What the Chipmunks have done lately..........

The Chipmunks have been very busy little kids lately, learning new things and enjoying the last bit of summer. We had our first family yard sale, Alvin was especially motivated to participate as we were hoping to make enough money to buy a Wii (something he DESPERATELY wanted).

Alvin really wanted to have a "stand" to make some money himself and we convinced him to wait until we did our yard sale (there is lots of 'traffic' during the 'city wide' sales). He got up bright and early and got himself set up and then promptly took a break...........but ate his breakfast right there. I was impressed with his level of responsibility and he pretty much ran his end of things with only a tiny bit of help from mom or dad.

At the end of the day we called this sale a success and the kids were all rewarded with a much anticipated purchase........and Alvin was able to purchase an extra game with his profits. Here's where i have to admit that this is a fun thing to play as a family too..........

This past month Theodore has learned to stand up and cruise the furniture and she's pretty proud of this accomplishment. She also likes to pull on the curtains now as well.............

Took pictures of my girls sleeping, there is something so precious about a sleeping child. I love to go in and check on them and give them an extra goodnight kiss once in awhile. 

That whole experience may be a little tainted by one small fact, one of my girls is FAKING being asleep and then gets up for a photo shoot before finally settling back into bed........and the really sad thing is it's the littlest one!!

 What a HAM!!

We have enjoyed hanging out in the yard, and having rare opportunities with all three chipmunks playing together. It is so fun to watch them play and enjoy each other so much, we are so blessed to listen to the laughter and pure silliness on a daily basis!

Speaking of silliness........this is how they decided to enjoy the apples off our little tree out front. That is, of course, before they ate them all! Simon is looking a little like an indian princess here. The "flair" is courtesy of lil sister Theodore. Glad big sis can enjoy the huge flowers that mom loves so much and Theodore won't tolerate anymore!

The family has a tradition of going to see "races" in the summer, those would be car races. This year is no exception! Recently we went to the 'extravaganza', this event officially ends the season at the track closest to us. The kids loved eating popcorn and watching cars get wrecked.....Theodore enjoyed cheerios instead.

Touch pool at Sea Life

A few picture from our trip to the Sea Life Museum this week, we had fun even though my cell phone camera was not able to get many pictures.

 I didn't tell my 3 year old that a dog is just as smart as she is......on her 4th birthday i'll let her know that she is now smarter then a dog.

Alvin had his first ride on a mini-bike, he did a great job and didn't crash! YIKES! He is growing up!

You can now consider yourself caught up on the lives of Simon, Theodore and Alvin! They are already planning more adventures to share with you soon!

Traveling with Chipmunks

 This is 3:15am Day 1. We are all packed up, belted in and ready to roll. We were killing mosquitoes until about lunchtime..........but other then that the early part of the day was pretty quiet.

After approx 15 hours on the road we finally stopped for the night. 15 hours didn't get us as far as it used to, but we slowly made our way to the land of Granny and PopPop.

After some fun in the pool, a little dinner and a little sleep it is 4:30am and time to wake the chipmunks.





Now, i believe all the excitement about traveling 1/2 way across the country by van (no matter how nice that rental way) has totally lost it's appeal.

Simon is a late sleeper by nature, so getting up early was hard enough.........but back in the van WAAAAAA

Alvin is our early riser but appears less then enthusiastic about another day "on the road"

Theodore is quietly accepting of her fate this morning.










A very short time later our most upset passenger has regained control, thanks to "Tangled"

Finally, after many more hours and strategic planning of gas/potty/nursing/eating stops we arrive and get to have some "cousin time" and PIZZA!!!

First face to face without using skype with cousin Ben. There was much fun and much laughter with the youngest cousins.

and.....the baby cousins........Theodore had enough and was ready for bed, but not before a picture op. Babies are 9m 7m and 1.5m in this picture. It was a babypalooza and we enjoyed holding each others little "bundles"!

Important Milestones and Nicknames

As my children grow i love watching them reach the next milestone. Sitting, walking, talking, reading and writing...........and yesterday another great milestone occurred.


Early in the day Alvin was telling me (with sheer admiration) that his friend can make fart noises with his hand under his arm, but he could not do it. As we drove home from the pool (a very short ride) Alvin says "turn the radio down!" after i do he makes a fart noise under his arm, he laughs....Simon laughs and well i laughed too.  Not what i expected to hear really.........but i guess a milestone nonetheless.
Since yesterday it is either the topic of interest to talk about or a practice session. This morning all the kids were snuggling with me and Alvin says "i will teach you (Simon) and you will teach Theodore, i am sure mom and day already know how. Mom can you do this?" "hmm, no i don't think i can" (or want to).

