Christmas Morning

Christmas morning means one thing!! Waking up early to open presents! This year was so much fun! It took the kids forever to go to sleep the night before because the wind was howling outside and they were so excited about Santa coming! Layton came running in our room at about 1:30 in the morning to tell us that Santa had been there and that he had brought a castle! We finally let Layton and Ainslee get up at about 6:00, but they could only look at the presents that weren't wrapped and go through their stockings. Ava's a girl after my own heart! She loves her sleep, even on Christmas morning!

Here's Layton in his school bus tent! As soon as Santa saw this on ebay, he knew it would be perfect for this little guy! Layton loves to play school bus, and there's plenty of room in there for his sisters to ride along!

Once Ava finally woke up, she was pounced on by the other two to look at her kitchen! She now has her very own kitchen and doesn't have to share Ainslee's!

And here's Ainslee in front of her baby care station! It has a high chair, crib, sink, and swing. It also came with a baby that is dressed in Disney princess clothes. The baby is so cute! She even has a little twinkle in her eyes!

Santa also had a few wrapped presents for the kiddos. Layton got a scooter and Transformer's helmet. Ainslee got a Disney princess CD player and baby that is about as big as she is! Ava got a new little baby and high chair/swing set. They loved going through their stockings that Santa packed with new socks and underwear. He gave Layton a big thing of gum and the girls necklaces. He even managed to find those green panties that Ainslee wanted!

Christmas Recap #1

Christmas started for us on Christmas Eve at my mom's house. We had Christmas-y finger foods like sausage balls and little smokies!! Yum! Then it was time for the presents!!!!

Tyler, Layton, Ainslee, and Ava in front of the tree before we passed out presents! Don't they look so cute in their pajamas???

Ava was so funny! She had no concept of waiting her turn! She wanted to rip into all of her presents at once! Here she's excited about something, but I couldn't tell you what! She loved all of her presents!

Here's Ainslee opening her laptop that my mom got her! She loves playing with that thing! Ava had gotten one for her birthday in November, and Layton also got on for Christmas.

Here's Layton opening a yo-yo that my sister got him! He loves to pretend like he's Mr. Lusk doing tricks with it!

Learn from each other

Raising kids that are only a year and a few months apart sometimes feels like I'm raising triplets! Sure there are some pluses.... like they're all on the same schedule! They go to bed at the same time, they eat at the same time, nap at the same time (BIG plus!), snack at the same time. They're interested in the same things so it's easy to buy toys that they'll all like! Sharing clothes is almost a reality! They like the same movies and enjoy the same restaurants!

There are a few draw backs though. For example, you'd think that by the time you got to toddlerhood with your third child, it would be old hat, but since the first two are still in it too, it's like we're still rookies! Plus we still have lingering questions, like when will they be able to completely go to the bathroom by themselves??? I mean ALL by themselves, clean up and all!?! When will they learn to pick up their toys without making us sound like a broken record that's stuck on "Get in there and clean up"..."Get in there and clean up"...."Get in there and clean up"... When will they realize that sleep is a good thing and not something to be dreaded???

One good thing is that they can learn from each other! They learn how to dress themselves by watching each other, they learn how to feed themselves, they learn how to work the DVD player...oh wait that's not a good thing because now all of our DVDs have fingerprints! The following conversation is an example of Ainslee trying to teach Ava the proper pronunciation to a word:

Ava: ook dere's yeh-yo. (Look there's yellow)
Ainslee: UGH
Ava: yeh-yo, yeh-yo, yeh-yo
Ainslee: UGH! Ava! It is not YEH-YO!!! It is LELL-O!!!!!

Okay so they can't learn EVERYTHING from each other! But sometimes it's fun listening to them try!!

Oops...I did it again..

Okay...bad title I know! But look at me! I've gone forever between posts again! My plan with the subtitle was to go back and update on each kid, and I started with Layton because he was the easiest, starting Pre-K and all, but it just didn't happen! The only thing I for sure want to add is that Ava did turn 2 in this midst of my blog neglect! She's such a sweet little rascal...by far the most outgoing of my group and oh so friendly! She's also very mischievous and loves to aggravate her older siblings! We love you sweet Ava!!!

