Halloween

Elijah went trick-or-treating for the first time tonight. He had a blast. We ordered his costume and thought that he would like to be a dragon. Elijah enjoyed the costume except for the headpiece. So we were a boy with a dragon body. I am grateful that we got a few pictures of him with his entire costume.

Pops and Noel walked Elijah around tonight and I think that Pops enjoyed himself more than anyone else. Noel and I are blessed to have parents that love their grandchildren and try to visit as often as their hectic lives allow.

Enjoy the picture and the slide show of the pictures. Remember that we are taking volunteers for next year when we are going to be the three little pigs and the BIG bad wolf/dragon. Have a safe Halloween.

Rolling Over

For the last couple of weeks, Hannah has been rolling over. I cannot every get in on the video camera and so finally last night I caught it on tape; for proof. She is determined to do what she wants to do. As you see/hear in the video, she grunts when she cannot seem to mover her body the way she wants to go.

Our children are growing up so fast and it seems that every day they jump in weeks instead of days. Now do not get me wrong some days I wish they would jump in years, but in my heart I want them to want Mommy and to need me like they do now. I love those moments when only a Mommy's kiss will make it better and my lap is the safe place for my children. Enjoy your children even on the bad days where you want to scream.

Please enjoy our moment caught on tape and the total excitement that you see when she looks at the camera so say hello.

I love you, honey!

In recent days I have come to the conclusion that we as wives do not tell our husbands how much we love and RESPECT them. My sister-in-law is going through some things with my brother that has put my relationship with Noel into perspective. I have always known that Noel was great with our children and loved me, but sometimes I feel that we take those gestures of love as a given every day.

I am proud to be Noel's wife! He is a great husband and always gives me relief after a hard day with the kids as soon as he walks into the door. He takes off his shoes and climbs into the zoo with me and wrestles with the kids. He could come in the door and take his "relax" time but he loves me and gives me a breather. Noel has no problem with watching the kids so that I can go and be in public with normal adults that carry-on conversations; which some people find amazing! Well yes Noel is amazing. There is nothing in our lives that Noel has a problem doing if he knows that it will help our family or even help his wife.

More recently Noel has given me one of my dreams since we have moved into our house. We bought our house with a small master bathroom shower; so for the last two years we have been talking about building a new shower that is big enough for us to enjoy. Well Noel gave me my dream. For the last three weeks Noel has been working hard to tear our bathroom apart and build me a double-headed shower. ( He will post pictures on this blog later) He would come home and help me put the kids to bed and then work on the shower until midnight or later, then on weekends he would work on the shower at nap-time and even took a couple of days off work to do the things that would take a long stretch of time.

I just want to thank my husband for making my love "tank" full and overflowing on a daily basis. Thank you for changing diapers, feeding, do dishes, taking our the trash, providing for our family financially, making sure that we are a God-centered family and most of all thank you for loving God the way that you do and have a giving, unselfish heart.

So make a mental note that every day before you say good-bye in the morning and before you say good-night at night that you say "I love you." Also I recommend that you read a book called "The Five Love Languages," this book is amazing at letting you know how to fill your spouse's love "tank." Please pray for my sister, Jennifer, that God will fill her tank with His love so that she can handle what is going on in her life and to be an inspiration in her children's' lives. May God protect your families.

Cookie Monster vs. Chunk

Every time that I see my son, Joshua, eat I am reminded of the Cookie Monster. They have the same manners. Eat as much as you can in a short period of time. Joshua loves to eat and as you can see in the picture his food is never enough. You see we were eating lunch and Joshua finished his food and decided that he wanted every ones food. He climbed out of his seat and stood in the middle of the table. After being caught he decided that if he was not allowed to stand he knew that he had to sit. Sitting on the table is acceptable to him. Joshua continued to eat off every ones plate because he was now in arm's reach of the plates that he had been eyeing. Usually he waits for Noel and I to give him more food or some of the food off his brothers/sister's plate.


