Some men are just AMAZING fathers...

I am SO lucky to have snagged this one :)

It is so much fun to just sit back and watch Mark play with the kids. He has so much fun, and they have so much fun with him. I just love watching them run around and hearing their little screams and squelches as he chases and tickles them.

Class picture

The kiddo's got class pictures at school a few weeks ago, just wanted to share here...

Dinner at Chelsey's

Thanks to Chelsey for a delicious dinner last Sunday night! Thanks to Tommy and Lauren and Breanna and Jacob for coming too!! We packed up the kids last weekend and went over to Chelsey's place for the 1st of what I hope is many more dinners/gatherins to come. We got to see beautiful Breanna for the first time, gosh is she a CUTE baby and so good too! It was a pleasure to see Jacob again, he is incredibly well behaved and so adorable. I just love talking to him about his transformers, and this time he brought a really cool one with him.

We watched (kind of) Nemo, Tommy played on the guitar (Tristan made a new bestfriend!) and we all just talked and got caught up on eachothers lives. It's been years since I've had time to talk with Lauren, it was really nice and both Mark and I hope to do it again soon.

Here are some pictures

Mullet anyone? (and a slight vent)

Lately we've noticed that the boys hair is a tad long, if their hair wasn't so curly they'd have minature mullets so we were going to take them to get it cut last weekend at this place down in Redmond that specializes in kids haircuts (I wanted some "scrapbookable" pictures). However, that got postponed until this weekend due to the dump of snow that showed up last weekend. So we were going to take them tomorrow to get this mullet thing fixed.

(here comes the vent part) I am on duty this weekend and also had Saturday clinic from 8-10 am, not bad at all it's just a few hours of work and passes quickly. The bad part is that Mark worked last night and got home aroudn 3:30-4:00am. So he was exhausted when he had to get up with the kids at 6:30. I had to be at work by 7:30 and on my way there I got a call from a reservist Cheif asking if I could have the doors open by 7:15, I told her no because I wouldn't be there until 7:30, she was mad.

I get to work and find that there are about 8 reservist doctors there needing to use our clinical space, and they are going to be using this space until 5-6pm tonight...and that means one of us on duty has to stay, oh and by the way they need to do this on Sunday as well.

The worst news is that our OIC ok'd this some time ago and failed to inform anyone in the chain of command or anyone who would be working this weekend. Thanks, great, I know I'm in the military and all but I have a FAMILY too, and it would be nice to get this information passed so that I can make sure my kids are taken care of. The other person on duty with me was kind enough to let me go today and he stayed until about 5:30. I got home as soon as I could so that poor Mark could get some sleep, as he works again tonight.

So I'm on tomorrow from 7:30- whenever they decide they are done. I know it's a silly thing to get pissed about, but I really hate rescheduling family events/activities for something to do with work-especially on the weekend. I know I'm in the military and I know I'm on duty so this shouldn't be a big deal, but I am so sick of the lack of planning and communication that goes on in this command. I mean when asked, I do more than my share of duties, working extra, staying late, taking on other jobs and responsibilities and occasionally there's more than just a "thank you" (i.e. you can leave early today, take an extra long lunch...). And I'd have absolutely no problem working the needed hours this weekend, had I been given the opportunity to make other arrangements for the kids.

And I hate having to ask others to step in and help us at the last minute. Thank God for my mom, she has been a lifesaver too many times to count and she is coming up tomorrow when the kids get up to take care of them, and pretty much stay until Mark's had enough time to get rest. I hope I'm not going to have another weekend duty for a llllllllllooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnng time!

I guess the haircuts will have to wait another week because we will be gone next weekend, getting ready for Rachael and T's wedding in Hawaii. Just a little more time to grow those mullets I suppose :)

Sweet Nana and Cassie Time

Nana came over and played with the kiddos this morning. Boy do they love their Nana!