Christmas is now over, and let me just say that this has definitely been my favorite one so far! I say that every year though! The older the kids get, the more they remember from the year before so they more they're excited!! Our kids believe in Santa, and Christmas Eve as I was sitting in the living room waiting for them to fall asleep, I was reminded of how sweet it is when you believe in magic! They really believe, without question, in a man that knows everything about them, down to the color of panties they're hoping for in their stocking! (Green for Ainslee!~who knows why!?!) Well there may be no real Santa, but there is someone who knows everything about them, right down to the number of hairs on their heads...and they believe in Him too! Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell us to become like a child. I've heard countless sermons on this topic over the years, and I wasn't even planning on going there with this post tonight, but don't you think if we all had faith like children, we'd worry about far fewer things?!? It's something to think about I guess. I was listening to one of my old Acapella CDs this morning in the car, and these lyrics kind of brought the same thought: When you're up against a struggle that shatters all your dreams, and your hopes have been cruelly crushed by Satan's manifesting schemes, and you feel the urge within yourself to submit to earthly fears, don't let the faith you're standing in seem to disappear, Praise the Lord....

I always like to turn the radio up really loud with that one and pretend like I can sing! ;-)

Okay...favorite presents for the kids: For Layton it would have to be one of his many buses! He got a bus tent, a large play bus, and several small buses, and he loves them all! For Ainslee it was definitely her baby doll center that has a crib, swing, high chair, and sink all hooked together, and for Ava I think it was either one of her babies or her Barney that Trey's parents gave her! That girl loves her some Barney!

It's hard to pick my favorite part about Christmas this year. Up real close to the top though, was Ainslee's face when we were passing out presents at my mom's house on Christmas Eve. We tried to get it on camera, but we really needed a video camera! Her eyes were big and wide and she kept moving her tongue from side to side like she was getting ready to really dive into all those presents! It was the funniest thing!!

Well I guess that's it for tonight! After watching Julie and Julia tonight I feel like I have the motivation to do this a little more often! Now let's just see if I can find the time! Good night!

Going WAYYY back...all the way to Pre-K

Subtitled: Catch-up part 1

Well looking at my blog, it's been about 3 months since I last posted anything. I think that indicates one of two things: either that I've fallen off the face of the earth, or that I'm a teacher and in between school starting and coming home in the afternoons and feeding, bathing, playing with, reading to, and rocking the kids, there's just not much time to self-reflect or whatever this is that I do! Plus there are lots and lots of new TV shows on right now, most of which I fall asleep while watching, which is why I am totally in LOVE with our new DVR. I still can't remember to fast forward through the commercials, but I really, really love getting to watch the second half of Castle on Tuesdays instead of just having to wonder whodunnit!


Anyway, so I logged on this morning because I've taken a comp day that I earned from my CPR training this summer, only to find that someone has been leaving totally weird, anonymous comments on one of my posts! They're long and crazy and not even in English. It might be in wing-ding font, but I really think it's in another language. I dont' know how they get a font for another language, but whoever it is, stop it!

OK so what's been going on with us?? Layton started Pre-K back in August. He actually had to start a couple of weeks late so it was really September. He is in Ms. Blackstone's class and totally LOVES school. Being at school has really heightened his love of buses! I thought it was kind of cute last year, but this year it's a full-blown obsession. Every bus we see he wants to know which bus it is. I try to outsmart him and just tell him just some bus name, but it doesn't work. The other day I told him the bus was the parrot bus (our buses are named after animals..aren't everybody's??), but he very quickly and emphatically told me I was wrong with a "NUH-UHHH...the Parrot bus has a different front!!!" Buses have different fronts?? Who knew?? And apparently the Little Dragon bus doesn't make the chhhh sound like the Turtle bus does so I couldn't fool him there either! He gets to ride the bus over to the Middle School in the afternoons, which was nerve-racking for me, but awesome for him! I thought he would be scared, but he wasn't at all! Of course, the middle school is nothing if not the dog-capital of the world so getting him OFF the bus proved to be tricky in the beginning. I'm very happy to announce that, with the help of a very understanding mother who walked her dog to the school each afternoon to pick up her children, Layton can now get OFF the bus and walk all the way down the sidewalk to my room without me! If you're wondering how that sweet mom helped me, at first when I met him at the bus stop, she would just stand back and let me get Layton before she got her kids. Now that I don't meet him, I trust that she's still standing back and letting him go before walking herself.

