Snapshots

I scrolled down this page and just saw a bunch of....words. No pictures of the little people in my life. So today you just get pictures...and a few words.

Drue and Molly chillaxin' in the play tent blowing bubbles.

 

Pirate Day at school a few weeks ago. Much to my chagrin they learned all about "Pirate's Booty", and yes, my 3 giggle everytime they talk about it.

 

Unexplainable. Just a typical day for the boy. We never know what kind of outfit he is going to come up with.

 

Tate Talk

Here's just a sampling of some of Tate's quirky vocabulary:

"My Own"

Instead of saying "mine" or "my" he will say things like "That's my own shoe" or "I play my own cars". And if we try and play with him and say, "That's my own ball" he will quickly correct us say, "No, that's Tate's own ball".

"How 'bout?"

We take this child everywhere with us. Him being one of the pint sized people we are responsible for and all. But he always feels the need to suggest that he join us. "Time to get ready for church," we'll say. And he automatically asks, "How 'bout I come?".


"Mommy, you happy?"

Tate is somewhat of a little peacemaker...I said somewhat...because he is usually the culprit for stirring up trouble as well. But he doesn't like for me to be upset with him. If I have to sternly get after him for something, he will rush over and pleadingly ask, "Mommy you happy?". And if I say, "No, I'm not happy, you disobeyed Mommy" or something to that effect, it really bothers him. He will almost be driven to tears as it becomes more of a command from him than a question at this point, "Mommy...you happy!".

But I think that it's sweet that he is concerned with whether or not I'm happy. There were obviously some frustrating moments during potty training but no matter how rough the day had gone, as I would tuck him into bed he would happily drift off to sleep if I assured him that "Mommy is happy".

Of course, he has now started giving himself away before I am aware of something naughty he has done. He will come bursting in the kitchen out of nowhere..."Mommy you happy?" about 3 seconds before I hear the wail of one of his sisters as a result of his torment.

He, himself, is such a happy little guy. I will ask him a few times during the day, "Tate you happy?" and he always gets a big grin on his face and nods his head. Certainly, there are times he's upset about something and when I ask, "Tate you happy?" he will furrow his eyebrows and shake his head, saying, "I not happy" but all it usually takes is for me to mimic his command of "Tate you happy!" and his grin peeks through again.

Funny Little Conversations

The girls have been cracking me up the past few days. Well, they crack me up everyday, but I wanted to quickly post some of the stuff they've said that has made me laugh out loud.

Drue: "I'm hot."

Me: "You're hot?"

Reese (jumping in to explain): "Not the married kind of hot...the summer kind of hot."

*********************************
Drue: "Mommy, are you going to take a nap today?"

Me: "Um....no....I rarely take a nap."

Reese: "Yeah...she gave up that privilege."

*********************************
When Reese was sick for a week in October, she missed school, her Halloween school party, all her church activities, and didn't even feel that great to go trick-or-treating. So, I swung by the mall on the way home one day and bought her a Webkin...just to cheer her up a bit.

Now, everytime they are sick, they think they get something. Which is fine with me. So I brought Reese home a small stuffed bunny the other day from the grocery store. I should have known to get an extra for Drue at the time, because the very next day she got a fever and wanted to know where her bunny was. So back to the store I went today.

I am just drained from spending the last 3 days in this house...I have Spring fever, cabin fever, etc. Drue was snuggling me on the couch with her bunny this afternoon.

Drue: "Mom, what do bunnies say?"

Me (with no creative juices flowing whatsoever to even make up a cute little answer): "I don't know."

Pause

Drue (as if she couldn't believe I could be so clueless): "They say nothing."

Humbled by my 6 year old

Reese has had a fever and cough for the past 2 days. The past few beautiful Spring days. Ugh. No outdoor time for us.

Yesterday the kids and I just kind of vegged all day and watched movies. Reese laid on the couch the whole time with bright red cheeks and glassy eyes.

Today she perked up a bit. She actually got up and walked around and felt good enough to giggle a time or two. So the TV went off. But I still wasn't comfortable taking them out to enjoy the fresh air. While Tate napped, I drug out some crayons, colored pencils, and blank white pieces of paper, complete with 3 hard cover books to use as our drawing boards. We each drew a picture, then showed it off to each other.

We started to make a little game out of it. "Let's draw our favorite place to go", I suggested. The girls got busy making their creation and then we guessed what each person's picture was.

This went on and on for probably an hour and a half. It was neat to see what they thought of each time, and how they drew it. We did our favorite animals, our favorite thing to do outside, our favorite Princess, etc. Then we came to our favorite gift...

