Until Next Year...

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2009 Fave Christmas Gifts

We've been so busy around here that I have had little time to blog. I also caught my vacation cold....it never fails, I always get sick when I have time off from work so I have been trying to recuperate. But, we had a great holiday and I thought I would re-cap with some of the girl's favorite gifts they received this year.

Dresses, dresses and more dresses! With tights of course. Riley has been in heaven changing her outfit 10 times a day!

No dress is complete without the fancy shoes to go with it. These lovely, sparkly shoes can be found at Target.

The girls each got their own set of Melissa and Doug stamp sets. The perfect gift for any 4-year old girl!

We also bought the Melissa and Doug 60-piece block set for the girls....wooden blocks were on Riley's Christmas list. Now I get to trip over Legos and wooden blocks!

Melissa and Doug Mailbox....the girls love playing mailman and fighting over the key to the mailbox! We also bought this gift for the boys next door.

Santa threw out ALL of the broken crayons and brought 3 new boxes of crayons in on his sleigh. They should last about a week before being broken in half again!



New coloring books to go along with the new crayons. Melissa and Doug have some great coloring books!

Of course we had to stock up on the Disney princess movies. Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty were all added to our movie collection.

Life wouldn't be complete without Barbie x 3. Little did the clan of Barbies know that they would be christened into the family by participating in bath time with the girls.

With all the new toys and clothes in the house, it looks like a tornado blew through here. Let's hope mommy can get things organized in the next week!

Wordful Wednesday and Merry Christmas

The girls have been lucky enough to run into Santa at least three times this year. Santa rode in on the firetruck one night last weekend and he posed for pictures with the kids but there was absolutely NO lighting. So, since I was taking the picture in the pitch black the girls obviously didn't know where to look. The result is this picture of them all looking at something above and to the left of me. At least I got three smiles.

Wishing you all a very happy holiday!

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Plug Your Ears

I present to you the Quilao girls shout-scream version of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." It might make your ears bleed so listen at your own risk!

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V.I.P

The girls are V.I.Ps this week at school so mommy had homework this weekend getting their picture posterboards ready to take to preschool this morning. It's always a challenge to let the 4 year-olds make some decisions in the creative process while maintaining enough control so that it doesn't turn into chaos! Let's just say that Alyssa is going to be very organized in life. She is my mini-me! Ummm her sisters, not so much. Makena would have trampled all over everyone's posterboard if I had turned my back for 30 seconds.

So the V.I.Ps get special privileges for the week that include wearing a special vest (oooooh), being line leader (aaaahhhhh) and helping with special jobs. When I was talking to them about being "assistant snack helper" Riley was quick to point out that she couldn't play if she had to help set up for snacktime. Alyssa on the other hand, would be the FIRST one in line for that job each and every day. Can you tell who will be earning the most allowance when she gets older for helping mommy clean?

It's been fun watching my peeps get the "star treatment" this week!

The Fashion of a four-year old

It is ALL about dresses, skirts, and tights in our house right now. As soon as we walk in the door at night, the girls strip off their clothes and put on tights and a dress. I do the complete opposite and get in my jammies as fast as I can!

When Riley waltzed in the room wearing a sleeveless summer dress, I explained it was too cold to wear that in the middle of winter. Being the 4-year old fashion diva that she is, she promptly went upstairs and put a long-sleeve shirt under the dress and came back downstairs happy as could be. "Seeeeee mama? I'm not cold!"

I think that was the same night that the girls talked me into letting them wear their dresses and tights to bed. Life has been all about picking my battles lately, and that was one I was willing to give in on for one night.

Dear Santa,

Please send tights, dresses, and skirts for Christmas!

Love Riley, Alyssa, and Makena

Eye Eye Captain

I took Alyssa in for an appointment with the Opthamologist this week as a follow-up from her 4 year old check-up with our pediatrician. At that time, Alyssa wasn't 100% cooperative with her eye exam, but it was hard to tell if it was just attitude or vision problems.

