School Shopping

I took Kaeli and Paige shopping this weekend for school clothes. Daddy stayed home with the boys...so the girls were rather excited to say the least. Our first stop was to buy purses. :) They had a couple of dollars and decided they HAD to have purses to put their money in. And, here's the funny thing......they also had to find something to spend their few dollars on. So, by the time we were done at Claire's, they each had a purse.....but no money. Kaeli had a hard time finding anything for 2.00 and I kept telling her maybe she could save the money since she couldn't find anything. Nope, not a chance! She had 2.00 and by gosh she was going to spend it on SOMETHING! :) Finally, Kaeli and Paige bought a package of nail polish for 3.00 together. Kaeli contributed her 2.00 and Paige contributed her 1.00. You should have seen these 2 girls prancing around the mall with their new purses slung over their shoulders full of their nail polish THEY had just bought with their very own money! They looked as proud as peacocks.

We then proceeded to one store after another. Paige is still at a very easy age to dress. It also helps that she's pretty easy-going and doesn't have any problems with how clothes feel on her. I'd pick up something, say "oh this is cute" and she'd agree. She'd try it on and say "I like it". Ahhhh, can I bottle this age up and keep ALL our shopping expeditions just this way? Well, there was ONE minor issue. I showed her 2 shirts that I liked. When she tried them on, she could only choose one to get. It just so happens that the one she REALLY loved was not my favorite of the two. I relented and let her get it. I figured she had been so easy up to that point she deserved it. I just love the outfit she got for her first day of school. It's so sweet! You'll have to wait until next Monday to a pic, though.

Now Kaeli was not quite so easy. The first problem is that she's now in the "tweens" size range. 7 yr olds are buying clothes from the same section as early teens. So, I found many of the styles just not very cute. Kaeli was also not impressed. Thank goodness, she still loves pink and cutesy. That's NOT what they are designing for little girls these days. The 2nd problems is that Kaeli is very sensitive to how clothes feel on her. So, even if it's cute on the hanger, it has to feel just right on her. We managed to walk away with 2 outfits. But, one has to go back. The skirt and shirt just don't match. I knew that was the case at the store, but I was just tired of trying to find 2 things that she'd actually agree to wear. She's agreed that we can take the outfit back and try another mall. This was soooooo infinitely easier last year when she had to wear a uniform.

In the end, we all survived. We do need to venture back to the mall again for Kaeli, but only for one outfit. We're all stocked up on school supplies, too. So, this week we'll start working ourselves back into a routine before school starts next Monday (Aug 27).

When I wrote earlier about how Kaeli and Paige had a few dollars I realized I didn't mention how they got that money. I don't give the kids an allowance. I buy them what they need and will occasionally buy them something special. They are expected to help me out quite often when I ask and keep their room clean (well, at least kind of clean). Sometimes they ask what they will get if they clean a mess their brothers just made. Steve and I always remind them that they will be getting dinner.....they get the point. But, since the beginning I've always told them that they don't just get special stuff for doing everyday, ordinary work. Or even for doing things that I ask them to do. They can earn extra stuff by going above and beyond the "call of duty". For about a week now, Kaeli's been asking for more Webkinz pets, charms, or trading cards. Finally, one morning she woke up, snuk downstairs to the basement, and cleaned the entire basement (toys and such). She came up and took me down to "surprise" me with what she had done. Because this was one of those "extra special" jobs that no one had even asked her to do she got 2.00 and 2 packs of Webkinz trading cards. Paige wanted something, too, so she went found a little job she could do and earned 1.00. So, that's where the money came from. The basement job was really neat! I didn't even know she was awake yet. At one point, I saw the basement light on and turned it off. A bit later, I saw it back on but I was too busy to turn it off right then and just thought maybe I had not actually turned it off the first time. When Kaeli and I were later talking about what she had done, I was very impressed. When I turned the light off the first time, she didn't say a word and just turned it back on so that I wouldn't know she was down there. That's VERY impressive for Kaeli because she normally freaks out! So, that took a lot of self-control for her to maintain her composure. It was a proud moment for me because I feel like it's teaching her a good work ethic. So many employees these days think they only have to do the bare minimum of their own job. I want my kids to understand that to really get noticed and earn more in life you have to go above and beyond the basics of what is asked of you. She wanted more and sought out a way to get more! I was very proud! :)

August 2007 Beach Vacation

Click on the image and you'll be taken to my album!! It shows some of my favorite pictures from the trip. Much better than just posting a few on the posts. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any pics of our tent or a full view of the trenches I dug. But, you can see they are pretty big because there is a picture of all 4 kids in one of my trenches. :) ENJOY!

