the week of the Dalia's

We are leaving for Utah for 3 weeks, so me and the kids decided to go to the mountains to visit the casa loca and hang out with my family. We were there for a few days and had tons of fun.

We hung out on the mountain and the kids got to see the goats, cow, pig and dogs that Grandma and Grandpa have. They played outside all day and got as dirty as they wanted. (I probably shouldn't share these stories of Marcus but...They have some pretty big dogs--bigger then the twins, Addy went right up to them, Marcus on the other hand; he would climb whomever was near him to get away from the dogs. Oh my poor baby.)

We had a cookout at the state park. Bryan and kids, Flossie and family, and Crystal ( Joey's wife) and kids all came, as well as the missionaries from my parents church.
Katie got to climb her tree...

She got pretty high.

Katie and Chloe

We were having a grand ole' time until we noticed Carson and Cohen dancing around and realized they had stepped in a beehive! Carson got 12 stings and Cohen 4, and I got 2 in my efforts to save them (I forgot how much bee stings hurt and then itch!).

Gabby and Marcus on the playground

The boys played a game of football and Cohen (Bryan's) and Marcus tried to get in on the action--but they wouldn't pass them the ball.

The morning before we left we loaded everyone into the gator (ignoring the signs that said "people can die if they ride in the back") and drove to the top of the mountain to pick wild blueberries and blackberries! Oh so good.

Marcus, Grandma and Johnny

Marcus, Cooper, Flossie, Carson, Alisa, Katie, Emmie, Gabby, Grandma, Addy

And completely unrelated to visiting my family...we have tomato plants out back...Marcus was out there playing and got hungry...good thing they are organic right!

What we have been up to...

It has been a great and crazy summer so far...

In between people visiting and us being gone, it has been a lot harder then I thought to take care of all three kids AND work, so instead of hiring someone to come in and help, Mark decided to stay home a couple mornings a week. (Wouldn't it be nice if it could always be like that?)

My normal schedule is to do something fun with the kids in the morning, lunch, put kids down for a nap, see how much work I can cram in while they are asleep for 3 hours (Katie goes to quiet time and then comes and hangs out with me while I work), get the kids up and hang out until Mark comes home. Somewhere in there I try to fit in Katie's reading lesson. I know that sounds nice and pleasant but there is usually a lot more drama involved when we are actually living our schedule--plus birthmothers and adoptive families don't normally respect my "schedule".

All of Katie's friends stayed in preschool for the summer and I considered it, but I am really glad I decided against it. Katie, Addy and Marcus have had a lot of fun together this summer.

I think having Katie home has helped with Marcus and Addy learning to speak, the beginning of the summer they knew words, but now they are starting to put together strings of words and can communicate most things. They don't speak like a 5-yr-old like Katie did at their age, but I'm not complaining because I am a sucker for their cute little voices and mispronounced words.

The kids in Katie's room with their blankies and "bear"," lambies" and "ahh ahh"

And, I feel like Katie and Addy have learned the joys of having a sister. Lately, Katie has been taking Addy to her room to play with whatever Katie feels like playing with that morning, normally dolls combined with princesses.

This is Katie dressing her and Addy for the day.

Marcus has been hanging out with me and playing with his trains.

We go to the pool a couple times a week. It's funny because the first time we took the kids to the pool this year, Addy and Marcus cried and both wanted me to hold them. Now they will put their faces in the water and do their own thing.

We have been to the free movies a couple of times; Katie loves it, Marcus and Addy are ready to leave about 3/4 the way through the movie.

Mostly we have spent a lot of time enjoying our house and yard.

finger painting

it quickly got out of control and turned into a slip-n-slide and the whole patio turned into a canvas--and it was harder to get up then I thought it should.

Our mini-garden; flowers, basil and tomatoes.

And, did I mention that we finally got to celebrate the 4th of July for the first time since we have had children. Our church has a spot in SC where they go every year and do a cookout and fireworks. Katie loved it, Addy was fine and Marcus clung to me, tried to curl into a ball and wouldn't open his eyes again until we were back in the car.

Hot 'Lanta

With October (when Mark starts big law) looming over our heads we are trying to check off everything on our 'we should do before...' list. Going to the Aquarium in Atlanta has been on it for a while.

We left Sunday after church, hoping the kids would sleep most of the way since it would be their nap time. Yeah right! (We weren't very brave when we had two infants and a two-yr-old, so the twins, mostly Addy, kinda stink at riding in the car. And now that we are trying to take more road trips we are paying the price--cause Addy has no problem screaming/shrieking at the top of her lungs.)

