What did you do?

Things are crazy with work and home life and it is becoming increasingly harder to find time to update the blog, but I am trying to make the effort as the kids have been up to some mischief that needs to be documented as proof for them read some day. 

The twins especially have been up to no good and we have come to the conclusion that they are conspiring to tear the house apart piece by piece.  Last week before bedtime, we were going through our normal routine of changing diapers and brushing teeth.  I called them into the bathroom to brush their teeth and I couldn't find the toothpaste.  As I went to open the bathroom drawer it felt funny and as it opened, water came splashing out everywhere.  The drawer was literally full of water to the very top.  When I asked who did it, I was expecting them to start pointing fingers, but instead Abby looked at me with pride on her face and admitted that she had accomplished this all by herself.

After coming home late the other night, I went directly to the media room to spend some time with the kids before bed time and the twins greeted me with a hug and kiss.  I looked to see what they were watching and noticed that my big screen TV was covered with wonderful works of 2 year old art.  Once again the culprit was proud to admit it was her......this time it was Chloe.  These are just 2 of the many recent incidents that have led to our new favorite saying, "what did you do?"

Lily had her first slumber party at the house last night and we had 3 other girls at the house.  I am not sure I was prepared or ready for the realization that kindergarten girls are boy crazy.  The good news I learned is that Lily is the only one of the group who does not have a boyfriend or been kissed by a boy.  We loaded them up on pizza, popcorn, candy, and sprite.  They got in bed around 10:00 and we heard them still playing around 11:00 when we went to bed.  About 1:30, we woke to 3 of them standing next to the bed and Lily tells me, "Daddy, we can't fall asleep because we ate too much candy."  I'm not sure what time they finally fell asleep, but I have a feeling 3 other families besides ours is going to have some tired girls with attitude problems today.

Lawson Boy is using his new found skill of walking and climbing to his advantage.  Abby had a cookie and was sitting at the kitchen table eating, and a few minutes later Kasey and I looked and found that Lawson had climbed on the chair, and from the chair he had climbed on and was sitting in the middle of the table sharing Abby's cookie with her.  Probably not the safest place for a 1 year old to be sitting.  He doesn't learn very quickly, because just the day before I had taken his high chair tray off which he protested by yelling and arching his back over the side of the high chair and landing on his head. 

Things will never be boring around the Strait house.

Jeff, Kasey, Lily, Abby, Chloe, and Lawson

Slumber Party

Lily had an idea this weekend.  We try and be good parents and encourage their ideas and creativity, but frankly letting her run with this idea was very poor judgement on our part.  She asked if she and her sisters could have a sleepover.  So Saturday night we let them climb into the bed in the guest bedroom and we kissed them goodnight.  Well, we kissed them, but it was anything but goodnight.  After closing the door, I hung out to see how long it took before they started in.  Abby and Chloe began laughing and then I heard Lily say, "girls, girls, when mommy and daddy go to sleep, we can all get out of bed and go get in bed with them."  I'm not sure how many time we had to tell them to get back in bed and be quiet, but even Lily was telling the twins to go to bed.  Needless to say, they were having a great time.  The last time I went up the stairs Lily had already fallen, I dished out a couple of spankings, and they finally went to bed.  That was around 10:45, which is a couple hours after their normal bedtime.  That night wasn't the bad part, the fun began the next day when each and every one melted down so badly I could hardly see straight.  Lesson learned. 

Jeff, Kasey, Lily, Abby, Chloe and Lawson Boy

Lawson Walking

Football Friday

Lily and I went to the Celina football game last night and I was able to get a glimpse of what every Friday night will look like in a few years.  Even at 5 years old she couldn't wait to walk around and see if any of her friends from school were there.  Lily was very excited to see her kindergarten teacher, and even though she could not tell you what the score was if her life depended on it, she could tell you every detail of the cheerleaders and dance team.  She isn't exactly the best football watching buddy, but we were able to get some good quality time together hanging out and eating junk food. 

