Surprise Papoo!

The kids were so excited about a surprise 70th birthday party for Papoo this past Saturday. All three of them couldn't wait to get to the party. Gloria has been planning this party for Denny for a while and it was such a nice one. There were about 75 adults and about 25 kids total. I really think that Denny was surprised and didn't know anything about it. It was a surprise to him too that some of his brothers and sisters that live far from here were able to make it.

I was only able to get a few pictures the entire evening.

Yummy! Bimp. My favorite! Thanks Uncle Robbie.


Brookie saying happy birthday to Papoo.


After Denny walked in and everyone yelled surprise and sang happy birthday, all the kids got him real good with silly string. I was too far away to get a good picture of Denny covered in it. Here's Lenny after it was all over.


At some point in the evening, Brooke took over someone's stroller and had Hollis pushing her around in it. A little later in the evening, Brooke came around with Hollis' bow in her hair. That was after Brooke already lost both shoes and her hair bow. We eventually found the shoes.

Of course, Nathan had to get in on the fun too.


We all had a wonderful time and it was so nice to see all of the family and friends that we haven't seen for a while. Dominic gave a very moving speech for his dad. I was very proud. The kids had fun too. Well, I knew Brooke was having fun because everyone kept coming to me and telling me about it and about how cute she was being. She never checks in with me when we are somewhere. If she does see me, it's completely by accident. Now my boys, they always come back and check in with me every now and then. They had a lot of fun too.

Happy Birthday Papoo! We love you!



From the Mouth of a Four Year Old

Lenny loves to read books to Brooke and Nathan. The other day he was reading a book to Brooke. I was in the other room but could hear him. He said, "It's called Percy's Big Mistake. Brooke, do you know what a mistake is? It's when you do something wrong and you don't even know it." It was so cute because he was talking to her in the sweetest most sincere little voice. He's a really good big brother.

Another example of a sweet sincere voice he used while teaching Brooke something. A week or so ago I got the kids each one of those little toys that are about an inch tall that you put in water and they grow 600 times their size. Anyway, they had gotten kind of big so I took them out of the water and let the kids play with them. Brooke had a poodle, Nathan had a beagle, and Lenny had a frog. Brooke's poodle had a very skinny neck so I knew it was just a matter of time before it came apart. Well, it happened. Brooke was so upset and she cried. I told her I couldn't fix it. She took it to Lenny and he got down on his knees so that he was at her level and said, "Brooke. Do you know why it broke? Because you were biting it. I can't fix it because I don't know how to fix things." It was very sweet. She did stop crying though.

Disney on Ice

This past Sunday, Gloria took us all to see Disney on Ice. When I say all, I mean me, Dominic, Lenny, Brooke, Nathan, Dominic's brother Robbie, his wife Tracey, and their kids Anthony and Catherine.

I always love Disney on Ice and I was especially excited this year because I knew that our kids would just love it--and they did! We got there early and walked around looking at all the expensive things that were for sale. Seriously, do they need to charge $22 for a light up twirly thing? Really? Nunny wanted to get something for the kids so I found a few cheap toys at one area. Yeah right. They were still $15. It's ridiculous. Anyway, Lenny and Nathan wanted the exact same thing. They both picked out a Buzz Light Year toy. They were so excited. And of course Brooke picked out a princess purse. That's exactly what she wanted. It amazes me how different she is from the boys. She is so girly and I love it.

We had GREAT seats! Lenny and Nathan both looked mesmerized by the show. Nathan sat there with his mouth open watching it. I knew that it was featuring the Incredibles which we had never seen before. I rented it a few days before we went so that the kids would at least know who they were. It was great because Lenny was happy to know who they were and was pointing them out. Brooke was so cute too. She clapped every time she was supposed to. She didn't just clap a little, she really exaggerated it and clapped loud. She even pumped her arm a few times when the people skating did it. She did this all while holding that princess purse over her arm.

I didn't get many pictures at Disney on Ice and the ones that I did get didn't turn out real good but here are a few of them.

