I Heart Boys, Too.

For as long as I could remember, I've been telling people I would be the mother of 4 girls.  No boys.

When Rodney and I met I stood strong by my claim.  As we neared our wedding day I sweetly reminded him of what his future would hold.  And a year and half later when we found out we were getting snuck in for an early ultrasound, I couldn't wait to see our little girl.

Only she wasn't...a girl.  She was a he.  And he was Clinton.  I remember sitting in shock.  And I called my mother and cried because I had no idea what I would do with a boy.

Now 2 boys later, it seems loving them is just as natural and joyful as loving a girl.  Imagine that.

There's less than four years between these two sweet boys, and I so hope they are close.  I already see how much they love playing together.  Clinton is so sweet and protective.  Rex is enamored.  They laugh together.  They scream in delight together.  And each of them seems deeply concerned when the other is crying.

When in a room together, you can often find them like this...

...and both are usually equally innocent...

...or not.

But boys will be boys.  And sometimes the girls will love it.  And sometimes....well, they've had enough.

These Are the Days

Whew...things here are busy.  Busy.  Very busy.

I'm very tired, running on coffee, and pushing through several slumps a day...but I still find myself smiling most of the time.

The kids are changing, growing, and each becoming more and more of their very own person.  

Clinton is definitely our ring leader.  The other two kids often watch him for cues.  When Clinton is wild and loud, there are often two others who are wild and loud.  

Heidi Sage is our caretaker and second mother.  She's always making sure that Rex has his blanket and paci, and if she can't find his she is willing to give up hers.  So sweet.  And when Clinton is in trouble, she can be found at my side pointing her finger and running her jibberish as if she, too, is letting Clinton know what he is in for.  Truly a site to see.  

And Rex is our doll baby.  He is so sweet.  He is so happy.  He loves sitting and visiting with each of us as much as he can.

Some days we're all out and about.  Some days we sit and chill.  Some weekend nights, we're out socializing.  Some weekend nights, we're sitting picking thorns out of our feet.  Because the mommy in this house doesn't insist on the kids wearing shoes.  Oopsie.

Rex is such a great go-with-the-flow kid...and thank goodness because I think he's got years of this ahead of him.

Keeping up with three kids is never easy.  Even when they're napping, I'm moving working on laundry, dinner, cleaning bathrooms, etc.  And sometimes when they're awake and I'm feeling productive, things in the next room are usually going like this.  It looks like a bomb has gone off...and at least one child is in the floor crying.

Not this child, of course.  He's still perfectly innocent and not responsible for anything...yet.  I'm sure his day is coming.

Our summer started off as a scorcher, but the past week or so has shown some great relief from the heat. We've been getting outside playing in the yard.  As Heidi Sage gets older, I see her and Clinton playing together more and more.  They get so tickled with each other I find myself sometimes shedding a tear or two just from the sheer joy I feel listening to their happiness.

Of course, we've done plenty of crafts this summer.  It just wouldn't be our house without some paint on the furniture and confetti on the floor.  Heidi Sage added quite a bit of color to our all-black patio set.

Clinton asks at least once a week to paint rocks.  It's easy, so we do it.  We just keep adding the rocks to our Pumpkin Patch.

We've also kept busy with some baking.  The kids love decorating with sprinkles.  I'm not sure my vacuum loves it.  The only problem with sweets is that my kids want to eat them until they're completely gone.  It's hard to explain rationing.  Especially when they're laying on the floor screaming so loud they can't hear me.  Seriously fun.

The kids love riding their bikes in our cul-de-sac.  Clinton also loves using Daddy's tools to "fix" his bike.  Heidi Sage stands by telling him over and over and over..."Dat's daddy's.  Not yours.  Dat's daddy's."

While Clinton is a child who constantly needs interaction with others, Heidi Sage is more like her mother and enjoys some time to herself.  You can often find her upstairs playing in her kitchen, in her room playing with her babies, or outside gathering up stuff.  She's often collecting things.  You can find her shopping cart and baby carriage both full of stuff at any given moment, and she loves carrying bags stuffed with as many things as they can possibly hold.

She's also my water baby.  She loves to play outside in the water.  Rodney has also taken her to the big pool a few times and says she's fearless.

