Letters to Santa!

The other day, I got to spend some one-on-one time with my little B.  Autumn was still in school and Caroline was taking a nice long nap. It was nice to just spend some time with B.  There's just no way to tell you what a ham this girl is. When she's not with her sister, causing all kinds of ruckus and rough-housing.  She is one of the silliest, goofiest, fun little girls. Ever. Hands down. And her laugh is enough to make anyone come out of a deep depression.

After I went to get A from school, we decided it was time for us to write our letters to Santa. She got out her Resource Folder (that I made for her) and I made her a little diddy for writing a letter to Santa. She started drawing and then I told her how to spell each word.

What's so sweet to me is that she said she wanted a Minnie. 

"But Autumn, you and Brooklynn both have a Minnie, why do you want another one? "

"No, Mommy, Caroline needs one like us!"  ohhhh!!  

My sweet girl. She just loves her little Caroline!

If you want this "letter" you can get in on my Teacher by the Beach blog {HERE}. This is actually just the planning page, there are actual letter writing pages included in the download too. 

Of course you have to put it in an envelope and address it.

And put it in the mail!

B said she wrote her letter too. I'm not quite sure about that, but I let her "mail out" her "letter" too. lol Everything Sissy does, B has to do too.

And don't forget the flag!

What's funny is that even though this was on a Sunday, the USPS still delivers packages and I got THIS badboy delivered. (I can't wait to start working out again!!)

As soon as I opened the door and saw a delivery I kind of freaked out because I didn't know if he took their letters so I chased after the mailman to make sure he didn't take the letters. Whew! Saved.

Kitchen Remodel

So, the pool project is a very slow project! We are waiting on SO. MANY. aspects to come together.

We have to wait for the "architect" to finish the plans on the pool/shed, and he has to give the plans to the survey guy so he can to do the "improvement" survey for us to take the city to get our permits.

This is ALL taking WAY. TOO. LONG for me.

So in the mean time, we are moving ahead on our kitchen remodel.  I think we've gotten what we want...kind of. It keeps changing, of course.  But this is what my "color" vision is;

We're doing dark floors, so I want white cabinets to "calm" the room and then dark counter tops to tie all together. I love this look. It's a perfect mix of Ron and me...


My dad came over and kind of did a redesign of the kitchen and he went with us to Lowes to get a price quote. Ron and I have been tweaking it and we met with another company (which I think we like better than Lowes!)

The reason we're redoing the kitchen is because I have NO counter space. My counters next to the stove are so small, I can't even "chop and drop" next to the stove. And my counter space on the "island" is very minimal... I have more counter space on the side of the kitchen, but that's pointless and it just becomes a drop-off spot where TONS of clutter accummulates. And if you know me, then you know that clutter STRESSES. ME. OUT.

So here is kind of what we have in mind...

We're going to drop the high-top bar and extend the counter to make it a sitting bar...and have more counter space. We're also putting more cabinets UNDER the bar.

This view is pretty much staying the same.

NOW this is the area that is the drop-off counter, which will be NO MORE!  We're moving the fridge over to this side, giving me more room next to the stove and then moving the pantry over to the actual wall instead of the corner and doing a pull-out pantry. I am still having a little counter space there, mainly for when I'm getting stuff out of the fridge.

Here is my new view of the stove. No more fridge. Bigger counters next to the stove and more cabinets.

There is actually more that we are going to be doing on the other side of the breakfast bar, but we haven't quite figured that out yet... we have some GIGANTIC windows that we have to figure out what to do with.. We have some ideas, but we'll see what actually happens!

Christmas Pictures...for the Girls

I did my own version of newborn pictures with Caroline, with an outfit that one of my friends got her. It was too cute not to use! Even better that it's Christmas colors...swoon

Adding more Christmas Cheer... the other day when we were running errands after A's school, Santa came riding up on a motorcycle. He saw the girls were looking at him, so he stopped in front of us to talk to us. The girls were a little on the bewildered side....Santa on a motorcycle?!

And then he took it a step further and let them sit on his motorcycle!

And then today, we went and saw Santa.  Autumn said she wants more paints and arts and crafts stuff (could have guessed that one) and an airplane. Brooklynn said she wanted some paints. I'm guessing because Autumn does, but whatever. makes life easy for me! ha!

Caroline was sleeping soundly. Perfect for letting me put that giant bow on her head! lol

This might be one of my favorite pictures!

Black Friday Christmas Tree Shopping!

Annual Black Friday Christmas Tree shopping! 

A Christmas tree for party of 5, please!

B was really excited to pick one out...she kept trying to pick them up... "How 'bout dis one!?"

C and I just held the trees for Ron to look at. It was a hard job, but someone had to do it.

I think this was tree number 3,258...

A decided that she needed to start looking in the back of the piles to find the good ones...and started climbing the tower of trees. lol I really didn't want her climbing the trees, but it really was funny.