Well, it turns out that she has a very mild case of amblyopia. There is nothing wrong with the alignment of her eyes, but the image quality in her left eye is weaker than her right eye. She doesn't need glasses, but the doctor suggested that we patch her good eye for a few hours each day in the hopes of strengthening the weaker eye.

I came home feeling a bit nervous about our new adventure in patching that would begin the next morning. I was worried that she would fight with me about wearing it, but Alyssa was fantastic about it and didn't mind wearing the patch at ALL. We put it on when she wakes up in the morning and her teacher takes it off of her at preschool a few hours later. I ordered some eye patches from this website which Alyssa thinks are the perfect accesory to whatever pink outfit she has on that day. We will go back to the doctor in 4 months to see if the patching is working. Hopefully, we have caught the problem early enough that this minor intervention will work.

Alyssa models her fave "princess" design eye patch.

Photostory Friday-Show and Tell

The girls have recently started going to preschool five days a week (used to be two) and they are loving it. The mornings have been a little rough this week because they have to wake up earlier than they are used to and they'd rather stay in bed and sleep. Hmmmm....why doesn't that happen on Saturday and Sunday? But, we've been getting them to bed a bit earlier to try and balance things out.

Tomorrow will be their first Friday at school and their first "Show and Tell." So after dinner tonight, I asked the girls what they wanted to bring to show their friends.

Riley chose her baby lamb that plays "Jesus Loves Me"

Alyssa chose her current favorite book "The Night before Halloween" (yep, the girl is still dreaming about candy).

Makena wants to scare show all her friends her IGUANA! I introduced you to Makena's fave pet back in January. Everytime I stub my toe on that thing I curse under my breath and threaten to throw it out.

Wish I could be a fly on the wall tomorrow and watch all the boys flock to Makena like she's the coolest chick they've ever seen!




Hosted by Cecily

Is it Christmas yet?

Think I'll get tired of answering that question in the next 24 days? Our little elves helped pick out and decorate our tree over the weekend. So now I have to convince the girls to patiently wait for the next 4 weeks to pass before we get a visit from Santa. I've got my work cut out for me....shopping, baking, wrapping, christmas cards, trying to keep all the ornaments on the tree instead of hanging off a 4 year old's arm like a fancy bracelet, and trying not to gain 10 pounds eating all the Christmas cookies. I'm exhausted already.

Thankful

The girls are thankful for mommy, daddy, sissies, and their animals. I think that is a pretty good list for 4-year olds.

Wishing you all a happy, healthy holiday!

Always listen to your mother

We spent our Saturday morning with the boys next door, which is always a fun time. We had planned to take the kids to the park, but the kids had other ideas.

I guess taking rides in a wagon that is hooked to Evan's 4- wheeler is much more fun than going to the park.

We took a long walk with the kids and Evan showed us some of their favorite hiking spots. It was a cool, crisp morning and we tried to bundle up the kids as best as we could, but nobody ever listens to their mother so the hats, gloves, and scarfs were thrown off half way there.

The girls playing "follow the leader" with Evan. He loves being the older and wiser kid in the group!

After lots of scaring their mothers half to death thinking they were going to roll down the hill moments, we convinced the kids into walking back home. Of course, Evan and Lissy found each other.




And then the girls found the puddles. We had managed to avoid them for the most part on the way there. On the way back it was a totally different story. Since nobody ever listens to their mother they stomped and splashed without any thought about falling INTO the puddles. Believe me, I warned them.

Here are the last puddles on our way out to the street and of course, this is where the girls met their match. I didn't get any pictures of them actually falling into the puddles because I was too busy telling them "I told you so."


Makena was soaking wet, but still managed to ride her bike home crying the whole way.

This video only captures a small part of the chaos that was our walk back home. Fun times!

Fight for Preemies

Over 400 bloggers are uniting today to raise awareness for premature birth. Twenty million babies are born prematurely every year. Visit the March of Dimes website to learn more about how you can help fight prematurity.

My girls were born at 25 weeks, 1 day weighing between 1.6 and 1.11 pounds. They were frighteningly small and were faced with physical hurdles that were terrifying to think of. Some of the terms that we became familiar with included Patent Ductus Arteriosis (PDA), Blood transfusion, Chronic Lung Disease, Retinopathy of Prematurity, Apnea, and Bradychardia.

