I've been having some issues with Noah lately. He is so sweet and cute and I love how he says new words every day and how he gets so excited about tractors and how he says, "Hi, moff." whenever he sees a moth and how he takes multiple baths every day because he loves them so much and how he looks so proud when he puts on Emma's clothes. BUT...


He is into everything. Always. He doesn't stop. Ever. For example, tonight while I was trying to cook dinner, he decided he wanted to bring Jose's food and water from the kitchen into the living room. Before I realized what he was doing, he spilled the water all over the kitchen floor. While I was cleaning that up, he somehow managed to sneak by me with the bowlful of dog food and fling it all into the living room, where a lot of it fell into and got lost in two baskets of clean laundry that were waiting to be folded. While I was cleaning that up, he pushed a chair over to the kitchen sink and splashed around in the dishes that were there, making another big mess in the process. When I stopped him from doing that, he ran to the bathroom and dragged toilet paper all over the house. Dude. Stop messing with stuff!


He also wants to nurse constantly. All day long I hear this ringing in my ears, and it sounds exactly like a little voice going, "Nurse. Nuuuuurrrrse. Nuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrse." I don't want him to wean yet, but really, I could do with a little less nursing.


He is also still doing the hitting thing when he plays with other little kids, although maybe not quite as much. And, as always, I simply just cannot get that kid to sleep.


He's lucky he's cute.

Some random stuff, just because I haven't blogged in awhile and also because I have run out of other things to do to avoid going to bed.

~ We got a Wii Fit last weekend and I love it! I've been wanting to work out, but it's generally too cold to bring the babies out in the jogging stroller and it's pretty much impossible to go to a gym because I'm not going to leave Allie with anyone else at this point. The Wii Fit totally solved that problem. I'm sure the novelty will wear off eventually, but for now my regular after-the-kids-are-in-bed activities have been replaced by hula-hooping, yoga, boxing, etc.
~ Steve has been working a ton this month and I am SO over it. I swear, putting all three kids to bed all by myself is going to be the death of me. He has to work all this weekend again, but the good news is that he is going to work from home. It's ridiculous how happy I am about that.

~ Steve and I are buying life insurance to supplement what his work offers, and earlier this week a lady had to come to our house to give us each a health screening. I think my blood pressure is permanently raised after that experience. She arrived forty-five minutes early (well before Steve was home) and since I hadn't yet had time to pick up or clean dinner off the table, I was slightly flustered. Add to that the fact that Jose (who was banished to the garage) barked constantly during the entire visit, Emma inadvertently yelled in Allie's face while yelling at Jose to be quiet, causing Allie to scream uncontrollably, and the whole visit was rapidly going downhill. Of course, it all got even better when Noah spilled my urine sample all over the kitchen table, and then tried to yank the needle out of my arm while the lady was drawing my blood. Keep in mind that I hate having my blood drawn under normal circumstances, so all this was a little more than slightly unnerving for me. I don't think I've ever been so happy to see Steve get home in my entire life.

~ I got a membership to Costco and, seriously, why didn't I do that long ago? That place is way too much fun. I actually went there three times last week, which may be a bit extreme, so in the future I will have to control myself a little more. Once a week, tops.
~ These are just random pictures to go with this random post. Although Emma and Noah sometimes seem like they never stop fighting with each other, they've got nothing but love for their sweet baby sister.

Due to it's not being used and also to my getting tired of constantly picking up various game-playing paraphernalia, our Wii has been packed away for months. Per Emma's request, this weekend we broke it out again. We spent most of Saturday playing Wii Sports, and then on Sunday purchased the old school Dr. Mario, which I'm pretty sure is the best video game ever invented. That night Steve and I stayed up until midnight playing, and afterwards I vowed to never waste that much time and stay up so late playing a video game again. My resolve is embarrasingly weak, because Monday night we stayed up until after 1:00 a.m. playing that darn game.
Last night, however, I actually managed to do something useful after the kids were in bed. I sewed this little artwork carrying case for Emma, using this for inspiration. When asked, she always wants to go to restaurants that have "drawlings", otherwise known as a kid's menu and crayons. I'm thinking she can keep this in the car and it will keep her busy even at places that don't provide drawlings. And, after I finished this, I destroyed Steve in a few (okay, many) friendly games of Dr Mario. It's all about balance around here, people.Also, this sweet baby is five months old today. Good golly. Could time be flying any faster?

