Three Beans

Hayden doesn't look very happy in this photo, but he really was having fun. Just thought I'd post a new picture of my three beans. Life is life. Things are going good. Wrote experiences for their one private journal to remember. Maybe I'll have another good story tomorrow. For now, its back to laundry and other chores.

New Haircut

Jared gave Hadley a new haircut the other day because her hair was getting so long that it was getting in her food while eating. She got a cute little haircut and then the other day, I mentioned how cute it was to Jared and how I like that shorter length towards the front. He responded with "What shorter length?"

Confounded, we went to investigate. He looked at her and said, "I did not do that. I cut it even."

He asked her what happened to her hair and she responded with, "I cut it."

He asked, "How did you cut it?"

"With the scissors."

"Where's your hair?"

"In my bed."

"Show me."

We proceeded up the stairs and she showed us the clump of hair on the floor between her bed and the wall.

He asked, "Where did you get the scissors?"

"In the box."

She showed him right where they were and removed them from it.

Needless to say, she cut her hair on her own and her curious ways seemed to not turn out disastrous, but we hid the scissors out of the box just to be safe.

You Shouldn't Play With Fans

What can I say? Other than, we don't play with fans.

I was downstairs getting some things together and all of a sudden I hear crying and "Help!"

Hayden then reports to me that Hadley's hair is caught on something and they need my help. She comes around the corner and walks down to show me this. She was playing with my portable fan that she found in the upstairs drawers and held it a little too close to her hair.

That baby was wound on there good and tight. It took me a while to free the hair from the actual fan and then even more time spent detangling the massive mess. She kept complaining that it hurt as I combed it out and I kept asking her, "Do we play with fans?"

The answer was always, "No, mommy!" with tears streaming down her face. Lesson learned, I hope.

Where's Hadley?

If you are familiar with past posts, this question is asked every so often due to her spirited and no boundaries type of personality.

If you weren't told in advance, you probably would've never known I have three kids on windy cold days at the kindergarten playground because my daughter likes to crawl inside the basket undercarriage of the stroller and cuddle up there. I have no complaints for this behavior due to the fact that I don't have to fight or chase her to the car. I have never taken a picture of her doing it, but today, I got her in the background of a picture so I am posting this picture and saying, "Where's Hadley?"

"Do you see her yet?"

Here's a hint: She's in yellow and pink.

Dr. Suess' Birthday - March 2nd

This week, Hayden's school has been celebrating Dr. Suess' birthday by doing activities all week long. I took some pictures to document the fun.

Mixed-up Monday - Wear mixed-up clothing (sorry, I didn't remember to take a picture. I had him in khakis with a plaid polo over a striped t-shirt and swimming trunks on top of the khakis.) Hayden really enjoyed wearing it.

Top Hat Tuesday - Wear a silly "Suessy" kind of hat. I have to put this little bit in about the hat. We do not own any type of silly hats in our house let alone top hats so I became my psychotic self and decided I would take some strips of felt the morning of and sew a top hat real quick. I thought I did an amazing job under a time crunch like that :0)

Wacky Wednesday - Wear silly socks. We only had christmas socks to wear which was still silly.

Twin Thursday - Thing "One" and Thing "Two" day. Dress as a twin with another friend. Hayden chose to be a triplet with his friends Owen and Jackson. Three times the fun.

H & O

J & H

Funny Food Friday- Wear lots of green for Green Eggs and Ham.

She Didn't Make It :(

I feel like we have made some huge strides with Hadley and going potty in the toilet. I trust her a whole lot when out and about since she finally accepts using public bathrooms now. Today, I am partially to blame for the accident though.

I usually have her go potty before leaving the house but for some reason, I forgot to remind her and decided to go food shopping after drop-off of Hayden. Everything was going great and I then asked her to go potty. She said, "Yeah, I have to go potty," and decided to walk down to the front of the store to go. I had a cart full of things since I was close to being done and we tried to go in the family bathroom, but it was occupied. We waited since I heard them finishing up. I kept growing more and more concerned in my gut because I wasn't too sure if Hadley could truly hold it for much longer. I debated going in the women's room, but wondered how to shuffle kids and cart in there and figured they'd be out in the same amount of time.

Thirty seconds before the door opened, I hear and noticed trickling coming from her bottom down the cart and into a puddle on the floor. I was beside myself and felt like I had let her down. What made my blood boil was that the person coming out of that "family bathroom" that we so desperately needed to use, was none other than an employee of the store.