Playing with their new toy and flying it through the air.


Brookie's purse. The other side has three princesses on it. I couldn't get her to sit still long enough to get a picture of her smiling.


Nunny and Nathan.
Nathan and Daddy.


The only picture of the show that I got.


Thanks Nunny for taking us to the show! We really enjoyed it.


Brooke

Today I'll tell a few cute stories about Brooke since I focused on Nathan in the last post.

I have always said it and I always will, Brooke is a huge drama queen. She will cry for 20 minutes longer than she needs to just to make a point. When she gets hurt or upset about something, she is very cute. She does the same thing every time. This is what she says while crying. "Cow! Cow!" So we give her cow to her. Then it goes to "Bink-be! Bink-be!" So we give her binky to her. Next it is "Milky!" Now she gets her milk. It never fails. She goes through the list every time. We all know (even Lenny and Nathan) that we better be able to find those three things quickly.

Brooke loves to sing. She chooses one word and sings it all different kinds of ways. She does it alot when we are sitting in the car line waiting to pick up or drop off Lenny for school. Anyway, not too long after Christmas my mom was here to see us. Brooke was showing Meemaw all of her new dolls. Brookie loves to hold her dolls and rock them back and forth. Mom showed her how to sing to her dolls. So now Brooke sings to them all the time. It's so cute to watch her rocking her babies back and forth and singing, "Baby. Baby. Baby."

Nathan calls Brooke "Gooke" and Brooke calls Nathan "Nate". In the past two weeks I had to take Brooke to a doctor appointment by herself. Each time as we were leaving, she looked over to Nathan's car seat and started yelling, "Nate! Nate!" She was trying to tell me that I forgot Nathan. They are not used to going somewhere without each other. It was very cute.

Every time we eat a meal or a snack, Brooke asks for a nap-me (napkin) so that she can clean up any of her messes. This doesn't really make sense coming from the girl that doesn't mind if she has food all over her face, hair and clothes. But she has to make sure the table is clean. Nathan and Lenny are completely opposite of Brooke. They do not like to be dirty and Nathan rarely gets food all over him. He is the easiest one to clean after meals.

Brooke and Nathan both love to take their medicine. It's crazy because I remember being a kid and mom having an awful time getting me and Kristi to take our medicine. It always came right back up. Gross, I know. I'm sure glad my kids aren't like that. Brooke and Nathan were both on amoxicillin for the first time ever for their ear infections. They both wanted to be first to get their medicine. I found out that Brooke is going to be a tough girl after having rough brothers. One day when it was Brooke's turn to go first, Nathan was so mad that he lunged at her, wrapped his arms around her, and tackled her to the ground. He did it three times. I'm not joking at all. Poor Brookie. She just got up, pushed him and then cried for 20 minutes. We've always said that Nathan will be our football player. He's already practicing.

Brooke loves to keep us on our toes with her. She has started this from the very beginning. Let's just think of a few of the cases here. Hmm.

At two weeks old she got her Nasoalveolar molding to start the process of closing her cleft lip. That, I thought was going to be the death of me. It didn't bother her nearly as much as it did me. I cried every day because it was so terrible to deal with.

At seven weeks old, she decided to stop breathing on me one day. Right before the ambulance got to our house, she started breathing again. A trip to the hospital and a stay overnight, then we were back home. I had a little talk with her about that one and she hasn't tried that again on me.

At three months she had her cleft lip repair. The operation went smoothly. It took a little longer for us to be able to see her because she had a reaction to the morphine and they had to give her something else to reverse the morphine.

At six months she had her palate repaired and tubes put in her ears. I told everyone, even if it was a janitor walking down the hall, that she was allergic to morphine. They told me that they just wouldn't give her as much. Well, she had a very terrible reaction to it in the middle of the night after her surgery. I wasn't sure she was going to make it through that. They finally got her stabilized and sent us off to the pediatric ICU for the rest of the night.

