And so it goes

It's been so crazy around here.  My head has been spinning and I don't know which way I'm going half the time and once I figure it out, I'm late getting there.  I've started working at the kids' MDO program.  I'm enjoying the opportunity to get back to some teaching.  We have a cute group of 3 year olds that we are working with.  The kids all love their teachers.  Aubrie thinks she is hot stuff being on the preschool side.  She does "kindergarten math" and gets to paint every day.  She's in heaven.  Her teachers are fantastic and I love seeing the things she brings home in her folder.  Emilie lucked out and got two wonderful teachers.  One of Emilie's teachers was Aubrie's teacher for two years.  And Kyle is in the nursery class and it is all big brute boys.  The two petite teachers are so sweet and love on those boys all day.  Kyle is one of the last to start walking, but we are working on it.  He gave them heck the first couple of days of school, but he is getting the hang of it.  He has pretty good days but as soon as he sees me he starts fussing.  Typical.  

The girls are BIG into dressing up as princesses lately.  Aubrie has outgrown her gown so we got her a new one the other day that came with a wig.  She's Rapunzel.  They ran out and greeted dad in the drive way in their outfits.  Emilie would sleep in her snow white gown if we let her.  It sits right next to her bed during her nap so she can put it on as soon as she gets up.

First day of school not cooperating pose

Pre-K

MDO 2's

The girls carry their own bags now and you would not believe how helpful that it is to me!  We pray on the way to school and Aubrie will pray for her friends and her teachers and I'll pray that we stay healthy and are good listeners and then when it's Emilie's turn, she prays "God, I don't want to cry and scream at school, so I won't cry and scream, ok??"  She likes to cling to me and cry and then as soon as she's in the classroom she is fine and happy.  Makes me feel good about myself...

Does Kyle's bag say Emilie?  Why yes!  Yes it does!  The poor kid suffers from being the third child.  I'll get around to getting him a manly bag.  But if you look closely, there is a little key chain on the zipper with a manly star and it says Kyle.  :)

 Steve and Brit have moved all of their stuff out of their house in Florida.  They close on their house here in Nashville the end of September.  It's nice having another Irish fan around for football season.  Here is the gang pre-gaming...

 What a mess.

Some of you may know, but I'll remind those who don't.  I'm married to super dad.  He does bath time duty.  He gets the gang squeaky clean and that is not an easy task.  The tub is actually getting pretty crowded lately.  

 Our garden had huge mammoth sunflowers this year.  I spent last weekend uprooting the dead corn and sunflowers and cut off the heads.  This past weekend, Adam and the girls extracted the seeds and we baked them.  The girls enjoyed making a mess INSIDE.

I had a hard time with my zucchini this year.  They were so sad and didn't do well.  Neither did my cucumber.  I don't know what happened and I'll have to try something different next year.  I replaced them with some fall flowers for now.  I'm looking forward to the weather changing but unfortunately, my gang came down sick.  Kyle wasn't feeling too hot when I picked him up on Thursday at MDO.  He was running a low grade fever, so on Saturday I took him in and he had an ear infection.  Then it was Emilie's turn.  She ran a low grade fever and had a runny nose.  But it went away after a couple of days.  But we weren't in the clear, because now we have....

hand

foot

and mouth.

gross.

I hate hand, foot, and mouth.  HATE.  It's the worst.  Emilie has red blisters on her feet and inside her mouth.  There are two strains and I know we had the lighter version last summer, but this is the nasty version this time.  Aubrie had it really bad when we flew to TX to go see my newborn niece for the first time.  I didn't realize it until I took the pacifier out of her mouth and she had white bumps all over her tongue.  We ended up spending the whole visit in the hotel room and in my brother's backyard in the nasty July sun.  It was lovely.

But on the bright side, I'm getting a lot of snuggling in with my babies.  Kyle has slept in my arms 3 times this past week and I have loved it.  He's so big!!

It's time to get off of here.  The girls are swinging from my arms and legs, begging for me to turn on cartoons, and Kyle is in the hutch again, trying to re-arrange glass platters and vases. He picked up a vase and threw it like a ball this past weekend on daddy's watch and it shattered everywhere.  The handles on the hutch are awkward and a child lock thing won't go on it.  When my mom watched the kids, she closed it with a twist tie and I thought that was so country but now it's looking pretty smart... He's very helpful.  He likes to stand up in his crib and scream bloody murder because he doesn't know how to get down and all the pressure on his legs from holding his big booty up gets to him.  Big boy problems.

I'm leaving you all with the best dip recipe you'll ever have.  Chuy's is new to Nashville and they have a creamy jalapeno dip and my mom searched recipes until she found the perfect copycat.  And then she made a few adjustments and it is perfect!  She made it for us when we were there this summer and now I am sharing it with you.  Make it and love it.  I insist!
Love to all!

Jalapeno Ranch Dip

1/3 cup mayonnaise

8 oz sour cream

1/3 cup buttermilk

1/3 cup tomatillo salsa

1/3 cup of cilantro (about a handful)

1 dry ranch packet - 1 oz

1/4 cup pickled jalapenos (these are in a jar by cans of diced green chilies and jars of salsa)

Combine all ingredients in a blender and process until smooth.

Enjoy!

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Happy Birthday Kyle!

I have so many talented friends and I benefit greatly from it.  Marcie just happened to bring her camera over to our house for Kyle's birthday and got some wonderful shots from the day. We went with a puppy dog theme for the big guy.  It's hard coming up with a theme for the first birthday because the kid isn't into much. The one thing he is obsessed with other than me (and I didn't think a party with my face printed all over the napkins was appropriate) is the dog.  He loves Petey.  And he loves going for Petey's food.  He hears the girls set the bowl down after feeding him and he crawls as fast as he can to get there and either dump it out, throw the kibbles into the water and watch it splash, or better yet...eat it.

 So we tried to make his cake look like a bowl full of kibbles, using cocoa puffs.  

 We had a house full of Aubrie and Emilie's friends.  Kyle doesn't have too many friend yet due to him being the third child and we haven't started MDO yet and that's where we find the best of friends.  :)

 He didn't dive into the cake like we were hoping he would.  He just picked off the cocoa puffs and ate them.

 We can't believe we have a one year old on our hands.  My friend Colleen said that she feels like Kyle is the same size that he was when he was born, he's just gotten older.  I couldn't have explained it better myself.  My big beefcake is one.  This year went WAY too fast.  

These last couple pictures are ones that I took, but you probably didn't need me to tell you that.  :)  We had puppy dog cupcakes that Adam and Steve helped me assemble the night before.  As much as I hate making cake and cupcakes, these were pretty cute.  

 And last we have Kyle's best friend, Pete.  Petey was actually given to us by Andrew as a wedding present and Petey acts like a puppy whenever Andrew comes around.  The cute girl is Andrew's precious daughter, Anna-Sophia.  I caught them all having a moment on the stairs and grabbed my camera. 

More to come.  Love to all!

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