new photos of the kiddos

peanut
(his hair his starting to curl!)

pooks being silly with his "hat"

bubba, fake smile and all

2 questions and this?!

i took this silly little internet quiz that someone else took and was shocked at the accuracy of the thing. first of all, there are only 2 questions to the quiz which is odd but the results are (mostly) true. some of these i was kinda like, eh...maybe but overall very accurate. weird.

Your result for Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz...

You Are a Doris!

You are a Doris -- "I must help others."

Dorises are warm, concerned, nurturing, and sensitive to other people's needs.

How to Get Along with Me

• * Tell me that you appreciate me. Be specific.


• * Share fun times with me.


• * Take an interest in my problems, though I will probably try to focus on yours.


• * Let me know that I am important and special to you.


• * Be gentle if you decide to criticize me.

In Intimate Relationships

• * Reassure me that I am interesting to you.


• * Reassure me often that you love me.


• * Tell me I'm attractive and that you're glad to be seen with me.

What I Like About Being a Doris

• * being able to relate easily to people and to make friends


• * knowing what people need and being able to make their lives better


• * being generous, caring, and warm


• * being sensitive to and perceptive about others' feelings


• * being enthusiastic and fun-loving, and having a good sense of humor

What's Hard About Being a Doris

• * not being able to say no


• * having low self-esteem


• * feeling drained from overdoing for others


• * not doing things I really like to do for myself for fear of being selfish


• * criticizing myself for not feeling as loving as I think I should


• * being upset that others don't tune in to me as much as I tume in to them


• * working so hard to be tactful and considerate that I suppress my real feelings

Dorises as Children Often

• * are very sensitive to disapproval and criticism


• * try hard to please their parents by being helpful and understanding


• * are outwardly compliant


• * are popular or try to be popular with other children


• * act coy, precocious, or dramatic in order to get attention


• * are clowns and jokers (the more extroverted Dorises), or quiet and shy (the more introverted Dorises)

Dorises as Parents

• * are good listeners, love their children unconditionally, and are warm and encouraging (or suffer guilt if they aren't)


• * are often playful with their children


• * wonder: "Am I doing it right?" "Am I giving enough?" "Have I caused irreparable damage?"


• * can become fiercely protective

Take Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz at HelloQuizzy

favorite and least favorite

my favorite part of the day...bedtime! not because they'll all be sleeping and i'll finally have peace and quiet (seriously, that's not it) but because all the boys are so snuggly. they settle down, they are cuddly, they smell like baby lotion and bubble gum toothpaste. they love to read books (3 is the limit) and even though i read aloud from one book, they all flip through a book on their own. it's just so relaxing and i know it won't be this way for ever so i'm cherishing it now.
that's my favorite part. it's clean, there is no fighting, and they are just so cute. flipping through their books, pretending to be reading.

my least favorite part? the next morning.

my boys, while they always wake up early, they are not morning people. they are crabby, they are territorial and they take a good 30 minutes to really wake up. they are messy, nothing can convince them to clean up. even when they trip over a toy that i suggested they move so they wouldn't trip over it, they still won't pick it up. i can't do anything right. they didn't want milk on their cereal, they wanted apple juice not orange juice. they wanted cocoa pebbles not lucky charms. honestly, now that i type it out i guess they are just normal men! ha! this was this morning---all 3 fighting over puzzles. even though we have at least 10 wooden puzzles, they still fight.
oh and notice peanut? see him standing there? yeah the boys are not happy about that!
peanut has been pulling himself up for about a week. for a week he's been pulling himself up to stand using the sofa's, the sliding glass doors, the baby gate--any piece of furniture will do. well today he realized that he can pull himself up using his brothers toy box...which gives him direct access to about a million hot wheels cars that they have been 'hiding' in the top bins. so you know what bubba did? he packed up every single one of his cars, put them in his backpack, then went upstairs and put the backpack in his bed.

i chose not to tell him that peanut can pull himself up using his bed too.

hey, i try not to shatter too many hopes and dreams in one day!

i ♥ fall

i just love it. i love...all of it.

it's perfect jacket weather. sleeping with the windows open, eating soups/stews, football, halloween, the leaves changing colors, hot lattes, baking bread, visiting the pumpkin patch. i mean, what's not to love? if you ignore the fact that it was perfect fall weather but now there is snow if the forecast for sunday and then back in the 60's for next week. yeah, let's ignore that! who doesn't love fall?

B has a four day weekend in honor of columbus day so we took advantage of that today and hit up the pumpkin patch after naps this afternoon. it always gets SO crowded on weekends so this was a great opportunity. while it started out kind of rough, pooks was still pretty tired/whiny from his nap, it ended up being a lot of fun.
this picture means a lot to me. back in 2007 we took bubba and pooks to this same pumpkin patch and they had the same cutout then. you can see that here. but here are all 3 of my little turkeys this year:
after seeing the combine and playing with the cutouts we made our way over to the petting zoo. bubba loved it, pooks hated it. bubba also insisted that i take his picture with the turkey. however, this is the closest he would get to said turkey:
this was still almost too close for pooks, although he loved listening to the ducks!

i ♥ these boys

getting ready for the hayrack ride! (peanut was less than impressed)
here we go! bubba was very excited to watch the tractor but pooks was more comfortable snuggled up next to mom.
the hayrack ride ended at a corn maze. now initially, in previous years this corn maze has been SUPER lame and short, this year however it was like a drunk man designed it. we were in this damn thing for over 30 minutes because we got lost from the group. hmmm, lost in a corn maze with 3 kids...i can think of about a million other things to do with 3 kids that are much easier. finally after cheating and cutting through the corn we made it to the end. whew! just in time too because it was starting to get dark out!
tada! the pumpkin patch. each kiddo picked out 1 pumpkin. both bubba and pooks picked out a pumpkin that was still green (we had to rip them from the vine) but they were very happy with them!
now, note to those of you reading with multiple kids:

1 pumpkin patch + 3 kids - 1 who can't walk + 5 pumpkins = a LOT of stuff to carry

thank goodness that next year we will have 3 walkers!!

sweet mommy moment...or should i say "mama" moment?

peanut has been "talking" for weeks now. he started out saying "dada" well over a month ago. he says it to B, he says it when he wants B, he says it while crawling to B. he's not just randomly babbling, he uses it correctly. then he said "na-na" to nanaw, he'll say it at nanaw's...you get the idea. just a few days ago he started saying ''ba-ba" which originally i thought was 'bottle' but he uses it for bubba. today he said it over and over again while playing with bubba. i haven't heard him say it to pooks, so i'm not sure if it is really directed to bubba or if he means brother. no clue, but it sure is cute!

so fast forward to yesterday. the boys are all downstairs playing and i'm at the top of the stairs putting on my make-up. i think that i hear peanut say ''ma-ma'' but i'm not sure. i holler down to bubba and ask him what peanut said, he also says ''ma-ma...he said ma-ma!" but sure as he says that, peanut proceeds to YELL ''na-na....na-na." okay, so i was wrong. kinda disappointing but i'm used to it. (pooks didn't say mama until 1 day after his 1st birthday!) we get our shoes on and head out the door.

first stop is target, we get our stuff and are randomly wandering around when peanut starts to get fussy. he's sitting in the cart rubbing his little eyes, and i'm saying ''i know, i know we're leaving so you can take your nap." and he looks up at me and just starts saying "ma-ma...ma, ma, ma, ma-ma." you can bet your last dollar that i sweeped him up and held him all through the checkouts and out to the car. he said it again at lunch yesterday and a few random times today. B still hasn't heard him say it but i know he did!