3 Generations of Haircuts

So after the boys had haircuts Grandpa Greene decided he needed his hair cut and he was going to let the boys do it.

Drew really did a good job and was really into it-notice the tongue. Gavin just liked to see the hair fly.

Andrew had cut his the night before, so he started this whole hairy mess!

James got a trim but we are not ready for the buzz cut yet with him. I guess we should have taken J.'s shirt off too :) Love my boys!!!!

Haircuts

So we gave the boys haircuts a couple of Sundays ago. For some reason we didn't get one of Drew before the haircut so here he is during . . .

Gavin before-notice the cake mustache. He wouldn't be Gavin if he didn't have something on his shirt or face.

Poor kid sporting a mullet.

After the haircut! I am having regrets only because I can't tell them apart from the back anymore if they are wearing the same thing. I do have to say it is easy to take care of and I am all about simplicity right now.

One Big Birthday Party

We had a birthday party for J. on Sat. Grandma and Grandpa Greene made it just in time to celebrate with us. We had a great time with some great food and great friends. Thank you to all who have been such a big part of J's life and thank you for celebrating him with us!

It is my party and I will cry if I want to! Or maybe it was the fact that Mommy flipped me with the string to this silly hat not once but like 3 times?

He liked the cake (I think) not sure how much it liked him. I don't know if it was too much sugar or too much birthday but he did not sleep well Sat. night.

You want me to do what with this?

He eventually got the idea!

Thank you Grandpa, we love it. Thank you other Grandpa for helping finish putting it together and Grandma for watching the kids. You would think with pictures each step it would be easy, but with no words we had our work cut out for us. I thought I was okay because it was a big box -not so much. Anyway, it is worth the time with how much time they have spent on it, minus the fighting.

My Baby is ONE!

Where has the last year gone? It seems like yesterday I was planning my stay in the hospital being away from my big boys leaving them with someone other than Andrew or I. It seems like yesterday that my baby James Miller looked me in the eyes with those big blue eyes for the first time as if to say, "hi, mom sorry about all the kicking and squirming in there!"

It seems like yesterday that we brought your big brothers to meet you. They were in love from the beginning and never really jealous because they have always had to share Mommy and Daddy.

It seems like yesterday that you gave us your first smile, your first roll, your first laugh, and your first steps.

Now you are on the move constantly. God knew what he was doing when he sent you as a singleton. You can climb so well and so fast. I have several times thought about getting your pictures of places you have climbed but thought that might be irresponsible to leave you in most of the dangerous places you have climbed. All I know is I could have a really long post with a lot of pictures if I would have and blogged about it. Your favorite word is Da da and you comprehend so many things. It is amazing to see how quickly you learn things. You are now walking like crazy. You are so beautiful even with your long, crazy blonde hair and you sure have complemented our family. I thank God everyday that he has sent you into our lives. I (we) love you so much! Happy birthday!

Happy Birthday!

I can not believe my babies are 3! (I also can't believe it has been since Easter that I have blogged-sorry). There has been so much going on since then that I don't know where to start, so I will just pick up right now.

The boys are 3 today! We went to the Children's museum this morning and played and played. They are so fun. They love to drive things (a scary thought 13 years from now) and there are plenty of things to drive there. They also played in the kitchen and took turns holding a baby doll (we don't have any of those in a house full of boys, but maybe we should rethink that). Gav asked me to hold her and I asked her name and he said, "baby Kyla." This their newest cousin that we met back in IN last month. Another funny thing Gav said when I asked him where he wanted to eat dinner for his birthday was that he wanted to eat at Old McDonald (I am guessing that is McDonald's. We really don't eat there but they obviously love the song.

Which leads me to Drew. Drew, Drew, Drew . . . he is really good at singing and loves to do it. The boy can carry a tune! We were driving back from IN to TN (not something I want to do again anytime soon and then crawl onto planes the whole next day) and he broke out into "Rocky Top". He knew every word and the whole melody including the Wooo! So, he keeps us humming along with him.