Last summer she had surgery to have a cyst removed that was there since birth. She did fine with that. Luckily, no morphine.

A few weeks later at the beach, after jumping on the bed, she fell and busted her head open. Five stitches and 2 and 1/2 hours in the emergency room.

A few months ago Lenny accidentally smashed Brooke's finger in the bathroom door. It was awful! I can't imagine the pain of that. About a week later her fingernail fell off. I thought I was going to pass out.

Okay, you think she would give us a break right? Wrong. After being on the amoxicillin for a few days for her ear infection, she broke out in hives. Turns out she is allergic to penicillin too.

She just doesn't give us a break! It's a good thing she is so darn cute and loving! I'm sure I forgot about a few things too.

Talking about my girly girl. I thought I would include this picture of her not being so girly. She is building something. I'm not so sure how good her safety goggles would work on the side of her head like that. She's a mess that girl. Knowing her history, I probably should have made her put the goggles on right.

More Fun Weather and Other Stories

Not in the form of snow, which by the way I'm still keeping my fingers crossed for it. This weekend the weather was so nice, it felt like Spring already. We had to make sure we got the kids out in it to play, even though Brooke and Nathan both have ear infections right now. They haven't complained one bit though.

We took them to an elementary school close to our house so they could ride their bikes and play at the playground. Lenny is doing a great job riding his bike. Brooke and Nathan kept wanting to go on a sidewalk that was steep. They would go down it so fast. I was nervous and stood close by the entire time.


Brooke climbing the rock wall.

Nathan at the top after he climbed the wall.


Ear Infections

Last week Brooke had a hearing test on Tuesday. The audiologist told me that Brooke had a pretty bad ear infection in her right ear. Let me tell you, that was totally news to me. She hasn't complained at all! So I took her to her pediatrician to get it checked out. Yes, she did indeed have an ear infection. Since I didn't know about her ear infection and Nathan has been fussy, I asked if she would take a peek at Nathan's ears. I thought Nathan has been fussy because he is getting all of his 2 year molars right now. It turns out that he also had an ear infection. This is the first one for both of them, I think so anyway. It was always hard to tell when Lenny had an ear infection too because he didn't get a fever and never stopped eating. He had alot of ear infections though.

Birthday Parties Galore

In the time frame of two weeks, Lenny had four birthday parties for five of his friends. He has friends who are twins, that's how it came to five kids. Yes, we've been kind of busy with parties.

It started with his friend Mikie's Under the Sea Miniature Golf Party. He turned "fore". The entire family was invited to this party and we all had a great time. Tracy is so good at planning parties and always goes over the top. Her parties are always a lot of fun.

They had five holes of miniature golf for the kids and two crafts. She also had tons of themed food too. When we got there the kids had to get the putter out of their golf bag that was sitting out front and that they later took home as the party favor.

As our kids started to play, Dominic said that it looked like our kids thought they were playing hockey instead of mini golf. I think he was right and it also sounds about right for our kids. Later at home, they were still playing hockey with the golf clubs and ball so I had to take it away from them for a while. I think we'll keep those outside.


If you want to hear more about Mikie's party, you can check it out here.

Later that week, Lenny had a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese for his friends Ben and Abby. The party was on a day where we had lots of ice. Gloria still came down to watch Brooke and Nathan so that Lenny and I could go together to the party. We had a lot of fun.

I didn't realize how popular my Lenny is with the girls. Abby's mom told me that Abby said that Lenny is her favorite boy in the class. Elizabeth still likes Lenny. Brooke's mom told me that she said she was going to marry Lenny. She also told me that Brooke said she gave Lenny a kiss on the cheek goodbye one day. I asked Lenny about it and he said that she did.

The next weekend we went to Lenny's friend Nina's birthday party at the Wacky Bear Factory. Can you guess what animal Lenny chose to make at the party? A frog, of course. And he named him Thomas, of course.


The next weekend was Ava's birthday party at the Gymnasium where Lenny had his party last year. They all had a great time. At this party, Taylor's mom said that she was asking when they were going to go to Lenny's party. He is quite popular.

