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Kiddo Books

I just posted a page that “houses” lists of the books the kids have.

There’s always so much confusion about what books we have or don’t have that we sometimes get duplicates (not often though – very impressive!) or we sometimes don’t receive “favorites” because everyone thinks we already have them (If You Give a Mouse a Cookie comes to mind…)

The page includes a link to our Amazon Wish list … anything we should add to our list?

We’ve also just discovered that some authors post their books on YouTube! The kids received We’re Going on a Bear Hunt for Christmas … and I knew that there were hand movements and such, so I did a search. Wouldn’t you know it, the author – Michael Rosen – video taped himself reading it with all the fun stuff.

Various Wonderings

I’ve had various thoughts float through my head over the past few days:

Is it bad that the kids like Hot Pockets? And worse that I know Logan can eat two of them?

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Why did the new sheets only work at keeping Burke in bed for one night?

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Why is it that Logan can play by himself for long periods of time if I’m out of sight, but as soon as he sees me, he starts crying?

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How the heck did one little girl (with only a few shots taken by others) take over 1500 pictures in the span of 3 days??

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What the heck song is Burke singing, anyway??

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Is Logan ready for potty training?

Not Quite.

Not Quite.

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Why is Burke guarding the potty from Logan?

Who Knows.

Who Knows.

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Why does Maggie sing everything?
(Oh ya. Mommy and Granny Frani have done that their whole lives too…)

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Why is it that boxes are so fascinating to kids? And why, then, do we purchase actual toys?

Because you can play peek-a-boo with Mommy

Even Toy Boxes

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Am I scarring Burke for life by putting some of Maggie’s undies on him because all of his are dirty?

Snow?

Remember all that snow we had last week?? It’s pretty much GONE. Over 20 inches of snow disappeared while we were in Vermont. The kids are heartbroken!

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Well Crap.

It’s official. Brenda isn’t returning to us. 😦 I’m so sad!! I’m not sure what to tell the kids…I’m sure that we’ll figure something out when the time comes, but blah.

Anyone know of someone available to be a nanny for 3 busy-but-wonderful kids? πŸ™‚

Christmas Afternoon Craziness

After our morning of craziness, Christmas carried on. Everyone returned from their travels to in-laws or church (or a nap in my case πŸ˜‰ ) and we set in on the mountain of gifts.

There were too many gifts to go through, but I have to say, I think Aunt Sharon and Uncle Jason take the prize for the most-thought-out, most-played-with-so-far gifts. They gave Logan a “cell phone” that you can record a voice on to play back with the push of a button. (Logan loves pushing buttons … and can often be seen playing with MY cell phone.)

They gave Burke a super cute computer.

Future Blogger

Future Blogger

He was very upset thisΒ  morning when Mike was Skyping with Pop Pop. He wanted Pop Pop to show up on his computer. LOL

And they gave Maggie a digital camera. I believe there have been over 300 pictures taken so far. Most of them by Maggie…but a few that the grown-ups have taken as well. The camera has this neat feature where you can position different hats/ears/noses/scenes around the item you’re shooting. Ya. The adults go a hold of it while desserting/drinking Christmas Eve. You’ll see those photos in a separate post soon πŸ˜‰

Maggie had a blast handing out gifts, and was even starting to read the tags correctly toward the end of the mountain.

Santas Little Elf

Santa's Little Elf

Nana made new aprons for her little kitchen helpers. Maggie wore her’s for the rest of the day. Burke put his on to help bake cookies (with their new kid sized baking set) later in the afternoon.

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New Apron

As per typical of a 15 month old, the shiny paper was a favorite for Logan.

Shiny Paper

Oooh Shiny Paper

All of the gifts were opened by 2pm.

Here are some random pictures from throughout the madness.

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Grey seems to be obsessed with Maggie

Grey seems to be obsessed with Maggie

Cruising to Vermont

We drove to Vermont yesterday and had a relatively easy time. (*gasp* No potty stops!) Burke fell to sleep for a little bit, but for the most part all 3 kids were awake and in pretty good moods the whole way.