Before Christmas, I saw this blog post about making a gumdrop wreath, and thought it seemed like a perfect project for Emma. We went out and bought the supplies, and it really was an easy and fun project. I'm sure she'd also tell you about an additional benefit - being able to eat a whole bunch of gumdrops, at least whenever she thought I wasn't looking. It looked cute hanging in her room but she decided to give it to my mom for Christmas, who I believe still has it displayed in her kitchen.Remember this quilt? I made it for Allie before she was born and used yarn to tie it together, but after it was finished I removed the yarn and decided to quilt it instead. Well, I finally got around to it, mostly because after being used daily for the last four months, it desperately needed to be washed and I didn't want to wash it until it was quilted.I wanted to do kind of a curly-Q type of quilting and I thought about using pink or green thread for the back, but decided against it because if the quilting looked bad I didn't want it to be too noticeable. In retrospect, I wish I had because I think the quilting turned out pretty well.
Noah has developed a disturbing habit of hitting other little kids, and I'm feeling troubled by it. It's been happening here and there for awhile, but last night we met a friend and her kids at the mall, and instead of playing on the toys, Noah ran around smacking people. He doesn't do it because he's mad and I don't think he's trying to be mean. It's more like a "hello" smack, but he does it hard enough that whoever is on the receiving end usually cries. I don't know what to do. I mean, I can only say, "Be gentle, you hurt her, you made him sad, he won't want to play with you if you hit, blah, blah, blah" so many times before it becomes silly because it's not making a bit of difference. He spent most of the time last night sitting on my lap because he couldn't stop hitting, which I don't really like because I also have Allie on my lap and it's difficult to hold them both at the same time when Noah is struggling to escape. I hope it's a very short phase because I'm starting to feel like I can't take him anywhere, and I don't want the rest of us to be stuck at home all the time because of him. Other than when he fights with Emma sometimes, he is never aggressive with anyone at home, so I just don't get it. Hmmmm.

Another - much more endearing - thing he has started doing is finding discarded items of clothing around the house, wrapping them around his neck, and coming to me saying, "Help. Help." until I help him put them on. And if the clothes happen to belong to his older sister, so be it.

Purely to satisfy my curiosity, I recently figured out how much we've been spending eating out every month. I sort of wish I hadn't done it, but I guess it's good that I did, because it's an obscene amount and some changes probably need to be made.
For inspiration, I treated myself to some new cookbooks. The bottom three in this stack are from the library, but my own personal copies are on their way to me right now, thanks to my friends at amazon.com. So far everything I've made from these books has been pretty great.

Other than the fact that we just really really like to eat out, I know the (second) main reason that we don't eat at home is that so many times there is nothing prepared and either there is nothing in the house to make anyway or no one - meaning me - feels like preparing what we do have on hand. In order to reduce the number of times we find ourselves in that situation, I am going to do two things.

First, as often as possible, I am going to try to make double or triple of something and freeze the extra. Second, I am going to try to make things in advance so they will requite little to no preparation when it's actually time to eat. For example, today I made a triple batch of a sloppy joe recipe found in the Real Simple cookbook. Two batches went into the freezer and another went into the fridge for us to have sometime in the next few days. Yay, me! I know this is not rocket science, but for some reason I have always had such a difficult time doing this. Hopefully I can make it work this time, though.

For dinner tonight we had shrimp with arugula and couscous, also from the Real Simple book. It was delicious. For dessert, we had Mint Chocolate Brownies. Oh. My. Heaven, I tell you.

Due to Santa's procrastination, we finally had our own family Christmas here yesterday. Emma got her stage and microphone and they were a hit, although now the microphone is already broken. Grrr. I think Steve especially liked the microphone, because even after the kids went to bed, he was still sitting in the stage, crooning horrible but amusing made-up songs to anyone who would listen, even if that happened to be Jose.Today is our first normal day in quite awhile, and it's been a little difficult adjusting to just being here alone with the kids. The kids have all been sick in some way or another, and Steve actually took two sick days this week - his FIRST sick days ever. He is back at work today though, and I think we all got used to being together all the time, because this morning during breakfast Emma asked, "I wonder where Papa is?" Even with all the family time, I am feeling a little worn out. The kids are, of course, always here, and sometimes I wish they could go somewhere else for a little while so I could do some stuff with no interruptions. I keep reminding myself that someday I will be able to go the bathroom without an audience, and someday I will be able to sweep the kitchen without little hands flinging the dirt pile all over, and someday I will be able to make pancakes without someone spilling the entire bowl of batter all over the floor. And today, I am really looking forward to that day!