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!

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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!

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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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