I thought you had him!

The Mark house has been a revolving door lately.  Emilie's birthday party was on a Saturday, then Halloween on Thursday, but wait, the city canceled it because of rain and wind, so Friday, we had Amanda and Nick's rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, and then we had to split to transform in to princesses and puppy dogs and get our trick-or-treating on.  

Here we are on the REAL Halloween night, all dressed up, nowhere to go.

Earlier that week we carved our pumpkin.  We were blessed to have Granny and Gaga come to town for Emilie's birthday so they stayed to hang out all week and witness the chaos first hand.

On Monday, I took Emilie and Kyle to the doctor for their ears and I left Aubrie at home with Granny and Gaga.  Granny and Aubrie spent the day playing games and visiting.  Aubrie soaked up all the attention she got from Granny.  I'm thankful for the time they get to spend with our kids and I love all the little games and songs that Granny teaches them.  Then, on Wednesday, while Aubrie was at school, Emilie got to have some alone time with Granny and Kyle got to play with Gaga.

Goofing off with Gaga

Granny had the girls cut out pictures of toys from a flyer

Playing with Granny

Belmont had their Meet The Bruins Night while they were in town and so we took Granny and Gaga to the gym to watch the teams scrimmage.  It was their first time back since Adam has played, so I took them down by the locker rooms so they could see Adam's pictures on the walls.  I remember Adam taking the girls back there and they looked at him and said "Daddy?  YOU played basketball????"  So now that they've gotten close to Uncle Steve, they did the same thing when they saw his picture on the wall.  Aubrie said, "Wait.  Uncle Steve played basketball, too???!!!"  I think it is funny how shocked kids are when they find out their mom or dad do something else other than being a mom or dad.  

When Granny and Gaga stay with us, they stay in our room and we sleep upstairs in Aubrie's room and use the kids' bathroom.  The girls were upstairs and they were supposed to be brushing their teeth and combing their hair.  But instead, they found my razor and were running it all over their faces, trying to be like daddy.  Aubrie ended up shaving off half her eyebrow and Emilie scratched her forehead.  

Not only did they do this just in time to be in Tia's wedding, but picture day was the next day at school.  Sigh.  The good news is that I thought it was hilarious.  Those kids...

So after Amanda's rehearsal dinner, which was delicious, we took off for Aunt Shel's house for some trick-or-treating.  Our friends, Mike and Marcie (kids: Teague, Trace, and Lily) were over there and we met up with them for some fun.  Aunt Shel is actually their aunt.  Marcie has an identical twin, Michelle, who just had a baby boy!  A lot happening in that family's life!

What a group!

My puppy.  I forgot to mention in the last post, but Marcie took those pictures of Emilie's birthday AND she took these pictures of the kids.  Quick confession:  Michelle and I were the last ones to walk out the door, as the others have already taken off trick or treating.  When we walked past the stairs, I heard a kid fuss.  So I stopped and looked back at Michelle's newborn but it wasn't him, so I kept walking towards the door but then I heard it again.  I realized it was Kyle, but where was it coming from???  Turns out he had climbed up the stairs when nobody was looking and was standing at the top and couldn't get down.  Third child syndrome...did anybody get Kyle?  Where's Kyle?  I thought you had him!

Belle

Cinderella

And now, finally, we are at Tia's wedding!  Tia and Nick had a beautiful wedding.  She was a stunning bride in a beautiful lace dress and I was fortunate to be her matron of honor.  Lana made the girls' dresses and Kyle's bow tie and suspenders.  Lana and Granny both made Amanda's veil which was very long (I talked her into it and it was perfect!)

Waiting for the show to start

Kyle, with dad and grandma, snacking to keep occupied before walking down the aisle.  The kids actually did really good.  They all walked nicely down the aisle and when Kyle got to the front, he turned around to head back up the isle so I had to catch him and hand him off.

Emilie moved to the top of the altar with me and stayed for a while, waved at her dad, and then casually made her way back to the pew to color.

Tia's colors were purple and orange and green.  We wore purple dresses and orange shoes.  Heather, fellow bridesmaid, said "Amanda, we love you so much that we are willing to wear orange shoes with a purple dress!"  We all gave her a hard time, but it all looked beautiful.

Emilie dancing with mom.

Sweet Aubrie

Adam's parents dancing

Adam took all these pictures on his phone, that is why the quality isn't the best.  We all had a good time and we are so happy to have Nick join the family!