Both of my little delinquents have a tendency to get a little out of control with markers.  A little tighter supervision might be helpful in preventing these incidents, but I'm not exactly a helicopter parent.  :-)

Clinton loves and truly values his rare one and one time with me.  He still gets quite a few outings with Rodney, but I usually have the little kids.  This picture was taken during one of our rare evenings when the little ones went down early and we had a chance to go play outside.  You can see the excitement in his face.  And he always says, "Go Honghorns!" when he wants me to smile...and it works every time.

We spent a lot of evenings this spring sitting on our front porch watching this mommy bird care for her babies.  They've flown the nest now, but the kids loved seeing the babies and were intrigued by how their mother fed them...and what she fed them.  Worms and cicadas!  Yum-o!

In the evenings, I try to get my kids outside and run them until they're worn out.  I have them race from one end of the yard to the other.  They LOVE it...especially when I join them.  It's one of my forms of exercise.  Rex sits in his exersaucer and watches us intently.

Heidi Sage gets lots of photo shoots for our DHS blog, and occasionally Clinton vies for my attention by giving me his best pose so I'll take pictures of him, too.  I've been trying to be more mindful of this and not make the photo shoots just about Heidi Sage, but use them as an opportunity to get more pictures of all the kids.

That's what's been going on here.  We've got some fun family events planned for the holiday weekend and upcoming week.  I'll try to get lots of family pictures and get a post up next week.  "Try" is the key word.  :-)

Easter 2011

You know that family at church who shows up on Easter Sunday with everyone in new, coordinating Easter outfits?  And after church you see them outside near the flower garden or fountain taking pictures with 4 generations.  All of them in their Easter best.  And as they finish up their pictures they head over to a B&B or quaint Plantation Restaurant for an Easter Brunch.  And then they all head over to Grandmother's estate for the annual Easter Egg Hunt.

Yes, well...we are not that family.  Not one person in my house had new clothes for Easter.  Not one picture was taken in the clothes we did wear to church on Sunday.  I can't even remember what we had for lunch/brunch that day.  And our Easter egg hunt was first thing in the morning in whatever we slept in...and for Clinton, that happened to be the clothes he wore the day before.

Yes, that's the family we are.  You may look better than us, but we're probably having more fun than you.  :-)

Our Easter weekend started with our tradition of dying eggs.  Rodney heads up this project every year.  Dying eggs seems to be the single most important Easter tradition for him....so I let him have it.  And the kids LOVE it.

As I said before, our egg hunt was first thing in the morning.  The kids came out to find what the Easter Bunny had left in their baskets, and then we all headed outside to see what the big bunny had hidden in our yard.

It's funny to watch the kids and their differences in hunting.  Clinton stopped with each egg he had discovered, opened it, determined if it was a boy egg or a girl one, and then wanted to show each of us what he had found.

Heidi Sage, on the other hand, ran as fast as she could from egg to egg.  She filled her basket up so fast, she ran out of room....so then she would just start throwing eggs.

Clinton loved finding Matchbox cars in his eggs.

...though he wasn't sure about the money eggs.

...Until it dawned on him, "Oh wait, this is the stuff I use to buy new toys!"

Even Baby Rex had a big time watching from the deck.

And Heidi Sage loved sharing her loot with her baby brudder.

It was another fun-filled day at the W's house.  :-D  Hope your Easter was hoppy!

A Beachin' Good Time

This year for Spring Break we took a little trip down to Destin.  I'm not a beach person.  I'm not even a sun person.  But I am a family person...and we had such a great time.

My mom (Bebe) flew up from Texas, then drove down with us, drove back with us, and flew back home.  What a trooper!  This was our first vacay with 3 kids and I don't think we realized just how much we were going to need my mom!

The night before we left, Mother and I stayed up until 1 or so getting the mini-van packed.  It was like a puzzle trying to get everything in and still have enough seats for 6.  But, of course, we did it.  We were packed to the gills, and sinking to the pavement, but we did it.