Finally, tree number 5.329 was the tree!  My husband always tells me "you know,we do have a fake tree in the attic... we already use that for our family-fun tree. Why do we have to get a real one every year? It's a waste of money and so messy!"

BECAUSE!

we live in Florida. I don't get cold weather...or snow...nothing really feels like Christmas down here, so the only thing that really does feel like Christmas is a REAL tree... the smell and the feel of it. 

And then, of course, after you get home you need to relax by the fire and roast some marshmallows, right?  A had that idea. I must say, it was a grand idea!

Someone on my IG commented that they always head out to get ice cream after getting their christmas tree. They sit in the back of their truck and eat it. She lives in CA. I must say, that might become our NEW Christmas tradition!

Do you have a Christmas tree getting tradition??

And Then There Were Three

I'm not sure how I have been able to do this, because between both A and B, everything gets lost. (and let's face it - the hubs too!) BUT I have been able to save both one of my favorite pajamas and the same pacifier and have been able to do the same picture with all 3 girls. I did a side by side with A and B when B was born. I couldn't believe how much they looked alike.

Fast forward to "today."  I still have the same paci and pajamas, so I decided to get another picture to do with all 3 girls.

C doesn't really like pacifiers (which is all good in my mind), but I got her to keep it in her mouth long enough to get a few pictures.


So here it is, all three girls in the same position, same pjs, and same paci.  I can see how A and C are even more similar than what I thought A and B were.  But really, they're all just so stinkin' cute!

As time goes on, I will probably only remember who is who by what is in the background.

Thankfully, every time one was born, we were either in a different house or had new furniture. haha!

This is Caroline. She's the only one I have a single picture for anymore.   

Weekly Ramblings - Caroline's First week!

Caroline's first week has been great! She is such a sweet, innocent little girl.  

She sleeps LONG periods of time. I'm talking like 4-7 hours at a time. During the day, during the night. Whenever she sleeps, it's a long haul.  Which is awesome! Most people say to wake the baby to feed them every 3-4 hours. Well, not me. The girl more than makes up for her long sleeps when she's awake. She cluster feeds for a few hours, and then goes right back to sleep. Her pediatrician is right on board with me, saying as long as she's gaining weight, then no need to wake a sleeping baby.

Well, sometimes I think about waking her because my boobs are in so much pain! lol

The girls LOVE her. They constantly want to hold her or help with her. Sometimes, too much.

My mom has been a HUGE help in keeping the girls entertained and doing things with them. That's what we really need help most with. The baby aspect? We got this. But I can't really keep on the move with A and B and they really need that.

My mom took them to a fun little "snow village" that was put on by a church. Autumn got to ice skate for the first time, and she LOVED it. Too bad there isn't an ice skating rink around for her to do figure skating or ice hockey. I bet she would love it! 

And since I can't sit very well during this whole healing process, but I know I can't get up and walk for long periods of time yet, I have resorted to cleaning and organizing my house.

This was the day I decided to purge/organize my pantry.  It's pretty sad at how much food we have. 

I really need to start looking in my pantry and making our meal lists based on what we already have. lol and NOT leaving my grocery list on the counter when I go shopping...so I'm second guessing if I have "this" and just go ahead and get it anyway. 

On another note... Caroline was due on Thanksgiving Day. And on that day, we already had our sweet little Caroline. I couldn't wish for anything else. I am so thankful for all my girls!

Our First Day Home

Our first night at home from the hospital went pretty well!

We got home around 6:00 from the hospital. We picked up Brooklynn from the sitter's on our way home. My mom was already home with Autumn. It is amazing how much help it is having Mom home, even though she doesn't feel like she's doing too much... it's a lot more than she knows!

It is amazing how much sleep you can get when you aren't constantly being woken up by nurses to get poked and prodded all the time.

Caroline slept from 9:00 (ish) until 3:00!  Holy sleep, Batman!

Of course I kept waking up to check on her, but mostly my sleep was pretty good too!

This morning I realized I needed some "necessities" from the store, so I sent Ron out to get them.

Can I just say, sending a man to get maxi pads at the store, alone, is probably one of the most comical sights to see at the store. The conversation lasted for probably 10 minutes, just to figure out what color pads they were, the stripe on the package, the length, the thickness, the brand...lol.

I keep laughing in my head.

But that's what husbands are for the day after you get home from the hospital after you have just pushed life out of you, right?  snicker, snicker

As for Caroline?  She slept all. day. long. She really likes sleeping on her side. I can't say I blame her, it's my favorite way to sleep too.

She barely ate yesterday. She would go 4-6 hours without eating. I even tried waking her up and nothing was waking that girl up. She was, apparently, pretty exhausted.  I mean, being a 2 day old baby is hard work!

And can I just say? My boobs are killing me!  From her lack of eating, they are the size of cantaloupes. No lie. And as hard as cantaloupes. Luckily, baby girl woke up this morning starving and ate for probably a good hour. Relief at last!