Crazy Toothbrush!

Well, today was another one of those crazy days in our household! Mondays are always crazy because I have to take Nathan to preschool and pick him up all while dragging the other 3 kids along for the ride. Mornings are always crazy for me, trying to get all 4 kids out of the house by myself and make it to school on time. This morning was no exception.

I had the babies all ready to go. I had Tate dressed and his teeth brushed. Nathan was getting dressed and finishing breakfast so I got his toothbrush ready with toothpaste and left it for him by the bathroom sink. Tate was playing in the living room and out of trouble for once. Unfortunately I got distracted because one of the twins had a dirty diaper. While I was changing it I heard the toilet flush. I knew it could only be trouble!!! Nathan was standing in the kitchen so that left only one kid who could have flushed the toilet. I went into the bathroom and immediately saw that Nathan's toothbrush was missing. I asked Tate where the toothbrush was and he pointed to the toilet. I asked him if he flushed Nathan's toothbrush down the toilet and he said "Ah-Huh." He thought it was rather funny and was deeply pleased with himself. Nathan didn't think it was so funny. He had only gotten to use his Spiderman toothbrush for 2 days! Mommy didn't think it was funny because everyone had to use the upstairs bathroom all day, even our friends who came over for a playdate. Daddy didn't think it was funny either when he had to come home from work and unclog the toilet!

That's our Tate!

p.s. We celebrated Tate's 2nd Birthday on Sunday. Story and Pictures to come.

Life!

So I obviously don't get much time for blogging these days. Life is busy to say the least. There is usually very little time in the day for "extras." When I finally do get a moment to myself, I'm usually so tired that I can't manage to put an intelligent sentence together, which makes writing a blog challenging. (You'll have to forgive all the grammar and spelling mistakes, as I really don't have time to correct them and somehow it seems more important to just write what's on the top of my mind without thinking too much.)

We had a wonderful Christmas. It's always a very busy time of year, and having the twins this year made it even crazier. I honestly was quite happy to see the new year come. I needed a break from Christmas. Nathan and Tate especially enjoyed Christmas this year. It's always heartwarming to share the joy of Christmas with children.

It's hard to believe but the babies will be 3 months old this weekend. In some ways it seems as if time is slowly dragging by, but in others it seems like these 3 months have gone by with the blink of an eye. They are still very difficult babies. This has been very difficult for me to get used to as I was completely spoiled with both Nathan and Tate who were two of the most pleasant babies to be around. In my worst moments I sometimes wonder why I wanted another baby and feel deeply sorry for myself. But then I realize that I would never give them back now that they're here. I mean if we had only had a single baby which one would it have been? I honestly can't say that I would choose one of them over the other. So I've come to the conclusion that as difficult as life seems now I couldn't imagine life without them.

There are days when they cry constantly for seemingly no reason at all. They are rarely happy in any position, which makes moving them from back to belly to chair to swing a constant necessity. They both have acid reflux issues which can tend to make them unpleasant to be around to say the least. They throw-up their formula constantly which makes wardrobe changes a frequent part of our day. We have switched their formula twice and they have been on Zantac for almost a month now and we've really seen a difference in their dispositions. With each day that goes by it seems to me that they are starting to feel better. My day goes by in 3 hour blocks based on their feeding schedule. I often wonder where the last three hours have gone. Has it really been 3 hours? They can't possibley be hungry again!

When they are happy, they are very happy little babies. They make eye contact, smile and even make little baby giggling noises which are so cute. It almost makes you forget about the crying. They both love to sleep in the late evening and through the night. They tend to fall asleep around 8pm sleep until midnight eat, and then go back to sleep. Lana frequently sleeps through the night until 8 or 9am, but Jackson likes to eat once and will usually wake up around 4am, which wouldn't be so bad except that Tate is our early bird usually waking around 6:30 or 7, which is still way too early for this stay-at-home mom.

After Christmas Tate decided that he wanted to be potty-trained. Yes, Tate decided not me. I would have much preferred to tackle this time consuming task this summer when the babies were older and less needy. He started refusing to go to the bathroom in his diapers and removing them himself. I decided that I'd better get Nathan's old potty out of the garage for him. I placed it in the living room because I knew there would be times when I was busy with a baby that I wouldn't be able to run him to the bathroom the minute he decided he had to go. I had a feeling that if I didn't get the potty out I would soon be cleaning up a lot of messes around the house. He has done very well with it.

