Pucker Up

Jerry and I like to joke that we have Sour Patch Kids, at first they are nothing but squeeze your eyes shut and pucker your mouth sour.  Then, if you can stick it out with them for a bit they get sweet with a little time.  

The Kingdom of Whine

Now that summer is in full swing we are all trying to settle into the new normal routine.  Which means the wheels are coming off a bit from our finely tuned (ha!) machine.  The kids are totally confused because some rules have been completely and gleefully abandoned (bed on time? no way - who cares!), and others have been reinforced and clamped down even more (TV, iPhones, or iPad in the afternoon? no way - the sun is shining! get thee and your kin outside).

In the wake of all the confusion over rules there has been lots of whining and complaining and pushing of limits to see who can get me to crack first.  They're getting close.

Peanut Pie

That is one of my nicknames for George (or any of the kiddos that happen to be in the vicinity), but G gets it most often because he can't run away from my obsesive snuggling yet.  So, you will imagine my surprise when little Peanut Pie ate some peanut butter on a waffle and this happened to his face...

Nothing like a little angioedema to make you wonder about what you're feeding your baby.

Anywho, I think we'll be laying off the peanut butter for a while now.  Although I'm a little confused because I know he's eaten some thai peanut noodles I amde that had a cup of peanut butter in it that didn't give him any reaction and I'm wondering what the difference is.  It is also perplexing because Stan might as well be a walking peanut butter jar given the amount he eats and how it is constantly smeared across his face, hands, clothes, and in the webs of his chubby, sticky fingers.  It is a wonder that George hasn't gotten a good dose just from sitting next to him at dinner.  The scientist in me wants to test a few theories out to see what happens, but I don't think George wants to be my little lab rat (party pooper!).

This is the food that's been getting all the attention in my house lately. 

The boys eat clementines like they'll never see food again.  I honestly buy three 6 pound bags each week I'm at Costco and we still usually run out before the week is out.  As Jerry said last night "I fear our grocery bills someday", or my pediatrician who told me "Forget about saving for tution, save for nutrition".  Dave and Frank each eat 6 clementines at night before bed and Stan eats 2-3. Just to clarify, by eat, I mean he sucks the juice out and leaves annoying dried out carcasses of clemmie sections strewn about my house - ugh, that kid.  That is not counting the dozens I peel all day long too.  My thumb eventually gets the citrus acid wedged beneath the nail and is all sore, red, and caustic and then I really know we're in citrus season. "Clementine thumb injury time" means that "kids begging bites off my ruby red grapefruit sections I carefully peel for myself" is soon to follow. Love it.

That's enough boredom for one post, no?

Tub Time

My cousin Emily and her sweet bebe Louie came over for a visit the other day and we had a great time letting the little crawlers paw each other and watching Louie try to knock George over in the friendliest manner possible.  We decided to throw the two little boys in the bath together before they headed home so Em would have a sweet-smelling, clean baby all ready for bed when she got home. 

Louie had been making some pretty interesting faces indicating that he was having some gastrointestinal, shall we say, issues, during dinner.  Basically he was working on his business and seemed to get the job done.  We got the little dudes into the tub and soaped and cleaned up and were letting them play. G started fussing and wanted to get out, to eat, and go to bed.  We barely got George out of the tub and next thing we know Louie is letting round two rip in the tub and we were left with this…

7QT - for reals

I'm linkin' up with Jen and I'm headin' straight in...

1) Our dog ran away on Tuesday.  Okay, actually I let her outside without her leash or collar and may have encouraged her to take a run for the squirrel in our neighbor's yard.  I kid!!  We were all very sad and worried about sweet, dumb Stella (who practically defines being a dumb blonde) because when I think of her, "street savvy" does not leap to my mind.  Luckily I posted our little runaway to the local humane society lost dog page the next morning and got a call not even two hours later that she had been picked up by animal control the day before.

Taking the Easy Way Out

I'm hookin up with Hallie for the Five Favorites and I wanted to show some of my favorite photos from the last few days. 

1)

Life has gotten easier around here now that this little man is bathing sitting up.  As Grace has mentioned in a

7 Medium-ish Takes

Just hooking up with Jen today for some 7 QTs of stuff.  They really don't go together, it doesn't really flow or make sense, it just comes out fo my brain this way sometimes.  Keep going...

1 - We finally had Dave's first day of school on Monday.  Holy cow this seemed like a loooooong time coming.  I've been hearing and reading other parents expressing that they can't believe their little muffins are off to school so soon and they can't believe that the time has passed so quickly.  I could not disagree more. 

Guest Post from George!

I'm exhausted today so George offered to guest post on the blog to keep things going.  I will type for him since he prefers to open-hand smack the keyboard or eat it.  Thanks George!


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Hey Everyone!  Thanks to my Mom for letting me blog a little today.  I know everyone is chompin' at the bit to hear from me so here goes...

***Ten Reasons I Didn't Want To Sleep Last Night***

G's Baptism WIWS

This is A Very Special Edition of What I Wore Sunday....  George's Baptism!

Looks like there's another baptism edition over at My Domestic Monestary to peruse as well.

On Sunday George was brought to the baptismal font as a sleeping child with the stain of original sin.  He was then crudely awoken by having water poured onto his head, which alarmed him, and then he squirmed and got a face full of water as the Deacon

The Royal George

Just to be clear I am not talking about the new little English sproutlet born on the other side of the pond.  I'm talking about my George!  I'm a little bitter that Kate and William decided to name their bebe George after we had firmly claimed the name for ours in February.  I'm guessing there will be an uptick of Georges now and his kindergarten class in 2018 will have four of them.

Here are a few ways we'll be able to tell our George from theirs...

Parenting Changes

When one has four children, even when they are V*E*R*Y close together, a few changes take place in how one parents the first child in comparison to how one parents the fourth.  Let's take a quick look at a couple examples to make this concept clear.

Augument #1 - Dreft
Dreft is the super soft, baby-sweet smelling laundry detergent with the pink cap.  Just smelling the stuff makes me swoon for baby days.