After hearing "We got to get me on a bus somehow" for months every time after pooping, we finally rode a bus. Thanks Jessica and Stone boys for helping us out on the adventure. To be honest I was putting it off because I had never ridden a city bus except for in Ecuador and the thought of taking all 3 on scarred me to death. So, we got on right next to their house (we almost missed it due to my horrible sense of direction) and rode it to the library for toddler story time. We had our own personal escorts and photographer. Thanks again boys.

Needless to say the boys are quickly becoming little men right before our eyes. Potty training is going so well I will venture to say they are potty trained. Drew even woke me up last night because he had to pee. They are even staying dry at night and naps.

We just had their party today. It was really nice considering there were 9 boys involved(oh and 3 baby boys -just 2 girls in the whole bunch). We had a beautiful morning so they played with bubbles and in the water. I think all the moms said how they loved the time and it worked out so well for us because James slept the whole time and who doesn't need cake and ice cream at 10 in the morning? The cake turned out well except I know now how Martha Stewart would not get frosting all over the cake base. I am glad we took a picture last night after we finished (yes, we Andrew actually does most of the decorating I just come up with the ideas and bake the cake) because there were 2 finger prints in it this morning. I was up changing J and Gave came up and told on Drew (sometimes twins come in handy) and the red frosting was a give away on his face which led to a discussion on lying-but that is not a topic for this post.

Sorry for the lack of pictures we have so many good ones to choose from that I am so overwhelmed by them all and I have little patience with blogger right now. My husband and sister are too good of photographers and I am so behind on pictures, memory books, and scrap booking-but that is not for this

post either.

Back to the party, we sang Happy birthday twice and Drew sang it to himself. Three is so fun because they understood the whole blowing out the candles. Gavin was a little confused because after everyone left he said that his friends left their stuff (the gifts). The only part that I had issues with was my own child droping his drawers and peeing beside the pool, thanks for teaching them that hon. Luckily my friends assured me that, that is just boys!

Anyway, it was a great day(s) and we are off to some graduations. I still can't believe they are 3!

Easter Egg Hunting

We went to the MOPS (moms of preschoolers) Easter Egg hunt the week before Easter. The boys really had no idea what they were doing. They would pick up one egg and just kind of look at it. James was not a big fan of the grass so at least he would stay put when we put him down so that made things a little easier. We also heard the Easter story by opening eggs and having something inside to help tell the story. The boys sat pretty still for this. It was nice to have the eggstra (hee hee) candy for potty training as well. They helped me fill the eggs that we took so they were super eggcited to see what was inside of the eggs they picked up. I just told Andrew I am cracking (ha) myself up. He will get it later when he reads this.

The Saturday before Easter (the day before), we went to the Twice and Thrice -twin's group Egg hunt and saw the Easter bunny. I was a little worried about how they would react because of years past and the fact that they would just wave at the bunny at the mall and did not want to shake his hand at the the mall. They did fine. We did not get very good pictures because all the kids were crowding the poor bunny. The boys would get close to the bunny when he was holding J. but would go no where near without J. being close. I think they were looking out for their little buddy.

This time when it was time for the hunt they knew what to do. They were good. It was very windy and cold so we were pretty quick about it. Andrew gave me a hard time about buying the 1.50 buckets but I think it was an investment for the future. They will use them again next year. I didn't tell him that I really wanted to get one for J. but did not this year. I will have to look for one on clearance now for him for next year. I am lucky to have such a frugal husband, but every kids needs an Easter bucket, right? Maybe it is just because I never had one and we did the plastic or paper bag thing.

I asked if they remembered what we were going to do yesterday morning when they woke up and Gavin said, "Go hunt Easter Eggs?" I said no take books back to the library, so sorry to disappoint the little guy. I guess he was beginning to think that was an every Sat. occurrence.

