May's pictures

Grady's Baby Book

He started to walk again. Joe was across the room calling for him. Grady took a few steps away from the train table and sood still. I think he realized what was going on a didn't know what to do, so he just stood there for about 30 seconds. Then, slowly squatted down and craweld the rest of the way.

Molly's Baby Book

YAY!!!! We are officially and completely out of pull ups! Molly slept in undies last night....AND there was not mess to clean up this morning! For awhile, she's said "when I'm 5 mom." Yesterday she turned 5 and last night she reminded me that she was going to sleep in underwear. Then she asked, "Mom, do you always wear the same pair of underwear?"

(Note added on 5/29...the next day) Wait, did I say that out loud? Did I actually say that my oldest child was not in diapers anymore? Hmm...I must have because she's back in them now...after PEEING IN OUR BED LAST NIGHT...but on Joe's side. =)

Things I need to Post

In no particular order...
1. My sister's visit
2. My mom's visit
3. Phil and Nickie's visit
4. Grady and the bug at Gregory's
5. The Binky boy
6. Baking (Erin, I'm that far behind!)
7.Paige's wedding invites
8. Pictures of the kids rooms...that are almost finished.
9. Ellery's BD party.
10. Molly's BD party...which hasn't happened yet, but I'm sure I'll still be trying to catch up after its over. So at that rate, I'll add...
11. Grady's 1st BD party.
12. Yes, another trip to the ER (we seem to be regulars)

So, bare with me and check back. I promise I'll catch up soon...

Being a mom

Ellery says to me, "Mom, I wanted you to get married. I wanted you to get married for a long time, so that you could be my mom. I'm glad she believes that you have to be married to have kids. I hope she'll believe that until AFTER she's married.

Grady's Baby Book

He dances when he hear music. Well, dance is a relative term. He holds on to whatever is around and bounces up and down. So cute!!!

Grady's diaper

I come back into the playroom from waking Ellery up from her nap. Molly says to me, "Mom, I think something just happened in Grady's diaper."

Molly's Baby Book

Well, its not really a baby book anymore, more of a life book. Anyway...two events. The first, apparantly over the last month, her 6 year molars have been coming in. All 4 of them. I had to look in her mouth tonight because there was some blood on the toothbrush after I brushed. I was shocked! The bottom two are over halfway in and the top two are just breaking the surface. We had no idea. No complaints, nothing from her. Although I guess she's always been a good teether. The other exciting event...she woke up with her first dry diaper....ever! We were trying to see which of the girls could get out of diapers first, so gave them some incentive...a race against each other. Well, last night was the first night of the race. Molly won. She got up and went to the bathroom on her own all night. Dry diaper this morning. I've been asking her for months to do this, so why all of the sudden? The bribing could have had something to do with it.

Daddy's home

Joe's back from "Yew Nork" as the girls call it. He had a few days of business and then met his brother and father there for a "Boy's Week" in NYC.

MORE TO COME, I'VE BEEN INTERRUPTED BY SOME LITTLE PEOPLE

Grady's Baby Book

He took his first two steps today!!!

Baby wraps

Nothing like a Friday morning, a cup of Java (read:milk) and taking your babies for a walk in their wraps. Hmmm, have they seen mom do this a few times? Molly came up with this all on her own!

Grady's Baby Book

He's standing on his own now.

The baby store

No, we're not pregnant. With that said, we do need to find the baby store. Not to get a new one, but to exchange the one we have. Or at least that's what Ellery suggested today. Our precious little baby seems to poop a lot. And when I say a lot, I mean it. Every diaper. Every single diaper. Poop, poop, poop. He's a machine. I was changing yet another poopy diaper today and Ellery says, "Mommy, maybe we need to take our baby back and get one that doesn't poop so much." (Just between you and me, I can handle the poop. I'd much rather take the whiny ones back and exchange them for perfectly behaved ones. But those are probably the REALLY expensive kind!)

Want to spice up your afternoon?

