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Mack just wants everyone to know that he is a man….after trying on the high heel shoe, he felt the need to put on his boots, his backpack, and use his cell phone, while strutting around the house.

Well, let’s just say that this weekend has been less than pleasurable.  No doubt, I have so much to be grateful for, but can I–for just this entry–be frustrated with the weekend?  Saturday I got my hair colored, which is no doubt the highlight of the weekend (no pun intended).  At least the gray is covered.  

Grocery shopping, cooking, laundry, urgent care, way too much time alone with the three munchkins, and I missed my “talk to other adults while your kids are in nursery day” today because I stayed home with all the kids since Ruby isn’t feeling well.  Now I feel like I am getting a cold, too.  AND Josh had an extra early meeting at church that is to last until 7:30.  SOOOOOO, I try to escape from kiddy land (“Mom, where are my shoes? Mom, can I have an apple without the peel?  I really am thirsty for cold water.  Can I play pbskidsdot ord?  I don’t want to watch that movie!!!!  Mama, Mack is hurting me.  Mama, Ruby pushed me.  Where’s daddy?  Is it still daytime?  Where’s my shoes? and on and on and on and on and on and on…). OK, so in my effort to escape, I look at some blogs online of people I do not even know.  One gal just had her baby, Harper, on Friday and there are major heart issues.  Another young girl, Bonnie, lost her husband in a car wreck.  She has a two year old and is pregnant.  Wow. Unimaginable.  I got rather engrossed in their stories and should have realized that things were just a bit too quiet around here and that no one had interrupted me in ten minutes, which is an eternity!  Here is what I found when I went to check on the little people:

 

 

 

 So, after they finished their painting, I safely hid the polish.  They actually handled the polish quite well.  They painted their toes and fingernails, not Mack’s and not any furniture.  I will get off of here now…….back to kiddy land and loads of laundry and a brain of moosh.  But, in all seriousness, after reading the other stories of people’s struggles, I have a better perspective on kiddy land, so that is good.  I am glad to be in a warm HOME, with three kids that are mostly healthy, loads of laundry that represent five sweet lives, a computer that does allow for contact with the “outside world,” and a husband who loves Jesus and wants to learn how to be the best Sunday School teacher he can………

Molly:  Are we going to the birthday party today?

Me:  I am not sure.  Ruby doesn’t feel quite right.

ABOUT TEN MINUTES LATER:

Molly:  How about you stay here with Ruby, and Daddy will take me and Mack to the party!?!

Such a considerate sister.

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Josh:  Ruby, there’s some snow falling outside.

Ruby: Really???!!!!  (she goes and looks, then comes back inside)

Ruby:  Molly, come and see the snow falling.

Molly runs outside, they both get in the car to take a ride….when Josh and I get in we hear crying from Ruby.

Ruby:  Mamaaaaa, Molly hit me!!!

Molly looks at us totally guilty, yet justified in her action.

Me:  Molly, did you just hit Ruby?  

Molly:  There isn’t  any snow falling!  She said it was snowing, but it isn’t.

Somehow she thought she was totally in the right for popping Ruby in the arm because she didn’t see snow.  It was sooo light and had even stopped by this point, but still!  Not a reason for physical abuse.  Good grief.

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I took Ruby to the urgent care tonight.  She has double ear infections.  They gave her an antibiotic.  Sounds simple enough.  HOWEVER,  Ruby screamed and hollered and hollered and screamed, we got the medicine down her, then she proceeded to gag herself until she threw up.  Lovely.  Just lovely.

 

 

 
    

What do soft play areas, icees,  overpriced cheese pizza and double-doozie cookies all have in common?  EVERY TRIP WE MAKE TO THE NORTH POINT MALL!  Today we did our usual stuff at the mall….started at the food court with pizza, talked them out of the merry-go-round, then strolled down to the play area, where strategically located is the Great American Cookie Company, of course!  With icees, no doubt.  The kids love this routine…why wouldn’t they?  I have to take them after I get my allowance.  It will break you.

Special thanks for Mary for helping me with the kids.  Katherine and Ben, Mary’s kids, were with us.  Ben helps a lot with Mack.  Mary meets a need with Molly…and Molly has many needs.  Katherine and Ruby are two peas in a pod, so I was able to look for some birthday presents and make a decision in Pottery Barn (thanks, Mary!).

