Reese

Reese.  Oh, Reese.  Where do I even start with Reese? 

Reese was our first baby to come home.  He came home at 3 1/2 weeks old.  He has made sure that there have been no dull moments since he came home. 

Reese is funny.  He makes us laugh.  A lot.  He says things that you don't expect to hear from a 3 year old.  He also tends to get things wrong, including lyrics from songs.  Recently he asked me if I saw the "PUS" truck (better known as the UPS truck) and asked me for a piece of bikini (zucchini) bread.  He loves to tell stories, which always start with, "Once a time".  He's just funny.  People always comment on how funny he is.  He's not trying to be funny, he's just a funny kid.

He LOVES to read books.  He would sit and listen to me read books all day long.  I love that.  I love that when I read to him he listens and really gets carried away in a book.  Later I'll hear him repeating what we read and even using the same voices I used when I read different characters. 

He is a very interesting dresser.  They pick out their own clothes and boy does Reese pick some crazy outfits.  He puts really strange things together and almost always has part (or sometimes all) of his clothes on backwards or inside out. Yesterday he wore a shirt that looked more like a dress.  I did turn it around for him because it was a button up polo and it was driving me crazy.  Most of the time I let him wear whatever he comes up with.

He is a Papa's and Grandpa's boy.  Somehow he always gravitates toward his Papa and his Grandpa.  He was the first to climb up into Papa's lap after the marathon.  He just can't get enough of his Grandpas.  Perhaps it's also because he's so darn cute and convincing and his Papa pretty much can't tell him "no".  He gets away with the most in our house because he can convince us in some adorable way to change our minds.  It doesn't happen often, but it happens more than it does with Aiden or Noah.  He just has an ability to soften people.  Every night when we tuck him in he gives me a kiss and 2 "monster" hugs.  I look forward to it every night.

He's so clearly the baby of the 3.  He gets Noah and Aiden, but especially Noah, to do things for him all the time.  You would swear he was much younger than the other 2 the way they do things for him.  That's just his personality.  He will forever be convincing others to do things for him.

 

Noah

Last week I told you a bit about Aiden.  Now I'll tell you about Noah.  Noah was originally our smallest.  He weighed in at a tiny 3 lbs. 8.6 oz.  He was so small and I distinctly remember crying over him because he was so tiny.  Now he's our biggest kid and an absolute brute.  He's in the 75th percentile for his age now.  He may not be a tiny baby anymore, but he's still a mama's boy.  He's also the child that gets under my skin the most.  He pushes every button and then some in an effort to irritate me.  The words, "Noah Henry" leave my mouth more than any other words.  So, here he is.

This is my favorite picture of Noah.  This was taken at about 10:25.  He was born at 10:16.  Not even 10 minutes old.  Isn't he cute?!

Noah is our "helper".  He always wants to help with things.  He wants to do grown-up jobs.  He is constantly taking out Nate's tools, my brooms and kitchen utensils and in this picture he took out Nate's earmuffs for work.  He always tells me he wants to do, "Daddy jobs".

This is Murray.  Murray is Noah's right hand man.  He loves that Murray more than anything.  He got it for Christmas when he was a year old and they have been inseperable ever since.  For a long time he couldn't even sleep without it.  I find Murray all over the place.  Yesterday I found him stashed in my corner curio cabinet.

Murray is also Noah's downfall.  A couple of weeks ago we were getting ready for church and one of the boys came upstairs and said, "Someone was sneaking cookies!".  When I went to check it out it didn't take long to realize who that someone was.  Murray was laying right next to a bunch of sprinkles.  Busted.

Noah is about as strong as a grown man.  When we were working on our garage/back yard earlier in the summer he would put things in the wheelbarrow and wheel it around the house. 

Noah is also the guy that has the hardest time when he gets sick.  A cold for Noah means his athsma is worse and we spend time with his inhaler and listening to his wheezing trying to decide whether or not we should take him in.  This picture is from this summer when he had croup.  We sat in the bathroom at about 3:00 in the morning. 