Our trip down was fairly uneventful.  Heidi Sage was a bit fussy as she was fighting off a virus.  I had taken her in to the doctor and knew she was sick, but the only symptom she was showing was tiredness. It wasn't until we arrived that she started having explosive diapers, and when I contracted the virus later I realized how much nausea had come with it.  I really felt bad we had made her ride in the car for so long feeling like that.  She slept a majority of the time, but still...

So, once we got to the hotel, we grabbed a few things, all the kids, and headed to our suite.  Mother and Rodney decided to go get all the luggage while I hung out with the kids.  In the 10 minutes they were gone my vacation experience took a turn for the worst.  

I could hear Rex in his chair making a lot of commotion from the South end.  About that time Heidi Sage ran by me and left a trail of stench.  I started looking around for supplies and realized I had no wipes and no phone to call down for wipes.  I got a towel out of the bathroom and laid HS on the floor, grabbed a diaper and a roll of toilet paper, and started taking off her clothes.  Crap was everywhere, literally.  It was by far one of the worst and smelliest diapers ever.  EVER.  Rodney always claims he gets the worst ones, but this one truly was the worst one ever.  It was all over her clothes, all over the towel, and the smell consumed all the oxygen in the room.  I wanted to barf.

Meanwhile, Clinton realized he also had some business to take care of.  He starts yelling from the potty, "Mom!  Mommy!  Mom, I need some help in here."  "Sorry son, I'm up to my elbows in your sister's business right now."

HS ended up needing to be completely stripped, wiped down, and bathed in the sink.  Clinton continued yelling at me the entire time from the pot, making it all the more "fun".  I finally had HS clean and stench free, but had nothing but a diaper to put on her...and that just had to do.

I helped Clinton and got him situated and then went to get Rex...who was just another version of HS.  Only I didn't have a diaper in his size.  So, I rigged up one of HS's on him, threw his clothes in the sink with hers, and then got busy looking for a plastic bag for all of our treasures.

All the bowel movements must have made the kids feel better because they immediately went into hyper mode.  So, Mother and Rodney returned to find two of the three kids without clothes, a stench that hit them like a wall when they walked in, and three kids bouncing off of the walls.  Needless to say, this was our low point and things just got better from there.  Thank goodness.

It took the big kids a while to warm up to the ocean.  The noise of the waves scared them a bit, but it wasn't too long before Clinton was ready to play and then Heidi Sage wanted to hesitantly follow behind.  Rex, as usual, was just happy to be there.

My babies spent a lot of time in these chairs.  I couldn't believe the long naps they would take.  It made for some very peaceful and relaxing days...well, for me and Mother.  Rodney was in charge of Clinton, so he got a completely different experience.  :-D

Clinton was a little more active...to say the least.  He and Rodney also spent a lot of time going back and forth to the pool.

Heidi Sage did play in the sand a bit, but she rarely tried to leave our area.

We also got to celebrate Heidi Sage's birthday while we were there.  This was also my grandmother's first birthday since she passed back in December.  It was nice to be somewhere like the beach.  It kind of kept the sadness at bay as we were able to just enjoy our scenery....and our little birthday girl.

We had some birthday cupcakes in our room, which the kids LOVED.

This is Heidi Sage on her birthday.  She was cracking us up because she didn't like the waves and she would stand at the edge of the water and tell them, "NO!  Stop it!  Stop.  It."  She's a little bossy...just a little.

My man.

Clinton being his wild self.  Exhausting.

Daddy and his little birthday girl.

The little face that melts my heart everyday.  Every.  Day.

My mother, HS, C, and R walking off in the sunset.

Rex enjoying a night out at dinner.

Heidi Sage not liking whole lobsters on the table.  Not at all.

Clinton and his Bebe building (and destroying) sand castles.

The only picture I got of all three kids together.

Playing around.  There was hardly anyone at the beach.  We had lots of room to just spread out and play!

Bebe got lots of good play time with her babes.

Rex got in a lot of relaxing time.  He was SO good.  I mean like best-baby-ever kind of good.

I got to sport a swimsuit just four months after giving birth for the third time.  That was awesome.

Me and my girl, enjoying our coordinating outfits...courtesty of Bebe and Grammy!

And I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I can't wait to go back to the beach again....you know, if my mom will come with us.  :-)

"Tan" and "rested",