Last day of school

The girls actually finished school two weeks ago, but this is the first chance I've had to post any pictures.

Their principal let all the kids that donated uniforms wear regular clothes on the last day. The girls were so excited to get to wear something other than uniforms. Sophie is wearing a leotard because her class had a circus theme party and she went as an acrobat. Just for reference here's a picture of the girls on their first day of school.

Amazing how much kids can change in such a short period of time isn't it? 

I tried to get a few pictures of the girls at their end of year parties, but running from one end of the school to the next to take pictures of them was not as easy as it sounds.

 

 

You know the expression 'hit like a girl'? Yeah, Sophie totally hits like a girl.

Audrey's class had an outdoor party with water. Lots of water. And no towels.

Typical Kylie picture.

When we got home from school I gave them a little gift. Nothing fancy just another webkinz to add to their already stupidly large collection.

I honestly don't know who was happier to see the last day of school this year. I'm kind of thinking it was me. This has been a looong year and I am really enjoying the break. 

Happy Mothers Day!

Today I am thankful. 

Thankful that I have a wonderful, loving mother that is not only a great mom, but an even better grandmother. She has been at the birth of all my children, baked all their birthday cakes and has never hesitated to offer to babysit. She is always there when I need someone to talk to, she never judges me, and she always offers support.

I am thankful for my mother in law. Even though we rarely see eye to eye and nine times out of ten she makes me scratch my head and wonder what on earth she's talking about I'm still thankful for her. For without her I would not have my wonderful husband.

And most of all I am thankful for my three wonderful daughters. Yes, they are occasionally a handful, but I could not imagine life without them. They are the most kind, loving, caring, beautiful, smart and funniest people I know. I am thankful that I was chosen to be their mother and I cherish everyday that I am given with them. 

 

To all of my fellow moms out there, I wish you a wonderful day!

The big announcement

As most of you know today is April 1st otherwise known as April Fools Day. So this morning I talked to my husband and asked him if he would like to help me play a trick on the kids. Normally we don't even pay any attention to April Fools Day, but for some reason the kids have been talking all week about it and trying to cook up pranks so I thought we would one up them. After breakfast we called all the kids into the living room and told them we had a big, life changing announcement for them. Kylie reluctantly put down the wii remote and Audrey and Sophie stopped coloring and they sat down and looked at us. Then we made the announcement....."Mommy is pregnant!" Audrey and Sophie yelled "What!?" and Kylie? Kylie just turned around and went back to playing her game on the wii. Audrey and Sophie told us they wanted a girl and then they told Kylie she was going to have to her room with the baby because there was no way they were going to do it. Meanwhile Kylie still kept playing her wii. I even bought a test to show the non-believer (granted it didn't have the lines on it, but we didn't think they would look at it that closely.)

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 Kylie still played her wii so I asked her if she was excited. She looked at me and rolled her eyes and said "yeah, nice April Fools trick." So I guess our plan was a dud. Oh well next year I'm really going to have a good one planned for her.

Techy wannabe

I don't consider myself to be hi-tech at all so this little conversation with a certain six year old has me scratching my head.
Sophie: "Mom, I'm going to text someone okay?
Mom: "Honey you need a phone to text someone."
Sophie: "Oh. Well then I'm just going to go on facebook so I can talk to all of my friends okay?"
Audrey: "You don't have a facebook account!"
Sophie: "Oh. Well then I'll just email them."
Audrey: "You don't have an email account either!"
Sophie: "Oh, just forget it then!"

Mommy means business!

I think it's pretty safe to say that most people that know me know that I am a complete nut job when it comes to having a tidy house. I have to make sure it's clean before I go to bed at night and definitely before I leave home (I mean really, who wants to come home to a messy house?) I tend to get very, very cranky when it's messy and well....sometimes having three kids and a clean house just don't go together. At all. 
That being said a few months ago I made the girls chore charts. The two main things on it were make the bed and pick up toys in the bedrooms. Pretty easy huh? For the most part yes. Kylie has her own room and since she doesn't play with toys that often anymore pretty much all she has to do is make her bed. Audrey and Sophie share a room so it's been a little tricky figuring out how to fairly distribute responsibility for them. They pretty much decided on their own that they would both pick up the toys and alternate days on making the bed. Sophie is a big people pleaser so she has been doing well on her end. Audrey however tends to be lazy and has not been doing so well. On Monday it was her turn to make the bed. I asked her three times before she left for school to make it and she did not. I asked her and Sophie both to pick up their toys as well and that didn't happen either. This is how I found their room:

 

Not horrible, but unacceptable by my standards. After thinking about it I decided that instead of making the bed myself and picking up the toys I was going to just remove everything that was out of place. I kind of questioned whether this was a good move or not so I polled my friends. A few of them said to give them another chance, but most of them said to take the things out of their room to teach them a lesson so that's what I did. 

  I took the quilt and pillows off the bed leaving only the sheets and I bagged up all the toys that were on the floor. When they got home from school there were tears. Lots of tears. I finally told them that I would put the bedding back on if they promised to make up the bed the next day. The toys I told them would have to be earned back. So far they've been doing a good job so I guess I'll relent and give them back some of their toys. They've been told that next time I'll be ebaying their toys and they won't be able to get them back. Now I'm just going to cross my fingers and hope they can keep up the good work because I detest ebay!

 

Playing hooky

Last week my husband had to make a trip to Pensacola and asked me if I wanted to go with him. I did, but I was concerned about not making it home before the kids got out of school. After thinking it over for about 30 seconds I decided that we would just take the kids with us. Since they rarely get to miss school they were thrilled to have the day off. While we were in Pensacola my husband asked if anyone wanted to go to the National Naval Aviation Museum. I honestly didn't think the girls would be that into it, but they said they wanted to go. These two clowns had a blast.

 

  They kept running from one exhibit to the next yelling "Hey mom, take my picture!"

 

 This one however? She was a bit pouty. 

 

She's kind of in that 'all I want to do is hole up in my room and play video games' stage. So after having a talk with her and maybe making a few threats....

She finally came around and I was even able to get a rare picture of her smiling.

Pouty spells aside we had a fantastic day and we're already looking forward to our next day of playing hooky. 

8 is great!

Happy birthday Audrey!