Noah LOVES Devyn.  It's one of my favorite things about him.  In this picture he was giving her a kiss.  They are buddies and he looks out for her.  She loves him just as much.

 

Noah is shy.  Painfully shy.  He is finally starting to come out of his shell and is a little bit braver all the time.  He has a smile that will melt your heart and sings his favorite songs all day long. 

 

He also thinks he's the boss.  He's the first to tell someone else what the rules are and probably the last to follow them.  He is such a stinker and is constantly getting into things.  He keeps me on my toes all day long. 

That's my Noah.  My sweet, naughty, shy little guy.

This is Aiden

I thought I would take the time to tell you a little bit about each of our children individually.  They are all so different and so unique in their own way.  Today, I give you Aiden.

Aiden was our biggest boy.  He came into this world as a "big" 4 lb., 16.93" baby.  He looked so big compared to what we expected.  He earned himself the nickname "big boy".  Now his nicknames range from Aiden J (his middle name is James) and Ace (Reese's nickname for him).  He loves trucks, trains, singing and reading.

 

He is also our most emotional child.  This particular day (yesterday) he was upset that he couldn't get his shoe on.  I told him to undo the velcro first.  Rather than try he sprawled out on the kitchen floor and cried.  Like any good mother I took a picture.  I worked around him until he was done crying and then reminded him that all he had to do was ask for help.  That's Aiden.  He needs to be left alone and come out of a tantrum on his own.  He sometimes puts himself in his room until he can be calm. 

He also loves to "work like Daddy".  He wears Nate's hats and pretends to go to jobs. 

He lines things up.  Cars or crayons or anything that he can put in a nice straight line.  I suppose he gets that from me.

He's also our child that gets hurt the most.  In less than a year he has hit his eye on his bed causing a deep gash in his eyebrow, bit through his lip twice and scraped up his face at the zoo.  This gem of a picture is the aftermath of falling at the zoo. 

 

He is also our polite child who loves to tell people how something they did was, "so sweet".  He talks to anyone who will give him the time of day.  He can go from happy and sweet to full blown tantrum in 1 second.  If he's hungry or tired there is no reasoning with him.  Again, he gets that from me. 

 

He is also known as the one who repeats things by one of our neighbors.  She's right.  He repeats things.  It's his way of learning.  He remembers things we say and repeats them in conversation.  I love putting him to bed at night because he repeats what I tell him.  Every night he tells me, "I love you. Good night.  Sweep dreams (although I say sweet dreams).  See you in the morning."  He knows exactly what to say to melt my heart. 

 

That's Aiden.  He's sweet and kind and full of emotion. 

A busy end to summer

As summer has come to a close we have been busy trying to squeeze in lots of fun before it's over.  I love summer and wish it would never leave.  These last couple of rainy, chilly days remind me of how long days can feel when we are all stuck inside together.  I miss sending the boys out to play in the backyard and not being following me around, "Mom, mom, mom"; which Devyn has now picked up and joins in.  Here's how we spent our last few weeks.

Labor Day weekend we went to Indianapolis with my family.  We left Friday afternoon and came home Monday afternoon.  We had a blast!  We went to the zoo, swam in the hotel pool, walked along the canal and downtown, mini-golfed (hilarious) and just spent time together.  Reese said his favorite part of vacation was "the hotel room and eating breakfast downstairs".  Kids are so easy to please.  I'll try to post some pictures soon.

We also celebrated 3 years since Reese had his "event" where he stopped breathing and his surgery.  It was last week Sunday.  As I expected I couldn't make it through even the morning without crying a little.  It's always a difficult and joyful day wrapped into one.  It's hard to relive the day, but at the same time a great reminder of how much we have to be thankful for. It could have ended so much worse.