We arrived in Atlanta tired and hungry, we quickly checked into the Hilton (yes we are cool like that, thanks to priceline) and looked for a place to eat. Hard Rock was the most child-friendly place open in downtown Atlanta on Sunday evening.

After dinner we walked around downtown and the Olympic Park

It was pretty hot if you can't tell by Katie's red face.

After an interesting night in a hotel (we got two rooms, but Marcus had to cry himself to sleep before we let Katie go to bed and then Addy decided to stay up and talk to Katie, so we brought Addy in with us until Katie feel asleep...and poor Mark forgot his earplugs--don't ask--and got to hear the kids when they woke up at 6:30am. I got the most sleep.), we headed to the aquarium.

We stepped inside between two walls of fish--Marcus started shrieking with excitement and jumping/dancing.

We got to see a scuba diver cleaning the tank and then they brought in a head of lettuce that the fish behind Katie are eating. The scuba diver got right in front of Addy and waved at her, Addy wasn't sure what to think.

Katie watching them feed the sea otters.

Over all the kids did pretty well, but they were ready to leave around lunch time. We let them each pick out one item from the gift shop. Katie picked out a baby sea otter stuffed animal (that she later named Lyn), Marcus picked out a plastic white manatee, and my little bookworm Addy picked out a book--of course.

Marcus fell asleep on the way back to the car--this is rare for us, our kids never sleep outside their beds or car seats.

On the way home we stopped by a place that Mark had seen on the show "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives"; we were pretty excited about it, but in our mental preparations had forgotten we would have 3 tired kids with us. We were there for about 20mins before we boxed everything up and got back in the car--little stinkers.

oh my Katie

So, my little Katie turned 4!
She has been waiting for this since last Oct when the first of her friends turned 4; she was the last one and it was a long awaited event (I wonder if she knows that someone is going to turn 5 in Oct?).

Katie makes my life interesting. She was a little bit of a hard baby, but a pretty great toddler and preschooler. But, she still tries me with her stubborn personality and sassy attitude (Mark always laughs at me when I get mad, and when I ask him why it doesn't make him mad he says 'because he fell in love with it 6 years ago'; he doesn't really help the situation). She loves babies and tries to convince me that we need one more. She loves to be told princess stories at bed time. She is a little princess, but at the same time picks up frogs and grasshoppers, gets dirty and dreams of climbing trees. She loves to go on dates with Daddy. She is smart--she knows all her site words and is working on reading her sounds. She helps around the house--she unloads the dishwasher and cleans her room (as well as I do!). She is a great big sister! And the best part, if I am having a hard day she lets me know that I am the 'best mom' (of course she has started telling me I'm a bad mom when I put her in time-out.) She is such a little grown-up, but of course still needs plenty of cuddle time.
We love our Katie.

She was a little bit of a stinker on her birthday (I think the pressure got to her) but we got through it and had a fun time. Mark took the day off, so after cereal for breakfast (Katie's choice) we headed to the park.

After lunch Mark took Katie on a date to see Toy Story 3.
They came home to dinner and a little party.

Grandma gave her a princess dress that she was pretty excited about

A perfect end to a birthday.

We let Katie decide whether she wanted to go to Carowinds (the local water/theme park) or have a princess party for her birthday--she picked the party. Because her birthday is so close to the 4th of July most of her friends were out of town on her birthday, so we had the party the next Friday.

The invitations

I also asked Katie what kind of cake she wanted...why, would I do that?...and she picked a castle cake to go with the theme of the party. I found a cute idea online and my sister, Flossie, agreed to help, so I committed. Again, not smart when I am a work from home mom with 3 kids running around. If you have ever tried to make a cake from scratch with 3 little kids "helping," you know how it went. Luckily, I was smart enough to make it the day before...

We had the party in the morning; 4 of her girl friends and Carson came.
We played 'pin the crown on the princess' and went on a treasure hunt, and then decorated a little princess bag (I did give a blue one to Carson and Marcus).

Miss Princess

Talia, Katie, Ella, Ally, Laurel, Addy and Marcus (yes, my son has a tutu, he cried while Addy and Katie were getting dressed so I gave in)

lunch

Thanks to Flossie's help, I think the cake turned out pretty cute, Katie's face was priceless when she saw it.

Carson

Talia

Aunt Flossie and Aunt Sarah with Carson, Katie and Talia

opening presents

Katie and Ella

He took off the tutu after lunch-don't you just want to grab him and kiss him!

Carson stayed a little while after the party to play with Katie, she was so excited about him being in town--and he actually stood still to take this picture--he refused to get in the one with all the girls.

At the end of the day, everyone was nice and tired.

Bed Time