We went over to Chelsey's for dinner tonight. We also got to see Lauren and Tommy's little girl Brianna. She is beautiful, and such a sweet baby! We all had a great time at dinner, it's been too long since we've all been together. I hope we can do it more often!

And MORE snow??????

This is what I woke up to this morning! Actually quite beautiful but it puts a damper on the days plans. Today was going to be "boys FIRST haircut" day, complete with pictures and a page in their scrapbook. I guess we'll have to reschedule for next saturday!

Snow....in March?

Here are some pictures of our yard tonight. It's almost April for petes sake...... I live 15 minutes from work and it took me over an hour to get home tonight. The poor kids, they were hungry and bored, so Ryland resorted to crying for the last 15-20 minutes of the car ride. Poor guy.... But the snow is BEAUTIFUL!

Playing the drums and clapping our feet

Thanks Nana and Auntie Tutu for the musical insturments

James and Jessie's wedding

Our recent trip to Vegas was the result of an invitation to attend the wedding of one of my very good Junior High girlfriends. Mark and I decided we'd make a vacation out of it and stay the whole week. We went with our neighbors, Jeff and Lisa, and had a blast!
Our first night there all 4 of us went and saw KA, by Cirque du Soleil then Sunday we attended the wedding. Monday night Mark and I went to Phantom of the Opera (AMAZING!!!!!) and Jeff and Lisa had a date night, Tuesday Lisa and I had to literally drag the guys to Thunder from Down Under (absolutely NOT worth it!!!- the show was awful!) Wednesday night we all went and saw O by Cirque du Soleil and then Thrusday night we saw The Blueman Group. It was an amazing vacation and we had a lot of fun.

Here is a video of Jessie's wedding, it was beautiful and I cried, and am so glad that we were invited and able to go.

Just a little fun in vegas

Here is a photo album from some of our Vegas fun. We sure did have a good time with Jeff and Lisa and were really glad they came with us. We went to a show almost every night, and spent the last day lounging at the pool...just as one should do when on vacation!

Tomorrow I'll be adding some pictures from Jessie's wedding.

What happens in vegas...

Here are some pictures of the new tattoo Mark designed. It's the kids initials. He did a really good job coming up with something unique!

Fun in the tub

Mark caught a very cute moment this evening with all 3 kiddos in the tub. Cassie was having a blast beating on Tristan's bottom and Ryland discovered that dunking his head was oh so much fun.

Family pictures

We went and got 18 month pictures of the kiddos, and we also got a family picture. I can't believe that they are 18 months old....time goes by so fast!

Just a little update

Someone brought home a cold (between myself and the kids, it's debatable) and now the kids have snotty runny noses and I have a sore throat and a runny nose. Luckly Mark isn't feeling under the weather and we are hoping it stays that way, especially with our upcoming vegas party week.

Poor Tristan...it's hit him the worst. He spent the entire day sulking and crying at daycare, apparently he got a lot of lap time today. Cassie and Ryland still have runny noses (we are into day 6 of this), but they don't seem to be feeling under the weather and are as playful as ever.

Motherhood continues to amaze me. It's no secret to anyone who knows me that I have always wanted babies, but I never imagined that I could love anyone like I love these children. Just last night, my heart nearly broke for Tristan. He had such a rough night, and I wanted nothing more than to take his discomfort away from him and experience it myself. All I could do was comfort and hold him. I imagine there is much more to come of this over the next few decades.

Each night on our way to our bedroom, Mark and I sneak into their room and tuck them in for the night. And on occasion, we'll grab one of them to come snuggle with us for a little bit. I am so thankful and so grateful that we have been so richly blessed. Of course there are tough days, exhausting and frustrating ones too, but there are so many moments that make those days so worthwhile.

Nope...we don't feed our kids

instead we let them rummage through the cubbords and eat off of the floor

What we did yesterday...

Visit www.tripletbutterflywings.com for a slideshow.......... Yesterday was the first heavenly birthday of Jaxon, Colin and Courtney and we joined their family in celebrating by releasing balloons at 12:15, 12:16 and 12:17.

