Dresses ourselves

This morning I got the babes up and started getting them changed and dressed. I was changing Pallie and I looked up and Charlotte had already taken off her pajamas and diaper. I gave her a wipe to clean herself up then she put on her panties, skirt and shirt by herself! So exciting.... Can't wait until they can all preform this magic :)

Makes chocolate play dough!!

One of the best activities to do with children is playing with play dough, and even better is making it, but even better than that is making chocolate play dough! It's so simple and smells so yummy (please don't eat it, Charlotte will tell you it doesn't taste as good as it smells!) we made some yesterday and played with it some. This morning I bright it back out while they were still at the breakfast table and I kid you not they played with it for almost two hours! Not only that but they were happy and shared their toys! One would ask another kindly for the toy they wanted and they would pass it around. Amazing really!! It was beautiful.
http://prekinders.com/play-dough-recipes/

Has hot chocolate

This morning three out of four babes slept in and woke up still feeling poorly. They were down most of the weekend too. To avoid waking up Pallie who was still sleeping I took them for our morning walk. However it was quite chilly this morning. So it took a bit of convincing and finally bribery to get them around the block. I told them they could have hot chocolate when we got home if they didn't whine. Of course they still whined because they just didn't feel well and were cold too. They enjoyed their chocolate and especially the marshmallows. (they probably would have been just as thrilled with the marshmallows.)

Makes butter

In preparation for Thanksgiving I thought we ought to do a cooking activity. So, we made some butter! Well really mollie and I did :) I remember using baby food jars to make it when I was young. Hopefully it will taste as good as it looks!

Finds a turtle!

We have taken to having a morning walk after breakfast each morning. (good for digestion or something right?) It has been a great activity and always a lot of fun. This morning we decided we ought to wear our rain boots since it had rained in the night. And naturally, if you are wearing rain boots it is necessary to jump in puddles. And that is exactly what they did! We were nearing the end of our block when we saw Jenny Kate pulling out. She told us that she found a turtle under a car near our house. This caused quite a commotion and much excitement. We took the turtle back with us, fixed it up in a box, researched the type(just a box turtle) and invited him to watch a movie with us. :) They named him Mac...quite fitting! (even though Pallie really wanted to name him Turtle...)

Walking along the puddles

Looking at Mac

The baby girls

Looking at the first puddle before deciding it was worthy of jumping in

Playing with Mac the turtle

Mac McMullan

Camp out

I have promised Mollie and Kate for over a year I would camp out with them in the backyard. This stemmed from a time Mollie spent the night in Hannah's room when she was their nanny. Apparently they watched movies all night long! :) well Friday night was finally the long anticipated night. We borrowed a fire pit so we could roast (or burn as Mollie preferred) marshmallows (thank you Lala and Joe!) They ate many marshmallows. Katherine preferred to eat them raw, since they got too messy when you roast them. After the fire died down, we got in the tent. Kate was begging to get in the tent all night! We climbed in an I covered them both up with several blankets, one on each side of me. They love to hear stories "from when I was a little girl" (also something I believe Hannah started...) so I told them some stories from when my family would go camping. They fell asleep after a few minutes to the sound of music from my phone :) They woke up a few times in the night cold, but they insisted on staying out all night long! It got down to about 48 degrees around 2 a.m. At one point I heard Katherine's sweet little voice say "Sarah?" and I was thinking she was going to ask to go in and then she said "I love you..." Absolutely warmed my heart! :) I look forward to many camping trips in the future, and maybe one day we will travel further than the backyard!

Making s'mores!

They helped me set up the tent

Katherine getting cozy for the night

Things clean up

This morning Duncan asked for a paper towel so he could clean up a mess. He is very particular about his surroundings. Well that quickly turned into everyone wanting a paper towel of course. Then Duncan declared that they needed the red towels. These are Thing 1, 2, 3, and 4 washcloths that my mom bought them at Universal Studios last year. So the cleaning of the back porch and deck commenced. They cleaned everything in sight and had a whole lot of fun doing it!