So now I feel like we are all caught up.  And Adam and I feel like we've slowed down that revolving door and are enjoying time as a "peaceful" family of five.  Kyle is really walking fast now and he is into EVERYTHING.  He jerked a measuring cup of milk of the island and earned himself a morning bath a couple of weekends ago.  Last weekend he got his dad's cool cup of coffee off the counter and was splashing in it.  You can also catch him putting Petey's food into the water bowl and watching it float or if you leave the door open to the bathroom, he'll go splash around in toilet water.  That drives me bananas.

Emilie has learned about driving laws.  Or at least she thinks.  She likes to boss me while I drive.  If I pull out in front of another car, she'll scold me, "Don't cut in line, mom.  It's not nice!"  In the mornings, I can't help it.  Our neighborhood is off a busy street with morning commuters and so I've learned that if I ask her to pray first, she's distracted and won't scold my driving.  (We pray every morning when we are on our way to school)

Aubrie was in speech for the past couple of months.  She seemed to pick up some bad habits and had a lateral lisp from having constant congestion problems as a baby, before we had her adenoids taken out.  She LOVED going to speech because it was with a dear friend, one of my former volleyball girls' mom, Tracie Shelby.  She was awesome.  She had Aubrie fixed up in no time and there is a big difference in her speech.  This past Monday, she graduated from speech and we are so proud of her.  She would work so hard on her homework and she made a conscious effort to fix sounds all on her own.  She's one smart cookie.  

And that's it!  I still cook, yes it is true.  Hopefully I can share some more recipes soon.  Adam's working hard.  This is his busy season.  I hope you all are doing well.  Thank you to all who have given me kind words and have missed reading my blogs.  I know you don't read it for the recipes, or pictures, but more to make yourself feel better that your life isn't as crazy as ours.  Haha!  Just kidding.

Love to all! Pin It Now!

Emilie is 3!

My sweet little Emilie turned 3 the end of last month.  I can't believe it.  I've been really excited about her upcoming birthday because I was hoping she would just snap out of her terrible twos and be a sweet little angel.  But when we were at the pediatrician's office, he informed us that Aubrie snapping out of it and being submissive is actually not normal and Emilie's behavior is NORMAL. Say what???

He just laughed and said, "Don't worry, you only have 364 more days."

But I think there is hope.  The other day at dance, a girl was spinning and fell down and stayed down for a little bit and MY Emilie was the one who went over there and checked on her and helped her up.  MY Emi.  She must have forgotten there were cameras in there and I could watch her on the monitors.  Emilie is really good at being an angel for others and then transforming into a fire spitting monster once we get to the parking lot.  

She also has complete disregard to your questions.  You'll ask if she wants peanut butter and honey or peanut butter and jelly and she will run past you and yell something silly like "you're a junious."  So then you have to grab her next time she flies through the room, get on her level, look into her wild eyes and ask the question again.  Then you'll get an appropriate answer.  She's so caught up in keeping up with her big sister and it's hard on her.  She plays hard, acts silly, and crashes hard.

When my mom was here, she started on the "you're a junious!"  We had no idea what she was trying to say.  At first it sounded like julious.  Then it turned into junious and now it is genius.  When we were leaving the pediatrician's office and were waiting to be checked out at the front desk, she randomly turned to Adam and said, "Dad, you're a genius!" which made everyone laugh.

As Adam left for work this morning she yelled out from the other room, "Stay strong at work, dad!!"

That girl...Anyway, we had a birthday party for her and invited all her school friends plus the usual suspects.  This summer I took the kids to go see the movie Rio at one of those summer movie specials at a local theater.  It immediately became a favorite and so we decided to give her a Rio birthday party.  It's an older animated film.  Sequel coming out soon.  But we had fun.

Aubrie and Poe (her grandpa)

Higgs and Teague

We made jell-o snack cups.  The ones in the store are ridiculously expensive so we made our own and sprinkled vanilla sugar wafer cookies on them to look like sand?

Check out Petey.  He's watching diligently for a crumb.

The spread.  The cake pops were going to be the death of me.  The candy melts weren't/* melting appropriately, it was 10:30 at night, and they looked like lumpy mounds instead of those gorgeous round cake pops all the cool moms make.  