So if Cookie Monster and Chunk had a battle I would have to say that Chunk would win, because Cookie Monster is limited to Cookie and an occasional Veggie/fruit when forced to. As for Chunk he will eat anything and does not mind if he has to wait but if he sees it he wants it. So the winner is: CHUNK!!

Ten and One on the way!

We went to my parent's house this weekend so that Noel could work on the shower that we are building. Well it turned out that all the grandchildren were in the same place for once in a long time. So we decided to take a picture or at least try to take a picture of everyone. Picture taking will be a lot easier when the kids are a little older. As you can see there are 8 grandchildren under the age of two and a half. My family is booming and we still have one brother that does not have any children and will hopefully start soon.

May God bless your family with health and happiness as we go into the holiday season.

What you have to do when there are not enough hands to go around!

Hannah has found out that sometimes there are not enough adult hands to go around. So she has learned to rub her own head. She is exploring what her hands can do and she enjoys this feature. Hannah rubs her head and puts herself to sleep when mommy and daddy are fixing another crisis with the other children.

She is growing up so fast. Hannah loves to talk to her mobile and play with the toys that hang from her jumper chair. Noel and I have enjoyed her infant stage a lot more than we thought we were going to be able to. God has blessed our family beyond everything that we thought He could do. God is funny that way he never gives you more than you can handle but He likes to push that line to give you more to handle. He is like a trainer getting you ready for the marathon that you think you cannot run.

May God challenge you and your family beyond what you think you can handle so that when you accomplish it you know that God was the one that helped you and grew your family to endure more.

Our First Pumkin!

This year is the first time that we have had a pumpkin in our house. Last year the triplets were still really small and very time consuming. Elijah passed out candy last year but we did not have a pumpkin.

We decided that we would let the kids pull the fun, wet, slimy stuff out of the pumpkin and then daddy would carve the pumpkin. We took some pictures of the experience of mommy doing most of the work. I love the fact that they are wearing my shirts as coveralls to make sure they do not destroy their clothes more than normal.

Elijah wanted to look inside the pumpkin, Jacob wanted to eat the insides, Joshua just wanted to look and Esther did not really want anything to do with the pumpkin. They liked to see mommy pull the stuff out and for the them to touch it then.

We are going to enjoy this more and more as the kids get older, but we thought this was enough interaction with the pumpkin this year. It is so funny to see the kids when they experience something new because they all react differently and it is great to see all the different personalities of my children. God made them each different and I am blessed to see those differences every day and share them with you.

May God bless your families during the fall season with all the different experiences that come along with that.

Fall has Arrived!

Today Noel and I decided that we would take the children to the park. We cannot do this without the other one, because we are really out-numbered then. The weather was really nice and I enjoy when we can take our children.

The children are growing up so fast. Now Joshua loves to walk in his shoes and they are becoming more brave as the days go by. We went to park and the children love us to let go so that they can run and play without us being right next to them. With that comes the possibility of some falling down. Most of the time the falls result in them making us kiss some part of their body; then they run off like nothing has happened. Well today was different, Jacob decided that he was going to fall and take a piece out of his lip. So there was blood and some tears, but he is a strong person and did not cry for too long. So that make two accidents this week, Esther on Monday and Jacob on Friday.

We got some really good pictures of the children enjoying the weather outside. Noel and I were also blessed because there were not a million questions and no one took pictures of us while we let our children play. That has been a real burden for me with my children. I have come to the conclusion that my children are a blessing and if people come up to me and ask me questions that I need to be more understanding and hopefully with those encounter the Holy Spirit will use me to share my faith.

A Quiet Moment!

Today is like any other day. The children get up and we have breakfast, change our clothes and play in the playroom. Then our day changed. I took a phone call and left the room and the kitchen for three to five minutes. As I was talking on the phone my children went quiet; which if you are a parent that is NEVER a good thing. I ended the phone call and walked back towards the playroom to find that the children had taken off the pillows to my couch, unzipped the zipper and had taken the filling out. I had to take a few pictures for our memories. I like the fact that Esther is on the toy box letting me know that she did not get involved in this. Jacob ran and climbed on the couch and Elijah looks like he had nothing to do with it. The funny thing is that Joshua is in the middle of the mess because he did not get out fast enough.