One of the reasons we live out in the boonies of Texas is we feel there is a higher quality of family living with higher moral and ethical standards.  When Lily dropped her ketchup packet for her hot dog, the lady next to us had her son run and get another packet and without hesitation he took off to get some ketchup and also brought Lily back a glow stick he had her talk about earlier.  It's really nice to see people raise their kids the way we hope to be raising ours. I just hope Lily is not learning too early that boys will do many things for her if she asks; though I fear I may be too late as this afternoon I saw her asking the neighbor boy to walk her bike back up the hill for her.  I guess I could just consider it resourceful of her.

Lawson Boy is enjoying his new walking skills though he is literally trying to run before he walks.  He gets going too fast at times and those little feet just can't quite keep up.  The pride in his face as he walks around the house is pretty funny to watch.  When he knows that you are watching him, he gets this big grin on his face, lifts his arms in the air, and then starts clapping for himself. 

The personality differences between Abby and Chloe continue to develop.  It's fun to sit back and watch them interact with people and see how they handle certain situations.  Chloe is becoming quite the people pleaser, or she may just like to gloat in front of her sister.  I got to Abby for something the other day, and Lawson was once again trying to hurt himself by playing on the stairs so he received a stern verbal beat down.  After the air cleared and all the crying settled down a bit Chloe busts out with, "Daddy, I not in trouble, I a good girl!"  Abby looked up with anger and disgust at the insinuation being made that she is not a good girl, and before she could get up enough speed to run across the room and blind side her twin sister, I grabbed her and made sure they both knew they were good girls.  Disaster was averted, but it took a while to talk Abby down from wanting to put a beat down on Chloe.  

I've had many of you comment on the blog lately and we are trying to update it more regularly, but thing have been busier lately than usual.  Thank you continuing to read it, it does provide incentive to keep up with it.

Jeff, Kasey, Lily, Abby, Chloe and Lawson Boy

Tornado Twins

So my assumption has always kind of been that Lawson would be somewhat reserved and quiet and that his sisters would do all the talking for him.  It's still really early, but I'm changing my tune quickly.  The boy is really starting to babble now and as his 3 sisters keep talking louder and louder, he babbles louder and louder in an effort not to be out done.  It does not appear that he is going to take a back seat to all the estrogen, and if he's going to go down, he is going to go down with a fight.  Those 3 girls are so very sweet to him, especially when he starts crying.  If he is not getting his way, he let's them know with a verbal attack and with his fists.  As the baby of the family, he apparently believe that he deserves all the attention.  I had Abby laying down and I was changing her diaper, and the Boy crawls on over and gives her a couple of fists to the chest.  I'm not really sure why, but best guess is he thought that should be his diaper????  One of these days, they are going to retaliate on him and I'm going to have to let it happen no matter how many tears he shed.

Lily received her first report card and did very well.  She passed everything on the test with the exception of one question.  After recognizing the U, she did not pronounce the U sound correctly.  Frankly, I'm surprised her teacher was able to get through the entire alphabet because Lily usually gets bored after 5 letters when I do it with her.  Kasey's family is in town right now and Lily had a birthday party that I took her to, so after the party she and I celebrated her good grades with date night.  We went to Gattitown for pizza and games and then stopped at DQ for ice cream on the way home.  It's nice to get some one on one time with her once in a while and really have a chance to pay attention to what she is saying.  I think she probably feels like she is interrupted a lot around the house when she is trying to tell us stuff, and it's probably true many times. 
In the car she was telling me how she was kind of sad when we were leaving the party because she wasn't going to be playing with her friends any more.  Then she was happy because we were going to Gattitown and were going to have a fun night and she said, "that's just the way the world works, one minute your sad and the next your happy."  Thank you my five year old philosopher.

I think I'm going to start referring to Abby and Chloe as the tornado twins.  Those 2 can literally turn a room upside down in the matter of seconds.  It really is quite amazing and distressing all at the same time. Good news is now that the weather has turned cool, we make them eat outside all the time and just hose down the patio.  Cuts clean up time at dinner almost completely out when you use paper plates too. 