Emilie lives in her snow white costume.  It's almost like a security blanket for her.  We had to sew it back together in some places and it barely secures in the back.  She's soon to be grown out of it and then what will we do???

Sweet girl

The gang

Kyle liked the cake pops

LOVE this picture.  Trace brought Emilie a bouquet of flowers for her birthday.  What a gentleman!

Higgs.  Love him.

Love this family

We made bird feeders for the kids to take home.  We took pine cones and covered them in peanut butter and rolled them in birdseed.  But then Petey started eating the birdseed...

Andrew and Ana-Sophia

Emilie, Teague, and Aubrie.  

We had one guest that couldn't make it to the party and that was the new addition to the Kindred family.  Marcie and Mike had a baby girl in August, Lily Joy.  Lily is quite special to all of us.  She was born with Down Syndrome and we have all been anxiously awaiting her arrival.  I've had the privilege of watching her parents learn they were having a baby and then later finding out that something wasn't quite right.  Her story slowly unfolded as they found out she had a hole in her heart and tests confirmed that she would have Downs.  We watched as Mike and Marcie boldly took this news and accepted it and prepared to welcome this precious gift that God was giving them.  You can read more about Lily and the family's experience on Marcie's awesome blog, Super Hidden Hero

Anyhoo, while Lily spent some time at the Vanderbilt NICU, I got to spend more time with the boys and had a couple of sessions of Camp Kellie.  We had a lot of fun!

Teague, Aubrie, Neyland, Emilie, Trace, and Kyle

Snack time.  Having some serious conversations.

Sweet Lily was born with a FULL head of hair! 

Adam got to hold Lily WAY before I did.  But my patience paid off and we got some serious snuggle time and alone time at the hospital.  

Teague visiting Lily.

Lily is home now, getting bigger and awaiting heart surgery.  Please remember to keep her and her sweet family in your prayers.

I still have more to come!  There's Halloween and Amanda got married!!

Love to all!

Pin It Now!

peeling onions and shaking soda cans

I feel like my life has been like peeling onions and shaking up soda cans lately.  Why that analogy?  Well, because that seems to be Kyle's favorite thing to do.  I no longer keep onions in the pantry at his height, but if you come over to my house and want a canned soda or ginger ale, you're on your own.

But seriously, every day I wake up and don't know if Emilie is going to pop out of bed with a bunch of fizz, ready to explode and be a challenge all day.  And every day I peel back each day's challenge and see the good in all situations that this crazy family of five plus dog can bring.

Steve and Brit sold their house in Florida and moved out.  Before they did, we enjoyed several meals al fresco and made lots of yummy food for the Notre Dame games on Saturdays.  Have no fear.  They are only five minutes down the road.  

family time

For one meal, I made BBQ chicken cobb salad and Aunt Brit made homemade pretzels and pretzel bites.  They were SOOO good.  She even made them healthy by using whole wheat flour.  Pretzels are some hard work!

BBQ Chicken Cobb Salad

from the Kitchn

2 cups cooked, diced chicken (I just grilled chicken breasts on the grill)
Favorite barbecue sauce, to taste
2 cups mixed salad greens
6 strips bacon, cooked and crumbled
3 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and crumbled
2 roma tomatoes, seeded and chopped
1 ripe avocado, cubed
1 (15-ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 (15-ounce) can yellow corn, drained (or 1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen corn)
1 cup grated cheddar and/or monterey jack cheese
Favorite ranch and/or honey mustard dressing, to taste
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Toss the chicken with enough barbecue sauce to coat. Season with salt and pepper.  Put the lettuce into a shallow serving bowl. Arrange the chicken, bacon, eggs, tomatoes, avocado, beans, corn, and cheese in thin rows over the lettuce. Season with salt and pepper over the ingredients.  Serve with dressing on the side or tossed in.

Since Steve and Brit have moved out, the girls have seemed to need some extra attention from me.  Aubrie went ahead and took a red crayon and drew on the window sill with it.  I took that as an opportunity to spend time together.  Together she learned how to clean a window sill, clean toilets and wipe counters, and then both girls learned how to wash windows.  Of course, you have to dress as a princess when your evil mother is making you work so hard.  

She hasn't drawn on window sills again.  AND she's even flipped out and confiscated crayons that Kyle has attempted to walk around with!

