I started thinking that a house with four kids just wouldn't be complete without a puppy.  Why not?!  We don't get enough sleep or have enough quality down time with quiet relaxation sitting on the back porch drinking sweet tea for that matter.  Let's get a puppy.  I approached my husband with this revelation and he gave me a blank stare.  I think his exact words were, "We need a puppy like another hole in the head."  Little did he know that I already found a place where they were being sold.  I convinced him to at least go take a look today and see how the kids were with the puppies and vice versa.  It was a very impressive place.  The kids went crazy over the sweet little dogs...maybe a little too crazy.  Our three year old daughter kept wanting to pick the puppies up and make them her very own "babies."  These poor little guys were being held in a full nelson as she wanted to love and rock them.  As my husband tried to save their lives while prying them from her death grip, he looked at me with that, "I told you we're not ready for this," look.
  Yes, I do think we need a puppy to give our home a little more fun and excitement some day...but for now, maybe we'll stick with some sweet tea and a goldfish. 

Today is St. Patrick's Day so we grabbed each of our kids in a head lock and planted a big kiss on them.  Their reactions ranged from everything to giggles from our three year old baby girl to a wiggling worm of our eight year old son.  I started thinking about what age our kids began to change from "cuddly and kissy" to independent.
  When I was in my 20's, I dated a guy that was Greek.  He came from a very Greek family.  When I say Greek, I mean that they were so Greek, his Grandma (Ya Ya)  didn't even want him to date me because I wasn't a "Greek girl."  I was amazed at how affectionate his whole family was.  They all hugged and kissed each other no matter what their age or gender happened to be.  I liked how "full of Love" they all seemed and I hoped to one day raise my family with the same show of affection.
   I remembered this today while our kids wriggled and squirmed as my husband and I celebrated the "Luck of the Irish" with them.  No matter what day of the year it is, there will always be hugs and kisses for each of them...with or without the headlocks. :)

When I was little, we took a trip to Texas to visit my godparents. They lived in Dallas and had two boys around my age.  I'll never forget a cute saying my godmother had in a bathroom that read something like, "If you sprinkle when you tinkle, Please be neat and wipe the seat."  I didn't really understand that being a girl, but am now fully educated having a house full of boys.  There's nothing like waking up early in the morning and sitting on a soaking wet seat after all three boys beat you to the bathroom while they were half asleep.  Sometimes I wonder if they even open their eyes to look at what they're doing.  It doesn't get any better throughout the day.  I've heard them have anything from  "Star Wars Light Saber Battles" to contests on who can go the "longest," "fastest"... you get the idea.  It's the times when they hit the walls, the floor...ANYTHING but the toilet that gets me.  Our two older boys even convinced our youngest son to go over the balcony of our staircase once to make a "waterfall."  The saying, "Boys will be boys" has come to mind almost every single day in this house.  I like the saying from my godmother's bathroom better though.  One day the floor tiles will be clean and the seat will be dry.  Knowing these boys though, somewhere, out there, in a Galaxy far, far away..."The Force" will still be used for good, but bathroom cleaner will be there to take care of the rest. 

Try to think of the most wonderful way to spend your little girl's third birthday.  Now try to guess how we spent ours.  After a fun night of gifts and cake, our daughter took one of her new toys upstairs as we stayed down and cleaned after the party.  She had a mermaid doll that was beautiful with a pink and purple tail...what could possibly go wrong?  As we reminisced with our hands full of dishes, little did we know that she was creating a place for her mermaid to swim.  Somehow she thought that if she put toilet paper in the bathroom sink upstairs to "keep the water in" she could make an ocean for her new friend.  The "ocean" then spilled over the sink, and (why not) covered the whole bathroom floor.  By the time my husband and I had the downstairs clean and headed up for the night, we were greeted to the sounds of running water and happiness.  I think my husband's exact words were, "SERIOULSY?!  Are you KIDDING ME?!  Can we go ONE DAY?!"  Yes, that's how we spent the evening of our baby girl's third birthday...buckets, towels and sopping wet clothes...and one happy little three year old girl holding her new best friend. 