Looking back at pictures from their first days in the NICU takes my breath away because the girls were so fragile. It almost feels like those days we spent in the NICU were a dream and too life-changing of an experience to put into words.

But we were the lucky ones. Our girls survived.

Alyssa



Makena



Riley

Our happy, healthy, miracle girls!

We are so thankful for organizations like the March of Dimes who raise millions of dollars every year to fund research to raise awareness, help prevent prematurity and aid in developing medical advances that will help save babies.

Sunday Sundae

Nothing beats an ice cream sundae on a Sunday afternoon!

Especially when we have very special grandparents keeping us company.

Thanks Lolo and Lola...We love you!

After the storm

A few weeks ago we had a strong wind and rain storm that blew through our area in a 24 hour period. The girls and I were out for a walk after things had dried out and they talked me into letting them play in the sand trap at the nearby golf course for a few minutes. Normally, I wouldn't let them play in there but the golf course was a mess with branches and leaves everywhere. I knew the maintenance crew would be coming by to clean everything up before anyone's golf game could resume as usual, so I let the girls build a few sand castles in the sand trap.

Shhhhh...don't tell anyone! The whole time they were in there I kept warning them that if we saw any golfers coming we would have to take off and run towards home. Nothing like teaching your kids at an early age to run from the crime scene. It's not like three 4-year olds and their lunatic mother would go unnoticed running down the street.

We got out of there undetected but I'm sure we left a trail of evidence sprinkled on the sidewalk all the way back to our house!

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Whatcha Reading?

If you've been following our blog for awhile, you know that I love to read. Now that the girls are older and I am back in my night time reading routine I typically go through 3-4 books a month. The public library has become a huge money saver for me and it is so convenient. I log in online, reserve the books I want and go pick them up when they are ready.

I also love checking out books for the girls and finding new favorite books that we all love. One of the new books we are enjoying is this this one....

Cute story and a quick read. Let's face it...when bedtime is looming and each munchkin gets to pick out a book, short and sweet is where it's at!

I have also discovered a new series by Diana Gabaldon that has me hooked. I finished book #1 and am awaiting the next book in the seven book series.

Have you read anything good lately?

Any favorite books that you and your kids love to read?

Wordful Wednesday~Sleeping

One of my monkeys got out of bed during naptime and decided to play instead of sleep. But sleep eventually won out. Too bad she couldn't make it that extra 5 feet so that she was back in her comfy bed.

Playing with those princess toys sure does make you sleepy!

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My Litter

Of Kittens.....

Eventhough the kitty ears and tails that made their entire Halloween costumes were nowhere to be found in our entire house, I managed to get over my disappointment (with the help of a mimosa) and we had a great night. The girls didn't seem to mind that their costumes weren't complete. I guess the anticipation of TONS of candy will do the trick.

The girls trick-or-treated until their little legs couldn't carry them anymore. And then we came home, ate popcorn and watched The Wizard of Oz.

Is anyone surprised that the first question I heard this morning at 6:45 a.m. was, "Mommy, can I play with my candy?"

Uh huh.....me either.
I know I'm in good company with that scenario!

Disney on Ice

Thanks to one of my best friends, Ly, the girls and I were lucky enough to go see the Disney on Ice show tonight. The girls LOVED seeing their favorite princess stories played out in real life. It was well worth the late night out two hours past their bedtime (we'll see how this plays out at 6:45 tomorrow morning when I am waking them up for preschool).

There were tons of little girls all dressed up in their favorite princess dresses, but frankly, that was just way too much work for this mama to do on a Wednesday night. Thankfully, the girls didn't seem to care.

Miss Riley--Fave Princess, Cinderella

(Enjoying her peanut butter sandwich that I smuggled into the show. I'm cool like that. Who wants to drop $50 on food? Not me!!)

Miss Alyssa--Fave Princess, whoever wears pink!

Miss Makena--Fave Princess, Snow White


Thanks Auntie Ly....WE LOVE YOU!!