 We have had a rough go with illness lately.  For 3 weeks someone in my house has had a cold/ear infection.  Emilie had a double ear infection and Kyle woke up running a fever.  So Adam worked from home and took those two to the doctor while I went to work and Aubrie went to school.  Whilst at Daddy Day Care, Kyle went ahead and got the comet out from under the sink (because Adam didn't lock it) and licked the top of the can.  So while Adam was on the phone with poison control, Emilie found a pen he had laying out by his computer and drew all over the doll house and the wooden furniture.

When Em's ears hurt, she wears a winter hat and battles.  

Once Adam found out that Kyle was going to live and the only way to get the pen off the doll house furniture was to actually SAND it, he got them to the doctor and it turned out that both Emilie AND Kyle had double ear infections.  And as it always works, this all happened on a Tuesday when our pediatrician is off, and we had to see one of the associates.  She suggested tubes for Kyle's ears since this was his 7th ear infection and it isn't even winter season.  So we figured we would wait until Emilie's 3 year check up in 3 weeks and talk to our pediatrician and see what he wants us to do.  But it turned out that Kyle's ear infection didn't go away after his dose of antibiotics and we were back at the doctor's office 10 days later!

Withhin two days, we are headed to the ENT and that morning Emilie is acting extra fiery and complaining that her ears hurt.  Fantastic.  So while we were setting up a date to get Kyle tubes, he went ahead and checked Emilie's ears and she still had a double ear infection!  Goodness gracious!  So another round of antibiotics for her and she finally kicked her ear infections.  And a week later we had Kyle's procedure for tubes and all went well.  He is trying to talk a lot more and is much happier.  Yay tubes!!

But all of the above happened AFTER a stomach bug swept through our house.  And I mean SWEPT!  You see, Gram came to town.  We had plans. 

Party plans.  

Pumpkin patch plans.  

Shopping plans.  

But one day after she was here we all started dropping like flies.

Gram just had a birthday and we were excited to celebrate.  This is before we got sick.

 We were headed to dance and it hit Emilie.  She got it all over her car seat and clothes.  It took TWO DAYS to remove the smell.  Later that night it hit Aubrie.  I was so thankful my mom was here to help because Adam was working late.  (By working late, I mean a recruiting dinner at a steak house stuffing his face with expensive steak, mouth melting rolls, and gourmet desert)  After being up with them that night, the next night I was up with it.  ALL NIGHT.  Wanted to die.  Then the NEXT night, my mom wasn't feeling well so I had her sleep with me in my bed and sure enough, she was up with it.  ALL NIGHT.  Ah man, next up was the big fellas.  If poor Kyle got it, I would be so sad, but if Adam got it, we would be in for it.  Because EVERY illness he gets from the kids and I is mutated and deadly.  But God was looking out for us and neither Adam nor Kyle got sick.  Whew!

By the way, there is an awesome blog where a mom couldn't have said it any better.  Please take time to click here to read how she sees it.  :)

But my poor mother.  She bought a plane ticket and came out here for a week and spent six of the seven days sick.  Finally, by Sunday, we were all feeling well and were no longer contagious and went to the pumpkin patch. And wouldn't you know it, it was hot!

Happy Kyle

Precious Aubrie

Sweet Emilie

Aaaand we have a man down.  Heat is getting to Emilie and now has enabled her body and brain to connect properly and pose for a picture.

Oh, we are happy again.  Playing in the grain bins.  (Walden farms is our favorite!)

Rosey cheeks.  Might need to move on to the next activity...

Aubrie is happy to find a pumpkin!

Aaaand we have two men down.  

Ever since Aubrie was a wee baby, we sat our kids' little rears on this red tractor and took their pictures.  

Pooped from the pumpkin patch.  Nothing like Gram's shoulder to sleep it off.  

Lots coming up on the ol' blog.  I miss writing on here.  Mostly because it is the only way I can remember anything.  My friend, Katie, stated the other day that she hates being so stupid now that she's a mother.  She wanted to know if it gets better and if we will be smart again.  Nobody gave her any hopeful answers.  I couldn't agree more with her.  When it comes to remembering something, or having to really think hard about stuff, my brain sends a busy signal and I start drooling.  But if you want me to get 3 kids out the door in 8 minutes with combed hair, snacks packed, juice cups in bag, the dog fed, the dishwasher ran, all lights off, and diaper bag in hand??? You got it.

But of course that means I didn't remember to grab my coffee in the to-go cup on the kitchen island....

Fail.

Love to all!

Pin It Now!