Photobucket Album

Thursday, August 16

We are back from the beach. I just can't seem to remember to update this often often as I had "planned" to. What's new, right? :) The last several days have just been quite busy. There's always the unpacking and settling back in after vacation.

When we got home Saturday night Kaeli had a voice mail from her "very best friend in the whole world"-Amanda. They called earlier in the week to invite Kaeli to her birthday party. The party was on Monday and though it was very last minute we HAD to go. Fortunately, Cheri-the mom-didn't mind that I had to bring my whole crew. All the kids had a great time and I'm so glad we were able to go. Amanda is moving to West Virginia in a week so it was also a very, very sad goodbye.

One funny thing about the party. One of the moms asks me "so do you find having 4 kids to be easy or hard?" Ummmmmm......did she seriously ask me that question? I was tempted to say I thought it was incredibly easy and that I was planning to have 4 more. HAHA!!

Yesterday I had to do the lovely "prep" for a colonoscopy. Let me just say I'm quite happy that is over with! Being on a liquid diet all day when you still have to feed the minions is no easy task. I will admit my patience was GONE by the end of the day. Oh, and I thought the liquid diet was the hard part. Little did I know the "ocean water" (as one friend termed it) I had to drink would be absolutely disgusting! I've heard people say prepping for a colonoscopy wasn't that bad.....well, I have to disagree. I have to admit-I ended up not drinking the last 16 oz. I seriously couldn't bring myself to drink another drop. But, I survived and am now DONE with the procedure. No abnormal findings! Hmmmmm.....I guess that means I just have irritable bowel syndrome. I've heard it can be brought on by stress so I guess that's not unreasonable. I always have to laugh when Dr's, etc ask if I'm under any unusual amounts of stress. I don't quite know how to answer. Well, of course I'm under stress. Wouldn't you be if you had 4 kids under age 7?

Oh, and to celebrate the fact that I can eat as much as I want today.....I'm having large amounts of pizza for dinner and maybe even a beer or two. :)

I promise I'll be adding pictures sooooooonnnnnn!!!!

Friday, August 10

Wednesday and Thursday were mostly beach days again. Basically more of what I already wrote about. Kaeli and Paige played with their new friends-Laney and Danielle both days on the beach. We actually saw very little of them. We also found out their friends actually own a house here just a few houses down from where we stay. So, Kaeli got their phone number so that we can meet up with them when we are down. This is what Kaeli has always hoped for! She has been wanting a friend to play with here since I can remember. AJ continued to eat sand at every opportunity. The child would just grab a handful of sand and cram it into his mouth! I'm looking forward to next summer already when he'll be almost 2 and I won't have to worry about him crawling and eating sand. This was a very hard age to have at the beach. Out of the 4 kids, he's the first one still ONLY in the crawling phase when he came here for the week. Kaeli and Ryan would have only been about 6 mos the first summer and 18 mos the second summer. Paige would have been a newborn the first summer and 14 mos the second summer. But, we all survived and it can only get easier from here......right?.....PLEASE tell me I'm right. :)

So, today is Friday-our last day here. We'll spend the morning cleaning and packing tomorrow and head home by early afternoon. We decided to take a day off from going to the beach. After a relaxing morning (well, as relaxing as anything can be with 4 young kids) we had lunch then headed to Ocean City again. We decided to go back to Wonderland since the kids enjoyed it so much earlier in the week. This time we remembered the camera and video camera, so I think we got some good pictures and videos of the kids on all the rides. Hopefully, we'll actually take some time to figure out how to upload videos to the computer when we get home. Even if we don't get that done right away, I promise there will be lost of pictures next week! So, keep checking back.

Right now the boys are in bed and the girls are playing Barbies. Steve is going to grill some seafood for us and we are going to drink a little beer and relax (shhh, don't tell anybody). While we've had a wonderful week here, I'm definitely looking forward to being home again and being in our normal routine again.

Tuesday 8-7

Today was another beach day. We got there at about 10 again and set up our camp. Basically, it was a repeat of Sunday. Kaeli and Paige spent most of the day in the ocean, Ryan mostly played in the sand trenches, and AJ spent the day eating sand. He did actually take a nap on the beach, though! That is a rarity for my kids, but it was much appreciated. Kaeli met a few friends, so she was thrilled. We got home by 3 again. The little guys had naps while the girls watched a video. Steve and I just tried to recuperate.