I thought for a few seconds about the jewelry each girl had picked out for me, the lotions, the candy, etc and knew I couldn't pick one of those, for fear I would hurt the other one's feelings. So I explained to both of them that I wasn't going to pick something that either one had given me because I loved all their gifts and couldn't pick just one. I would pick one from my childhood.

The time came for us to show our pictures to each other. This time we weren't going to make each other guess. We were just going to tell what we drew as we showed it.

"My favorite gift was my E.T. doll", I said as I turned my picture around. That doll is now like 25 years old and goes back and forth from the girls' room to Tate's room.

"My favorite gift was my baby doll", Drue said proudly as she showed us her picture of a doll in a green dress.

Reese quietly turned her picture around and very sweetly and sincerely said, "My favorite gift was the best gift of all...Jesus dying on the cross for us. So we can spend forever in Heaven with Him."

 

Drue and I just looked at each other and smiled with the realization our gifts had just been trumped...

Four Score & Seven Years Ago...

Reese and I were going over one of her verses she needed to memorize for AWANA tonight.

Hebrews 11:8
"By faith, Abraham...obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going."

She does really well with learning her verses but still lacks self-confidence for some reason. And she hasn't quite grasped the concept of practice. She feels that once she hears the verse one time, she should know it. And gets frustrated when that doesn't happen.

She was saying it back to me and I told her to do as much as she could, and when she got stumped I would help her with the next word.

So she began, "By faith..." and paused. But I could see her "wheels" turning so I waited to see if the name came to her. Apparently, when she couldn't remember the name Abraham, she decided to use the next most logical name that she could recall and filled in the blank this way...

"By faith Lincoln..."

Unplanned Psychological Experiment

One of the little mommy duties that I love is fixing my kids' plates. I know them each so well, I am able to expertly dish out what each of them likes from any given choices.

Take steak, rice, green beans, and rolls for instance.

Reese gets lots of steak and a spoonful of green beans.

Drue gets a few bites of steak, lots of rice, spoonful of beans, and a roll buttered in front of her so the butter doesn't have time to melt first.

Tate gets a few bites of steak, rice, beans, and a buttered roll.

Milk for all--no straws, thus eliminating milk bubbles all over the table and the floor. Tate must drink a small glass of milk before getting his beverage of preference, which, of all things, is water.

Tonight I made cheese tortellini in alfredo sauce with rolls. (Yes, I realize another carb filled dinner...).

I wasn't going to make any alternate dishes for the kids so I placed a few noodles on each plate and buttered the rolls accordingly.

Reese could have won an emmy for her dramatic silent display to let me know she was not happy about the meal. It was complete with hunched shoulders, furrowed eyebrows, and disgusted facial expressions that would make one think she was being made to eat a beetle.

She only had 5 tortellinis on her plate. F-I-V-E.

And here's where the psychological part came in to play. Tate and Drue both began to gulp down their noodles. Reese was even able to choke a few down. But NONE of them would touch the green ones. And one by one, as I kept encouraging them to finish their last few noodles, objected, "But I don't like the green ones....".

The dish had mixed yellow and green tortellini. I couldn't help but laugh because there is absolutely no difference in the taste whatsoever between the two. Not even slightly.

All they saw was green and immediately made their decision that they didn't like them. I had just witnessed the placebo effect firsthand!

To Post or Not To Post

***WARNING***This post contains a graphic image, not for the faint of stomach.

This actually happened last Spring sometime and I debated on whether I was going to put it on here or not. Is it too nasty to post on here? Will people think I am crazy? But I came across the picture again today and decided, "Eh, I don't really care. It's a funny memory and I'm posting it."

I had gone out for a walk one evening and as I came back in the front door I could hear excited little voices and giggles coming from the guest bathroom. When they heard the door behind me close, they beckoned me in there, "Mommy! Mommy! Come see this!".

There we were--all five of us crammed in the tiny half bath, when one of my sweet children (whom shall remain nameless at this time) said proudly, "I pooped a heart out...".

 

Never in a million trillion years did I ever envision myself taking a picture of the contents of our toilet.

For weeks afterward, this child would look into the potty after every #2 to see if another heart had been produced...

The Fear of the Law

Ok, I am going to make a declaration that on "Spring Forward Day" of Daylight Savings...it cannot rain! A rainy dark morning coupled with losing an hour of sleep DO NOT fair well with getting myself up and waking up 3 slumbering children (all of who made their way into my bed last night) to get to church on time.

We ran around like crazy people getting ourselves ready. Drue was upset that all she had time to eat for breakfast was a granola bar. I was smelling Tate's hair to make sure he had no mystery food odors coming from it since I didn't have time to bathe them this morning. Drue decided to make a last minute sock change as we were heading out the door and exchanged her summer footie socks for regular ankle socks, one hot pink, the other purple. This was the way she went to church.