One thing I've noticed since he started school is that I never, ever get the full story! Now I'm really worried about what my students went home and told their moms about ME! Lucky for me, my sister is a pre-k teacher too so I can call her up and get the rest of the story! Like when he was whining because he didn't get to go to recess "like AA's and Mrs. Pullen's class did." Here's how the conversation went:
Me: Well, why didn't you get to go outside?
Layton: I don't know
Me: Where did you go instead?
Layton: I just had to go in a another little room.
Me: Where was your teacher:
Layton: I don't know..I looked for her but she wasn't there so that girl just took us to the other room but Ms. Blackstone was not there!
Me: So did you go outside then?
Layton: No, we just had to watch a movie while the other classes played
So when I talked to my sister later I asked her to please explain because I knew there was some sort of logical explanation here, and of course there was! During PE, Layton's class had hearing/vision screening so the other classes played outside while they did that. They watched a movie while they waited for their turn!

I could go on and on, like when he got time-out at recess just for going down the slide the right way (He wasn't supposed to go down the slide at all! HELLO big mud puddle!) and how now anytime he mentions the nurse's office, he equates it with a fire drill just because when he went for his flu shot, that just happened to be the same time that they had a fire drill. Poor kid thinks it will always happen that way!

Well I believe I've rambled on and on enough. How does that happen when you start talking about your kids!?! Just wait! I'll give a catch-up post on Ainslee and Ava shortly! Feel free to skim right over unless you're their grandparent and then you're supposed to be truly fascinated at the wonders that are your grandchildren!

Our Darling Ainslee

It's hard to believe that our little Ainslee just celebrated her 3rd birthday. Trey and I consider ourselves truly blessed by her. We are two of the very, very few people who get to see the real Ainslee. For those people that only see the shy, timid side of her in public settings, you might be surprised to learn what she's really like.

She is very complex and has many different sides to her personality. I never imagined that a three-year-old little girl could be so dynamic. She's sweet and bubbly and has such a great sense of humor. She's very silly. Laughter rolls out of her. She loves to make others laugh. I love to see her with her guard down, enjoying her brother and sister. They play so well together. She's very nurturing. She has a good imagination and loves to pretend. She tells everyone their parts in her imaginary world. (You be the sister, and I'll be the mama; you be the brudder, and you be the daddy.) She's fiesty. She's stubborn; headstrong. She's unpredictable, and she keeps our lives interesting. She's comfortable at home and worries about the unknown. She asks a lot of questions. She's smart. She doesn't like dogs, but she says she likes cats, even though she's never liked a cat that she's seen in real life. She loves to sing, and she does it all the time! She wants to please. When she's in a bad mood, she likes for me to rock and her tell her that I love her. (and I love that she'll let me rock her and love on her!!) She doesn't like men in general, but she loves her daddy. She responds better to praise than punishment. She doesn't like to be without one of her siblings. She's a middle-child, not the baby, not the big kid, searching for her place. She loves all things girly. She wants to be a princess or a ballerina. She loves pink and glitter and loves showing off her earrings! She likes to feel fancy. She feels pretty in a dress and insists, much to my delight, in always having a bow! She loves shoes and jewelry. She's good at puzzles and loves to color. She's a picky eater, and loves to drink sweet tea and chocolate milk.

We love her so much. We love every side of her. Our prayer for her is that she knows that even though she's not the baby or the big kid, that she's right where she belongs, in the middle, right in the heart of our family. We pray that she'll love God, that when she's big enough she'll choose to follow Him, and that she'll lead others to Him.

Consider this your warning

I hate WebMD. Ok hate's a strong word. I dislike WebMD and all of the self-diagnosing that can occur. For a hypochondriac like myself, websites like that can really ruin your day and your ability to sleep peacefully. However, they can also be like..how does Edward put it?...a drug to me. Totally addicting. Now there's this other website that I've discovered that you can type in your symptoms, putting and or or, and it spits out a whole list of possible diseases! For example, I learned that I could have malaria, really, malaria, all because I experience dizzy spells while I'm on my period. Of course it could also be anemia, chronic kidney disease, excessive dieting (yeah right!), the flu, or hemorrhagic thrombocythemia.

So I was on WebMD the other day, trying to decide if a certain skin issue was cause for seeing a doctor, or if I just needed to put a little hydrocortisone on it and forget about it. (Honestly, though, what self-diagnosed hypochondriac could forget about any ailment!?! We always see a doctor!) Well I learned that, of course, the issue could be life-threatening, even in rare instances, cancer, so I better go on and get it checked! So I made an appointment with a dermatologist and sweated the days until I actually could get in. I don't know why dermatologists can't give you same day appointments. Don't they know that the sooner cancer is diagnosed, the more likely you are to survive!?!