Hard at work

Cleaning Daddy's grill

Duncan would get upset that the wash cloths were getting dirty...

Halloween

We are certainly recovering from a sugar rush today. Everyone stayed up well past bedtime last night gobbling handfuls of candy. This was the first year the Babes really went trick or treating and understood that it meant-lots of candy! They were so cute that I'm sure they got more than the fair share. :) today they have been recovering and enjoying the "fruit" of their labor. But really I'm sure you just want to see the pictures...

The Hawaiian Girls

Cutest little things ever...

Thing One and Thing Two

Pumpkins!

One side of the tables paint

The other side's got a little more crazy

Today we had a bit of a down day so we decided to make it exciting and do some crafts :) The pictures mostly speak for themselves so I am not going to say much. First we did a paper pumpkin with foam stickers. Lucy LOVED peeling and sticking them. Once Mollie got home I took them all out back and we painted pumpkins. It was sooo much fun! :)

 

 

 

Lucy's end product :) 

   

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Time with God

The big girls do a devotion time each morning along with Jenny Kate or Paul if he is able.  I thought that since the Babes are three now they might want to start. I was right! They LOVED it! We did the story of Moses and the bush that did not burn up. It was so neat to see their reactions and hear their understanding of the story. They were very interested to know if God was alive in the bush of fire. It is so sweet to hear them so excited about reading the Bible and learning about God! Pallie told me yesterday when I said "I love you to the moon" she responded with "I love you to God." I am so glad to be a part of their spiritual development as well as their physical and intellectual! Such a blessing.

Coloring their corresponding pictures to the Bible story

Sesame Street Live!

This morning we went with some friends from our playgroup to Sesame Street Live! When Jenny Kate told me about this, I was a little excited, because when I was little I thought that this would be the greatest thing ever, however I never got to go :( Anyway, things have changed a lot on Sesame Street in the past 20 years it seems. I only recognized about half of the characters. There is now apparently a female "grouch", a few new monsters and some sort of fairy? It was interesting... but of course there were still the good ol' reliable such as Oscar, Bert and Ernie, Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Elmo, Prairie Dawn, and Count.

The Babes (which I am not sure how long that term is going to last since they now insist they are "big kids") loved it! They sat and watched the show for the most part.  They also enjoyed getting to eat junk food; pretzels, a snow cone and popcorn, all before noon! They go the pretzels first and Charlotte kept looking at Jenny Kate and saying "what is it I am eating?" :)

All four sharing a snow cone...

Here we go!

So I finally decided to start blogging about the ins and outs of living with four three-year-olds, a four year-old and a six year-old. I was encouraged by many who have listened to my stories over the past year or so and in particular by my Mom. Yesterday I was talking to her and telling her what was going on play-by-play in the moment, and she insisted it was worth sharing. So there you go. I am not attempting to make it too colorful or wordy, but simply going to state what my life is like. 

Yesterday morning was beautiful so I thought it would be a great day to play outside and forget the TV (the babes are allowed to watch a "movie" while Jenny Kate goes to the gym and that's pretty much it for the day.) So they were all playing in the backyard and eating their lollipops they earned from doing their catechism earlier that morning. I had to switch the laundry. As I was doing so, all of the sudden I heard all four come running in screaming "a bad bug!!." Now I have been trying to explain that bugs live outside and that when we are outside it is okay if we see bugs. Anyway being the kind and loving nanny that I am, I ventured out to investigate. I hurried out to the deck and followed them to where the "bad bug" was. I looked to discover that this bug was in reality an acorn... again and I went inside briefly to refill my water glass and when I returned, our deck which normally looks like this:  

Was transformed into this:

And then the babes were playing on it all like this:

All this in a matter of minutes... One of the many benefits of having four little ones to do a task instead of one. We sure had a lot of fun playing outside... :)