My husband's boss had tickets to a great show tonight and invited us to go.  It's a rare thing to have a "date night" without the kids so it was a nice change of pace.  People constantly tell us how important it is to spend "quality time alone."  It always seems to take an act of God to make this happen though.  It's hard to have anyone watch four young children willingly, but tonight my parents took the challenge.  (Thank you Mom and Dad!)  What's strange is that it's often bittersweet when we're out.  There's a mixture of wanting to break into song and dance, while at the same time finding ourselves talking only about the kids and wondering how they're doing.  This usually happens when we're at a restaurant too.  It feels odd not to order chicken nuggets and french fries or have at least two kid's drinks spill everywhere. On the other hand, as much as we miss them sitting/crawling under the table, we can't help but love enjoying a quiet dinner.  One time while sitting at a nice place, we put a great big steak knife right in the middle of the table and looked at it just because we could.  The waiter thought we had lost our minds.  There were no little hands trying to grab it, no tiny fingers to worry about...just the two of us.
  Even though we know before too long, the kids will want to go on dates of their very own, it's good for us to get out every once in a while and spend time together.  There's something to be said about having fun without the kids to make the time with them even better.   

The boys are signed up for baseball this Spring and they're ready to go.  Our two older boys will play "Coach Pitch" and our younger son will be on the mighty "T - Ball" team.  For the past couple of weeks, they have been outside practicing their hitting, throwing and catching with a gleam in their eye.  Today I talked with one of their coaches from last Spring and she told me how her son accidentally got hit with a baseball right in the face.  It knocked his teeth in with blood everywhere.  This sent an unwanted visual through my mind that has stayed with me all day.  It was just a few weeks ago that our son happened to crack his forehead on the back of a chair.  If you look closely at the picture to the right you can see the scar a little above his right eyebrow.  When he hit the chair it wasn't that traumatic to tell you the truth.  Pressure was applied, kisses were given and all was well.  The real drama began the minute we hit the doctor's office.  When he figured out what was about to happen it was like watching a cat trying to climb the walls.  If you would have told me how many grown adults it would have taken to hold one small child still, I never would have believed it.  His doctor did an absolutely outstanding job at keeping a steady hand while stitching the battle wound on a moving target.  It's something that I hope we never have to experience again though.  As the boys get their team assignments in the next few days and gear up to play ball,  I know I'll need to let them go and have fun.  I'll hope and pray that the season will go without injury to any of the players - even though that's such a "Mom" thing to say.  When I do get too concerned about their safety during a game, I can always count on our eight year old son to remind me not to worry because as always..."Chicks dig scars."      

  Even though Easter is a few weeks away, it creates a little bit of panic in us that people in our church can understand.  When our first son was born, we bought every single adorable baby outfit we could find, holiday or not.  When our second son was born, if we saw a REALLY cute outfit, we would get it, especially for a big occasion.  By the time our third son came around, well...you get the idea.  What this meant was that our third little boy was wearing his brother's, BROTHER"S clothes for the most part.  This is quite typical and no big deal until there's a baby sister born and it's time for her to be Baptized.  The boys grew so quickly that their dress clothes hardly had time to get a wrinkle.  This being said, we didn't really think about shopping for new clothes for the big day.  When the time came for her baptism, we got her gown all ready, the boys were dressed and ready and we headed to the church.  I noticed that our youngest son's pants, ie. our oldest son's pants passed down two times, seemed to be really big on him.  I decided this wouldn't be a problem since my husband would hold him in front of the church during the baptism while I or the minister held our baby. The time came for us to go to the front and everything went according to plan.  In our church, after a baby is baptized, the baby is then walked up and back down the center aisle so the congregation can see.  When this time came, the three boys were invited to walk as well.  My husband and I stayed at the front of the church as proud parents beaming.  As the boys walked towards the back of the church following their baby sister, sure enough, our son's pants started to fall.  I grabbed my husband's arm and whispered, "Oh no.  No, no, no this is not happening."  As they kept walking, his pants dropped little by little with each step.  Giggles started to sneak from the congregation.  When they turned to come back, his pants had dropped to below his diaper.  As they kept walking, his little pants were down to his knees and eventually his ankles.  He scooted his tiny feet back to us as he unwillingly "mooned" the entire church.  Right there in front of God and everyone, our two year old mooned hundreds of people.  My husband scooped him up while hiking his pants back up as quickly as he could and a roar of laughter filled the walls.  To this day, people smile as they walk by saying, "Oh that's that little boy that dropped his pants!"
  Yes, as we begin to look for Easter outfits, the first thing we'll shop for this year is a belt. 

