24 days old

Andrea is already 24 days old! It seems like only a week has gone by. Does that mean these first few weeks have been easy and time has gone by so quickly? I'm not sure I agree with that, but time has gone by quickly.

Isn't Andrea the most perfect little baby ever?!! She's extra cute and still so small. She's starting to get little chubbier arms and legs and her diapers almost fit! : ) ...but she's just so teenie tiny. : )

Potty & Italy

Quick update before little people wake up...

- Scott is a potty CHAMP!!! At 3:30am we were going pee-pees in the potty! AND THEN he woke up dry too! He's pretty good at telling us and then running to the potty. He's been wearing his big boy underwear which is a step up from just being naked. We'll do another day of big boy underwear then move onto putting pants on! Then onto the big potty so we can actually go out in public!

A little less exciting than Scotty's pee-pee success is that we just booked tickets to Italy!!! YAY. Sierra got to have her 7th birthday in Paris under the Eiffel Tower so Michaela is going to have her 10th birthday in Italy at the Leaning Tower of Pisa! - Did I mention my birthday last week was held in my kitchen with McDonalds cheeseburgers? So any tips on visiting Italy are welcome. I'm trying to figure out trains, we want to visit Rome and the coast too.

My parents leave the States on Sunday to start the long, long, long journey here to visit us. I told them that if at any point the start to complain about the flights, or layovers, or anything else - to keep in mind that they could be doing the trip with three (or four) children! They'll be here Monday night. We are looking forward to that too!

Pee-Pees in the Potty

Scotty is a Potty SUPERSTAR!

I let the diapers run out in the downstairs cupboard Monday night so Scotty went to bed thinking they were all gone! He woke up and put on his big boy underwear since "diapers all gone". He then proceeded to pee in every single one of his six pairs of big boy underwear. He peed on the kitchen chair, the couch, the game of Life game board, the stairs, and of course the wood floor. Once I even caught that little boy splashing in a pee puddle. -ick- ...and this was all before 11:00am! I had fun following him around the house with Mr. Clean and a towel. (I would like to officially call dibs on the sarcasam font.)

Around noon I started thinking that maybe my three year old wasn't quite ready. At this point he was running around with just a shirt because I was washing every pair of pants he owns. ...then he starts putting his poo-poos in the potty (continuing to put pee-pees on the floor though). I was happy enough not to be cleaning up poo-poos from the floor though. Then he got the idea that pee-pees in the potty get him two peanut M&M's! So then the pee-pees started going in the potty too!!! At one point I thought he may be dumping cups of water in the potty because he started going so often. I cleaned up a few accidents but they were usually done en route to the potty; which, by the way is located in the middle of the living room floor in front of the TV.

So little Scotty did well today, he even got the hang of doing it himself for those times when I was dealing with little Andrea. Right now he is asleep in a big boy pull up and I have zero confidence in him waking up dry... but I'm not too concerned about that!

Oh and swimming for the girls went GREAT! Sierra did inform me prior to the lessons that she would NOT be getting in the water but being the horrible mother I am, I forced them to the side of the pool where I promptly left them in the company of all their Danish friends and next thing I know... Sierra (and Michaela) are jumping into the pool and paddling around in the deep water! (with little floating things around their waists) They both loved it and want to go every day! One point for mommy! Good thing this went better than Volleyball! PHEW.

Sierra's Birthday

The party was fun! I admit that on Saturday I became increasing scared as my house began to fill up with screaching little girls, but it wasn't all that bad. Sierra had a great time with all her friends and I survived with the help of Paul and a couple moms from school (thanks Ingrid and Jill!) Even Andrea cooperated by sleeping through most of it!

The girls decorated pillowcases - I found some fabric markers to use instead of paint. The $50 I spent on them was well worth my sanity and saving the mess that would have resulted in trays of paint and paint brushes. We also made necklaces, ate lots of yummy food, watched a movie and had popcorn, and then giggled until all hours of the night... (until I drew the line, and felt like my own parents when I started talking "sternly" in an attempt to get some sleep myself! :)

In the morning we had pancakes and strawberry smoothies, played with new toys, and I waited for the little giggling monsters to be picked up. I can't say I'd do it again anytime soon, but it was fun... and I know they all had fun.