Move to Oklahoma where Tornadoes are abundant! We had a little excitement this afternoon when the tornado sirens went off here in B'ville. If it had been a clear day, I wouldn't have worried, but since its been a bit stormy, I kind of....uh...PANICKED!!! Well, not a full-blown panic, but the heart racing, adrenaline pumping, let's go hide in the bathroom type of panic. So, like the mother hen, I gathered up my chicks and we all herded into the bathroom. (During the excitement, I had forgotten to include Smokee....sorry, Joe.) I started dialing numbers. First Joe...where was he and what was going on? He, and the other CP employees were moved to the stairwells of the building. Hey, they were all there, good time for a meeting, right? Then my two neighbors, one old friends from Alaska, and the other a SAHM with three little ones as well. In the midst of that, I dialed up Betsy and Clay (life long Oklahomans...is that actually a word?) who, thank goodness, talked me through the event. Thanks guys!!! Well, after all of that, nothing to report, I'm glad to say. Just a little reminder of how unprepared I am....still.

See Joe, even Grady knows where the dryer is

(See previous blog for joke.)

Just a little something funny

Girls night out

On Friday, I got out of the house for a girls night out. I'm shocked that I was able to escape, although it was by the skin of my teeth (whatever that means...(a few moments later) ok, so I had to know and just googled it...odd how that phrase came about....I should have just skipped the phrase and said "barely made it"). Anyway...Grady was screaming in his crib (after an hour of trying to get him down), the girls were melting down too, and all the while Joe was trying to prepare for a huge conference that he's heading up. So, thank you honey, for letting me go. Thank you Betsy, for inviting me. I had a great time. Its nice to get out with other women and just be. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time and it felt wonderful. Thanks ladies! (A.K.A. "blog stockers"... I hope you're all reading this! =)

Being so scared

I can only imagine what it feels like to be so scared. Anxious is what it feels like to me now, but I'm trying to remember what it was like when I was three. We've been having a bit of weather here lately. We were having some severe thunderstorms yesterday, and as the name implies, there was quite a bit of thunder and lightening. Well, this started up during Ellery's nap. She's already let us know that she won't sleep in her bed at night while the thunder is "outside her window" (her bed is next to the window in the girls room). While she was napping yesterday there were some really loud claps of thunder; I kept checking on her, just waiting for her to wake up, but she slept through quite a lot of it. Well, I was in my office when she ran down the hall screaming and jumped into my arms. She had been woken up by the latest blast of the rumbling sky. I could feel the terror flowing through her body, but apparently, that wasn't all that was flowing. I never really knew that anyone was so scared they peed their pants, but now I know it does happen....because it happened on me. Bless her heart, she was so scared. (I have to admit, I was a bit on edge, too!) So we waited out the storm snuggling on the couch watching TV and covering our ears when the thunder roared.

Woohoo, tax season is over!

...for me, anyway. I just filed my last set of taxes. Now I get to clean up my office, file all the paperwork, and maybe, just maybe, find some time for scrapbooking.

Be careful Daddy...

Joe goes out to turn the grill on for dinner. As he's walking out the back door, Ellery says, "don't fall in the hole Daddy."

Why do I do this to myself?

What did you do this evening. Better yet, this last week (and the next few) after your kids went to bed? Me, you ask? Well, I painted, and I'm painting, and I'll be painting. I called my parents to ask what event in my childhood caused me to be so particular and determined to make things difficult for myself. What's wrong with simply painting the room green. Better yet, why not just leave it the plain "builder brown" as I call it? Why would I decide to paint it two colors and then, if that wasn't bad enough, scallop the edge??? But...I have to admit...it is pretty cute! Now if I can just finish the rest of the room before we move again.

My new coffee table book

Grady's Baby Book

He climbed up the entire flight of stairs (all 16) by himself this morning.

Sam's Club

I went into Tulsa the other day with Ellery and Grady. I needed to run to Sam's Club for my monthly stock up. Ellery was so excited to go to Sam's (I could not figure out why.) She kept asking, "when are we going to be there? Why did they named it "Sam's Club"? Are we going straight there? Why is it taking so long?" When we pulled into the parking lot and stopped the car she said, "Mommy, this isn't Sam's Club." I told her it was. She then said, "this isn't Betsy's house." Now I understand why she was so excited. She thought we were going to my friend Betsy's, who's son's name is Sam. Hey, it's his club, right? Lucky guy.

