Scary Observation?

I jumped on the blog tonight to check out my other favorite blogs and in the process, I made what could potentially be a scary observation.

In the first picture of the last post, ALL three of the girls have their arms in a somewhat defiant position!  Emily and Molly have their arms folded across their chest and little Abby Grace seems to have her hands on her hips!

Is this what the future holds for me?  Three hormonal girls who fold their arms and put their hands on their hips... and probably stomp their foot or roll their eyes at the same time?!

Again, just a potential scary observation about my future life with three sister girls :)

Four {Cute} BLESSINGS

for which I am beyond THANKFUL!

happy thanksgiving!

Simply the BEST

I am not timid in my admission that parenting four small children is not all fun and games.  It's work.  Real, hard work.  And on some days, I get so fatigued from the hard work that I fail to see the simple joy that is woven in and among the hard work.

But then there are the days when the hard work part of parenting is pushed aside and I am able to experience simple joy of parenthood.

Parenthood is unique in that it can render up moments of extreme frustration; only to have it replaced by moments of  complete and simple joy. 

Moments like hearing laughter among all four children rising up from the basement on a Saturday morning only to peek down the staircase to see this...

Moments like these... well, they are simply the BEST part of parenting!  

I could choose to see that...
~ The cushions and pillows are ripped from the couch.
~ Blankets & stuffed animals cover the space where the cushions used to reside.
~ Three out of four children are wearing pajamas instead of clothes.
~ There is furniture jumping taking place.

But that's not what I saw when I looked down that staircase.  

Instead, I saw joy.
Four children laughing.
Playing together.  
Using their imaginations.  
Happy.

This is the kind of simple joy that comes from having a house filled with four small children.  It's interlaced with many moments of exhaustion and frustration.  But I am working hard to not see the work; choosing to instead focus on the joy.  And when I open my eyes wide enough, I am able to see that the joy-filled moments are plentiful; abundant even.  And those kinds of joy-filled, make-your-heart-swell moments... well, they are simply the BEST.  

Totally and completely worth all the hard work!

A Star is Born {a little thing}

Recently, I've been trying to create a happier household.  And music helps me do that.  

It seems like everything is happier in our house when we have music playing.  The kids pick up their toys to music, we hold hands and dance together when music is playing... everyone is just plain happier when we hear music.

So, tonight, I turned on some music after dinner.  Emily immediately started singing and dancing as she usually does.  I joined her and made a casual "air microphone" move.  That prompted Emily to break out the old Backyardigans music player, the one with a tiny microphone, and in an instant... a little star was born!

 

She picked up that itty bitty microphone with the jukebox dangling from it and danced and sung herself silly... for nearly an hour!  

I have absolutely no idea where she got these pop princess-ish dance moves (I promise the only TV band she watches is the Fresh Beat Band and we never watch music videos and only listen to a few select pop songs on my iphone), but watching her dance around my kitchen singing to Taylor Swift was pretty much priceless.  

A little thing, indeed.  A  priceless little thing that had me grinning from ear to ear tonight.


Sing on, my little star!

Enjoy her show!

She starts our slow and has some stagnant spots.  Keep watching.  
I assure you she always ends with a bang... and her facial expressions are priceless!

{I Should Have Kissed Her... Gloriana}


{Mean... Taylor Swift}

My personal favorite on this one is her "wipe my nose with my shirt" move!

Halloween Highlights {2012}

{Emily's Fall Party at School}

i got to spend the day in emily's classroom on the day she had her "fall party".  to make the day even more special, miss lori chose her to be the "class leader" that day.  she was beyond proud to demonstrate her leadership skills to me!  i loved watching her in her school environment... she is happy, social, kind to her friends, AND obedient!

her school brings a "pumpkin patch" to them!  after playing games, they got to go outside (in the VERY windy Kansas wind) and pick their own pumpkin.  they couldn't wait!

we were responsible for creating the treat bags for the party.  emily helped me do them and she was SO excited to get to hand them out to her school friends!

to top off the end of a very fun day, noah agreed to read a pumpkin story to emily's class.  he was one of miss lori's students 3 years ago and because he had the day off from school, he joined me in her classroom.  given his very SHY personality and lack of desire to EVER read out loud, i was shocked when he told miss lori that he would, in fact, read a story to the kids! he did so well and i was so proud of him.  and emily was proud of him too... her smile shows her pride that HER brother was the cool "big kid" who read to her friends :)

*****   

  
{Noah's 2nd Grade School Party}

so i'm a newbie to the "room mother" job!  even though the toilet-paper wrapped capri sun's might have been slightly unnecessary, my first class party as an official "room mother" went great!  we played games, ate "monster munch", and got really messy during the party highlight... MAKING SLIME!

*****  

  
{Pumpkin Carving}
in keeping with tradition, we once again utilized the time and talent of our resident pumpkin carver... PaPa!  and in keeping with tradition, PaPa did all the messy and hard work!  the kids DID design their own faces and added some "accessories" to their jack-o-lantern courtesy of a black sharpie marker!  my favorite part: the glasses noah drew and the "smiling spiders" emily drew.  oh, and the fact that molly thought she drew something!

*****  

  
{Trick-or-Treating}

clearly, the highlight of halloween for me was the fact that we had another costume theme!  after his reluctance to wear a costume at all last year, i was genuinely shocked when noah decided that he wanted to be a shark!  and since emily had already circled the gorgeous mermaid costume in the costume catalog that arrived in AUGUST, our theme of "under the sea" was an easy one! 

the kids really had fun with their theme too! molly loved to act like she was swimming and noah enjoyed acting out the job description of a shark: that of torturing the smaller fish!

 

being the "big kid" that he is, noah ended up running ahead of the rest of his sibling "fish" as he trick-or-treated with 2 of his friends.  

molly was a candy collecting pro this year.  her "tic-teet" request was precious and she diligently followed it up with a "tan tu" as she took her candy and walked "big girl" style to the next house!

surprisingly, the kids tired fairly quickly and were equally excited to come home and hand out candy to the other kids!

{my halloween favorites}

the theme and the fact that noah wanted to dress up at all!

molly's "fin" on the back of her costume.

the gorgeous weather.

molly's imitation of a fish swimming.

emily's pretty hair and her sparkled lips.

the fun that the kids had TOGETHER... all 4 of them!

the way abby looked when she crawled in her costume.

this picture.

the miracle of a picture with ALL 4 kids {mostly} looking at the camera and {mostly} smiling!

it was a HAPPY HALLOWEEN indeed!