"It looks like you have your hands full."

Being the semi-responsible mom, I made an extra effort to get my kids flu shots this year. Since we haven't seen our new pediatrician yet, I had to jump through a dozen hoops before finally getting an appointment to get the shots. We arrived at the appt 15 minutes early(hooray for paperwork) to find a waiting room with no toys. What kind of pediatrician's office has no toys or books? I hadn't brought anything for the kids to do since I thought it was going to be a quick in and out. Hahahahah. 45 minutes later we were still waiting to be seen. Lindsey had managed to clear all the tables of their magazines, climb up on the table to see the fish better and made several loud shrieks. Jack had thrown 3 fits, laid all over the DIRTY floor and hit his sister at least 10 times. This lady with 2 calm little girls looked at me and said, "It looks like you have your hands full." Uh, do you think? These are the moments when I ask myself... "If I have my hands full with two, how in the world could I ever handle one more?" Then people would start telling me "It looks like you have your hands, feet, head, body full. You probably shouldn't have had that many children." I'm really not sure where this active gene came from. Clint and I like to be busy and active, but we do have down time. Our children do not. They go, go, go from 7 am until 8:30 pm. Sometimes I wish I had calm, well-behaved children, but then life would not keep me on my toes. I am constantly moving, thinking, pulling things out of a hat, etc. And it's fun (well, most of the time :))
FYI The shots took 2 minutes and the kids didn't even cry.

Sleep deprived in Seattle

Lindsey has decided in the last week that naps aren't cool anymore and that waking up in the middle of the night is. She wakes up every night between 12 and 3 and is roarin' to go. We let her scream for 15-20 minutes and then bring her into our bed before Jack wakes up and/or we lose our minds. Her scream is NOT a pleasant thing to listen to. Then, she immediately calms down after coming into our bed. Calm meaning no screaming. She is still squiggling all around up in everyone's business. This lasts about 15 minutes before we are ready to boot her out of bed. Then the whole cycle begins again. 1-2 hours later, we all fall back asleep in our bed. And Mr. Jack makes sure we're all up at 7ish. I make it through the morning somehow (probably because I'm anticipating nap time). But naptime never happens. I lay her down after lunch only to hear her cry/scream for an hour. Then, I get her up and the non-sleeping cycle continues. I vow to go to bed earlier each night, but that never happens! So, here I am writing this post and she has finally fallen asleep in my arms. Too bad it is 4:15 and the only reason the house is quiet is because Jack is over at my mom's for the afternoon. Oh, how I miss the days of getting adequate rest. (I think they were about 4 years ago)

The sleep deprived and the non-sleeper in happier, sleepier days. (aka last week)

We took a trip to a local park/farm this week since we were talking about farm animals. It turned out to be a fun afternoon despite a cross country race taking place at the park and Jack falling in a huge mud puddle in the grass and having to wear my sweater since his shirt was so incredibly muddy and wet.


Lindsey in her favorite place on the playground.

The two sillies, Jack and Ellie.

The cool-down spot

Jack has been a little angry recently- a lot of yelling and hitting and saying things I have no idea where he picked up. My favorite "I'll throw you out the window." I'm hoping it is just a stage because I feel like we live in a pretty happy, calm home. We don't yell or hit each other or speak unkindly, so I don't know what's up. To help Jack out, we made him a little cool-down spot in his closet. We put in pillows, blankets, stuffed animals, a picture of Jesus, books, etc. I encourage him to go and visit his spot when he's feeling angry. Does he use it? Um, not really. He would rather stay and yell and hit me. Good times. The other day, I found my princess in the closet with a few of her favorite things: a cuddly lamby, a car (of course-Jack has trained her well)and a bowl of cat crackers from Trader Joes. At least I have one sane child (well, except for when we do any sort of shopping).

A visit to the pumpkin patch

Since the weather was beautiful on Saturday, we took advantage of it and spent the morning at a local pumpkin patch. The kiddos milked a "cow", played in the corn box (a huge play area filled with corn kernals), took a hay ride, raced tricycles, wound their way through a corn and hay maze, lassoed a "cow", sat in a tractor and ate ice cream. We had a great time! My kids are king and queen of the cheesy smiles right now, so these are the best photos we got. :)