We have a hole in our backyard

Well...too late to turn back now! There is a giant (well, not that giant) hole in our backyard. The girls are hoping they can go swimming this weekend. Too bad life doesn't work like that!

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Pajama Day

I go outside to get the kids for dinner and Molly looks at me and says, "Mommy, are you still in your pajamas?" I smile and answer yes. She then says, "Gee, I wish I could be in my pajamas all day." The tone in her voice was more like the adult sarcastic version of "must be nice." Now let me explain WHY I'm still in PJs...I got up this morning, fed the baby, got all the kids changed and dressed, made breakfast for the family, put Grady down for nap, then cleaned up after breakfast, wrestled with the girls to go down for a nap, then spent the rest of the afternoon trying to figure out my new vacuum cleaner and then testing it by vacuuming every nook and cranny of the entire house (see post about Dyson) in between fixing lunch, changing diapers, cleaning up, and feedings. So...I'm still in PJs (even now as I type this) because I have spent the whole day taking care of everyone else instead of me. But that's the life of a mommy, right? =)

Dyson vs. Kenmore

Moving from Bellingham to Bartlesville reminded me how lucky I was that our last home had a central vacuuming system. This is something that I dearly miss, but when I had a company come out to give me an estimate, the $3,500 price tag put a hold on having one installed. So, I've been using my old (3 1/2 yrs) Kenmore canister vac. It works pretty well (or so I thought), but does have some quirks and a few broken parts. Last night, Joe wanted to take a family outing to Lowe's (doesn't that sound like fun???) so off we went, to pick up a few things for our weekend projects (he might think twice about that idea next time). Well, I've been looking at some stick vacs and hand vacs because the movers left the base to my little hand vac in Washington...and you can't buy just a charger. Of course you have to walk by the really nice vacuums to get to the piddly little ones....and back by them to get out of the aisle. There at the beginning of the aisle was a shiny new Dyson vac, just begging me to check it out....so of course I did. And while I was looking at this wonderful machine, I happened to notice that they were all 20% off. Hey, I was saving us $110. Actually, I was saving us over $3,000 by getting a simple vacuum, instead of having one installed, so buying a new machine wasn't that big of a deal, right? Well, I bought it...just to take home a look at it for a bit...I can always take it back, right??? I had just vacuumed yesterday with my old machine, so thought I'd take the Dyson for a little test run on the already "clean" carpet. OH MY GOODNESS...I cannot believe how much dust and dirt that thing picked up from my "clean" carpet!!! Disgusting!!! I couldn't just stop with the living room carpet, I had to vacuum the whole house. I won't even tell you how quickly I filled the canister...and I consider myself a pretty good housekeeper. My little Kenmore...GONE! Thank you Mr. Dyson.

Grady's Baby Book

He's started cruising on furniture. He's also giving kisses now....you know, the open mouth gummy kiss, where you just pray that he doesn't spit up.

Naptime?

Two of my boys taking a snooze. A day with the Gallagher kids just plum tuckers you out!