We are so blessed to have such beautiful boys and such a reason to celebrate. The death and resurrection of our Savior is something we want to remember at Easter and that is not about the eggs, bunny, and candy. I guess what I am trying to say is that I don't want to downplay that and that is a little harder to capture in a picture. I hope that we instill in our boys and our readers that Jesus is the reason we celebrate on Easter. Hope you had a good one!

It's POTTY Time!

After talking with a friend, I decided to start the potty training process. I am an all or nothing kind of girl and this halfway stuff wasn't cutting it. So, I cleared out 3 days that we could pretty much be at home and we began. No use putting it off any longer! I gathered all sorts of advice from those who have been there before us and set up a plan.

We went and picked out some big boy underwear the day before and got all excited about becoming "big boys". They chose Thomas the Train and a Disney variety pack. They told everyone in the store about their "underwears" and how they were going to pee and poop in the potty. I am sure everyone enjoyed hearing about it. The picture is of them the second day of training sporting their big boy pants when Mommy got tired of doing all the laundry and she just let us run around in our underwear.

So, they woke up the first morning and we put them on the potty. This was not new for Drew but up until this point Gavin would refuse to sit on the potty. We put the diapers in the trash and pulled out the BIG BOY PANTS. They were very excited. I decided to go with the timer idea. I set it and we tried every 20 minutes. I had also read to fill them up with fluids. This part did not work for my boys. I gave them REAL juice-something they never get-we always dilute it and then dilute it some more. Apparently it was too much because they were peeing every 20 minutes just not in the potty. I had several messes to clean up and luckily all but 1 were on the hardwood instead of the carpet. Lesson learned the hard way.

The other thing that needs to be said is that my boys poop a lot. When I say a lot I mean a lot like 3 times a day. I think that is what originally put me over the edge and got me thinking about the process. So, then the poop started. Drew did not get any poop in the potty and Gavin was not putting anything in the potty that first day. He did get a little pee in the potty and then 5 minutes later after celebrating he peed all over himself. That was enough for him. He has been dry and clean since that one accident. He did not poop at all the first day but he never had a poop accident. The second day he got poop in the potty but the smart little guy also pooped when he had a diaper on at nap time. He is a lot like his mommy he is all or nothing as well. The first couple of days we did a lot of running to the potty because he thought he had to poop and it was just toots. He has been a breeze- I almost hate to say that, I think I am still waiting for the other shoe to drop as they say.

Drew on the other hand, Drew, Drew, Drew. He is kind of bull headed-I don't know where he gets it :). He took a while and would get some poop in the potty and then a lot in his pants. I was really at my wits end for those 3 days and was ready to call it quits. He kept getting better and better and we are on day 3 of no accidents so it took a day for Gavin and a week for Drew. The total opposite as I would have thought. I guess I am still waiting for the other shoe to fall since it went smoother than I thought it would-if you asked me that last week I probably would not have thought that, but now I am trying to figure out how I can get a bus ride in since that is the incentive they are working towards now. It may be a first for all of us riding city transit. I guess I have gotten on city transit in Ecuador and Spain but not here in the states. I may be wrong there but I don't think that I have. Anyway, I guess they were ready.

We are still working on getting all of the poop out at once so we don't have to go several times a day but I think they like the multiple treats they get for each time they poop we will work on that at a later time.

They really are good little boys and I am so proud of them. If you asked them Drew will also tell you he is proud of drewgavin too. (Yes he says it as all one word-still haven't had the time to research to see if I need to stop that). The potty training has also sparked a new milestone. The boys are now praying without our help. It is amazing how good they are getting at it and what they are asking prayer for. Maybe they realized how much praying Mommy was doing during this time.

Something I failed to mention is that the pictures of them on the potty are simultaneous. It always seems to happen that when one of them has to go so does the other. Sometimes J. even goes then too. I guess that is what a schedule does for you-synchronized bowel movements-ha!

I will have to post more about Easter later because J. needs to get up and this has turned into quite the lengthy post. Thanks for reading!