REALLY?!!

She couldn't have used the women's room? She walked on by and I started to wonder how the heck I was going to clean the mess up. I looked for paper towels and there were none in any of the bathrooms. I looked down the area and no associates were present to flag down, to help clean up this possibly preventable accident. I went a couple paces away from my girls in the cart and leaned over the pharmacy counter to ask them to page for assistance in a clean up. I waited and waited and still nothing. I poked my head around the corner again and an employee walking by asked if I needed anything. I finally explained that my daughter had an accident and needed paper towels to wipe things dry (particularly the cart and my daughter).

The employee reassured me it was okay and went to get paper towels for me. She returned and I started to salvage things. I removed Hadley's socks and shoes all soaked in pee and placed paper towels underneath her. The guy came to help clean up and I was told to go finish shopping. I completed my task and checked out and went to leave for the car.

We stopped at the door to get a receipt checked and Hadley told the lady she peed her pants. The lady said, "Oh no. Did you do your potty dance?"

She then proceeded to ask if I had seen the potty dance on TV.

I smirked and said, "Yes, I think so," and then proceeded to think in my mind instead of say out loud that I knew she needed to go potty and got her to the potty, but it was occupied by the employee standing 2 feet to the right of you. I figured that would be inappropriate and not very Christ-like.

I proceeded with a smile saying thank you and walked to the car. I unloaded everything and left Hadley for last. Luckily, my supply of clothes and things were stocked in the car and I proceeded to clean her off and change her.

To make matters more frustrating, I needed to get some more gas and stopped at a nearby station. I pulled up to the first pump and got out. I ran my card and went to select the right grade of gas and it wasn't responding or registering. I hit cancel and then backed up to the one behind me. I did the same thing and that one flashed a screen saying "See cashier inside for authorization."

Seriously! At that point, my baby was screaming in the car and I had no motive to unload both kids and go inside to get permission to pump gas for my car. Fed up, I got back in my car after canceling yet another transaction and went to the next closest gas station. After I pulled up to a pump, a worker approached me and asked if I wanted him to pump the gas for me. I just chuckled and said, "No thanks. I've got it."

There was no way I was letting him do it for me so I could sit in a car listening to screaming baby while he did it for me. I didn't know if I had to tip him either so why not circumvent that whole situation all together.

Kind of frustrating to experience all that at once and felt a little done after that. I was very proud of one thing though. I never once screamed at Hadley and lost my cool. It truly wasn't totally her fault and I am glad I kept reminding myself that to help her learn better.

Our Christmas

Better late than never? So I've been super busy and a little overwhelmed so I am just now posting about our Christmas this year.

This was the first year we didn't do any traveling what so ever and I have to admit, it was quite enjoyable. We didn't have to rearrange the kids sleeping schedules or try to keep them out of trouble in a foreign environment and the kids got to go to sleep in their own beds and wake up to Santa's presents the next morning.

Christmas Eve, we went over to grandma and grandpa's house for the present exchange. We take turns with one sibling each year and we had Jared's youngest sister this year. I had a lot of fun shopping for her. I love to cook and I remember having a conversation with her about how she wanted to get into cooking more. I bought her most of my favorite things when it comes to cooking and they were received with great appreciation. I was glad I did it because of the sound of what she had been using (peeled, busted pans). I also gave her the movie Julie and Julia which is a great movie as well.

The next morning, we set our alarm clocks for 5:45 in the morning so we could be up to catch their expressions and excitement. Well, Addison woke up at 6 and had the right idea without knowing anything.

We waited and waited and then at around 7 in the morning, Hadley finally woke up.

We let her check out her stocking and then got her to go wake up Hayden since it was getting later and we were getting antsy.

After Hayden was done checking out his stocking, we did the Christmas story watching a short movie clip of it since I couldn't find my felt figures at the time. Then, we had them open their big presents from Santa. We played with those and then took a break to eat breakfast (I always feel sick on Christmas due to lack of eating habits on that day minus the three times I have been pregnant as it is :0)).

After eating some scrambled eggs and sausage, we continued opening the rest of the presents. The kids enjoyed their new toys. Santa brought Hayden the Lego Star Wars he had asked for

and Hadley got some Littlest Pet Shop animals of her own finally.

Addison got some little people stuff and more things to chew and bite on.

The afternoon was spent with some visits from Jared's family members from out of town. I was so happy this Christmas was so much more peaceful and relaxing. Such a nice change of pace from the usual.