Today was our 3 year checkup for Paige and Cole.  The appointment was great.  Nothing shocking.  The doctor said the kids looked fantastic and I think I was giddy when he started updating their medical records and started deleting all their preemie problems and medications out of their current files.  Wow.  I wish he would have let me hit the delete key.  So he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary for either kid.

Here’s the stats:

Paige 31.3 lbs   55% weight   /  37.75″    69% height

Cole  27.3 lbs   7% weight    /    35.25″    7 % height

P.S.  We didn’t forget it’s Paige and Cole’s 3rd birthday!  Paige had her school party yesterday, Cole’s school party is tomorrow and we are having a big bash for them on Sunday.  So birthday party pictures are coming soon…

The place: our bedroom.
The time: 6 AM

Paige: Mommy I slept the whole night.
Tobie: That’s great Paige.  I’m so proud of you.
Me: (thinking to myself) Give me 15 more years like that and then I’ll give you a lollipop.

2008 Year In Review : See How Far We’ve Come! - 2008 turned out to be a great year. Nothing but fantastic memories. You know the drill, I try to cram as many pictures (some new, some old) for each month of the year into a 3 minute video. Enjoy.

2007 Year In Review

2006 Year In Review

Christmas is over.  Bummer.  It was better than great.  If I could have pictured my ideal Christmas…I think we just had it.  The lead-up to Christmas was awesome.  The kids appreciated everything from Christmas songs and movies, to the decorations, to the Christmas lights on the streets.  We had tons of family (my entire side) in for the Holiday and that made it more fantastic.  So many people for the kids to dazzle…so many people to shower them with love.  It’s what I always thought the Holidays should be.  At one point…Drew had the option of having me read a book to him or my grandma (aka G-G-ma) and he chose G-G-ma.  Aaaawww…so sweet.  Two days before Christmas we went to the Railroad park and rode the trains and saw Christmas lights.  Luckily we got there in perfect time because we were on the second train and we only waited about 25 minutes.  When we got off the train the line to board was weaving almost out to the parking lot.  It was super cold and I can only imagine how annoyed Eric would have been if we had been in the back of that line.  In fact I think he said that if he pulled into the parking lot and saw that line he would not have got out of the car.  For the Christmas train ride…the park has Characters such as Elmo and Frosty and Scooby on site for the kids.  Our girl that freaked out on Pluto at Disneyworld was walking around high-fiving as many characters as she could.  The park also had Santa in a train that you could wait in line for…but we thought maybe for this year the thought of Santa might be more appealing than actually meeting him.  We’ll see how it goes next year, but I’m glad we didn’t have them meet Santa this year.

On Christmas Eve we went to church and Paige and Cole were supposed to sing Christmas carols in front of the congregation with the preschool classes.  They were like deer in headlights, but it was so cute seeing them willingly go up and there and be so brave once again.  I hope we got some pics of them…because they looked so adorable in their Christmas hand-me-down dress-up.

Christmas morning they came downstairs and immediately “got” that Santa had come.  One thing I’m going to have to talk to Santa about for next year is the candy canes.  Yuck.  Big sticky yuck.  And that’s the only thing they were excited about!!  Not the bounty of toys that Santa left, not the cookies that Santa’s helper stayed up the night before making for them…just those sticky sugar sticks that aren’t licked, but chomp, chomp, chomp…gone.

This Christmas had to be the best Holiday too because it didn’t seem like we went crazy with the gifts.  There were 15 people in our house so of course there were a lot of gifts…but I know Eric and I didn’t go crazy with buying presents (darn recession!) and I felt everyone else was in the same boat.  Okay….E was VERY generous to Mommy this year (perhaps making up for the Christmas Eve Costco sweats from last year??  ) so that was pretty cool too.  Aunt Nikki once again blessed us with FAO goodies which is always fabulous.  The key to gifts is to put away a lot and bust out one new toy a month.  Easier said than done.  I’m thinking this may have been the last “easy” Christmas for the kids because next year they are actually going to start pining and hoping and asking for certain gifts whereas this year they didn’t want anything so whatever we got them was an unexpected surprise. 

Well, the last of our guests left us this morning.  I think the kids have only asked me about 3-4 times “where’d everybody go?”.  Tonight at dinner Eric said something about Christmas being over.  Paige got very concerned and turned to me and said “why is Christmas over?”.  I tried to explain to her that it was just like Halloween where it’s only for one day then it’s over and we start getting ready for the next Big Thing.  Lucky for us…they can start looking forward to their birthday in a mere ten days.  Ten days and they’ll be three??  Where does the time go??  Am I going to be saying this and feeling like this when they’re ten??  I would like to freeze time right now…..that’d be the best Christmas present.