We chose tonight to do our sunset tradition because it was supposed to be a sunny day/night with minimal clouds. Our sunset tradition is something we do every year during our week-long vacation here. We got to Harpoon Henry's in Cape May, have dinner, and then walk across the street to the bay beach to watch the sunset. In the past, we've gotten some great pictures during this time. Unfortunately, there was a LOT of haze so we didn't get a sunset at all. :( Oh well, we did get a few pictures and the kids still had fun running around on the beach.

The night got interesting on the way home. One of Kaeli's top front teeth has been loose for a long time! On the way home she dropped the headphones on herself and somehow managed to mostly knock the tooth completely out. But, it was just barely hanging on. She tried and tried to get that tooth out, but it just wasn't coming. It was so sad. She spent a good 30-45 in the bathroom working on that tooth. She was so very upset. But, by 10:00 we decided she needed to give up on the tooth. I'm slightly worried that it might come out while she's sleeping, but hopefully not. I'm SURE it will be out tomorrow. But, the good news is that we were able to notify the tooth fairy that it will be happening VERY soon so that she could prepare herself for the unexpected trip to the beach. See, the tooth fairy got herself in a bit of trouble. She gave Kaeli a Webkinz for the other top front tooth and left a note saying that the top front teeth are extra special. So, she always leaves an extra special gift for the 2 top front teeth. I don't think the tooth fairy was prepared for the other top front tooth to come out while we were at the beach. BUT, like I said, she is now prepared! ;)

Not sure where else to put this, but it was funny, so I have to put it somewhere. A lemon wedge was served with my dinner. Ryan kept acting like he wanted it. There's no way to reason with this child, so I gave it to him. I figured he'd taste it and hand it back. After handing it to him I started eating my dinner. A few minutes later I look over and he has eaten half of the lemon. I don't just mean the pulp part. He has literally eaten HALF of this lemon wedge...peel and all! YUCK!! I tried taking it away and he got upset. Hopefully lemon peel can't cause any damage. Luckily, he stopped eating it after another couple of bites. I still have no idea how he could do that without it even phasing him! Yep, there's no doubt about it....our kids march to the beat of a different drummer. :)

Monday 8-6

Today was not really a beach day. It was raining during the morning and looked like it would rain off and on throughout the day. We decided to cook a big breakfast, let the little guys have early naps, and then head to Ocean City. Ocean City has a really great boardwalk with lots of interesting stuff for the kids.

It was past lunch time by the time we got to the Ocean City boardwalk so we stopped for pizza first. Then we headed straight for the amusement park. There are a couple of different choices, but we took the kids to Wonderland Pier because they seemed to have a bigger selection of kids' rides. The kids had a fantastic time!!!

First, let me just say that Kaeli has turned into quite the little thrill-seeker. Anyone who has known her her whole life knows this is absolutely unbelievable!! She rode 3 or 4 thrill rides. But, the one that I find most shocking is the Pirate Ship. She rode on the Pirate Ship with Steve in Rehoboth about a month ago close to the end of the ship. I really thought she'd be scared. NOPE! She couldn't wait to get on the Pirate Ship at Wonderland. She marched right on that ride without me OR Steve and headed straight for the very last row of seats! We were able to watch her face from our vantage point. She did have a few moments where her face showed pure terror, but the rest of the time it was all smiles. She loved it!

Paige tends to stick with the in-between rides. Not really the "baby" stuff, but not the big thrill rides, either. I think her favorite was the swings. They go really fast around and it makes her fly into the air. I also think she really enjoyed the ride where you sit in a seat and it shoots you up in the air and then drops you back down. She had a few looks of terror on the way down, but it was always followed by a big smile.

Ryan rode the Merry-Go-Round and little cars without much emotion other than a few smiles. But, I wish I had had a video camera when he was on the last ride of the day. It was an airplane ride where he had a stick to move the airplane up or down as it went around. Ryan didn't really understand what the stick did, he just kept pushing/pulling it really fast. The airplane was bouncing up and down with each push/pull. He was going up and down so fast he was actually bumping up out of his seat. He loved it and had this huge smile on his face. He wasn't quite sure what was happening, but he knew it was FUN! I was laughing so hard watching him that I had tears streaming down my face. I can't believe we left the video camera in the car! We might have to go back there this week JUST so I can get that on video.

Before we left we stocked up on fudge, Irish Potatoes, and Saltwater Taffy. We also got t-shirts for the kids.

We were exhausted by the time we got home! Steve and I were looking forward to bedtime for the kids when we could just sit and relax.

