The 3 Turn 3!

I got to work yesterday and was greeted by the triplets excited to show me their “birthday” (a box in the living room).  Kim & Mark were quick to tell me it was their gift and it needed to be assembled, would I mind putting it together.  Sure, no problem, I enjoy putting things together!  Little did I realize there were sooo many pieces, good thing was it took no tools, so it wasn’t hard, just difficult with the trio running around helping!

I’m with you Jack, I don’t know where to start!

But we did it!
 

This is such a fun little house, great thing about it is it stores flat and is made of Foam…then again that is also a downfall because the trio quickly started dismantling it!  Oh well, we had fun while it lasted!

For dinner we went down to Ixtapa for their ceremonial birthday celebration.  The trio did a little bit better with the attention then they did LAST YEAR when they were sang to! 

Get these hats off of us!!

Closest we could get to the triplets wearing the sombrero’s!


While the sombrero’s weren’t a hit, the sopapilla’s were delicious!! 

Jaime, Amy & I took the triplets, Ryan and the girls out to the Factoria Childrens Museum.  We took quite a few pictures, but I’m gonna wait until tomorrow to post them, so check back then! 

Happy 3rd Birthday Jack, Nate & Gabbi!

Wow, times sure flies!  It's crazy to believe that Gabbi, Nate & Jack are now 3 years old!  Where did those itty bitty premies go?  Then again, if you ask Jack how old he is, he says "4".  I think someone (ahem Maddie) has been brainwashing him :)  We celebrated tonight, but pictures will have to wait until tomorrow when I can steal them off of Kim's camera!  But in the meantime...

Happy 3rd Birthday Jack, Nate & Gabrielle!!

Steppin’ in the Right Direction to the Pacific Science Center

Jaime and I took the girls to the Pacific Science Center to play this afternoon.  We were trying to remember, and we don’t think we’ve ever really taken Madison to the Science Center.  Well, maybe when she was a baby back in the days of Gus & Joe, the Dill Triplets and Xander, but that was a long time ago….all those kids are now 7 (or almost!).  Anyway, it had been a long time since I had been there too, so we had fun!

In the butterfly room! 

Yes, I see you Emma!

Emma had a lot of fun in the toddler area!

Both girls LOVED the dinosaur exhibit!  Emma couldn’t get enough of them and Madison enjoyed watching them move and roar! 

Before we left we saw a show on AIR.  Madison said this was her favorite part!  She even got to be a volunteer for the hovercraft deminstration.  She quickly jumped up to volunteer before she realized what she was getting into!

 
This show is great!

I’m not really sure what I’m getting myself into!?!


Cover your ears, it may be loud!


And she’s off!

Unfortunately, the camera died right after this photo, so I missed her hovering.  But she hovered about 4” off the ground, using a leaf blower and the piece of plywood she was seated on!  It was pretty cool!

Emma also did some walking on her own while we were out!!  She’s getting really close!  Two seperate times she walked 6-10 steps!  Of course when we pulled out the camera she would have nothing to do with it!  Check out this video to see some steppin’ in the right direction for Emmalee!!!

 

Since I know you ALL watched my video, you all should know about the voting taking place on my blog!  Go to the poll on the top left of my blog, and vote for when you think Emma will walk!!  Curious to see what people think!  The poll will close on Sunday, May 2nd, so vote today!

 

Alex’s Piano Arrives!

The movers arrived last night, two days early, boy were we surprised and excited!!  Check out the montage I made of the process of moving it in!  *Note: the photo quality isn’t that great, most of it was taken on my dad’s cell phone!*

            

Alex’s has already been playing up a storm on it!!  She is so excited to have this piano!  If you haven’t had a chance to hear Alex perform you’ll have to ask her!  She’s amazing!  If you click HERE you can listen to Alex’s piano recital in January 2008!

My Parents are Going High-Tech!

It all started with my mom about a year ago.  She made the discovery that *gasp* if she figures out how to text, she’d have an easier time getting a hold of my sisters & I and *gasp*, it worked!  She now finds us anytime with a quick response!  I know she’s enjoyed texting with us!  She joined Facebook about the same time, however she really just never got it.  I don’t know what there is to ‘get’, but apparently she doesn’t have whatever ‘it’ is!  So she has a profile, but is hardly ever on it…well until now…

Up to this point, my dad has been anti-anything high-tech, because being a computer guy by day, he wants nothing to do with it at night.  He refused to carry his cell-phone, he’d store it in his car OFF, convenient  huh?!  About a month ago he was eligible for a phone upgrade and decided to get a new phone with the full keyboard…and guess what now he texts!  I can get a hold of him at all hours of the day, it is great, he responds fast, and says he enjoys it!  My favorite message that sums up our love for each other would be “LOSER!” which he posted at 6:25pm on April 15th…yep that’s how we speak to each other!  Love my daddy!!

A couple days ago I got a new friend notification on Facebook, and you’ll never guess who it was (okay, so I bet you can, but pretend anyway!)…my DAD!  Let me just say that if he was against texting and cell phones, he was REALLY against Facebook.  He had watched my mom struggle/love/hate it, and had no interest in joining…well apparently he finally gave in.  He did it all by himself, and it’s been fun watching him find old friends.  Tonight we say down together so I can show him the ‘ropes’ of Facebook, and we laughed hysterically as he went through his High School graduating class list…he said “oh my gosh, they are all so old”.  Poor dad, he is living in denial that HE’S OLD :-).  Needless to say he is really enjoying Facebook.  He is enjoying finding and re-connecting with old friends.  Now that my dad is hooked, I have a feeling my mom will come around soon!