Alvin and Simon love to play hide and go seek, and the other morning after a rousing session, Simon comes crying. I immediately thought either Alvin left her without looking for her, or won't give her a turn. She is hysterical (which is a normal mode for a 3 year old i think) and she is crying "alvin never wahahawahawawha" i asked her 3 times and got the same unintelligible response. So, i look at Alvin and say ask what she is upset about. "She wants me to hold her hand", oh.....and yes i had him go hold hand for a few minutes.

Before Theodore was born i many times called the kids "frick and frack" "thing 1 and thing 2" or "tweedle dee and tweedle dum". I still fall into those names sometimes and have to correct myself, and this week was one of those time. As we are "unloading kids" from the car i use an old nickname and Alvin notices and we decide we need new nicknames for the brood. "winkin blinkin and nod didn't go over with them, but they liked alvin simon theodore............i laughed cause they don't know i use those names here on my blog. They appropriately name themselves with the same names i use here on my blog, and then they say i can be Dave, lol. So, almost the same as i use here.

Mamadavia's birthday

Ah, it was my birthday this weekend and it was a wonderful day with a few lessons splattered amongst the fun.
I got a great gift from all the little chipmunks, a NAP! wow priceless! Dave was working and all three kids napped, it was great! By all my !! You can see my excitement and enthusiasm over this gift that i didn't even ask for, but so greatly appreciated.
We went to a wonderful Irish Pub for dinner. Lesson #1 Pack soft toys for Theodore to play with when we are out. Yes, she has learned to bang everything! She also is throwing things on the floor. While i know better then to pick these things up and give them back to her, Alvin does not. She had fun having him pick up after her.
Simon is our moocher, she ate all but one of the cucumber slices out of our salads. Then she just had to have a shrimp as well. Lesson #2 Don't feed a moocher, they just come back for more. Trust us, we know.
As we left (through the bar) Dave was carrying Theodore, and an obviously drunk young man says from across the room that she is "the prettiest girl in the world". OK, you're hitting on my 6m old? LOL glad Dave was holding her, it was a little weird but once we got out the door we laughed. Lesson #3 Um, keep my girls away from drunk men.

Once outside and laughing, Alvin says "i smell smoke" "who's smoking". Who is he, Smokey the Bear? So, as i am explaining laws and such i see the guy who is the offending smoker. He is having is smoke around the side of the building in a patio area. So, he says "hi" and at that point i am pretty sure he heard everything.

It is about that point i realize that we are no longer "cool". We pack up our minivan and now i am sure i am not cool.

Veggie Dessert

We all know the rules, eat your veggies.....finish your dinner and THEN you can have dessert. That's how is is supposed to work, but what do "they" say about the best laid plans?

Simon being the typical dramatic 3 year old girl, can go from smiles and laughing to tears over something in 10 sec flat. It usually takes 4 or 5 repeats before we can understand what the problem is over the heaving cries Then when she finally can articulate actual words we hear "i forgot to put on my make up" (on the way home from being out, and she only wears lip gloss) or "i wanted to wear my dancing shoes". We have found that girls really can create their own drama.

On our way home from eating out one night, she has one of these hysterical crying episodes and she says (you have to remember to heave at least twice when you read this) "I FORGOT TO EAT MY SALAD".  We assured her that there would be many other opportunities to eat salad but that one was over.

So, this weekend we had a party to celebrate both girls getting dedicated and Mamadavia made this fabulous cake

Simon was very excited to have a slice of this sweet delight. As every good mom would, i made sure she had a decent dinner that she felt was just a waste of her time. After coming up to me no less then 10 times, it was finally time to cut the cake and she was first in line. She promptly ate all the icing and filling and then left the cake.

Well, next thing you know she is having some chips and salsa (it's a party and all the food is still out) and then a huge plate (well huge for a 3 year old) of vegetable and dip. Then she was done and could relax.
I am beginning to think that i should just give her dessert for dinner and her dinner for dessert!

Counting and Driving

Alvin, when he was still my little guy..........today he reminded me a few times how grown up he is getting............or not.

He was spending time with his younger sisters and Simon was watching a PBS show. In the show they were counting and his looks at me and says "why are they counting my ones, it would be much easier if they counted my 10's or 2's or 5's"

Later in the morning he says "when i am 19 will i be able to drive" and i said "i sure hope so, where would you want to drive to?" he said maybe down town (okay "downtown" is 6-7 blocks away is a block long, not even a traffic light) then he said "maybe i will ask my friend (the neighbor) and we can go around the block". Ah, if his world would only stay that small.