Speaking of POTTERY BARN KIDS,  Molly has fallen in love with the store.  Not so much for their adorable decor for kid’s rooms, but more for the fun play kitchen and doll houses, etc.  She kept saying, “Mama, when are we going to HOLLERY BARN?”  It used to be Honnery Yarn, Ponnery Larn….so we are getting closer.  I have been squirreling away some money here and there because I want a certain bedding for the girl’s new room.  Josh thinks it is funny that I am so in to decorating their room.  He says, “Nobody is every gonna see it.”  Well, it is their room, I work in the house, and we will all see it and enjoy it.  He is just a man and doesn’t quite understand the joy we women have in decorating most anything.  SO, I had enough money to buy their duvet covers and shams.  Then, I spotted an $8.oo shower curtain that was ADORABLE.   Here is what the bedding look like:

I am so excited!!!!  It has a castle, carriage rides and princesses on it. I want to find some headboards for twin beds that I can paint the brownish color in the duvet.  I have a dresser someone gave us to also paint that color.  The walls will be the green that is in the duvet….oh so cute!  

I still need to get the pink bedskirts, the down comforter to go in the duvet, and two sets of sheets….probably the green color with a pink blanket for one bed and a green one for the other.  My green gingham nursery chair will match perfectly if there is enough space for it.  I really am so excited to see it all put together.  I am thinking of painting a big “M” above Molly’s bed and a big “R” above Ruby’s bed.  I am not sure about that though.  

So I will continue to squirrel away little by little….one day the room will be complete, then I will move on to my dream bedding.  (Cuz this is such important stuff, right???)

This week was a busy one…fun and super duper cold!!!  Ruby went to Katherine’s house on Tuesday to play.  She even got to go out to eat with them and some other friends of ours.  You can read about their fun time at marysjournal.wordpress.com.  Wednesday we stayed home, and I did laundry, then we went to church…and then stayed up too late watching American Idol.  Thursday we went to THE BOUNCE HOUSE twice!  It cost $7 per kid to go jumping!  We stayed an hour and a half, went home for lunch and naps, then went back at 4:00 for an hour or so, then we went to see our new house with windows in it!  We stopped at The Waffle House for dinner.  Today we went to the mall while Mrs. Lee cleaned here….BY THE WAY, she called me and said, “Kristy, where is the fish???”  I told her very nicely that in her kindness of cleaning his bowl, she killed him, but not to fret.  We are all over it now.  She was horrified.  I felt so bad for her, but kept on consoling her that we were all really ok.  When she opened the back door and found that Charlie is now in a frozen block of ice on my back porch, she probably will realize how ok we are with the dead fish.  

We did a lot of painting this week and playing.  It has been way cold here and just near unbearable outside, so we have to get creative with all of our indoor time.  

 

 

So Ruby has these ballerina pajamas that she loves and wants to wear every night.  The ballerina is wearing her hair in two bun-like thingys on the top of her head.  Last night, Ruby said she wanted to wear her hair like that, so I told her we would do it for her Timothy handwriting class.  She was so excited until she saw it in the mirror.  She did NOT like it at all.  I thought it was so adorable, so I bribed her with cinnamon rolls for breakfast if she would just leave her hair alone.  She agreed…but she still wasn’t planning to smile for the camera!

 

Molly likes to practice writing, too, so she asked me to “dot” all the cousin’s names.  She named them all and made sure I included everyone.  She was proud of herself and asked if she could get smiley faces like Ruby.  I said, “OFCOURSE, I will give you some smiley faces.”   She didn’t want my smiley faces though. She wanted to give herself the smiley faces.  If you look close you can see that she did all the ones in the blue color.  I only did the orange ones.  She got quite creative with them.  She is so sweet.  She fell asleep on the couch last night while we were watching HORTON HEARS A WHO.  I took her to bed, then when we went in to check on them, we found her asleep with her legs hanging off the bed.  How could she sleep that way?!