He conquered the whole process within a few short days. We had a few little "EWWW" incidents, but for the most part he's good at remembering to use the potty, especially when we're away from home. Tate tends to be very mischevious and especially likes to torture his big brother. Twice in one day he poured some of his potty contents on Nathan's hands, (luckily there was very little in the potty each time) which got him in BIG trouble with Mommy. Another day he poured his potty into his bowl with his Goldfish snacks and brought them to me and said "EWWW!" I guess he decided making his Goldfish swim wasn't a good idea after all.

He still doesn't talk much, but we are slowly adding words to his limited vocabulary. He never says more than one word at a time. Although last week he did say "Go, Dog, Go" while we were reading the book, but after saying it probably 20 times that day he refuses to repeat the performance for me. I know he can do it, he's just being his typical stubborn self.

Nathan is enjoying his last year of pre-school. I am slowly finding more and more time each day to work with him on learning to write and read. Many things come so easily to him that he is frequently frustrated with things that do not. Writing is something that he really has had to practice and he's never liked to color, so it really has been a challenge teaching him. He loves his weekly Ice Skating lessons and is really very good at it.

Both of the boys love Play-doh and spend hours each day at the table playing with it. As big of a mess as it is, it is a blessing because it keeps them occupied and out of trouble. We have approached that time in winter when we're all starting to get very tired of being cooped up inside. I can't wait for Spring. These boys need to get outside and RUN!

Well, that's the best update I can provide for now. It's almost midnight and I need to get to bed.

Balancing Act

So I've been searching for a topic to write a new blog entry about for a week or so now and I've been struggling for a way to describe what my life is like since the arrival of our twins two months ago. Then it came to me one day in the shower (don't we all do some of our best thinking in the shower? I think it's the only quiet time I get during the day!) my life is a balancing act!

I'm always trying to balance something at the least amount of expense to somethingelse.

Balancing the needs of one kid against the needs of another. Trying to decide who needs something right this second and who can wait a couple of minutes. Changing a poopy diaper before a wet diaper. Feeding the babies while making Tate wait for a cup of water. Trying to balance their emotional needs with their physical needs. Most of all trying to balance giving them plenty of love with plenty of discipline. Trying to decide what infraction needs a time out and what can be dealt with by simply saying "no" or "don't do that again." It's not easy. Most days it feels like I'm just putting out fires and not really getting anything productive done. Trying to spend one on one quality time with each kid is limited to a few stolen moments while everyone else is quiet. Trying to encourage them to learn to play alone but also trying to encourage them to spend time together as a group and appreciate how special having three siblings to play with is.

Personally, I spend a lot of time trying to balance meeting their needs and meeting my own. Exactly how long can I go before I really, really, really have to go to the bathroom? Getting just enough sleep at night to function the next day. Trying to balance the everyday chores with the things that need to get done for Christmas. What needs done today and what can be put off to another day. And trying to be thankful that we've gotten through another day while reminding myself to treasure each day because they'll all be grown before I know it. Time goes too quickly.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We have so many things to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. We have four beautiful and healthy children.


We have wonderful parents who are always willing to help us with whatever we need and whom our children adore. We also have great siblings who indulge our children beyond our wildest dreams!


We also have a great group of friends, most of whom have amazing children who are some of our kids best friends. Life just wouldn't be half as fun without them!

This Thanksgiving was one of my favorite days we've had with our kids. I got to enjoy a quiet early morning with Tate and the babies watching Sesame Street while TJ and Nathan slept-in. Then we turned on the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade while TJ made breakfast for me and the kids. It was such fun watching the parade with Nathan and Tate. They were constantly amazed by the floats and the balloons, saying "ooohhh" and "aaaahhh" when they saw their favorite groups or characters. Then we packed everyone up for an afternoon with TJ's family at his dad's house. We enjoyed a yummy dinner with Spahr's and all of our kids fell asleep on the way home and were in bed by 8:3o!!!


Please enjoy these few pics from our day. The picture of the kids is one of the best of the four of them. Thanksgiving also marked the first time our little Lana got to dress up. She wore a pretty dress, headband, tights and patent leather shoes! It's so fun being able to dress a girl after so many boys who love to wear sweatpants, t-shirts and blue jeans!!!