And not to worry, he's friends with the boys too. He talks about Ben and David a lot. If I ask Lenny who he likes to play with the most at school, he say's, "All of my friends. I like to play with all of them."

It is always so fun for me to watch Lenny playing with his friends. I love it.

Just Like His Big Brother

Nathan is so much like Lenny in so many ways. When Lenny was little, when he would be watching a Thomas movie, he would have all of his Thomas engines there and then play with the one that was in the show that he was watching. Nathan does that with the monster trucks. He brings all of the monster trucks in the room and then has to show them to us. He will pick up the one that is racing and play with it. He crashes it in to things and has a blast. Of course, the crashes are nothing new in our house. Lenny has LOVED crashes since before he turned two. There is always a crash in our house with his engines and monster trucks. Nathan has watched Lenny many times. Nathan will create a crash and then run to me saying, "Cash, Cash!"

Lenny has always lined up his engines in such a perfect row. He still does that. I can't tell you how many times I've walked in the bedroom to see engines lined up under the bed and peeking out. Nathan does the same thing. He lines up his monster trucks and Lenny's engines. Dominic told me that one day he was watching Nathan and Nathan lined up the engines and had the same colors grouped together.

They both have to hold the movie case while they are watching the movie. Lenny has always done that and studies everything on the case. That's also the way he decides if he is going to like the movie or not. If there is anything on the case that looks a tiny bit scary, he won't watch it. It's crazy. When we do finally get him to watch it, he loves the movies. He wouldn't watch Flushed Away for the longest time and now he asks to watch it.

Now Nathan does the same thing and has to hold the movie case while he is watching it and then points out things on the case as he sees them in the movie. Brooke could care less about the case except that she might be able to get a hold of the paper and tear it into pieces. That's her excitement.

Super Bowl

We are definitely Redskins fans in this house but we also feel obligated to be Steelers fans as well. Dominic's family is from right outside of Pittsburgh and are all fans. My side of the family is from West Virginia but not far from Pittsburgh. They are all fans too. So we were routing for the Steelers in the Super Bowl.

When Lenny was two years old, the Steelers won the Super Bowl and he wore a Steelers outfit to daycare. Now that Brooke and Nathan are two the Steelers won again. So...


here's my littlest Steelers fan in the same outfit that Lenny wore.

From the Mouth of a Two Year Old

Nathan first. When we pull into the driveway from being out somewhere, I always ask Brooke and Nathan who wants to get out of the van first. Every time, Nathan says "Me-uh". Always. Well one day he fell asleep while we were out. When I was ready to get him out of the van, I gave him a kiss on the cheek. He lifted his head, looked at me and started shaking his head. Then he said, "No. Gook (Brooke)." He then put his head back down and went back to sleep. It was so cute!

Brookie's turn. She loves to say "oh" all the time now. She has definitely picked that word up from Lenny who uses it a lot. I'll just give an example of when she says it. We were at the playground and she was climbing up the slide. I said, "Brooke, you're not supposed to go up that way. You are supposed to use the steps." She looked at me and smiled and said, "Oh." Just like she was saying, "Oops. Sorry."

Just A Few More Pictures (as if there weren't enough already)

Another use for the basketball hoop. Apparently, it is a good storage place for Monster Trucks. Okay, my kids really do play with it the right way too. I promise.


My little sweet peas!


Nathan isn't the good sleeper that he used to be. He usually goes to bed but then a few minutes later comes walking down the stairs and wants to lay on the chair. Anyway, Lenny fell asleep on the couch the other night (as he does every night again!) and Dominic carried him up to his bed. After he was done, Dominic asked me to come to the stairs. He said that when he carried Lenny up, he was stepping carefully to make sure that he didn't step on Daisy. But it wasn't Daisy.


He must have been too tired to make it downstairs and he just stopped at the top.


If anyone is still reading this, I will be surprised. I think this is the longest post I've ever had. Thanks for staying interested!