 

 

 

 

 

Above you see Mack when he is mad.  For some reason, he is upset at me.  He kept saying, “MAAA!” and then he would slap the air.  It makes me laugh.  The girls have out grown their little acts of frustration like this that they had at his age, and I am sure he will do the same.  Josh and I do make his stop and tell him to get under control….it still makes me laugh.

Having Mack, I imagine, is similar to having a small baby bear in the house.  He is so huggable and squeezable, and I am sure he tires of me kissing him all over or squeezing his legs or hugging him  so hard….I just cannot contain myself.  We love our little Mackie-Bear.   He has been sucking his thumb more and more (something Josh doesn’t approve of).  His thumb is actually raw from all the sucking.  And even as I am typing this, he is sitting in my lap, crawling all over me , making funny noises, then putting his thumb in his mouth and laying his head down on me.  Oh so sweet.

Off to do many loads of laundry, then take Ruby to handwriting class!  And we are very much gearing up for AMERICAN IDOL which starts tonight.

We had a great weekend.  We started it off with dinner at another couple’s house.  The Neal’s graciously opened their home to us and fed us some yummy food!  The kids really enjoyed themselves, too.  They always like playing with new toys. 

Saturday Josh and I took the kids to THE COFFEE PARK, where the kids played in a separate room while we talked about the Sunday School lesson and our house.  We drove by our house under construction and walked around inside looking at where lights will be.  

Today was a great day at church.  Josh taught a wonderful and complicated lesson on the rapture.  We also had a sweet time of prayer as a class.  There are so many needs in our class alone!  I am glad that the Lord isn’t overwhelmed with all of them.  We are trusting Him to provide jobs, touch people physically, restore marriages, and hold adoptions together.  Wow.  We had our friends Jenni and Jed over for lunch, then took a good nap, got up and went back to church!  All in all, a super day.

I wanted to tell some things about each kid just to keep myself up to date on how they are changing.

 

RUBY:  She is really growing up.  There are some wonderful things about that….she dresses herself, she puts her clothes in the hamper, she goes to the bathroom all by herself everytime and does the whole deal all alone, she helps clean up the playroom, we have great conversations, she brushes her teeth each day unprompted…what an independent little girl!  She starts handwriting class again this week.  We are also seeing that as she is growing up, she has become a “huffer and puffer” when she doesn’t get her way.  The sassyness is coming on strong, and we are working on ways to break that.  For the most part, though, she has a tender heart and will repent quite quickly.  In the picture she is wearing a friend’s Bible Man mask and cape and a dress up cheerleader’s outfit.  She loves, loves, loves dressing up.  Most days she is not in normal clothes, but opts for this red get-up or any other of the worn out fairy outfits.  And she is super excited about American Idol starting up this week.  I hope it is “clean”  enough for her to watch it.  She loves to see them perform.  We love our little Ruby-doo.  

MOLLY:  She is a funny little girl.  Every Sunday morning she asks, “Whose gonna be my teacher?”  She knows full well her teacher’s name.  She just likes to play this game.  She hardly ever stops talking here at the house or in the car, but around other people she is as quiet as a mouse.  They wonder if she ever talks, and I am just amazed at the question.  Josh says that if one was inclined to drink, she would drive you to it, undoubtedly.  We love her so much. She is very sweet to Ruby and Mack.  She is much quicker to share than the other two, by far.  She is still having trouble with #2 on the potty, so we are working on that….still.  She went tonight after a near knock down drag out, so we all went in to see “it” and celebrate with hugs and a piece of candy, of course.  Josh had been talking firmly with her about sitting on the potty and not getting up and calming down or else he would close the door.  Well, a little later Mack went in and started “talking” to Molly and pointing his finger at her.  It was very funny.  He even acted like he was going to close the door on her.  We are also working on her staying in her bed.  Both girls tend to get up at least once a night.  It is maddening.  I am SO over it.  I don’t go back to sleep easily, so it is frustrating when one little girl comes in at 2 and wakes me up, then another makes an appearance at 4, right when I am getting back to sleep.  When Josh steps in (he sleeps very deeply and soundly), they seem to respond better, but I feel bad waking him up to handle it because he has to go to work the next day…however, I think I am going to let him handle it from now on.  We have got to get it under control!