I tuned the van radio to the Christian radio station in hopes of calming our crazied atmosphere and spirits before we got to church. And we were off. I looked in the rearview mirror at my backseat passengers. The girls were actually playing nicely together with their zoo souvenirs from yesterday. Tate was inspecting something on the end of his finger. Uh oh.

"Mommy...mommmy...mommy..." (I don't know why Tate says my name multiple times in row but he does). "Mommy, I have a boogie". I tossed him a kleenex and all was well.

Except now he wanted to see Drue's zoo toy. After some coaxing and a mini sharing lecture from me, she let him have it. It didn't take long for the girls' attention to wander on to something else. They were both looking out the back window and giggling about who knows what.

As we drew nearer to the church I saw a cop out of the corner of my eye. It looked like he was just pulling out of Sonic, not like he was laser gunning people.

As we passed by him Reese hollered out this warning, "There's a police car! Everyone. Act. Normal!"

And it worked, by golly. My pleas of "settle down", "let's be nice" etc, had gone unheeded. But they all three, did indeed, act normal the rest of our journey.

Goin' to the zoo..zoo..zoo...how about you..you..you?

Well, I did it.

I went on an outing with all the kids, without being laden down like a pack mule. Without a diaper bag, stroller, or snacks to feed a small army. I didn't even take the camera this time.

It was invigorating, freeing, and kind of sad. I don't have any "babies" anymore.

David had to work today and I knew I wanted to be anywhere but cooped up at home, so since we still have a month left of our zoo pass from last year, that was our decided destination.

And as is the law of the land, I kind of wished we had brought along all of the aforementioned items. We are hard pressed to keep Tate in his stroller anymore, he wants to have free reign to explore his surroundings like the girls do. But, of course, since the stroller was left sitting in our garage, he wanted to be carried quite a bit today.

And the kids never want to slow down to pose for a cute picture. But, again, because my camera was sitting on my counter at home, Reese stopped by a zoo statue and smiled up sweetly at me and said, "Take my picture".

And we barely stepped foot inside the gates, when they started asking for something to eat...or drink.

I had planned on just cruising through the zoo without spending too much on the extras offered. But we did end up riding the Merry-Go-Round, the tram, and the train...so pretty much almost all the extras. In my defense, they are all at such a fun, excitable age. And I want to enjoy that. Not that you have to spend money to enjoy being together. But one day they are going to be "too cool" to ride the carousel or snuggle up next to me on the tram, or giggle in anticipation of the long dark tunnel coming up on the train ride. And if it costs me a few bucks to experience that with them...so be it.

As we were riding the tram to Africa we were talking about the bridge we were about to go over.

With a little reluctance in her voice, Drue said, "That's a height. I'm scared of heights".

Which of course scared Tate and Reese, right on down the line. So Tate grabbed hold of my hand and Reese's hand and Drue grabbed Reese's other hand while we went over it.

I think I mentioned last year how the zoo has a way of sucking all the energy out of the kids. Yesterday I took them to a park for an hour and a half. They ran full speed the whole time, climbing, riding their scooters/bikes, etc. But for some reason a leisurely stroll spent gazing at animals exhausts them. We rode the tram to Africa for the sole purpose of boarding the boat in Africa. Upon our arrival, we discovered the boat wasn't running. So we boarded the return tram back to our original stop...so we could hop on the train. That was the quickest trip to Africa I have ever had.

And it's just not a Hollaway outing unless one of them says something embarrassing. Reese wanted to ride in the very back of the tram. We were the only people in that car for a few minutes. Before it pulled away from the station, a large family climbed into the front seat of our car. And by large, I don't mean there were lots of them. Of course as the dad shoved over to the end of his bench the whole car swayed. Which led Reese to say, "Whoa, why is our tram moving!?" in a louder than needed voice.

I love my little brood. They are a fun bunch.

Drue's Question of the Day

"How do Princesses stay clean?".

(Asked as she was looking down at her dirt covered hands and fingernails from building a dirt jungle)

Reese all knowingly answered, "They don't go outside".

I posted this picture for 2 reasons:

 
#1. To show how CRAZY fast my kids are growing! I just bought these dresses last season! And I'm a little worried because Drue doesn't think hers is too short at all...

#2. Who needs TV, video games, or computers? The girls found this spool of heavy duty string and have been playing with it all afternoon. Our backyard looks like Spiderman just paid us a visit...which Tate will think is pretty cool when he wakes up in a few minutes...