Cabo, the drama, in three parts

Part 1: Getting there

After about 2 hours of sleep, we woke all the kids up (crazy, I know) at 4:30, to drive to the airport in Tulsa. Our flight left at 6:45 and Tulsa is a small airport, so we figured if we get there by 5:30 we'll be ok. That would have been find if it hadn't taken forever at the check-in counter. Upon checking in, we find that, whoops, Joe's passport expires 2 days before we return home (slight oversight), we're late, so we'll deal with that later. When we get to security, the line is way too long for 6:15 in the morning. Like Tulsa is a metropolis??? Those of you who've travelled with small children, know the amounts of stuff that comes with it, so it takes forever to unload everything that has been so carefully and efficiently packed, including a car seat and stroller. Not to mention trying to get the kids to cooperate by getting shoes off, through the machine, and back on, all while what they really want to do is go back to sleep. We're at the part where we're walking through the sensor and I realize there announcing "last call" for the flight. We send Joe running ahead to stop the plane. It worked, because we had a gate agent come grab the baby and escort us (and our accouterments) running through the terminal to make the plane. Right about this time I realized that I have quite a headache. Lack of sleep, stress, adrenaline? Who knows!?! All I know is that because we're flying on a small aircraft and we got there so late, I had to check my carry on, which contains my advil and Immitrex. Not good. What a lovely start to our vacation, right? Then the screaming begins. Grady, we've come to find, is not a traveler. (Luckily there was another baby on board, so we were able to blame the noise on him...come to find out that his parents did the same to us! =) When we arrive in Denver, I run to my suitcase to dig out my migraine medicine, but it's already too late. Full blown migraine with nausea and everything. As we wait for our next flight, I try to make a decision on whether or not I can even fly. When boarding time arrives I asked for a "barf bag" right when I entered the plane. The flight attendant scrambles for a garbage bag (did I look that sick?) and asks if I'm ok to fly. (I wasn't sure if she was asking due to my stomach or the three kids we had in tow?) Well, I survived the flight (barely) and was thrilled to get off the plane By the time we got through customs, my head was bearable (only 12 hours later). My parents flight arrived shortly after ours, so we had just cleared customs when they got in line. The girls were so excited to see them and watched them snake through the line, waving and yelling at them every few minutes. I set their car seats up for viewing, so the girls sat side-by-side in their seats, watching the customs line like a movie. Too cute!!! Anyway, to make a really long story (oh, wait...maybe that was just a really long day?) shorter....we arrive in paradise 12 hours later, quite tired, but ready for a great vacation.

Part 2: The vacation

More to come on this...but I'll post some pics for now.

Part 3: Getting home

Let me start off by saying that I never want to get back on an airplane with my children. The abbreviated version... Joe had to leave early; despite attempts to get his passport extended, the State Department, the Embassy, the Airlines, nor Customs were much help. One agency actually suggested that Joe catch a flight to Tijuana, walk across the border, and catch another flight home...but I won't tell you who told us that because we never had that conversation. (Do you feel safe now?) So, Pat and I were left to travel with the 3 kids. I had planned Grady's feedings with the flight schedules, as much as possible, so of course everything went wrong. Our flight was about 2 hours late leaving Cabo, which left seriously grumpy and hungry kids because by the time we got into Denver, get through the enormous customs line (we were last in line due to waiting for our gate-checked stroller), get our luggage, re-check it to Tulsa, walk/run the 18 million miles from the international terminal to security, get through security (refer to Part 1 for more on security fun), navigate the gazillion escalators and elevators to arrive at the outer-most point of the terminal where (once again) they were announcing final boarding for the flight. During this time, I had wrapped Grady in the Moby, had his car seat in the stroller, Ellery sideways in his car seat holding onto all our documents and my carry on, Molly sitting on the back of the stroller with me dragging the whole load by the handle of Grady's seat, all while holding another car seat in my other hand. Pat was packing our roller board, the girls backpacks, the diaper bag, and a car seat. I'm sure we were quite a site. Besides the fun of getting through the airport, there were the actual flights. As I've determined earlier, Grady is not a traveler, so I won't even go into detail about the crying, not feeding and not sleeping on his part. Over the course of the two flights (3 1/2 hours and 1 1/2 hours), I visited the shoebox bathroom on the airplane no less than 15 times. If one of the girls didn't have to go, Grady was constantly pooping and I was trying to change diapers on my lap. If that wasn't bad enough, I ran out of baby wipes on the last flight (due to the many diaper changes), plus they were low on potable water (the water they use for lavs and coffee...not exactly in that order), so the last few times I was in the lav, I was trying to rinse the soap off of my hands with barely a misting spray of water. The good news...we all made it home. All in all, the travelling was worth the wonderful week spent with our family.

My little cubby

Molly has started in the AWANAS program at our church. Tonight she recited her first four memorized verses and earned her book and her vest. We are so proud of her (and impressed at how quickly she can memorize) I love her eagerness to learn! Ellery is in the puggles group, but they don't start the verses yet. I guess it's more of a playgroup for her. Daddy takes the girls on Wednesday night and I get to stay home with Grady. They have choir practice at the same time and Joe joked with the choir director that I might join just to get Grady into nursery and give myself a break!