Our New Family

We have had an amazing week and a half with our new twins. It hasn't always been easy learning how to take care of twin newborns, a 21 month old, and a 4 year old, but we have been able to enjoy a lot of quality family time since TJ is home from work for the month. Nathan and Tate love their new sister and brother and enjoy trying to help take care of them. They both love feeding the babies and holding them. The babies have even inspired Tate to learn a new word, "babo" for baby, or "babos" for babies. He's not much of a talker, but when one of the babies is crying he'll run over to the pack-n-play and yell "BABOS!" to let me know that they need me. We're very grateful that all of our kids are happy and healthy.

Our New Additions!

We would like to introduce everyone to the new members of our family. Lana Catherine and Jackson Ryan. They arrived on Saturday October 24th. Lana weighed 6 pounds 12 ounces, and Jackson weighed 6 pounds 9 ounces.

Count Down to the Twins Arrival

It's hard to believe, but our twins will be here a week from tomorrow, if not sooner. I'm officially scheduled for an induction on Friday October 23rd. The last two weeks have been rough. I've spent three nights in the hospital being monitored with contractions just to be sent home the following morning. As I write this, I've been ordered to bedrest since my last visit to the hospital. I'm hoping these kiddos decide to arrive before my induction date, but we're going to have to wait and see. The good news is that they are both healthy and their sizes are above average for twins so they shouldn't have too many health problems should they decide to arrive early. This pregnancy has been quite a journey for all of us, full of challenges, both big and little, and at least for myself I'll be very glad to see it come to an end so that we can start the next phase- life with four kids! Wow! Now that will take some getting used to.

First Day of School

On Wednesday, September 9th we shipped Nathan off to his first day of preschool for the year the new school year. After a year in the 3's program, it's exciting to see him graduate into the 4's class. He has a new teacher this year and a larger class with new and familiar classmates. He was very excited to see his old friends again and I think we both appreciate the three mornings a week that he is in class (although for different reasons). He is also enjoying learning how to read and write. I just can't believe that this time next year we'll be sending him off to kindergarten!

Goodbye to Summer

Unfortunately it's that time of year where we have to start saying good-bye to summer. We've had a great summer full of family, friends and memorable trips, so I've decided to write a little summary to catch you all up. It's hard to believe that Nathan heads back to preschool in a week, and that we'll be welcoming the twins in seven weeks or less! It seems here in Maryland, the temperatures have already begun to cool signaling the arrival of fall weather which is always accompanied by all those fun fall activities.

June was a great month for us. After our trip to Sesame Place, we spent a saturday with the Miller's at the annual reunion in Little Orleans, Maryland. Nathan and I also had a great week helping out with and attending Vacation Bible School at our church.

At the end of June we took our annual trip to Hersheypark with my family. We all love the classic rides and the day full of old memories and new laughs. Nathan's fear of heights was a little more pronounced this year than in years past, so we wasn't as willing to ride as many rides as last year, but he definitely enjoyed the water park. While Nathan was in the water park, Tate loved his first Ferris Wheel ride with Aunt Laur-Laur and Uncle Chris.

In July we celebrated my cousin Hether's wedding on the July 4th weekend. Hether and her fiance Casey had a beautiful ceremony in White Marsh, Maryland. The weather was obsolutely perfect for an outdoor wedding. Of course Nathan's favorite part of the day was the crabs he got to eat during the reception! Later in the month, after Nathan and Tate completed two weeks of swim lessons at our neighborhood pool, we took a mini-vacation to Ocean City, Maryland where the boys loved playing in the sand and surf. Tate especially loved the water and it became very hard to keep him out of it. On his part, Nathan's favorite activity was by far an afternoon of crabbing with Daddy. We all enjoyed several evenings on the Boardwalk eating all those yummy boardwalk treats.

We also spent a fun weekend camping with my extended Baker relatives at Cowan's Gap in Pennsylvania. Although camping isn't TJ's favorite activity (he would say he tolerates it), the boys and I love it. Nathan enjoys being able to go fishing, cooking marshmallows over a campfire, making s'mores, and swimming in the lake. Tate's favorite part of camping is all of the attention he gets from the other kids and his Aunt Laur-Laur, Nonny and Pap.

We spent a fun Sunday afternoon at Grandma Caroline's with the Spahr's eating crabs and playing with cousin Chase, and swimming in a really cool pool she bought for the kids.