So we had our Christmas party at preschool yesterday marking today as the first day of winter break.  The party was great and I can’t express enough how much I love preschool and more specifically this preschool.  The party was an hour long and with Drew’s recent behavioral changes I wasn’t comfortable attending the party with all three kids.  Luckily Eric was willing to go too and I have to give him big kudos because he was the only dad that attended.  The school had amazing Christmas treats and cute little stations set up around the classroom for us to do Christmas crafts with our kids.  I’m going to admit that I don’t do crafts with the kids at home.  Partly because Paige eats everything and it grosses me out and also I don’t like the mess.  So it was nice to see the kids totally into it…playing with glue, scissors, glitter, threading with Cheerios.  They do so much more in preschool than they ever did with therapy.  Another funny thing about the party is that the other moms were joking with me about not feeding my kids at home because they were CHOWING down the Christmas treats and holding like three different treats in their hands at one time.  Little hoarders.  Cole was the last one to leave the party because he was literally eating treats off the floor under the snack table.  I think we got a cute picture of that too.  All in all, lovely party and I’m so sad that they won’t be able to go to preschool for two weeks.

So the My Gym place we take the kids to let them burn off energy and run around in a safe controlled environment  is also on winter break for two weeks.  uughh.  We had our last Kindermusik class before winter break this last week too.  Starting in the beginning of January we will be switching our Kindermusik location and teacher to take a program that can accomodate all three toddlers (and new baby when he makes his arrival).  I showed Eric a picture of our new Kindermusik teacher and he said “heck ya, if you ever can’t or don’t want to go to class, I’ll take the kids”.  Hopefully she’s as engaging as she is pretty.

I just got over a head cold that knocked me over.  It was a weird cold because for the most part I was functional during the day but at night I would get horrifically congested.  Last night I had a sore throat from hell and I kept thinking at least I can take medicine, but if the kids get this they’re going to die.  Well, Drew is sick right now and the other two (thank god) seem to be avoiding it.  Anyways, for the first time I allowed Drew to sleep with me last night.  I don’t even think he knew he was sleeping in my bed because in the morning he woke up, rolled over with a big smile on his face and said “hi Mommy”.  So cute.  But because Paige ruined all possibilities of any kids sleeping with us except once every two years in cases of extreme sickness, he is back in his own bed tonight.

So Cole was adorable today.  This is going to sound weird…but I don’t remember Eric peeing in front of the kids much.  I do remember Cole being fascinated with Eric peeing yesterday though.  So this morning he said “I just went pee-pee standing up”.  I didn’t witness it so I wasn’t sure until I saw Paige go to the bathroom right after Cole finished and she tried straddling the potty so she could go pee-pee standing up too.  Aaagggghhhh!!  Abort, abort Paige!!!!  Boys only!!  There is a new fascination with peeing standing up because I caught Paige standing up and peeing in the bathtub today as well.  Gross!  Luckily I had already taken Drew out of the tub and Cole was just about to get out when she did the deed.  I really like the idea of Cole peeing standing up because I can’t even count how many times he’s peed on his clothes because he doesn’t get his thing pointed down fast enough.  The only downfall to peeing standing up is he can only do it at home using a stool.  When we’re out in public he isn’t tall enough to reach the toilet.  Bummer.  Something else about Cole:  he’s really into that toddler mode of “I want to do it all by myself”.  I love that.  I’m all about empowering these guys.  I just told Eric that we were hanging in the backyard earlier today and Cole said he wanted to go on the big boy swing all by himself.  Go Cole!

Life is harder in many aspects without our Moxie.  She really did a great job cleaning up after our kids and us.  Now when things drop on the floor, I moan and weep for Mox.  She really was like a little Hoover vacuum cleaner.  It is amazing how much more work I have to do now to clean up after meals and snacks.  I had to go buy a new broom!  It is nice though having the kids play outside without stepping in poop.  Cleaning poop out of the grooves on the bottom of shoes is gross.  We will be going to the pound as soon as new baby is walking.  So….next Christmas should be really fun for the kids with a new canine companion.  Not this year though….I’m just going to get a lot of use out of my new broom.  Speaking of Moxie…I wasn’t sure what to tell the kids when they asked about her.  They did the first day and I panicked and told them she was at the doctor’s office.  Then the next day they asked again and I said the doctor called and Moxie is now in heaven.  They looked blankly at me for a millisecond then said “Mommy, more bacon”.  So basically they don’t get it…I don’t know if they will for a long, long time…but right now they’re fine.  Out of sight, out of mind.

So I think that’s about it.  Today I am 30 weeks preggers which is so nice sounding.  I definitely feel smaller this pregnancy than Drew’s pregnancy but this baby is supposed to be bigger than Drew.  Hmmmmmm…..so 48 days left and I feel pretty darn good and active.  Minus the head cold and the puking tonight of a Chick-Fil-A milkshake.  But other than that….life is groovy.