Grady's Baby Book

So when I got him from his nap today, he was standing in his crib, smiling at me.

Grady's Baby Book

He pulled himself up to standing...and hung out for quite awhile at the train table! I was shocked! I just lowered his crib because he sat up on his own. Now I have to lower it again.

Hi to my Cornwall small group!!!

Hi Ladies!!! Melissa called this morning and we spoke for a bit. She said that the syrup reminded her of me and had to call. =) (It was SO good to talk to you!!!) I think about you ladies often and wonder how you are all doing. Miss you and our weekly meetings!!! I'm sorry I don't email much....ok, so at all. I know you all understand that life just happens, and before you know it, it's been months. We'll be heading that way in November. Maybe I'll be able to make a Friday meeting???

This is how I exercise

10:05 Put Grady down for his morning nap
10:08 Throw a load of laundry in
10:12 Get the girls coloring stuff out
10:20 Start the treadmill
10:20 Stop the treadmill to get the girls another coloring book
10:21 Start the treadmill, again
10:26 Start running
10:29 Ellery, "Mommy, I want to go pee-pee on the potty."
10:29 Stop treadmill, run with her to the bathroom
10:31 Start running again
10:38 Molly, "Mommy, I have to go poop and I'll tell you when I'm done."
10:39 Molly, "Mommy, I'm done."
10:40 Molly a bit louder, "MOMMY, I'M ALL DONE!"
10:41 Stop treadmill to go wipe a bottom
10:43 Start running again
10:45 Molly, "Mommy, Ellery's pooping"
10:45 Jump off treadmill, chase Ellery down to get her on the potty...successfully...
10:47 Start running again
10:51 Grady is crying in his crib
10:55 Grady is screaming in his crib
10:56 Send the girls in to entertain him any way possible so I can finish
11:00 Grady is screaming in his crib and the girls are laughing hysterically
11:00 Stop treadmill to rescue the baby

So, would that actually count as an hour long workout??? Sounds good to me! Now I can skip tomorrow.

Typical

I'm in the kitchen cleaning up or cooking (or doing whatever it is I do that seems to trap me in the kitchen all day) and Molly asks where her footy-jammies are. I reply that they are in the dryer, and ask Joe to go grab them out. He goes into the laudry room and yells, "hon, they're still wet." I ask him to set the drying for a few more minutes, thinking they're probably just barely damp. I hear him punching buttons and then he asks how to turn it on. (All this as I'm walking that direction because in the back of my head I'm wondering if he even knows how to work the dryer.) Well, I enter the laundry room to see him crouched over the machine studying it. The rest of the conversation goes something like this:

Me: Honey, what are you doing?

Joe: Trying to turn on the dryer.

Me: Really, the dryer?

Joe: Yup

Me: And that would be where?

Joe: Right here.

Me: Hmmm, but you know that's the washing machine, right?

Joe: Oh (pause) I was wondering why the clothes were so wet (grinning).

Ellery doesn't want to wear diapers anymore

She's successfully potty trained...self directed. A bit different than with Molly and a few more accidents, but we're done.

Here we go...

I just handed over a deposit check and a signed contract to start the pool. "The pool guy" as the girls call him, just painted an outline in our backyard. I'll be taking pictures of the progress. Finally...and home improvement project that we're NOT doing ourselves!

Grady's Baby Book

He's mobile. He's crawling. Not very fast yet...but he's moving! Now I have to get new gates for the stairs! =)

Grady's Baby Book

Eating applesauce

Ellery's whiny face

This is what we see a lot of lately. But she's still so cute, I have a hard time taking her seriously. She wanted me to take a picture so SHE could see what her whiny face looks like.

