Were You Thankful?

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving! We were blessed to spend the day with church friends at 2 seperate houses :) One for dinner and one for dessert. We had a good day and ate lots of good food!

We certainly have that to be thankful for! Great friends made through a church we are grateful to attend.

But the real challenge is to be thankful for the hard things. A week ago we had a women's night and we were challenged to be thankful for our hardships. In MOPS we were challenged to think beyond the "normal" thankful items and really think about what God has done for you in the past year. Of course we are thankful for our family and our friends and the things we have but beyond that what else can you be thankful for? Both were good challenges and got me thinking.

I can't say I'm thankful when money is tight, however, I am thankful that amidst the struggle God has always provided for our needs. I always wish I would "provide" a little more abundantly so we didn't have to struggle but I know that in the difficult times He is teaching me to trust Him rather than the money that is in the bank account and for that reason I am thankful for my money struggles.

What about you? I think it's a great idea to think deeper about what God has really done for you and in you!

In other things related to Thanksgiving I haven't yet posted pictures of my little Pilgrims and Indians :)

Last Friday at school we had a school-wide Thanksgiving dinner - the triplets were pilgrims (Rachel was unhappy most of the day - she does NOT like the spotlight and was dealing with some stage fright):



The preschool class crossing the stage in the Mayflower (at least I think it's the Mayflower):



The preschoolers were supposed to be doing hand motions while the bigger kids read and walked around the stage but none of them appeared to be paying attention :) It was a good attempt anyway.



Caleb, being a "big kid" was doing a lot of the reading for the program and he did very well. His class was reading the letters of the alphabet and what they stood for for Thanksgiving:



He made an adorable Indian (or Native American) :)



We had a great Thanksgiving meal with the school:



Yet another meal to be thankful for. It may not be as hard to be thankful for family and friends or food and shelter but I am by no means less thankful for them!

I pray your Thanksgiving holiday was just as wonderful and that you have a blessed holiday season.

Yea, it's Christmas time!!

Happy Thanksgiving

Wishing Everybody a Happy, Safe, and Warm Thanksgiving!

The Bugs Have Been Exterminated By Princesses

My dining room is pink :)

And full of princesses!

Julianna, my model and most in love with being a princess:



Rachel, my creative one and apparantly a chocolate lover:



Alyssa, my crazy one:



But sometimes the sweetest things happen when you least expect them - Alyssa spent some time "reading" to her smallest friend, Ben. My girls LOVE books :)



Cake Time! Gone are the bugs and in their place pink purses, cupcakes and ring pops. Special thanks to Miss Kristy (Ben's mom) for the purse cake - she offered to bring it and I gladly accepted!



Anxiously awaiting their cake:



Daddy gets to carry the cake again this week :) I think he's getting good at it!



They blew their candles out pretty quickly - I was proud of them! They really are big girls.



Triplet present openers:



I think they've got the hang of it!



They certainly enjoyed their 4th birthday party. I'm still wrapping my brain around the fact that it's been 4 years!!

How did I get from here?



To here?



To here? One years old...



To here? Two years old...



To here? Three years old...



And now here? Four years old...



I have to note I wrote that when they turned 2 years old that they were acting like big girls and no longer my babies. To say that they are 4 just seems impossible. Today they are my sweet helpers (when they want to be), my little babies (when they fall down) and my gift from God (always).

When Julianna, Rachel and Alyssa were born I had no idea how they would fit in our family or how we would manage. But each and every day God has given us the strength we've needed to make it one more day, one more hour. Now they are so much a part of our family I can't imagine life without them. They love their big sister, Kaitlyn and their big brother, Caleb just as much as I hoped they would when they were born.

Nothing could replace having such a big family or being able to be the mom of triplets. I wish everyone had as much of a blessing as we do. So, please don't feel sorry for me when you see me out and about with my whole crew. Praise God for His goodness to our family. His grace in answering a million of my prayers.

My babies are 4 but thank God they still have a long way to go before they are ready to leave the nest and praise God for each and every day I have to enjoy them until then :)

Happy 4th Birthday To Julianna, Rachel and Alyssa

Is it possible that my girls are actually 4 years old?


(me and my goofy four-year-olds! L to R: Rachel, Julianna, Alyssa for those of you who don't know!!)