I decided that while I was seeing a dermatologist, I might as well go ahead and get a total skin check. I mean, look at Izzy, hers almost went undetected! Plus Khloe Kardashian gets total skin checks every 3-6 months! Now my real-life friends have varying levels of skin care. Some of my friends get checked every year, some tan during the summer, and one of my friends owns her own tanning bed and tans year round. My mind went back to my 7th grade year when Mr. Spears was showing us the stages of Melanoma. He told us about how fair skinned people are more likely to get skin cancer. I remember very clearly, him pointing all around the room, and saying, "One of you WILL get skin cancer." And my friend, John Knight, (that's right John, I haven't forgotten!) pointed at me and silently mouthed the word, "You." Please keep in mind that the reason I made my appointment in the first place had nothing to do with skin cancer. I didn't have a scary mole or weird freckle that I was concerned about. My problem was more along the lines of eczema, but you see how my mind works.

Anyway so I went to my appoinment totally convinced that my eczema was cancer and the skin screen was just precautionary. For those of you who have never had a skin screen before, it's really not as bad as it sounds. It's not like you're lying totally exposed for the entire nursing staff and waiting room to see. The doctor lets you hang on to some bits of your dignity as she looks at one little section and calls out every freckle and stretch mark (why did she have to point that out!?!) so that a nurse can record it on your chart. Then, there it is, the small, but ever-present gasp, something you do not want to hear from you doctor. "What about this freckle?" she asks. "Oh that's nothing," I tell her, "My OBGYN dismissed that one already as nothing scary." Then she tells me that she dis-a-grees with him. She what?? Disagrees with him?? So it is something scary????? Images flash through my mind of all the melanoma pictures I've seen; pictures of Grey's Anatomy and all of Izzy's suffering; even John, pointing at me, picking me out as the one who would eventually get skin cancer. I couldn't believe it. This is it! This is how I will die. I'm usually not so dramatic. I've only proclaimed that this is how I will die two other times; one when I was in labor with Ainslee and my epidural wasn't working, and I didn't think it was possible to live through that amount of pain, and two, a few weeks ago when I was flying to KC. I don't know why. I was just convinced I would die on that plane ride. See...hardly ever dramatic!

So I went home clinging to may last days, waiting for the phone call with the results of the pathology. In the back of my mind, I really do know when I'm being irrational, and I think that's how I got through those days until she called. I rationalized in my head that chances are the spot really was fine, just like I did when I rationalized that women make it through deliveries every day and planes take off and land safely every day. So I really didn't sit by my phone waiting, and I didn't say my last good-byes. But then the phone rang. It was my home phone, and the only people that call me on my home phone are my mom or the Texas Association of State Troopers. My mom was at work, and the troopers usually wait until dinner time to call and collect their $50 donation so they can send me my awesome decal for my car. Of couse, I've only given that donation one time because my friend's husband is a trooper, and I thought I'd help him out in case he needed a new uniform or gun or car or something, but then my friend told me not to donate to TAST because her husband is a member of a different organization. I answered the phone, and sure enough, it was Candie from Texarkana Dermatology with my pathology report. My heart was racing, my head was spinning. I sat down for the news. Then she said, "The spot is benign." In my state, all I could think was, "Benign? What does that mean??? Cancer? Not cancer? Cancer? Not cancer? Oh why do they have to use real medical jargon????" It reminded me of the time that I was on the phone with Ava's dermatologist, and she was explaining to me that Ava had Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and all I could think was, "Oh thank goodness it's not staph!" Hello! Anyone ever hear of MRSA staph?? The bad kind?? The kind that doesn't respond to antibiotics!?! Yep that was me, breathing easy. Her doctor probably thought I was some kind of an idiot, sounding relieved that my daughter only had Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

Luckily, though, I was able to settle my mind and remember that benign means no cancer. Yippee! I'm free! Free from worry!! But then she gave me the rest of the news that the spot did have moderate to severe change in it, and while this time it wasn't cancer, I should consider it my warning! (dum, dum, dum, dummmmm)

So friends I say all that to say, that I would like very much if you would consider my warning, your warning also. Go get checked! Seriously it doesn't take long, and it's not nearly as embarrassing as you might think. If you don't have a dermatologist in the Texarkana area, Antoinette at Dr. Parham's office is wonderful, Dr. Gaylor at Collom & Carney is great (but she's on maternity leave until September), and Dr Young with Dermatology Associates is also top-notch, if you feel more comfortable with a man looking you over. Call, make an appointment, get it done!