Scott's birthday was postponed for when my parents arrive next Monday. He did get to open a few presents though. :)

Gotta go - Andrea says so...

My "not-so-smart-plan"

Scotty's birthday is tomorrow! YAY for my little three year old!!! He's extra cute and extra talkative and I love the boy lots. : ) We'll wait for my parents to come for the cake and presents but tomorrow we'll go out to eat to the kids' favorite restaurant for dinner... and open a few presents. :)

It's Sierra's birthday I'm scared of. It all started as a nice simple plan: "Invite Some Friends Over For A Sleepover". This plan was developed as a result of me trying to be a wonderful mom and make my daughter's birthday a fun and special day to remember. I'm guessing I may have been a little hormonal/confused from giving birth, but now that I've come around I fear I've done a bad, bad thing. FOURTEEN girls are showing up and this makes the kid-to-grown-up ratio extremely lopsided.

So what should you do when you accidentally invite 14 kids over to your house? You should involve paint of course. Painting pillowcases would be Dumb Idea #2. (Dumb Idea #1 was the sleepover plan to begin with!) Dumb Idea #3: Cake and Ice Cream before bed. Perhaps I'll spike the frosting with some benadryl. I'm sure the parents will understand.

Kidding of course... I'm sure we'll have a fun time. I'm guessing only four kids will want to call their parents in the middle of the night. I won't deliver any upset children to parents - However I will give them another spoonful of that spiked frosting.

AND - I met lots of more moms from school today! so I have more friends and that makes me happy! ...AND I heard a scary rumor that a family moved here from the states and the wife is expecting a baby in December! AHHHHHH!! I feel it's my responsibility as a good fellow American to tell her to run... run far and fast. Actually, if someone would have told me what it would be like I would have been stressed out for nine months. Maybe it's better not to know. Ignorance is Bliss.

I'm off to bed now. Hilde, my dear Belgian friend, I'm very sorry for not being a good blog writer. I will try to be better. : ) See you at school tomorrow!

My day.

Hi. :) Now that I can't complain about being pregnant I really don't know where to start!

I went shopping today. I had to: get milk (15 liters), find some school supplies (only $30 for three notebooks and two calenders), develop a few pictures (only $1.50 per print!), and return something to the apotek (pharmacy). Scotty and Andrea were the perfect children the whole time!

Some friends came over and brought super cute gifts for Andrea. It makes me happy all my friends are back from their vacations now! :) I was getting bored.

The girls started the afterschool program which means they stay after school for 1-2 hours until 3pm. I was suprisingly happy to have two extra hours with only two kids. I used to happy when I had zero kids... It seems I've adjusted my standards quite quickly.

Swimming was cancelled for a month... something about the water, but they don't tell you until you show up. I was extremely proud of getting four kids on time to swimming lessons. I had planned for it all day, including a frozen back-up lasanga I made a while ago for dinner.

Now I'm going to get my little Scotty to bed at a decent hour because he's been falling asleep while watching his new favorite movie "Robots". First I will get some chocolate milk and eat some more Ibuprofen.

Oh yah - Michaela finished all the Harry Potter books. She read 1-6 in 10 days, but found the 7th one less exciting so she re-read all the others... then read them all again... she would also read a little of the 7th book at a time until she got to the good part. She's finally read them all, but continues to read them - over and over and over and over.

tara

I have ten minutes to type...

I'm a terrible mother. I haven't taken any pictures of Andrea for THREE days! But here's a cute picture of Scotty from a while ago. You can see how well our "taking-the-pacifier-away" plan is going. : ) But it is true that as you increase the number of children the photographs of each one decreases... I don't even have time to find the camera anymore - I should just leave it in my pocket.

I've been sick with a lovely breast infection and after talking to eight different "medical" people I finally convinced one to give me antibiotics. Not liking Denmark very much right about now... but finally feeling better. I finally emerged from the bedroom today after a two day stint in there.

The girls started school on Wednesday, they like it since they have all their friends back and have made some new ones too. Guess I should have taken a picture of that too. They both start swimming lessons on Monday. Sierra is having her birthday party (a sleepover) next weekend. With any luck I'll survive the rest of the month in time for my mom and dad to show up so I can officially go insane.