Nicknames

You always have those little endearing names for your babies when they are little. They are such a bundle of cuteness their actual name doesn't quite seem to do them justice. So, we come up with all these cute nicknames..........and with each kid i have felt a need for them to have their own special nickname that i use only for them. There are others that i have called all of them but......

For Alvin it was doodle bug which was quickly shortened to "doodle"
For Simon it was Bug-a-boo which i shortened to "bug" or "bugga"
And lastly for Theodore it is "Boo Boo" like in Boo Boo Bear (we saw Yogi when she was really small) which, obviously becomes "Boo" when i shorten it.

What i didn't notice until tonight is that they piggyback each other "doodle bug a boo boo", how odd is that? That was me, not even trying.

OSHA and Zoo

Ah, spring has arrived! I wasn't sure of it until i noticed Simon's hair, the increased curl is evidence of the passage from dry winter air to humid spring/summer air. (if i had a dime for every time i was asked if i curl her hair)

 Other happenings at the Chipmunks house:

We have a new OSHA director, Alvin.      

Now he has always made a sign saying "wet floor" when he helps wash the floor, and to his credit the floor really is WET when he is done. This week he took it to a new level and made this sign

I interpret it as "stop or you'll slip", evidently we have moved to more universally recognized signs in our home.

"Family Fun Day" destination was the Zoo

........felt a little bad for the giraffe i don't think licking the pole will satisfy his hungry belly.
We saw lions and tigers and bears (polar bears to be specific) and monkeys too. We have a picture of those monkeys that Alvin took, unfortunately it doesn't meet BCC (blog communication comission) standards.

Theodore was pleased to showcase her purple stroller and her animal sounds as well.

 Ever been in a monkey house when they are all going crazy? On the way home i feared a monkey may have made it's way into our van, but the sounds were truly only coming from one source.

One more picture to share, a few days before mothers day Simon brought me some "special flowers" as she called them. I offered to hire her out to a friend who wanted to get rid of some weeds, but we really still need her here.......we have lots more "special flowers" for her to pick.

Blinking and Shatows

Theodore is quite social and she was visiting with a "girl friend" the other night. This young girl decided to stare her down, and see who would "win". It was quite comical to see Theodore win and the young girl say "she hasn't learned to blink yet".  Eventually she got Theodore to blink by clapping her hands. I wouldn't want to be in a staring contest with her, it's like some sort of super-hero power....."the power to stare"

Alvin's "war wounds" are almost totally healed up (and it's been less then a week), and he had a friend tell him his stitches were gone now.....so he was checking the accuracy of the information his friend gave him (something i hope he does for a long time). I told him yes they were dissolved now, and told him that mom had the same kind of stitches when she was a kid. First question he asked was if i got a matchbox car when i got my stitches. Well, no i didn't.....oh you didn't act like a big girl? Staring and maturity, something not inherited from the X chromosome.

Out walking with all the chipmunks (and friends) today and Simon found her shatow. She was excited and kept following her shatow, but there was a flaw in that logic. She walked around in small circles and got nowhere. Finally, i let her in on the secret that her shatow would follow her wherever she went.  We could probably find deeper spiritual meaning in this story, but i just thought "i wonder what it means when a preschooler sees their shatow, 6 more weeks of ?

'Perfect Record' broken

"Family Fun Day" ended on a bit of a sour note. Alvin fell off a platform/stage area and broke the fall with his mouth. We had what looked like a crime scene that we quickly cleaned up and off to the urgent care we went....
Alvin was very upset about having to see a doctor when he was hurt, we've never been to urgent care or the emergency room. We got there and he seemed to calm down, they gave him toys to play with and a dvd player to watch a movie and all was better. The doctor examined him and said he needed a few stitches, and then the child life specialist explained what would happen and they told him "no surprises" and all seemed well. The nurse came in every 5 min or so and applied the topical gel to the area to numb it. The doc came back and stitched him up while Alvin whined a bit cause it wasn't totally numb but it only took a few minutes and we were on our way home.

Yes, i am the kind of mom to take pictures of this.....

