can't believe it's February tomorrow.
Me: It isn't. It's January 31st.
Ken: Never mind then.