August found us enjoying a family picnic at the Blair's Valley Picnic Grounds outside of Clear Spring, MD. Something my grandfather's family has been doing for almost a hundred years! The boys always look forward to this picnic because there is a small stream they can play in and catch lots of little critters. Unfortunately Tate fell at the picnic this year and had to visit the ER to have two stitches put into his little hand.

Also in August we spent five days camping on the Susquehanna river outside Sunbury, PA with my parents and sister. Nathan got to fish on the "BIG" river in Pap's "fishing" boat for the first time. We even made a day trip to Knoebel's Amusement Park, where Nathan fell asleep at the end of the day on a little kiddie boat ride with Tate starring at him in disbelief!!

In addition to all of our little trips, the boys and I enjoyed plenty of packed lunches and summer afternoons at our neighborhood pool with my friend Jen and her kids Hannah and Brad.

This entry seems to have gotten out of hand. I was afraid when I started it that I wouldn't have that much to talk about. I guess I was wrong. Everytime I thought I was done, I remembered something else from the summer that I wanted to include. I hope you have enjoyed the story of our families crazy summer and some of my favorite pictures that went along with it.

A Big Boy Bed in Big Brother's Room!

Tate has reached a huge milestone in his little life, moving from his crib into a twin bed! Since the twins will be here in a few short months Tate needed to make his move a little earlier than we had originally planned. (Although at 18 months, he stayed in his crib 2 months longer than Nathan did because he climbed out of his crib at 16 months.)

We're still working on getting him to stay in the bed because he loves the freedom of being able to climb out of bed whenever he wants, but he is so excited about moving in with Nathan!! For right now even Nathan is loving having a roommate, but I'm sure that won't last long!

Sesame Place

In June we took a fun weekend trip to Sesame Place in Pennsylvania with some of our best friends.

We left early Saturday morning and caravaned with the Jen and Brian Smith and their kids Hannah and Bradley, and then meeting up with Mike and Karen and their daughter Mykenzie for lunch outside the park.

After lunch we headed over to the park. The first thing the kids saw was Oscar the Grouch! They were so excited to get their picture with him. Although the afternoon was overcast we got to ride a few rides and watch their parade. Unfortunately thunderstorms in the area shut everything down an hour or two after we got to the park and it wasn't too much later that it started to rain. We stuck around watching one of their live shows hoping the rain would stop, but it only got worse. After a mad dash to our cars in the rain we were all soaking wet. That night we met everyone at the restaurant in the hotel for dinner since no one wanted to venture out in to the rain again.

After breakfast in the hotel the next morning we headed back for day two in the park. The morning started out cloudy, but we ended up with a gorgeous day that let the kids enjoy the water rides in the park. I think the big hit of the day was the little wading pool. We met so many Seasame Street Characters and Nathan even got to participate in a live version of Elmo's World- teaching Elmo about fish. Nathan loved the water and Elmo's World but Tate's favorite part of the whole trip had to be meeting Big Bird in person! He was just starstruck!

Where does your dog live?

I realize that I have some catching up to do. We've had such a busy summer so far, with trips to Sesame Place and Hersheypark, but until I can find the time to sit down and write about those trips I thought I would share a funny Nathan story.

Yesterday at church during the Children's Story the pastor asked the kids if they had a dog and followed-up with the question "where does your dog live?" You can imagine most of the common answers like inside or outside the house. Well, Nathan NEVER gives a common answer! He raised his hand and said "in Maryland," which sent a chuckle through the entire congregation.

California

Over Memorial Day Weekend Nathan and I headed to sunny California with my sister Laurie and my Aunt Pam to visit my cousin Hether who is stationed in San Diego with the Navy. It was Nathan's first flight and he was so excited to get to visit the pilot of our airplane in the cockpit and even sit in the co-pilots chair! We had a great long weekend and did a lot of amazing things, but I think our favorite was our trip to Legoland.

One Boy! One Girl!

We found out a few weeks ago that the twins are one boy and one girl. More to come later, but we wanted to share this news with everyone!

What is Spaghetti?

The reason Tate needed to get a bath in the middle of the day!

Nathan Turns 4!!

We celebrated Nathan's 4th birthday with two parties here at our house. A small party for his little friends on Sunday May 3rd, and a larger party for family on Saturday May 9th. It really is hard to believe that he is four years old already!