We're now in the process of figuring out what is going on with Devyn (again).  She has been having some tummy issues for about 3 weeks now.  I took in a stool sample yesterday.  The Dr. called this morning and said the initial testing came back negative for things like parasites, c-diff (which the boys all had as babies) and some other things.  She's waiting on 1 test.  She suggested taking her off soy milk because she have developed some type of allergy of intolerance to soy.  So, now I had to switch her to rice milk.  Blah.  Hopefully She'll drink it.  The biggest problem is that I feed her soy butter and jelly for lunch a lot and now I have to rethink that.  She doesn't like sunbutter (made with sunflower seeds), so now I have to try and find another substitute.  I stood in an aisle at the grocery store and wanted to cry.  I don't know if I was just tired or feeling defeated by the fact that we're avoiding another food.  If this doesn't help her I don't know what's next.  I'm really hoping soy isn't the culprit!  Until we hear back from the Dr. and give her the rice milk for a few days we have to assume soy is it.  The good news is she hit 20 lbs.!  She is growing and even took her first step this week!  It was only 1 step and she hasn't done it again, but she wouldn't be Devyn if she wasn't stubborn. 

Goldilocks & the 3 Bears Party

Last weekend was the big birthday party.  We had a Goldilocks and the 3 Bears party.  It felt fitting.  The boys were so excited about having a party and Noah kept telling me, "I had a great time with my friends" when it was over.  That makes all the craziness of planning and preparing worth it.

 The birthday girl and her Papa (my dad).

 

 Noah

 

Reese

Aiden

None of them wanted to stop and take a picture.  They were playing a game where they had to find the hiding Goldilocks.  These were the best pictures I could get!

 The overflowing present table.  New toys save my sanity when the weather cools down and we aren't outside as much.  I only give them a couple toys at a time so that we have new toys all year long. 

 

 

The smash cake!

 

Bear paw cupcakes

Blowing out their candles.  I almost cry looking at this picture.  How did they get so old?!?

 Devyn ate her cake like a dainty little lady.

 

Aiden

Reese

Noah (by far our messiest eater)

I couldn't figure out how to turn this picture, but it's a picture of our first funeral.  That's right.  One of the birthday fish left this world after a couple of short weeks. 

 

The last couple of weeks have been busy,  which is why I didn't get around to posting these picture until now.  We've had dr. appointments.  We did the 3 year check-up.  Remind me to never let them have sugar before going to the dr. ever again.  Aiden and Reese are somewhere between the 25th and 50th percentile for height and weight and Noah is in the 75th!  They are doing great developmentally and even gave her a hug at the end of the appointment.  We also had Noah's allergy check-up.  The allergist laughs at me because I come with a long list of questions on a bright index card.  I keep the card in a binder with a detailed allergy plan and pictures of what his first reaction looks like.  He reminds me that I'm prepared and it will be okay and that I can call him at any time.  I always leave feeling much better.  We also had a sick Devyn.  She still seems a bit off, but it could be teeth too.  She'll be 14 months on Wed and still has no teeth.  No teeth!  Poor child.  Aiden is losing toenail from dropping something on his toe.  Just the usual.  Who knows what this crazy week will bring!

The big birthday weekend

Here is your first look at our three 3 year olds.  It's the best I could do.  Trying to get them to hold still long enough for a picture was no easy task.  When they woke up and went downstairs they saw that we had hung streamers in the dining room.  The excitement level was through the roof.  Then we let them open their first birthday cards.  They actually squealed.  This is why I LOVE birthdays.

 

 

After they opened their cards Nate surprised them with mickey mouse pancakes.  He even used chocolate chips to make a face.  When someone asks what they got for their birthday they tell them, "A mickey mouse pancake!!" 

 

We let them spend the day digging in the dirt while we worked on our backyard (more to come on that another time).  At the end of the day we took them pick out their birthday present.  They each got a goldfish.  They love to feed the fish and even just watch them swim. They named them Goldfish (Noah's), Big (Reese) and Little (Aiden); although yesterday Noah renamed his purple.  

 After we picked out the goldfish we got them a special supper.  We went to Wendy's.  As if that wasn't exciting enough we let them eat while watching their favorite show, Mighty Machines.  This has never happened before and will only happen on birthdays.  Big stuff right there.