Sunday 8-5

Now, today is the day we really got serious about the beach! We were on the beach at 10:00 and it was a BEAUTIFUL day!! We got our tent set up and we were ready to go. I'll have to be sure to post a picture of our tent. It's a lot of work, but I think it's the only way we can spend so much time on the beach. Poor Steve, he's the one that has to drag the tent AND the overloaded wagon all the way to the beach and back. I'm sure he's looking forward to the day that I'm not either pregnant or carrying a baby. OH YEAH......that will be NEXT summer!! :) Kaeli and Paige are now finally at an age where they can help. They carry their own backpack of toys over all by themselves! The new rule is that if they can carry it they can take it. This stops them from wanting to take everything they can throw at us.

So, the day was terrific! Nice breeze off the ocean, water temp was perfect, and the air temp was just right. The girls are just amazing now! They LOVE the water and the waves. It's hard to believe Kaeli was terrified of the ocean until she was about 3. But, I'm also very proud to say that both Kaeli and Paige seem to know their limits and don't go too far out. Ryan enjoys the ocean, too. He doesn't mind the waves, but he also doesn't go too far out. The funniest thing is that he doesn't get terribly upset if he goes under. The tide was coming in today so the waves got a little rough even close to shore. Ryan lost his balance a couple of times and went completely under. He came up laughing each time! Of course, me being me, I did practically dive in after him once. Steve even got that on video and I'm looking forward to seeing how silly I look diving in to save my son from probably less than a foot of water! Not only that, but I had AJ in my arms. In my defense, I think it's an instinctual reaction after raising Kaeli. If she had gone under at his age, she would head back to the tent and not go near the water again for the whole week. She would have been traumatized.

AJ was just too cute! Not too long ago he was slightly scared of the sand and the ocean. We could plop him down in a little hole at the edge of the surf and he wouldn't move. He would just splash in the little bit of water for a LONG time. Actually, he did that pretty much the first half of today. But, then he got pretty comfortable. After that, he just looked like a little sand monster. He would take off crawling through the sand and it didn't phase him a bit! He'd get his hands wet, stick them in a pile of dry sand, and then stick his hands straight into his mouth. It didn't phase him! I kept trying to keep him from eating too much sand, but then I realized it was a lost cause. I just couldn't keep up with him. He's still not too crazy about the waves, but he certainly seems to LOVE the beach!

Oh, and I will also be posting a picture of my trenches to save our camp from the rising tide. I'm thinking that if only I had been in New Orleans with a child-size plastic shovel, Hurricane Katrina wouldn't have caused all that damage! :) I'm going to submit the picture to President Bush and ask if I can be named head of Homeland Security. I also saved a few other beach-goers behind us and they were very grateful. I have no idea why, but I actually ENJOYED digging all those trenches. The kids also loved playing in them.

We got the kids home by 3:00 so that the little guys could have naps. We rested for a few hours, had dinner, and went to bed.

Saturday 8-4

Today was the first day of our vacation. I had to get the grocery shopping done for the week, so it was kind of a "work" day. We just spent the day settling in. Late afternoon we took a walk and made a little stop at the ice cream store-Sweet Pete's. MB, if you're reading-thanks for the gift certificate. :) Kaeli and Paige LOVE Sweet Pete's! They almost always get the Holy Cow--cotton candy ice cream, sprinkles, and a cow shaped brownie. I know!! It doesn't sound all that appealing to me, either, but they certainly get a thrill out of it. :) Ryan just takes whatever we choose for him--a scoop of mint chocolate chip. AJ takes a few tastes when he can get it and otherwise tries his best to get down and crawl. I know walking isn't an easy phase, but it's definitely easier than the crawling phase! At least you can let them walk around just about anywhere. When they are crawling you just can't let them down to crawl many places, but that's ALLLL they want to do!

Ok, so after our ice cream stop we headed home for a quiet evening and headed to bed early. And I do mean early! I think I was in bed myself at 8:30!

Vacation in Sea Isle

We have been in Sea Isle for a week-long vacation since Friday. We've been staying busy and having a great time. Since I forgot I had a blog, I haven't been writing much in here. So, I'll do a little bit of catching up here in the next few posts. When we get back home this weekend I'll try to add some pictures. Of course, realistically, that may not actually happen until the middle of next week. But, I'll do it ASAP. So, on to my catch-up posts.

Vacation in Sea Isle

We have been in Sea Isle for a week-long vacation since Friday. We've been staying busy and having a great time. Since I forgot I had a blog, I haven't been writing much in here. So, I'll do a little bit of catching up here in the next few posts. When we get back home this weekend I'll try to add some pictures. Of course, realistically, that may not actually happen until the middle of next week. But, I'll do it ASAP. So, on to my catch-up posts.