Why We Love Daddy

This post is almost too late! No excuses, but we have been out of town the last few days so Peyton, Sam, Adah, and Luke almost missed their deadline in getting this post to me. Thankfully they downed a couple cups of coffee this morning and pounded it out to make sure it got posted today. So here are some reasons the Clifford kiddos love their daddy.

"We can't remember when Daddy wasn't ever here. Seems like he was watching over us from the beginning ...

He always seems to find the humor in everything.

He's a great cook ...

... and builds us some really cool things.

He's teaching us how to dress ...

... and drives a pretty mean sled.

Did we mention he's really smart?

But mostly we love him because he takes the time to love us ...

... and show us that the possibilities for our lives are endless."

We love you Daddy!

Love,
Peanut, Sam Sam, Bear, and Booger Butt

Picture of the Week - June 20

I wanted to try and start a tradition of capturing and posting a "picture of the week" on this blog.  I want this picture to simply be a moment or emotion that I want to remember from the week. Something that made me or someone in my family feel something significant, a facial expression I don't want to forget, or an image I want to remember forever. The images don't necessarily have to be monumental, they just have to elicit emotions and memories that I don't want to forget.

Simple summertime activities often make for the sweetest memories ...

Water World

It has been extremely HOT here in NC lately. I thought we were escaping this type of heat when we moved from Florida, but I guess not. I wasn't naive enough to think it wouldn't get a little toasty up here, but several consecutive days in the 90s have wilted my once hopeful dreams of a summer spent in the low to mid-80s while sitting in the sun (and not sweating ... well, at least not much).

So, what do you do with 4 kids when they turn red as beets after 10 minutes spent playing outside? Bring out the waterworks, of course. We don't have a pool, but apparently a hose, buckets, measuring cups, and paint brushes also provide hours of endless fun for my kids. They literally had a blast for over an hour just filling, refilling, and "painting" with water. The best part was that I got to watch them wear themselves out while I sat in the "cool" 85 degree shade.

See? I was serious when I said it was just a bucket and some cups. Total bliss. I tried to break out the sprinkler, but this was all the action it got.

The triplets' preference was to just keep doing this ...

And this (which is why I had to refill the tub every 10 minutes or so) ...

What a great way to beat the heat! At the end of it all I had four tired, hungry kids who did not want to come back inside. So bring on the heat, summer. We'll just beat you into submission with a garden hose until you back those temps down into the 80s again!

Picture of the Week - June 13

I wanted to try and start a tradition of capturing and posting a "picture of the week" on this blog. One of the reasons I blog is to keep family and friends updated on our family since we can't see them as often as we'd like. More importantly, I blog in order to remember the day to day events of my children's lives.  I've never been that good at baby books and such, so I intended to use the blog as a way for me to capture the pictures and events of my family's every day lives. Having four children so close together in age, my fear was that I would get caught up in all the hustle and bustle of our daily busy-ness and, before I knew it, my kids would be grown and gone and I wouldn't have much physical evidence (pictures, stories, etc.) to look back on. That's one reason I am going to try (remind me if I forget) to post an image every week that I deem the picture of the week. I want this picture to simply be a moment or emotion that I want to remember from the week. Something that made me or someone in my family feel something significant, a facial expression I don't want to forget, or an image I want to remember forever. The images don't necessarily have to be monumental, they just have to elicit emotions and memories that I don't want to forget.

So, with that rather lengthy explanation, here is my first picture of the week. Matt brought home the van from his work one afternoon this past week and the kids absolutely loved playing in it for a while. Who knew a 15 passenger van could be so much fun? If we had another kid or two, we might actually have to get a van like this as our every day vehicle (don't worry, four is a very good number for us)!

TV Land

Summer has started to settle in at our house and it's made for some lazy days devoid of structure. We are having lots of fun though and we're enjoying everything that comes along with summer. The kids are missing school (they don't really get the "summer vacation" concept), but I try and keep them distracted from that by trips to the Y and the occasional craft thrown in (you know, just to keep that preschool feel - What's a day at preschool without a craft?).

Speaking of summer, I am going through serious withdrawal with the lack of regular TV programming out there. We're not TV-aholics, but we like to watch some shows (all on DVR - I don't think I've watched a commercial in months). We were pretty devastated when the last episode of Lost aired a while ago, and the realization that Glee is over as well is enough to make me want to crawl into bed and read the entire Twilight series again just for the entertainment value. Add into the mix that The Office and 30 Rock are gone and you have just majorly stunted all of my TV options for the next 3 months.

So I've had to start searching for some shows to fill the gaps. These are all shows that I have liked before, they just don't get watched as often when regular TV programming is on. Now they've become the headlining shows in my summer repertoire of TV.

Wonder Pets
C'mon, you knew at least ONE kid show had to be on the list. That's all I watch before 8pm every day anyway. Wonder Pets is the hands down winner in the kid category for oh so many reasons. The episodes are only 10 minutes long! Well, there are 2 episodes per show, but my kids don't know that. I just have a quick trigger finger with the remote and am sure to turn the TV off right as the first episode is ending and before the next one starts! Cruel, I know. Also, there is definitely a lot of adult humor thrown into the show, something I appreciate. If I have to watch a show about a guinea pig, turtle, and duck saving other animals, I'd better get some friggin' comedy relief. And finally, I just love Ming-Ming, she kills me (If you watch this show, you know what I'm talking about).

