What a month!

Ben has had quite the busy month!  In this past month he has:

Popped 3 new teeth out with 1 more on the way.

Learned how to crawl normally, although he still prefers this:

Learned how to sit himself up from crawling.

Learned how to pull himself up to standing using whatever or whoever is handy.

Taken his first flight out to Utah where he met his cousins for the first time and got to spend some quality time with Grandpa.  He was passed around quite a bit.  Here is is with one of his favorite aunts, Holly.   And one of his other favorite aunts, Amber. His sweet cousins – soon to be his country cousins. And another aunt – Taralea.  I wonder if he will slow down this next month? Somehow I doubt it.

Karate Kids

We heard that they were remaking Karate Kid, so we thought we would give our kids a chance to try out.  I can’t wait to show Carter’s to his future girlfriends. 

Really, we signed Carter up for some Kung Fu classes this summer through the Y and he wanted to show me that he already knew karate.  Yes, you should fear his mad skills:

And not to be outdone, Samantha wanted to show off her Kung Fu moves:

Be afraid, be very afraid.

Back in the day…

When we were young and innocent…

I found these pictures recently and thought they were fun. Looking at them now, I really think our kids are a good mix of both of us.

I am the cutest one (of course) – sitting down with brown hair:And if you can’t tell, Mike is the smallest. Weren’t the 80’s great?

Common Sense?

Let me preface this post by saying that I’m not looking for a pity party here.  I’m not looking for comments saying how beautiful/thin/good looking I am (although those are certainly welcome on any other post).  This is just some good old fashioned venting, plain and simple. 

I can’t tell you how many times I have been asked over the past couple of months if I am pregnant.  No, I am not.  I have 3 beautiful (in my own biased opinion) children and a cursed Peterson gene that causes me to hold onto all the weight I gained with those 3 children in my mid-section.  Believe me when I say that if I could trade it for a little junk in the trunk I would.  I try to brush off the pregnancy comments but really, they are starting to hurt.  I am doing my best. I have been working out.  I do my crunches/planks/whatever before bed. So cut a girl some slack! 

When in doubt, I suggest that we take a “don’t ask, they’ll tell” policy.  This may be common sense for some, but apparently not for everyone.  If someone has blessed baby news to share, they will.  If they don’t, well you can leave that to your own imagination.   Give it a few months, and you will probably get your answer.  And now I feel better.  At least a little. 

My cup runneth over

So the kids just got more!

Apparently our neighbor a few houses down has quite the dandelion problem. And what mom doesn't love flowers? It's good to be loved.

Tummy Troubles

We have had some stomach virus going around our house lately.  Ben got it last Monday, Samantha and I got it on Thursday, Mike got it on Friday, and Carter just got it today.  Luckily, it’s short-lived.  We threw up 3-4 times, felt like crap for a day and then we were back to normal for the most part.  Anyways, the point of this isn’t to inform you of the vomit-fest that has been going on here lately, but to point out some key differences in my children.  And let me preface this by saying that I love them all the same. 

Ben: Projectile vomited in kid care at the YMCA.  Within minutes was smiling and playing like nothing had happened. 

Samantha: Tells me that her stomach hurts.  I ask her if she was hungry.  She says “no, I just need to throw up” in her cute little voice.  And yes, that means that she had already thrown up in her shoe and on the living room floor.  She goes back into the bathroom a few times and throws up like it happens all the time.  She prefers to have a little seat to sit on while she does so.  As I am in the upstairs bathroom I hear her singing a little song as she sits there waiting to throw up. 

Carter: Threw up in his bed tonight.  The screams coming from his room made me think that he was having terrible nightmares.  He is wailing (to his credit I think it was mainly due to the vomit in his eye).  As I get him up and bring him into the bathroom, he is crying and going on about how this is the most terrible thing that could ever happen to him and he wishes that he would never throw up and how he had even said a little prayer that he would be better, and how this is just terrible, etc.  As he is back in his room getting clean pajamas on he is still crying about how terrible this is, and “oh no!  I have use another pillow!  That was my favorite pillow!” Again, to his credit, he bought his memory foam pillow with his own money. “Now I can’t wear those other pajamas! I just wanted to sleep well!  This is horrible!” and well, you get the picture. 

I do love all of my children equally, but some seem to have better coping skills than others. 

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Sammy is Three!

And we had a fabulous day!  It all started with strawberry waffles, a new favorite.  She had a hard time not stuffing it in her face long enough to take the picture.  It took probably 4 tries to get one without her looking at her food.  Then she got to choose where we spent the rest of the day and where else would a little monkey want to go but Monkey Joe’s?  It’s a bounce house with huge slides.  She decided to invite her best (and sadly pretty much only) friend Hallie to come along. 

Can you tell who has a photographer for a mother? If you can’t from this, maybe you can from these (hint: it’s not Samantha): She is adorable, and yes, she knows how to ham it up.  Anyways, they ran and jumped and slid and played for hours.  It was fabulous.  After they had all run out of energy (I guess the power lunch of Tootsie Rolls and DumDums from the arcade didn’t cut it) we headed home for some real food.  And cake.  Dora cake.  What else?  I am hoping for another theme next year.    Then the gifts:

Funny story – Carter has been concerned about Samantha’s lack of diversity when it comes to her babies.  He was absolutely adamant about getting her a “dark-skinned” baby.   Hallie was thinking along the same lines, but she chose the “light-skinned” version (Carter’s words, not mine).  So Samantha ended up with Bi-cultural twins.  And she loves them.  They are named Kylee and Carlee.  Although Samantha says her R’s with a New Jersey accent, so really, they are Kylee and Kylee.  This has the makings of a very interesting social experiment…She also got some accessories for the twins, and some socks.  Can you see the enthusiasm for the socks?

  No, she really likes them, but I have to give Mike a hard time because he has a thing with socks (not a weird thing, he has just dealt a lot with them at work.  He knows a lot about socks.  Ask him). 

And because when I asked Samantha what she really wanted for her birthday and she told me “a blue light saber and a sword so I can battle the bad guys”, I decided she needs more girly things in her life.  A friend gave me some amazing tutus for her and she loved them!It’s so fun to see her girly side, I need to get her into some dance classes or something. 

Sammy is such an awesome girl!  Here are some of my favorite things about her:

She is so laid back and easy going.  I get comments all the time about what an easy little girl she is.  She is very brave and doesn’t scare easily (Carter makes her go down into the basement with him).  She is an awesome sister, always thinking about her brothers and how to make them happy (and occasionally how to make them scream, but whatever).  She is funny and loves to make people laugh.  She loves to have her toenails painted – purple and pink are her favorite colors, but she doesn’t discriminate, she will tell you they are all her favorite.   She loves everyone, even the bad guys, as she tells us quite frequently.  She loves nursery, although her teachers tell me she doesn’t say a word the whole time.  She loves to sing, although she won’t do that in nursery either.  She is a mama’s girl, which I secretly love.  She can’t say her R’s, so book mark sounds like book mike.   She has an obsession with toe jam.  More than once in a store she has sat down on the floor, taken off her shoes and socks and picked out her toe jam.  She doesn’t love sweets.  She can rarely finish a whole dessert.  Having said that, she still asks for poop treats occasionally, although she has been potty trained forever.  She loves to play pretend.  She has some of the funniest facial expressions, she really gets into it when she talks.  I could go on, but just let it be known that she is a very special little girl and I love her guts!