MACK:  This picture makes me laugh.  I can’t remember why he is crying, but it may be because his diaper is huge, and most likely uncomfortable.  He is FINALLY starting to say some things that we can all understand.  He is very good at “Where’s Daddy?”  and can point to body parts and name them…”chin, eye, nose”….he knows Ben’s name, an older friend who plays so well with Mack…”tractor, golf-cart and cracker” are all starting to become more clear…and there is more, but I won’t continue.  He is talking better, and I am glad for that.  He is starting to feed himself.  It is quite messy, but this is a big thing to accomplish.  He no longer sits in a high chair!  I was sad to see this phase end…partly because it means he is really not a baby anymore and partly because I could “lock” him in there for long periods of time in order to get things done around here.  He is a sweet, sweet baby.  We are so glad he is a part of our family.  I am already starting to think about a theme for his birthday party….2 years old!!!

These are great times at the Dorminy house.  We are looking forward to a busy, full, fun week!

 

 

Ok, so at times I wonder what it would be like to have another baby.  Mack is almost 2 years old, and we are well out of the ‘baby-baby’ phase (a time I seriously didn’t think would ever arrive).  Molly and I were looking at pictures on the computer from newborn times with Mack and even when she was one year old.  The fun memories, the sweet tiny clothes, and all the other wonderful things about having a baby in the house.  Now Josh and I have done what needs to be done to not have anymore kids, so let’s just put that out there right now.  I just sometimes wonder if we really, really made the right decision….WELL, let me just say that this morning I say WE DID.  I am sooooo sleepy and feel like I have been run over my a truck.  Ruby tee-tee’d in the bed, which is really rare for her.  I got up with her at 2:00am and cleaned her up and let her get in our bed (I hate messing up our only clean room in the house, the guest room), then Molly got up at 4:00am wanting to get in the bed with us.  Well, you feel kind of bad because they share a room and then Ruby is sleeping in your bed, so Molly would be sent back all alone to her room….so, she climbs in.  Josh and I are left to hold on for dear life to the edges of the bed.  In this time, I develop a horrible headache.  I am thinking, “If I could just go back to sleep it would go away.”  No sleep.  I finally got up at 5:30am and went to Molly’s bed.  UGH.  Have I mentioned she slobbers at night?  By now it had dried a bit, but it still was NOT comfortable.  So, I wake up today with a complete lack of wonder as to what it would be like to have another baby.  I would be tired.  I would be a bear.  It would not be pretty.  I love our family of 5!!!

RUBY-  Josh picked Ruby up from choir/cubbies last night and the teacher told him that Ruby is such a great singer and that she really puts forth a lot of effort.  So, Josh asked me to ask Ruby what her teacher said about her, and she said, “She said I am the best singer in the WORLD.”  WOW. Talk about confidence.

MOLLY- to pick up on the whole lack of sleep story, she gets up and looks around the house trying to find me, as she is coming back upstairs she sees me in the laundry room starting Ruby’s sheets.  Her first response isn’t “Where were you?”  or “I am so sorry I ruined your night of sleep, ”  but it was, “I’m hungry.  I want to eat right now.”  Really?  Really.

MACK- can’t think of a story on him right now, but HE IS STILL SLEEPING.  

 

Charlie is was our family pet, a fish.  Ruby got him for her 3rd birthday.  While the idea seemed neat at the start, Charlie quickly was neglected.  I mean, I had a 3 year old, a 2 year old, and a 2 month old at the time of welcoming Charlie into our family, so I don’t know what I expected.  Quickly, his bowl was disgustingly dirty.  He randomly got fed.  He hardly ever got talked to.  I made several concerted efforts to pay him more attention and clean his bowl and feed him regularly.  I was starting to become fond of Charlie.  Ruby, on the other hand, hardly even knew he was here and never fed him or talked to him.  She even had the audacity to up and change his name to Dorothy because that is Elmo’s fish’s name.  

