Sleep is Good

Have I mentioned how challenging it's been to deal with a baby who never slept through the night? Well, after months and months of desperately wishing T3 would sleep through the night, he finally seems to be regularly sleeping until 7:20 each morning. After Matt had a few days of poop marathons (the babies, not him), we cut all fruit from their diet. Now, this is a big deal for us because we're used to buying grapes, blackberries, strawberries, and blueberries in bulk at CostCo. Unfortunately, it seems these purchases were wreaking havoc on my babies' tummies. Since we cut out the fruit, the number of poops has decreased significantly and T3 has been sleeping through the night. It's been wonderful! The food of choice now is macaroni and cheese. You can't go wrong with that!

T1 had a friend stay the night the last two nights and they've had a lot of fun. Matt took all four boys (our three plus the friend) for a hike and they ended up building a fort. They then came home and built a bike ramp in our front yard. T1, his friend, and Matt all launched themselves off the ramp. T1 apparently caught some significant air (awesome!) and Matt surprisingly didn't break the 1/2" thick board they used for the ramp. It's a good thing I wasn't here - I probably would have been terrified watching them! With the exception of T1 getting too bossy, T1 and his friend have had a good time. We had to force them to bed a little early tonight because their level of exhaustion and the amount of time they have spent together is causing them to get on each other's nerves. Our entire crew seems pretty tired though, so I think we'll all go to bed now. Good night!

Superheroes

If you could have a "super" power, what would it be? That's the question T1 posed today. I said I would have super knowledge so I could know everything. T1 said he would be super-stretchy. When describing what he meant, he said that if a girl wanted a drink from Greece, then his super-stretchy arm would quickly extend all the way to Greece to grab the requested drink and bring it back for her. Matt said he would be Superman, after which he and T1 progressed to argue over who would beat the other with their super powers. Typical.

Procrastinating

I'm such a procrastinator. It's after 11:00 p.m. the night before Christmas Eve and I'm supposed to be making deviled eggs, wrapping presents, and cleaning the house (among other things), but I'm procrastinating and have instead decided to post a blog about a whole bunch of nothing. Let's see...where to start?

T2 doesn't appear to be sick anymore - thank goodness! T3 is battling some residual congestion, but seems okay overall. I think my body is trying to get sick, but I'm not going to let that happen!

Matt changed 10 poops today -- ICK! T3 had 6 and T2 had 4. Who poops that often? It's crazy, really. I think Matt deserves a prize!

Matt and Lisa took the boys to the Children's Museum today. Matt says children museums are pretty boring, but T2 and T3 love them. T1 not so much. Oh well, at least they all got out of the house and spent time with Aunt Lisa.

Tomorrow we're having several people over for Christmas Eve dinner. Matt's baking a turkey and I'm heating up a honey-baked ham. Yummy! We're going to partake in some adult beverages and play silly board games. It should be fun! Unfortunately, Adam and Marie won't be in town, so we'll definitely miss them. :(

Matt, the kids, and I will probably go ice-skating on Friday night with my friend Amy and her kids. I expect it will be fun, regardless of how much I suck at ice-skating.

Well, I better focus on deviled eggs, presents, or something. Merry Christmas!

So much to say, so little time...

I only have a minute to write while Matt is trying to prove that I didn't just beat him at Scrabble. Sure, I used the words "gi" and "talkie" in my last play to win the game, but dictionary.com says they are both words. I don't know why Matt's complaining - he used the word "peal" thinking he was using "peel", but I was kind enough to look up "peal" for him and it turns out to be a bonafide word. I'm only writing about this to annoy him when he reads this later. I WON! I WON! And, yes, "chi" is a word! HA!

Okay, now that's out of my system...
Sick. Sick. Sick. That about sums up our life lately. T2 has been sick all week. The tubes in his ears fell out this week (he's had them since he was 11 months old) and he now has infections in both ears. He had fever every day this week and was battling terrible congestion. He completely lost his appetite and personality. I hate seeing him like this. Thankfully, he's on the mend. Unfortunately, T3 is now catching the same bug. I can't wait until we're all healthy again. We've been run down since before Thanksgiving and we're tired of it!

T1 has a new girlfriend. She's like number 5 or 6 this year. I think her name is Taylor, but I can't keep up anymore. I don't know what makes her different, but he said he wanted to buy her a ring for Christmas. Say what?! He's crazy. No way in heck is my 10-year old buying some chick a ring. He ran into an ex-girlfriend the other day (remember the one from church that he never really broke up with?) and she threatened to beat or kill him, I forget which. Such drama!