Apparantly the calendar says they are! I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that it has been 4 years since I gave birth to three little people. Four years ago I remember being completely unsure as to how I would handle a single day with three babies and now 4 years later we have survived and thrived with triplets. We have even managed to keep all five kids alive and relatively happy :)

But, not only did the girls turn 4 today they got new big girl bunk beds!





This is "Phase 1" - we have the beds together, the mattresses on as well as new bedding. We still have to hang the curtains, the lights and paint the room. I realize the paint should have come first but it just didn't fit into the schedule. Hopefully next week!

When we put them to bed Julianna and Alyssa had top bunks while Rachel slept on the bottom leaving one empty bed for guests or as a "couch" for the girls to play on. I'm quite excited to have the extra bed! Of course, once all the lights were out Alyssa was nervous she would fall off the top bed so she was moved to the open bottom bed. It's a learning process - we'll see what happens tomorrow night!

We did get to one decorative touch - a new rug on their floor:



The girls love their new room and their new Christmas pajamas. After all, now that their birthday is over we are ready for Christmas :) Okay, not quite especially since we seem to celebrate birthdays for a whole week and not just one day. The girls birthday is no exception - it will take us a good week to finish their room and they are having a "pink" party on Saturday.

Happy 4th Birthday to my girls! I love you and you have been such a joy to have in my life. I look forward to so many more years to come even if right now I'm not ready to see you get older!!

Trips down memory lane to come - what's a birthday without remembering where we've been and how we've grown?

My House Is Overrun With Bugs!!

And strangely by my own choice...

I have been wanting (for quite a few years) to do a bug party theme for Caleb's birthday and finally this year he let me. I don't know about him but I had a great time!

His bug cake was just way too fun to make though maybe not for the squeamish.



The goody bags were edible bug habitats - each one consisted of edible dirt, candy rocks and one large marshmallow bug:



(I did add some bug fruit snacks, a few other bug treats and some plastic bugs to a paper bag but it turned out to be a simple and fun goody bag!)

And no bug party is complete without homemade mud cups :)



We kept the party simple. Kirk took the boys to see the new movie Megamind and then brought them home for lunch (complete with bug juice to drink), presents...





And of course, CAKE!





Guess it means Caleb is officially 7 and I need to turn my attention from bugs to pink as the countdown is on till the girls turn 4!!

Caleb's 7 Today!!

It's official. Caleb is no longer little. He's now 7 years old. That just sounds old. In the scheme of things I know it isn't but to me it is. Of course he's thrilled with the new development and promises me he is still the same kid but he has to get older or he will die. I certainly don't wish him to stop growing and I love seeing the kid he is becoming but I will always miss this:











How quickly my little baby turned into my little man:



My little man who wants to be a pizza delivery man when he grows up :)



Okay, we're working on that but truly this is what he chose for career day at school the other week! Fortunately his reasoning was just that he wanted to carry a pizza box around and was considering it for supplemental income. That's my boy - already thinking ahead!!

I want to wish him an extra special happy birthday and let him know that I love him and look forward to seeing him grow up but for now I want to enjoy every minute I have with him. After all, seven is still young right?!

Up To Our Eyeballs

Maybe I've said this before but we're busy! Really busy.

I had hoped at the beginning of the year that things would be easier. After all, I have 5 kids in school 3 full days a week but it seems that one thing after another comes up and interupts what I thought I could get done.

Kaitlyn seems to have had the worst of it. Missing a day of school in the first week, then falling and injuring her leg and now chicken pox. In between all that we've had 3 consignment sales and my parents in town. We were supposed to have more guests this weekend but chicken pox is keeping them away :( Fortunately it's a mild case of chicken pox (just a break through since she has been vaccinated) and our friends were able to reschedule their visit.

As if November wasn't already busy enough with 4 birthdays in 1 week! I can't seem believe Caleb will be 7 in just 6 days and the triplets will be 4 in 12 days. Doesn't seem possible that it's been 4 years since I laid in the hospital bed. While I was there it felt like it would never end and now it's just a distant memory.

More to come soon and hopefully a blog re-do (finally!). While I'm busy running around like crazy you can enjoy Julianna's brand-new made-up song :) I ran out of batteries at the very end but at least I got her whole song and she's adorable singing it!