Here are some pictures of their first Heavenly birthday

Videos

I forgot to add a link to the videos from today- I think they are funny and worth watching! The first 4 videos on the page are new. Click here

A day at the childrens Museum

I took the kids to meet up with Katy and Ricky at the Childrens Museum in Everett. It was nothing i imagined it would be. I had a blast and the kids had a blast as well. Even better, when Mark was done running his errands, he joined us and we were able to do a few more activities as we weren't outnumbered by the kids.

I took about a hundered pictures, you can see them here, here's a preview...

It's been a wonderfully fun filled weekend! Saturday we spent the day with Annie, Mitch and conor at the Aquarium (I forgot my camera in the car), Sunday Grandpa pete came over for dinner and hours of play, and then today-my last day of "recovery" we went to the childrens museum and out to dinner. Busy busy busy!

Rylands laugh

I LOVE his laugh, it cracks me up. He's such a jolly fellow. Here's a video of him with grandpa, they were having a grand old time!!!

Grandpa Pete visits!!!!

Grandpa Pete came for a visit today, he played with the kids for hours. They had so much fun running around and having him chase them. He also brought the best gift with him...Balloons. The kids had hours of fun with these balloons, and they wouldn't even put them down to eat dinner. They had bathtime while daddy got dinner ready for all of us, and then the kids got to come back downstairs and play more. This is unusual, they usually go straight to bed, so they were having a blast!!!

Pee pee in the potty, pee pee in the potty

Yeah Cassiebear!!! Cassie went potty again tonight on her little seat on the toilet. She's no longer afraid of it, as I mentioned a few days ago, but she hasn't peed since that last "fluke" we had. Here's to hoping that this time isn't a fluke, and that she understands what she's suppose to do on the potty!

Before and after the tummy tuck

These pictures are the before, and then 2 weeks

after surgery. The scar will heal over time, and I am still retaining quite a bit of fluid, they drained 75cc of blood tinged fluid and want me to come back again next week to have it drained again.

Feeding ourselves dinner

What an adventure this was...It was all Mark's idea-

We've got some more fun pictures on our photo website, click here to see them.

Learning to share

We are finally making progress on the concept of learning to share...

I'm so proud of the boys, they are doing so much better playing with the same toy and letting eachother have a toy that the other was previously playing with. Cassie still isn't "with" the concept, clearly she gets it but she's not so keen to abide by our requests. Go figure, just like her mother!!!

Working on the potty

Since that day a few weeks ago when Cassie had a fluke and actually peed in the potty, she hasn't gone again. However, she has stopped screaming when we put her on the big potty, especially when daddy is there to entertain her. We got some potty and bathtime pictures tonight, here are a few, the rest you can see here

They are growing up so fast, I can't believe that 17 months ago they were just 17 inches long and just over 4lbs. It doesn't seem like that long ago...

1 week after the tummy tuck

I've had some requests for pictures, so here they are...

The first picture on the Left is a few days after the surgery when I still had the drains in, the next two pictures are a week after surgery

Free Cat!!!

My mom and dad send me some beautiful flowers when I was in the hospital after my surgery. There were some roses and lilly's, a very pretty boquet. When I came home we set them on the counter in the kitchen where everyone could see them.

Apparently Zain fell in love with the flowers (or something????)- you know how cats rub up on things they like....because when I woke up this morning, the cat was COVERED in yellow from the pollen inside the Lilly's. Here's a picture, it's pretty comical

It's even on his FEET!!?!?!?!?!?!

I've been gone a while....

My surgery on the 30th went really well, I'll post a picture when I get them loaded onto the computer.

Many thanks to "big Grandma" who watched the kids for us so that Mark could take me to my surgery. Here are some pictures of her visit, they really enjoyed her cooking! She spent Tuesday and Wednesday night here at our house and I can imagine was ready to go home and sleep by the time Mark got home. The kids had a really good time with her!!!!