three 4 year olds...

happy, happy birthday to my beautiful, non- toddler girls. we have come so far in 4 years and at times i could not even imagine arriving at this point. three very different personalities, voices and looks all from the same, over sized belly.

emma rose (baby a) was the first to arrive at 3:17 pm. she weighed in at 5 lb. 4 oz. she had the least amount of hair of the 3 (emma, emma hair- dilemma). the whole birth ordeal made her a little sad and a little angry.

claire elisabeth (baby b) was the second one out. she followed behind emma by only 1 minute. as the sister squished between her 2 sisters, she was the smallest. she weighed in at 4 lb. 12 oz. and had a mop of dark black hair. her head was so tiny, it looked like a tennis ball.

lauren elise liked the room she gained when her sisters vacated the uterus, so she went hiding under my ribs. the dr. had to climb on the operating table to pull that little girl out. (which involved a frightening amount of reaming on my stomach and him commenting that i will definitely be sore now.) she finally came out at 3:21 pm. she had been sitting on top of the others and she weighed the most. lauren topped the scales at 5 lb. 9 oz. she had these enormous eyes...my sister called her a yard gnome.

since birth, claire has always been the smallest/shortest and lauren the biggest/tallest and emma right in the middle. we have had some long days and some long nights, but when i recall how i was feeling 4 years ago.....terrified about them being okay, overwhelmed about going from 1 child to 4, exhausted from a very hard pregnancy.....we are certainly blessed.

i hope the next 4 years don't go as fast as these last 4 have. i hope they continue to develop their unique personalities. i hope my stretch marks will magically disappear. i hope we can survive 4 teenage girls someday.....

here are some pics of our journey so far....

a happy mother's day.....

yesterday was a lovely day involving breakfast in bed and a birthday party for the girls in the evening. the girls had done fairly well delivering their gift of a day of no whining or crying or fighting (the best gift ever, really!). we were racing downstairs to surprise daddy by being all ready for bed when he got home...while i was helping lauren on the potty i was recapping the day and thinking how lucky i am and how this smooth day was a good indication of our days to come with the girls almost turning 4....i hear screaming. i run up the stairs. i hear gagging. i hear sobbing. i round the corner and see vomit (at least a half a dozen piles of it) all over the hallway. and running down the walls. i ask anna what happened and she said she was going potty and her pee smelled, so she threw up. seriously, who throws up over the smell of their own pee? and we should have the girl drink more water apparently.) i ask why she didnt throw up in the toilet instead of walking out into the hallway to do it. "MOM, the PEE was in there!!" oh. right. i now realize that claire is sobbing somewhere in the house. i head to the vomit hallway and notice that the piles have footprints in them. i find claire in a ball on the floor of the office. next to her....you guessed it!!! vomit. claire walked down the hall and through the throw-up and when she discovered what her bare feet had ventured into...you bet!! she ran right into the office to puke.

blah, blah get the kids cleaned up and into jammies (or a princess dress with high heels for emma) and into bed. brian arrives home and all appears serene. he comes and sits down by me and i recap the last 15 minutes. he chuckles and says "happy mother's day.". i am pretty sure he was not sad to have missed it!!

will power.

i do not even like plain m&m's.

but they were in my house. now they are in my stomach.

i ate the whole jar of them.




my self control is amazing.

you can do it!

check out this website while i try to think of something to post about.


freerice.org