HOWEVER, upon our return home from Albany, I went to check on Charlie and found that our cleaning lady, Mrs. Lee, had graciously cleaned his bowl.  It was in bad shape, but I didn’t want to clean it before we left because he could eat off the gross stuff all in the bowl.  She thought she was doing a favor, but in reality she killed Charlie.  He is supposed to have these drops in his bowl if you change the water, and she didn’t do that.  I was a little sad at first, but then realized it is all for the better.  I figured the kids would not even notice.  I stuck his bowl out in the back yard until we figured out what to do.  Well, today Ruby saw the bowl and wanted to know why Charlie was outside.  I explained the situation, and you would have thought she actually cared for this fish!  She cried and cried and wanted to know why Mrs. Lee didn’t put in the drops.  I comforted her for a while, and we talked through it all several times.  

Josh got home, and Ruby brought it up again. Ruby told Josh that she didn’t want another fish, but she wanted Charlie back.  He encouraged her to be grateful for the 18 months she had with Charlie,  then I heard him say that it is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.  It was hilarious. Josh thought we should have a parade and then a funeral to honor Charlie…then flush him down the toilet.  Ruby was very offended at the thought and didn’t want Charlie to go down the toilet.  She kept crying out, “I miss Charlie…I’m really gonna miss Charlie, mom.”  I asked her what she would miss about him, and she looked at me with big tears and said, very seriously, “He was a good fish!”   

I just wish Charlie had known while he was alive how much Ruby loved him.

We wrapped up our Christmas celebration this past weekend in Albany.  And what fun it was!  We didn’t do much (lots of talking, reading, and eating), which is why it was so nice.  I told Josh that I like the road trips now simply because I have to sit down—and I don’t see any toys that need to be put away, there is no laundry to do, no food to cook, etc.  It was nice to sit and ride.  

Of course there were some funny stories…like Molly and the golf cart ride.  She came in from a golf cart ride with PawPaw crying and holding her arm.  No one else that was with them seemed too concerned.  Molly, however, told me, “I fell off the golf cart and Paw Paw ran over me.”  “What? Molly, where did PawPaw run over you?,”  I asked.  “On my arm!!!! See???,” she whined.  “So, you fell off the golf cart and PawPaw ran over your arm?,” I asked, skeptically.  “Yeeeesss….,” she continued to cry.  “You mean the tire went over your arm?”  “Yes,” she once more said.   Well, of course that didn’t happen.  She is quite dramatic.  And her daddy came in to help her and offered her a cookie.  He asked her about halfway through the cookie if she felt better (using food to heal her emotional distress…she’ll blame us later in life if she struggles with her weight, I am sure).  Her response to Josh was, “After this cookie, a popsicle will help me feel better.”  Oh my goodness.

Ruby played so well the whole time.  She just enters into her imaginary land, playing with her new Tinkerbelle fairies and ponies.   She also has a very “grown-up” side to her.  She was playing with Mack, and he ended up crying or something, so Josh told her to stop it and calm down.  She turns around to go the opposite way from Mack and looks at Josh and says, “It’s just a joke, Dad.”  (As if to say, lighten up—good grief!)

Mack kept everyone laughing with his funny little self.  He enters a room and can immediately figure out who is not there and then asks for them a million times or until they enter the room again.  Genius baby.  I will post pictures later of him “wrestling” with Molly.  She is so patient with him as he rolls all over her and even sits on her head.

This morning we had Molly stay with us during church because she wasn’t feeling well.  She ended up making her way to Mrs. Mary, our sweet friend who is so patient and kind to Molly (and all my kids).  She got to try some tic-tacs while sitting with Mrs.Mary.  Later that day at lunch I was telling Molly how great she did today in church.  Her face lit up at the compliment, then she said, “And then you let me go sit with Mrs. Mary, and we had tic-tac-toes.”  It was so cute.

Another great part of the weekend was a little book that Gran brought to read to the girls so that they could act it out with all of her hats.  She had a hat rack up with hats all over them, so that the kids could wear them if they wanted to match Gran.  Deb looked great in all of them.  Anyway, the book was called CAPS FOR SALE.  There is a man who is walking around wearing five hats and hollering out, “Caps for sale!” No one buys any, so he decides to take a rest under a tree, only to wake up and find that all of his hats but one are gone….and to top it off, monkeys up in a tree have stolen them and are wearing them.  The man tries to tell them to give them back, but they just mimic him, which makes him mad.  After a few episodes of this, he throws his hat to the ground.  The monkeys do the same, and the man is happy as he goes on his merry way selling his hats.