It seems like every boy wants to be a superhero at one point or another.  Our son Preston has taken this phase to a whole new level.  He's often seen around our neighborhood as "Spiderman," and all but lives in his suit.  There was a point that we had to take his costume off of him at night while he slept, just so we could throw it in the laundry to be washed and ready for his crime fighting adventures of the next day.  I'll never forget the time I was outside talking with our neighbor.  "Spiderman" and his brothers were playing in the house.  For whatever reason, our two older boys thought that Preston needed to have a goatee to "finish his look."  They used a black magic marker to color in a perfect mustache and beard around his little four year old face.  When he ran out to us with his red and blue speed and flashed a smile showing off his new look I all but fell over.  My neighbor managed to grab her camera and snap a picture of him as I threw him over my shoulder to run and wash his face.  It's one thing to smile at people when they stare at you with "Spiderman" by your side while you get groceries or walk through a store...now we had to try and explain how why, in the middle of August, we had a kid in costume sporting a full goatee!
     I know there will come a time when we'll miss our days of adventure.  There is something about this stage that will stay with us.   We know that no matter how tall he grows, or how old he will be...he will always be our little Superhero. 

Our daughter's third birthday is coming up next week.  I've been trying to figure out what little outfit to put her in and how to fix her hair for the big day.  We've been letting her hair grow for the past few months. Not so it's long and pretty, no.  We're growing it out because right before Christmas, she found a pair of scissors and went to town.  My parents' church asked that our kids be in their Christmas Eve Nativity scene.  It turned out to be their only year on record to have a punk rock baby angel.  Being in the south, it seems like every sweet girl has a ribbon in her long hair while being raised with the motto, "The bigger the bow, the closer to God."  This all took a turn one night as I was cutting our four year old son's hair in the bathroom.  Our daughter had such excitement in her eyes as her brother's hair fell to the floor.  She pulled on her little curls and said, "My hair Mommy!  Do Mine!"  Now what I SHOULD have done was said, "Oh yes Baby Girl!  Let's cut your hair too!" and pretended to snip away.  Instead, trying to get the kids in their PJ's and into bed, I hastily said, "No, no Lauren...we don't want to cut your hair right now," as I put the scissors away.  Little did I know that her two year old baby self was watching exactly where I hid the scissors and comb.  The next afternoon as I made macaroni and cheese for the kids, I noticed that the three boys were in the kitchen, but Lauren was nowhere to be found.  I called for her to come and eat but heard this tiny voice say, "One minute!"  Oooooh no.  With a pot of boiling water and dancing macaroni, I shot a look at Ethan, our six year old speed demon and said, "Run upstairs and see what your sister is doing, fast!"  As I took the pot off the stove, he yelled down, "MOMMY!  SHE'S CUTTING HER HAIR!!!"  The other two boys and I all but tripped over each other as we bolted up the staircase.  When we got to the bathroom and found her, she had the biggest smile on her face with little piles of hair covering the tile floor.  She looked up and said, "Look Mommy!  I did it!  It so Pitty!" - and there she was.  Our little 80's punk rocker.  I stood there not knowing whether to laugh or cry.  She was SO proud of herself.  I know it's only hair and it's actually grown out quite a bit by now.  She still tells us that it's "pitty."  At least one thing's for sure...she'll be the "pittiest" three year old in town.