His favorite movie lately is Wall-E, so he had Wall-E themed parties. He received some awesome gifts that included a yard tool set, Trouble!, a Leapster, a Slip-n-Slide, and gift cards to Toys-R-Us. It was so great to see him spend the afternoon with his friends and to be able to celebrate his big day with so many family members that love him!

Inner Harbor Trip

This saturday TJ, the boys and I had the pleasure of going to Baltimore's Inner Harbor to meet Megan and Gretchen, two of my old college roommates from Towson for lunch. It had been two years since we had gotten together and it was so great to catch up with both of them. Gretchen's twin boys Dylan and Logan have grown so much since we saw them in 2007. Gretchen had some great tips for twins for me! After lunch we walked around the harbor, the Zahn boys rode the carousel while the Spahr boys played in a near-by sandbox. Then we picked up some dessert, ice cream for Dylan and Logan and popcorn for Nathan and Tate. Such a great day! We should really do that more often. Enjoy the pictures from today and a quick look back at how much the boys have grown since 2007. We really shouldn't let another two years go by before we get together again!

We Have TWINS On the Way!

We just wanted to post a little note that we are expecting two new additions to our family this fall. We have been planning to add Baby #3 once Tate had his first birthday, but were a little surprised at our second sonogram to find a tag-along! Over the last week we have slowly adjusted to the idea of having TWO babies and are starting to get excited about the final additions to our family.

South Mountain Creamery

Last friday Nathan and I got to visit the South Mountain Creamery on Alternate Route 40 with his preschool class. It was a great afternoon learning about how the farmers milk cows, run the farm, and make different kinds of milk, cheese, ice cream, butter, cream cheese and so much more from the milk the cows produce!

Nathan loved watching the cows get milked, seeing all the machines on the farm, meeting the baby cows, and getting to eat ice cream. It really is a lot of fun watching a bunch of 3 year olds interact with animals.

I highly recommend a trip to the South Mountain Creamery for anyone who lives close to the Frederick area and who has little ones who love animals. They also sell all kinds of awesome local food and have home delivery for their milk products!

Happy Easter!

We had such a lovely Easter weekend. We started our Easter celebration on friday night with a yummy dinner at Nan's house with my mother's extended family.

Saturday morning my mom and I took the boys to the Easter Egg Hunt at our church. Unfortunately it had been raining all morning, so the egg hunt was moved from outside to inside the church. After the Egg Hunt my cousin Kristy and I took her daughter Courtney, Nathan, and my cousin Melissa's daughter Maddy to Pottery By Me to paint their own pottery for their birthdays. The girls absolutely loved being able to paint the different pottery pieces that they had picked out. Nathan on the other hand was not so thrilled. He had insisted on coming with us, but once there he decided that he really didn't want to paint and spent most of his time annoying the girls by making a big mess of his portion of the table and flicking paint at them with his paint brush. He eventually gave up and started playing with some toys the shop at on hand.

After dropping all the girls off, Nathan and I headed back to Mom and Dad's to dye Easter Eggs with Tate and Aunt Laurie. I think Laurie and I always have more fun dying eggs than the boys do. Nathan dyed about 3 or 4 eggs and decided he was done, but Tate loved it so much he didn't want to stop! Even after we ran out of eggs he refused to get down from the table. He held onto Laurie for dear life everytime someone tried to get him off of her lap. In desperation she finally decided to start re-dying eggs. His favorite part was stirring the egg around in the cup with his spoon.
Easter morning was filled with hunts for Easter baskets left by the Easter Bunny and church activities. Nathan was so excited to help Tate find his basket underneath the kitchen table, but was even more excited to find his own in the refridgerator. After church we went back to Mom and Dad's for more Easter Baskets. Nathan was looking forward to hunting Easter Eggs left by the Easter Bunny for him at Nonny and Pap's, but unforunately the "Easter Bunny" aka Pap had forgotten to hide the Easter Eggs this year. Poor kid. We had a yummy dinner at the Fireside Restaurant in Hagerstown with Nan, Aunt Pam, Aunt Laurie, and Mom's 2 adopted old ladies- Aunt Florence and Elsie. It was a nice day. We celebrated Easter with the Spahr's earlier in the month at a family dinner, and the boys loved all the goodies they received in their Easter Baskets from Meemaw and Poppaw.