Along the way, Maggie and I had the following conversation:

Maggie: What’s your name?

Me: My name is Nancy.

Maggie: Hi Nancy, I’m a little girl!

We also had a nice family head banging moment when Evlis’Β  A Little Less Conversation came on my iPod. Yep – good times.

Carrot Fries

While trying to get dinner together for my fairly picky eaters last night, I asked Maggie if she wanted sweet potatoes. (I should know better…if I ask the answer is “no.” If I just present and make them eat one bite, the answer is still “no,” but they end up eating the whole bowl anyway.) Thinking of what other veggies I may have readily available, I asked if she wanted carrots. “Yes! The big kind. With Dip.” Ahhh…baby carrots instead of sliced, canned ones. Good choice. And this kid will eat anything with dip (Ranch salad dressing.)

Surprisingly, Burke gets in on it too, “Yes! Carrots!” I had to stop myself from blurting out “Really?!” ….okay!

Wouldn’t you know it? They’ve gone bad. Figures, right? Well…lately I’ve been getting the pre-shredded carrots since they are quick to put in the crock pot burger soup, and they’re a zero point snack for me, so I figured – what the heck, let’s see if they’ll try these.

Burke took one look and said, “Carrot fries!” and practically horked tons of them down. Score!! He even had to stop eating to use the potty and was deathly afraid Maggie would eat the rest of the bag while he was gone. Double score!

Maggie enjoyed her’s with Dip.

And Logan toyed with a few as well. (Monkey see…)

You know I’ll be stocking up on THOSE from now on – getting kids to eat veggies is next to impossible. Chalk one up for mommy! πŸ™‚

CRAZY Fun

So, we got about 20 inches of snow over the past few days (CRAZY)…and yesterday it warmed up enough so that we could all get out in the back yard for a little bit (Fun). πŸ™‚

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It’s hard to tell just how much there is with just the kids in the pictures, so here are some random outdoor shots as well.

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Moon Poop

Maggie was pretending to give out presents to everyone tonight. We had to make a big show of “opening” these presents while she watched. We then had to ask “What is it?” To which she’d reply, “Moon Poop! hahaha!” Where the heck did she get that? LOL

If she happened to open a “present” that we gave to her…and it happened to be Moon Poop – she’d say “No more Moon Poop!” and throw it into the other room.

At one point she chastised me for giving her a snowball. heh Then she started requesting them.

So…we broke into a “snowball” fight. The kids would designate where the snowball hit: in your eye, on your nose, in your mouth, on your head. Sometimes we’d catch them, sometimes we’d catch them in our mouths (watch out for yellow snow! They’d tell us the color as well)…but mostly they just hit their mark and we’d react accordingly.

LOL Now that’s MY kind of snowball fight πŸ˜‰

How Do You Remember What Day of the Week it is?

So…I’ve been home with the kids all day all by myself for, let’s see…today is going on day 3.5…and seriously – how do you remember what day of the week it is? I can usually tell what day it is by when I go into work vs. when I work from home vs. when we hit church vs. when we hit Costco (usually πŸ˜‰ ). I’ve had to stop and really think about what day of the week it is for the past two days since they all seem like Saturdays to me (without the Costco run).

I’m seriously curious to know how stay-at-home moms keep their days apart. And while we’re at it … what do you DO with the kids all day? I can fill the typical Saturday/Sunday with fun stuff – but after a few days of the same ‘ol mom stuff (that’s usually fun and exciting), I can see that the kids are already getting bored πŸ˜›

I need some creative ideas to keep ’em going. (preferably non-messy, non-expensive πŸ˜‰ )

My hat goes off to you guys. I love my kids, but I’m so not built for this stay-at-home stuff…especially when we’re all stuck in the house all day! I know. I’m pathetic. *sigh*