Speaking slightly off-topic, on February 13, 2010, I signed up for Clustr Maps, which is a free site that shows where people are from that our accessing my blog.  It is cool, but kinda creepy :-), but then I don’t care, I just want to be the center of the world…so no big deal.  Anyway, here’s what my Clustr Map looked like just a few minutes ago…

I wondered how many of the hits per day it shows, I wondered how many was actually me (face it, I love reading and looking at my blog.  I’m vain, and proud of it!).  But I read and found out that…

“The location of each visit is based on the IP address of the computer used, one IP address per visitor per 24-hour period.” [Clustr Maps Privacy Statement]

That means, that 10 different people today visited my blog.  Now that doesn’t sound that impressive, but (brag brag brag I’m a dork) on average I see about 15-18 viewers a day.  I love to look at my Clustr Map and see where in the world my blog has been viewed in, as of tonight, 21 different countries around the world!  That’s pretty cool if you ask me!  

If you want to view my current Clustr Map data, click the LINK, or you can view it on my blog on the left hand side tool bar under Number of Visitors!

Have a great evening!

Home Sweet Home, Sorta!

We survived the 5hours, 18minute car ride from Spokane to Seattle today with four little kids.  It went pretty good, we had a fun snafoo's (sp?) Aiden got car sick and vomitted all over just outside of Vantage and the Connor had an accident right as we got home.  Other than that everything went well.  The girls & Aiden all napped and the rest of the time they watched DVDs while Julia & I took turns driving and napping.  We were up way to late last night (like 2am lol), so we both were overly exhausted today! 

I ended up just coming back to Camano tonight (hense the "sorta") so we could get the kids into bed at a better hour then having to detour through Duvall.  We got home right about 7pm, got the kids to bed, cleaned out the car and stripped all the carseats to be washed.  I'm currently watching Survivor (go Sandra, your my last person left!) and eating some eggos.  After it's over, it'll be bedtime for me too!

Polka Dot Painting & The Melting Pot

We opened and closed the mall today!  We hit the mall about 10am and did some shopping while we waited for Dana to arrive with Kaden, Caleb & Kaylynne to go to Mobius Children's Museum, which by the way is an awesome one if you are ever in the Spokane area!

After a few hours at Mobius, the girls were beyond tired, but it was to late for them to nap, so I took them for a walk in hopes of them resting and both of them conked out in the stroller!  Apparently both were tired because they both were out cold!

           

While the girls napped we decided to go paint some pottery.  The boys were really excited to pick their pieces, that turned out to be quite a chore though.  In the end Aiden got a snake and Connor chose a trophy “vase”.  Julia & I each made a piggy bank for the girls.  I made Annika’s pink with brown polka-dots, and Julia made MacKenzie’s blue with brown flowers. 

Things were going real swell until right before we were done…the girls woke up, the boys were wandering around and Julia decided to do some “touch-up” on Aiden’s snake.  Needless to say, Aiden was LIVID because Julia had “ruined” his snake.  They tried to wipe it off, but it wouldn’t work so we finally gave the girls Aiden’s snake to paint and Aiden got to start over. 

While the girls and Aiden were painting, Connor decided to touch his up….it’s amazing what runny puff-paint can do to a “perfect” piece.  Yes, he was “ruined”.  Julia did a great job of “fixing" it.  But now Connor was angry and thought he could start over, because Aiden did.  Sorry Connor, it doesn’t always work that way, life sucks at times!  We ended up leaving having painted two adorable pigs, a near “perfect” Aiden snake, a very colorful (and BROWN due to paint mixing) and a “ruined” trophy/vase.  Ahhh memories!  

Connor’s trophy/vase before the disaster!

  Helping the girls paint their snake

     
Mine & Julia’s Piggies!

Julia had a taste tonight for The Melting Pot for dinner.  We met up with Ashli & Brooklynn, her mom Stacie and grandma Jackie.  I had never been there before so I didn’t quite know what to expect.  It was fun, it was just a long, late adventure.  Took over 2 hours to get through the 4 courses and with four little ones it was hard.  Everyone did really well until we were waiting for the chocolate dessert…which was yummy I might add!

The Gang minus yours truly

 
Dipping some bread in cheese dip!


Yum!

We didn’t get back to the hotel until 8:30 tonight, so when we did we all were done!  Time for the kids to go to bed, so Julia and I could just sit down and relax.  I finally called my mom and got a hold of her and talked for awhile, so that was nice.  We’ve played phone tag all week.  Yesterday I went as far as telling her to add me to her calendar at 3:30 when she said she was free…she forgot!  So it was time for us to catch-up!  I love my mommy! 

I believe the plan is to head back in the morning to Seattle!  Sad that this vacation is over already.  But at the same time, I think we’re all ready to get back to normalcy and routine!

Hammock Fun!

Ahhh, my favorite time of the day….bedtime/quiet time!  We had another busy day today.  This definitely isn’t a restful vacation, we’re constantly on the go, which I love!

MacKenzie didn’t sleep well last night so I took all the kids back to Manito Park while Julia took a much needed nap.  The kids did really well we even went to Perkins for lunch, where they were very well behaved.  Another patron actually came over to comment on how good the kids were!

This afternoon we went to Dana’s house for some playtime.  On the way their the girls crashed.  Annika often will fall asleep in the car but not MacKenzie, so it was very surprising they both were out!

      
Don’t you just love how their heads face each other?!

Dana has a hammock in her yard and the girls were freaked out of it at first but I dragged them in anyway.  Annika ended up loving it, MacKenzie just screamed bloody murder until I got her out.  Annika thought it was funny to “sleep” and then “wake up”!  MacKenzie enjoyed pushing us in the hammock

See what I mean :-) 

When we got back to the hotel the girls were pretending to be monkeys as they walked through the lobby!  What funny girls!

Okay everyone is now asleep I better go climb in bed and vedge while it’s quiet, mornings come early around here :-)