As we walked out of the Urgent care Alvin says to me "i thought they said no surprises", he was quite annoyed. When i thought about it i felt bad for him cause i try to prepare him for what will happen and instead of me doing it, the child life person did it.......why would they tell kids no surprises if they fail to tell them about any pain? Poor kid they lied to him. What did that child life person know........
Next day over lunch i talk with Alvin about the previous night and asked him "would it have been better if they told you they were using a needle"  He says "yes" I ask him "how would that make it better" He says "i would have run right out of the building into the van". Ok, maybe the child life person knew what they were doing.........
He is almost all healed up now, it's amazing how much better it looks today......maybe i should do a re-take on the easter pictures. On the down side our 7 1/2 year record of no stitches/emergency care for the kids is broken, guess it had to happen sometime. Rest assured we still are working at the no broken bones record.

UPDATE ON PREVIOUS POST:
On Easter morning as the kids are checking out their baskets, i tell Simon that the real name for bunny turds is jelly beans and that i was being silly when i called them bunny turds. So, when Dave gets home (yes he had to work on Easter) i am eager have her show off  the knowledge she gained.
I say what is this (holding a jellybean) and she says "a jellybean" and then follows it up with "yeah, bunny turds are made out of jellybeans".

Movie Madness

True Confession- Mamadavia is ALWAYS looking for a good bargain and loves a good deal! and a good story.....

The other day we had "family fun day". What is that? Glad you asked, it is any day that Dave has off, because we usually do something together. This only makes sense if you know he doesn't get weekends off and his days off are unpredictable at best.

Looking for something special to do with the kids this time had us at the movie theater, which we do not do very often. Trying to save some $ we always go to a cheaper show, at a cheaper priced theater. This time we went to the more expensive place but only because Mamadavia had $25 in "consession cash" that she got for FREE with codes from cereal last year (and since we had to use this before June, now was a good of time as any).

We found a family friendly movie (which by the way, there have been an abundance of  lately) and off we went. At the box office we paid for tickets and gave them the kids ages (this is important info for later in the story)  all but Theodore because i erroneously thought she was obviously under 2 years old...........nope it isn't obvious to everyone. Movie we want is sold out.....something about rain and school being out.....ok we pick a different movie and we are back on track- 2 kids 2 adults please. Give our ticket to the "ticket taker" 10 steps from where we bought them..............i'll never understand that.

Onto concession where we quickly found out that $25 in concession cash isn't as much as we thought it was. No worries, we got more then our fair share of popcorn and pop, with even some leftover for a bit of candy (which came home with us due to full bellies).

Now time to test the ability of the employee behind the counter. This is about the time i though to myself "maybe we should have not opted for the shortest line but the one with the smartest looking employee". Yeah, it wasn't pretty.........manager called over like 4 times, re-entering the codes on the "cash" i had like 3 times and then finally the manager did the transaction himself (which we thought he should have done to begin with). 25 min later.............and 15 min late for our movie.

We quickly race to the Theater 18, you guessed it...all the way down the long hall (this is about the time i am thankful that Theodore is such a lightweight, i didn't have her in the sling/carrier, i was freestylin' it). Into the darkness....and it is sold out, so there is a seat in the back one in the front and one in the middle somewhere. A different, more competent employee helps us out and we eventually all walk back to the front to get new tickets to another movie.
The manager asks for our tickets and Dave hands them over but there is only 3, and we are stumped. I remembered the total we paid and quickly find we have paid for only the two adults and one child. OOOOps, we had no idea...............so much for the ticket taker who is suppose to account for each person, right? i mean why else would they stand there?

We end up seeing the movie we really wanted to see(but it was sold out) plus we got to see it in 3D! And we never were asked to pay for whichever of the chipmunks they failed to charge us for. Better yet, after the movie they gave everyone as we exited a coupon for free popcorn (we ended up with 4 of these).

Theodore~

   

              Alvin~                                                                       Simon~

So cool and the chipmunks are sporting 3D glasses everywhere we go! This wasn't even all the excitement we had that night!

The other Meat

Well, Spring is school shopping for this family. It is the time of year i spend lots of time researching what books will work best for us in the coming school year.......then once i find them i go "price shopping" for the best deals :)
Apparently, Alvin has caught the fever because the other day Dave went into the store, came out with a box and Alvin says  "oh no he got me a new math book". The fear was short-lived as dad was not shopping for schoolbooks but for some adult beverages. Maybe it is too much to ask for a 7 year old to look forward to starting a new book when he is excited to finish the one he has now.