The good thing is that the children helped me clean up the mess and my pillow has been re-stuffed. Thanks to our robot "Revi" all the residue will be picked up with our nightly cleaning at three in the morning.

Every day is a new day full of wonder and amazement at how I am still sane after spending the day with my children. Thank you God for giving me humor and patience.

The Scream Heard Around the Block!

Today the kids and I were getting ready to go to playgroup at the Tripp's house. I had only one more pair of shoes to put on and then load them in the van. As I was putting on Jacob's shoes I heard a scream come out of my daughter that I had never heard before. I ran to see what was going on and found her ring finger on her right hand in the storm door as Elijah and Joshua are closing the door.

I pull her finger out of the door jamb and she begins to scream louder. I call Noel and explain to him that I need him to come home NOW so that I can take Esther to the pediatrician's office to see if she had broken her finger. I give Esther some MOTRIN for the pain and try to calm her down as much as possible until Noel gets home from work.

The other children realize that we are not going "BYE-BYE" and start to get upset so when Noel arrives Esther is screaming, Elijah, Jacob and Joshua are crying because they are not going anywhere now and Hannah is crying because everyone else is.

I rush to the pediatrician's office and are told that we have to get X-rays done across the street at the Austin Radiology Association office. We get checked in and have to wait, by that time Esther's MOTRIN has kicked in and we are feeling better but still not happy. She is wanting me to kiss her finger the entire time and is very upset that is not making her pain go away.

We get in the X-ray room and the technician does NOT have children and so he is trying to get Esther to close some of her fingers and twist her hand and do all sort so of things. Esther is really upset because this guy keeps touching her finger and she is not happy about it. Finally I tell the technician that if he wants the images that he wants he is going to have to tape Esther's fingers down. So on top of her brothers closing the storm door on her finger she has to be held down to take pictures of her fingers.

On the way home Esther gets some sleep after all the energy that she has exerted. When we get home she eats and takes a long nap. The pediatrician calls and lets us know that her finger is NOT broken and that we just have to make sure that we clean it and cut the dead skin off. That sounds so much easier over the phone then in actuality. Esther is a fighter and is very strong. I took the pictures above after I cut the dead skin off and cleaned her finger.

I want to thank my parents for praying the entire time for Esther.

First Video

Noel and I have been trying to get Hannah's cooing on video. She is great and loves to coo but as soon as the video camera comes out she stops. So we finally got it on video tape. You get a little of everything. You get Hannah sneezing, cooing and working herself to the point of crying.

Noel and I have really enjoyed being able to enjoy Hannah like we did Elijah. I felt that with the triplets that we did not have time to really watch them because there were three of them and it took so much more effort and time to do the simple things, change diapers, feed, change clothes, bathe and sleep. That when we got any time with the kids being quiet or sleeping that we took full advantage of it by sleeping ourselves.

So even though we have five children in toddler and below we are grateful for being able to enjoy an infant one more time until we are grandparents. So enjoy our video of Hannah.

The Gliding Game

The video above is a game that the triplets have gotten Elijah to learn. We got these blocks from our friends the Conroy's. Well the blocks did not come assembled, they came with instructions, but not all the instructions. So two college graduates had to sit down and figure out how to put the blocks together. One of those being an Engineer. There are triangles, rectangles, squares, a bigger square and an octagon shape.

Well the triplets started to take the yellow octagon and slide across the room with them. Elijah decided that he wanted to join in on the fun and so it became a game. As you see in the video it is always a game until someone gets hurts. I promise that Esther survived the fall that you see on the video. So no one died making this video and no animals were harmed or tested on.

Kids have such great imaginations that you just have to sit back and watch them play to see how big that imagination is.