Dateline / 48 Hours Mystery
I constantly have to fight for my right to watch these two programs. I love these kind of shows, especially the 2 hour long ones on murder mysteries and such. My husband mercilessly makes fun of me for watching them and I always see him rolling his eyes when I turn them on. It didn't help that I recently read an article that documented the target audience for these shows was people in their 50's and 60's. Oh well, I'm just preparing him for what our TV lives will look like in 20-30 years.

I Shouldn't Be Alive
Ok, this is a great show. I've seen it air on Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, and places like that. It's also not a regularly scheduled show, it just kind of pops up here and there every once and a while. It's basically a reenactment of a true life near death story. I tend to like all those doom and gloom we're-never-gonna-get-out-of-here type shows (case in point: Lost), so this one fits me to a tee. I really like that it's based on true life accounts ... makes me feel empowered or something.

Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives
Love, love, love this show (and most everything on the Food Network, for that matter). I currently have a list going of all the cool restaurants I've seen on this show that we want to try out. I'm thinking we should do a road trip across the country focused solely on seeking out all the great restaurants Guy finds on this show. Sure I would gain 20 or 30 pounds just eating and sitting in a car all day, but it would be worth it!

House Hunters
I think I like this show because I've never bought a house of my own. The process of buying a house fascinates me because I haven't had to do it yet. It's kind of like when you watch all those baby/birth shows before you have kids and then never think about them again once you've been through the process yourself. It's amazing to see what your money can (and can't) buy in different parts of the country. I'm just hoping we don't live in California when we have to buy our first house because we would be squeezing all 6 of us and a dog into a 2 bedroom condo for sure!

Oh TV gods, please make this summer go quickly so I can have my normal doses of comedy, mocumentaries, drama, and musicals back in my life soon! My hope is that my new line-up will tide me over for the next few months, but don't be surprised if you catch me on the computer watching the season finales of my favorite shows 7 or 8 times until September rolls around again. Please be kind and bless me with a couple of good TNT movies (that will air back to back to back) or a surprising new show to pass the time. For now, I'll just watch the Wonder Pets save the baby dolphin and try to be as optimistic as possible when it comes to the big flat box that hangs above our mantle.

Mountain Living

We spent the better part of last week in the NC mountains and boy was it a much needed break! We drove up during the kids' nap time, so they got to sleep and we got some quiet time in the car. Once we hit the mountains, they were awake and excited to get there. I was a bit worried because I've never fared well on those winding mountain roads. Car/motion sickness has plagued me much of my life and I was not looking forward to the end of the drive. Luckily (for me), my stomach handled it fine. But good ole motion sickness decided to claim another of the Clifford clan instead. Sam started crying once we started climbing and we thought it was just his ears popping with the elevation change. Well, a little while later we learned the real culprit when he deposited his lunch in his lap about 2 miles from our destination. Poor guy ... at least he felt better after that! Fortunately (or unfortunately, I guess), we have become experts at cleaning gross things out of car seats and we had everything cleaned up quickly so the fun could begin!

The highlight of the week was getting to spend so much time with family. We get to see everyone a good amount, but it was nice to get us ALL together in one place. The outside deck was everyone's favorite place to hang out.

I think the kids' favorite time of the day was in the morning when they just got to run around in their PJs and have fun. They made daily calls (or screams) over to Bogey's house next door to make sure he was up as early as we were.

We spent most of our time at the house and made a few trips out. The kids went on their first mini "hike" (who am I kidding, it was like 1/10th of a mile) to see a waterfall. They loved it and we would have hung out longer (and taken some pictures) if the skies hadn't opened up on us. We ventured into town one day and had to visit the cute little toy store there. Luke tried out some hats.

We were also told to feed the ducks while we were in town, so we took our lunch leftovers and headed towards this much fabled duck pond. Apparently someone forgot to tell us that this quaint little place was overseen by crazed psycho stalker ducks. I guess they have regular feeders come by every day so they are not scared of people and literally accost you when you walk up. Matt finally resorted fending them off with our folded up umbrella stroller so they wouldn't attack us! Luckily, the kiddos weren't fazed and kept trying to feed them. I just hope they don't have future nightmares of being hunted down by killer ducks.

We also went gem mining, something the kids really enjoyed. I remember doing this as a child and we would get so excited when we found some "gold" in our pans. Well, things have changed now-a-days because you now pan with sand stocked with gems all ready to go. Seriously, you are guaranteed to find things because they plant them in the sand. When I used to do it (I sound so old), you may find something or you may not. Now, they have to make sure everyone finds a gem and everyone gets the same amount. If you can't tell, I am not a fan of this. Pretty soon we're going to have no winners or losers in sports, no keeping score, etc - Don't get me on my soapbox about this. We'll just move on to avoid any more ramblings ...

The kids really did enjoy finding their gems and they still tote them around daily and examine them every chance they get.

All in all, what a great time we had. We loved hanging out with our cousins and getting a week off to do nothing at all! Summer has officially begun, school is out, and we're ready to start swimming, eat popsicles, and make some more visits to family!

For Now

We're back from our much needed mountain escapade and we had a blast. It was so much fun and we had so many new experiences with the kids. I'll give a more detailed update later on, but for now I wanted to share our little guy's newest milestone ... walking! Yes, the youngest member of the PALS is now walking around a lot these days (though he still would prefer to crawl, I think). I'm pushing his new found skill because I don't know how much longer I can lug around his 25 roly poly pounds on a daily basis! Enjoy the video evidence and I promise to have more updates and pictures soon!