As I'm writing this, I can hear Kasey in the other room, "Lawson, no, no......no hitting!"  And Lily just explained to Kasey that she got to go to Gattitown because, "Daddy was proud of me for something".

Jeff, Kasey, Lily, Abby, Chloe, and Bam Bam

Chloe's Band aid

If you did not see the blog last week, the Boy is attempting to walk now.  He took five steps this evening and his face lights up when you praise him like he had just won a marathon.  That statement is nothing more than a simile because let's face it,  Fat Boy will not be running too many marathons.  Based on the amount of times he hits his head, he won't be winning any spelling B's either.  Do you remember the movie Tommy Boy........classic Chris Farley movie?  At one point in the movie, Chris Farley's character gets hit with a 2x4 upside the face and he keeps complaining that it hurts.  "Not so much here, but here", he says as he points to a huge mark on his face.  Well Lawson Boy took yet another tumble down the stairs this evening, and after some time I noticed a big long mark on his face.  I started laughing because I could just picture my 1 year old son looking at me asking me, "are you sure I don't have a mark on my face, not so much here but right her."  Makes me laugh again writing about it, the kid cracks me up!

All this walking seems to have intensified his already large appetite.  You would think at some point, the child could not keep eating the way he does.  I can't go into the pantry and get a snack without him following me like my shadow.  The boy could be at the complete opposite end of the house and if you even think about getting up to get a snack, he can sense it and he'll come flying at you with his little food grunt noise that he makes.

Lily is growing up so fast and turning into quite the young lady.  She cracks me up with her stories from school and her explanation of her social interactions.  She tells us how her feelings get hurt a little when a certain boy and girl are playing and she thinks they are leaving her out.   She is only in kindergarten, I can only imagine the drama factor increasing exponentially as she gets older.  Hopefully she will continue to be open with us and tell us about, but I know that will all change at some point. 

You hear about phenomenons that happen between twins and stories about one feeling another's pain, and it is somewhat interesting to think about.  We certainly do not look for these type of things to happen with Abby and Chloe and frankly I don't put a whole lot of stock into the stories you hear.  I do believe that there is very special bond between identical twins and a closeness that other siblings and friends will never experience.  Maybe it's because they will spend very few days apart for the first 18 years of their lives.  If you spend that much time together, it makes sense you could finish somebody elses sentence.

Chloe has a sore on her thumb that looks a little infected so we have been putting antibiotics on it and this evening I put a band aid on it so she wouldn't rub it while she slept.  I put them down for the night and after about 5 minutes, I heard one start crying and then the other start screaming.  When I went up there to see what was going on, I found Abby literally scared and yelling, "Chloe lost her band aid, Chloe lost her band aid."  Chloe was crying but not nearly as hard as Abby.  I went to console Abby at first and she just kept crying about Chloe's band aid.  As soon as I picked up Chloe to see if her thumb was okay and put a new band aid on her, Abby immediately calmed down and laid back down to go to sleep.  In no way do I think that Abby felt the physical pain that Chloe felt, but she felt emotion and empathy for another person like I have never seen.  It was really pretty cool to see!

Jeff, Kasey, Lily, Abby, Chloe and the weeble wobble

Lawson Steps

The Boy has taken his first steps.  Our after dinner ritual has been to crank up some music and let the girls dance around in hopes that they expend the cornucopia  of energy.  Lawson likes to stand holding on to the wall and show off his dance moves.  Kasey was sitting next to him encouraging him to come to her and he took his first steps before launching himself into her lap.  I think out of all 4 kids, the is the only one we both were able to see take his first steps.  We officially are out of the baby stage for the very last time.....woohooooooo!  Now if the twins would please just get potty trained.

Kids want to play, so cutting this one short.

Jeff, Kasey, Lily, Abby, Chloe, and Lawson