Imagination

I am so impressed with the natural creativity and imagination that children are born with. Some days I think my kids have way too many toys...OK, so most days I know this because I'm the one always picking them up. Well, they proved to me that they can make "toys" out of just about anything. Tonight was the first night that my bread machine failed me. (I guess it could have been user error, but I doubt it.) We have pizza night every Friday night, so as usual, I put the ingredients in the bread machine to make our pizza dough. (Side note: it is so easy and SO much cheaper then delivery!) When I went to pull the dough out...it was just not right. I didn't have a backup plan, so we all jumped into the car and went out. Joe suggested we try a new place. They sat us in a secluded corner (What? Walking in with 2 small kids and a baby? Did they think we were going to disturb their patrons?) and left us to look over the menu. The adult menu. The adult menu without a kids section. No crayons, no paper...what is this? A nice restaurant??? Anyway...the point...the girls had unwrapped all the forks (for the mom's and dad's), had made beds and pillows out of sugar packets and napkins, and were saying goodnight and tucking them in. Then waking them up and doing it all over again. It was adorable! And creative. And, as it turns out, a great substitute for the paper menus that you can color on.

Who wants to go to the ER...with all 3 kids?

Short version: Molly has stitches...again.

Long version: The girls were both dressed up in their ballerina costumes (see prior post) and happily spinning and dancing away to the music. I was talking on the phone (Jessica, if you read this...this is why I hung up so suddenly!), when all of the sudden both girls started crying, well, screaming really, the scream-cry that as a mom, without even seeing them, you know its bad. Yup, around the corner comes Molly with her hands up to her face, with blood dripping between her fingers. Ellery was holding her head. Without even asking, I already knew what had happened. (Sidebar: later I came to find out they didn't exactly "spin" into each other as I originally thought, it was more like they were running at each other.) So...I grabbed the first kitchen towel I could find to mop up the mess on Molly's face and find out how bad it actually was. Then I went for the ice pack and the phone, dialed Joe and told him to meet me at the ER because I was taking Molly in. I had to find clothes for the girls (it's 20 degrees out), jackets, get Grady in his seat, put my shoes on, find my purse and keys, get the kids all buckled in...all in about 34 seconds. Well, on the way to the ER, I realized I hadn't exactly told Joe what happened, only that we were going, so I called him again to tell him what happened. (Through the phone I could hear him running to his car, which is parked about a half mile from his office.) Well, we all arrive at the ER, check in and wait, and wait, and wait...finally get called back, then wait, and wait, and wait some more. The doc comes in, takes a good look at her and a few minute later they strap Molly to a "papoose" board (he called it a surrogate mom) and started the stitching. She did fantastic. Not a tear, not a complaint, nothing...she was a total trooper. We are so proud of how brave she was. So, now her beautiful little face will have two scars...one on her forehead and one above her lip....which happens to match the one I have on my lip. Hey...must run in the family!

Note to self

After feeding Grady carrots (or sweet potatoes, or squash, or fill-in-the-blank), not a good idea to put him down on the carpet...unless I'm in the mood to clean the carpet, too.

Footy-jammies

Molly would live in these if she could...in fact, she kind of has since she got these for Christmas. Ellery could care less if she's even wearing clothes, so we're lucky she's dressed. And Grady...well, these are my favorite jammies for him right now and he'll soon be too big for them. I just happened to have them all together this morning before getting Molly ready for school, so snapped this shot. As you can see, Ellery's in the "can't remember how to really smile" phase and then doesn't Grady look oh-so-comfortable?

Grady's Baby Book

He sat up on his own today. He also is up on his hands and knees and rocking...and trying so hard to crawl.

Our Screech owl

Have you ever heard a screech owl? I'm not sure that I have, but I'm guessing I might know exactly what one sounds like. Grady's latest is this screechy-scream, but not in a bad way, per se, in a hey-everyone-listen-to-what-I-can-do kind of way. Well, as usual, I pull him into bed with me to nurse at some point in the wee hours of the morning, but this morning, I was rudely awakened at 6:00 a.m. to this awful noise (awful in an oh-he's-so-cute-but-I-can't-wait-for-him-to-get-through-this-stage kind of way), like a screech owl beside me....which lasted for an hour. I actually dozed of in between screeches, if you can believe it. Anyway, at 7, I finally figured out that I wasn't going to get much more sleep, so plopped him back into his bed, where he promptly fell fast asleep. Hmmm...can anyone say Ferber? It's time...