 On Sunday the fun continued.  After church we dropped Devyn off with my parents and took our brightly colored bunch to the zoo.  We had a little picnic in the grass and then walked through Lincoln Park Zoo.  They ran around the whole zoo and never complained about being tired.  A lot of the animals were either not out or asleep, but they still had a great time until.....

 it was raining on and off the whole time.  We were leaving and it started raining again so we decided to run to the van. Such a fun time.  That is until Noah stopped.  Aiden and I were holding hands and running and ran into Noah.  We both went flying (embarrasing. thank you for staring, everyone).  He hit his face, hard.  He screamed and was full of gravel and some blood.  We cleaned him off and drove him.

 Here he is today.  Not as swollen, but all scabbed over.  He told someone yesterday that I hit him in the face. Um???  We had to have a little chat about telling the right story.  All is fine now.  He'll just have some more awesome scars.  He already has one embedded in his eyebrow from cracking it open on his bed.  He also has a nice scar right under his lip where his teeth bit all the way through..twice.  He is going to look really rugged. 


I was thinking this morning about how on this day 3 years ago I was discharged from the hospital. We stayed until late because I was having a harder time that I expected leaving them.  I was holding Noah and crying because he was so small.  In reality he was much bigger and healthier than many, if not most, of the other babies in the NICU.  As I held him a baby one bed over was not doing well at all.  They called in the mom and grandma to say goodbye.  As the mom and grandma held the baby and cried, I sobbed.  I cried for the young mother, who probably didn't even plan on having a baby, let a lone losing one.  I cried for the grandma because she had to help her daughter through such a difficult experience.  I cried for my babies.  Mostly I cried because I had 3 healthy babies.  I felt so selfish for being so blessed.  What an incredible miracle to have a healthy baby.  What an almost unbelievable miracle to have 3 healthy babies.  I hope a day never goes by without remembering what an incredible gift they are.  Happy 3rd birthday to my precious little boys.

How to know you have boys

I've noticed lately that there seem to be some sure signs that there are boys living in this house.  Granted Devyn is still young and maybe some of these things will be true of her too, but it just seems that certain things scream boy.

1.  I've pointed out to you all that our bathroom has a certain unpleasant odor because their aim is nothing short of terrible at times.  Their room also has a sort of funk.  The smell is so bizzare.  It's this mix of sweat and dirt and gross.  Yet I creep into their room every night to watch them sleep and kiss their sweet faces despite that stink.

2.  They love dirt and dirt loves them.  We're doing a lot of work in our backyard right now and the LOVE to help.  They love to shovel and push wheelbarrows and get dirty.  I clean the floors and within minutes they are covered in dirt again.  I will say Devyn is just as into dirt and digging as her brothers.

 

3.  Cars and trucks are everywhere.  I mean everywhere.  I find cars on my nightstand, in the laundry and this morning I found one in the dishwasher.  They just love to put their cars in the sink in the bathroom and "wash" them.  This picture below is of a power wheel our neighbor was throwing out.  It needs a battery.  Except it doesn't.  They called over the neighbor boys and they all took turns pushing each other around.

4.  They are helpless when asked to find something.  I can ask them to find something that is no more than 1 foot away and they can't find it.  It is somehow impossible for them to find things.  I think their brains are just programmed in a way that makes them unable to find things.  I ask Nate to find things and he can try his hardest and not find them.  I look for 3 seconds and find it.  It's so amazing to me. 

5.   They are helpers.  These boys love their sister.  Do not mess with her.  Ever.  If I step away from the table they swarm her.  They all want to make her say, "more", and then dump food on her tray.  They still call her baby and let me know when she's doing something she shouldn't.  Good luck, Devyn.  You will get away with nothing.

 

The following picture is probably one of my favorite "helper" moments ever.  I took out some paper towels to bring upstairs.  They went missing almost immediately.  No real surprise.  Later in the morning I went into the bathroom to empty the garbage.  This is what I found.  Someone took the toilet paper off the holder and put on the paper towels.  Some precious little guy thought he was helping me out.  I had to take a picture, in part because I was laughing so hard.

 

 





 

Boys are such fantastic little creatures.