T1 ran a 5K with his funky unky (Uncle J) last weekend. There were 800+ runners and T1 ranked 226 overall and number 6 in his age division. I was so proud of him! I think Uncle J, T1, Matt, and I are going to run a 4-miler for the rodeo in February and there may also be a half-marathon in my future. We'll see...

On a special note, Matt and I celebrated our 10-year wedding anniversary yesterday! I don't know what I did to deserve this wonderful life with him, but these have been the best years ever. I love you, Matt.

My Little Singer

Despite the trauma of singing in front of a crowd (see post below), T2 really enjoys singing when no one is watching. This video is proof!

T2's Christmas Program

Today was T2's first-ever Christmas program. His class at school was supposed to sing 4-5 songs for their parents, but the teacher ended up flying solo the entire performance. None of the kids sang. One immediately ran to her parents and started crying, a few others stood looking like deer caught in the headlights, and my little T2 stood with a frown on his face the entire time. It was the biggest frown ever! I had no idea his lip could pucker out like that. It was sticking out so far that you probably could have pulled it up over his head, and there was an occasional quivering of the chin as he fought back tears. As soon as the "performance" was over, he ran to Matt and I and burst into tears. It was so sad. We went to his classroom afterwards for for juice and cookies and it took a good 15 minutes for him to get back to normal. Here's a picture of him during the performance and another of him afterwards:

No Energy

Okay, so I admit it, I've been too lazy to blog lately. How sad is that? Too lazy to blog? Pathetic.

In any case, we've had a lot of activity lately and the kids have been quite entertaining. Rather than elaborate on it all, I'm going to bullet some of the more memorable happenings of late and post a couple of pictures to get you caught up:

• Matt ran his first marathon (26.2 miles) in 4:09:06. He did awesome and I am so darn proud of him for accomplishing this goal!
• Thanksgiving was awesome! We trekked all over the state to visit my cousins, my dad, and the other Parker People (Adam, Marie, and their fun crew). We went caving at Palo Duro Canyon, ate too much delicious food, and enjoyed great company. Oh yeah, and I had my first Mango Mojito. Yummy!
• T2 threw up 2 times in the car on our way home from Amarillo after the Thanksgiving holiday. Double yuk! He threw up another 4 or 5 times in the days following our return. Trevor, Matt, and I also fell ill, so we've definitely had our share of sickness.
• T2 rode his first horse and loved it!
• Knowing full well that Matt would never entertain this idea, T1 secretly asked me if we could buy him a Christmas sweater to wear to Grandma Sara's house on Christmas morning. We looked, but all retail outlets know better than to sell Christmas sweaters for 10-year old boys! There is no market for this product (except my son).
• T2 has a new fear of the Big Bad Wolf, although we have no idea how he was introduced to him.
• All 4 of T3's molars are in! Maybe he'll start sleeping better at night.
• Our Christmas tree has ornaments only on the top half. After seeing how relaxed Marie was with her tree, I've attempted to make the Christmas tree more kid-friendly by keeping all breakable ornaments at the top. This is a major change from having a gate around the tree to protect and preserve the tree and its decorations. Unfortunately, the ornaments that are supposed to be at the bottom of the tree have been dispersed all over the house and despite our best effort, 4 breakable ornaments have fallen victim to T3. I suspect the gate will soon come out of hiding!
• Matt and T1 went fishing after church on Sunday and came across a couple having way too much fun in the brush alongside the river. I won't go into details, but Matt classified what they saw as "traumatizing" and said he and T1 had to have a special talk about what they saw. No, it wasn't your normal baby making activity. Use your imagination... If I were Matt, I would have thrown a rock at them to interrupt their activities and physically hurt them for using poor judgment and exposing my child to their behavior -- I was so pissed! The only thing that would make this situation worse is if T1 talks about it at school. Stay tuned...
• T2 got a new Batman face mask that he likes to wear. Despite the slight resemblance to Hannibal Lector, he looks cute when he insists on sleeping with his Batman mask, dinosaur shirt, Noah's Ark animal blanket, and Spider Man pillow case.
• T1 came home with two marks today for poor conduct. What am I going to do with this child? He's sooo grounded.
• We took pictures for our Christmas cards, so be on the lookout!

Well, that's it for now. It's been fun...