Simon has had many funny things to say lately, perhaps it is her age or maybe the fact that she talks non-stop loud enough for me to hear her pretty much anywhere in the house. Today we were settling in on what was for lunch and i offered her a few choices and she said she wanted "meat".  At the time i was cutting a roast to try and salvage a 3lb leathery mess for dinner, so i was more then happy to give her a slice of this delicious "meat". She quickly says "NO, not that meat i was the other meat......the 'flat meat'". Hmmmm, flatmeat? she takes me to the fridge and shows me the lunchmeat....flat meat.

Not to be left out Theodore can't say cute things but she can certainly hold up her end of the cuteness in our house. She is such a little peanut, with such a BIG smile for anyone she meets....i think she may be the most social of all of our chipmunks. She has reached the age of discovering her feet/toes, and evidently she not had any feeling in her feet until now. Maybe you never paid enough attention to your baby to see this happen, but i have witnessed it! Now when i dress her at night she laughs when i put her feet in her jammies.  Never happened before, case closed.

Fortunes and Candy

Sometimes, OK a lot of the time MamaDavia likes to enjoy how naive my chipmunks are....a couple of things from this week that i enjoyed.........

I bought some jellybeans and i was eating a handful of them. Simon walked up and asked me if she could have some......i asked if she knew what they were and she didn't. So hoping she wouldn't want any, i told her they were "bunny turds" (i think it was because i saw the promo for the movie Hop this week) and then asked her if she still wanted them. Unaffected by my renaming of jellybeans she ate a handful of them, when Dave got home she offered him some bunny turds too. I find it way too funny to correct her, but i am sure i will before her basket is full of turds.

We enjoy fortune cookies, not eating them but "reading" the fortune. About 2-3 months ago we were trying to get Simon to have some, well ANY interest in potty training. So, when i "read" her fortune i told her it said that "big girls don't wear diapers they go on the potty". At the time she laughed and so did we and that was the end of it. Up til that point i always really did read what was on the paper. So, this week we had fortune cookies again and Simon asked me to read hers and i told her it said "little girls who whine to daddy will lose privileges" and she cries "NO IT SAYS I GO POOPIE ON THE POTTY". Then Alvin, not wanting to miss out on a good joke, wants me to read his "good attitudes make good friends". Maybe i will buy fortune cookies and use them every night at dinner, perhaps we would have to discipline less.

Alvin enjoys the silly things that i say or do to have fun throughout our day, i am not sure that Simon understand yet. I hope she does and she can chime in like Alvin does now......he really has a good sense of humor

1st Official Girls Day!

So, we planned a special day "Simon" and I, and we brought along "Theodore".....although she fit the "girl" part of the day i don't think she appreciated it as much as Simon and I did.

We started our day taking Theodore to the doctors, she got immunizations.....Simon got a sucker and a sticker. Not a bad start for Simon

Then on to the real girlie stuff............SHOPPING!!! We went dress shopping and Simon tried on about 4 different dressed, we decided on 2 of them....both looked adorable on her. Theodore got a new flower for her headband...........
Then on to the reason for the trip to the mall.............ear piercing!! Theodore got her ears pierced......and Simon got a sucker.

We stopped our girl frenzy to feed Ms Theodore and hopefully get her to nap.....Simon played in the play area.
Then we shopped some more.............Simon was most interested in underwear, excited to see Kai Lan underwear on the way in (which she already has) and then yells "Mommy they have Tangled underwear" on the way out. Those were by far her favorite finds.
Oops late for lunch, we got Chinese and then a shake.....so much spoiling going on here....
More shopping and we buy one outfit for Simon. WHEW, OK time to go home

As i catch my breath on the way home, i ask Simon if she had a fun girls day, her answer "No we aren't done yet! We haven't painted nails and put on make-up!"
Home we go to pretty up and take some pictures to remember our special day.

Painted toes

Make-up (the only she is allowed to wear, lip gloss......but it has sparkles) she really was much happier then it looks



Twirling in one of the dresses

Sister Love

My silly girls

I think we have a hit........and Theodore will grow to love these times i am sure, even though Simon seemed to get all the fun stuff today.  MamaDavia  LOVED having this special time with just the girls. Simon said she didn't even miss Alvin today (she usually misses him terrible when he is gone all day), everyone is home and all is quiet now, what a great day.

Long Pause

Well, the Flu hit everyone in our house.....that is the reason for my long absence.

I learned one lesson while nursing everyone (including myself), that it is much easier to care for a kid that just sleeps until they feel better then it is to care for a kid who whines through the entire illness even though they are the "healthiest" of the sickies in the house.

looking pathetic, but rest assured they are better now :)