Full of Beans

The other night, I fixed us tacos with black beans for dinner.  And of course, the “beans” song came to my mind.  So I sang to the kids, “Beans, beans, the musical fruit!  The more you eat, the more you…”  I left the last word for the girls to fill in, thinking they knew the appropriate rhyming word. 

Instead, Susie’s eyes lit up and she exclaimed, “…get DESSERT!” 

Update

Just a quick update to say we’re all doing well.  Danny slept soundly last night, and although he’s coughing a bit, the croup symptoms are gone and he’s a happy camper.  Becky and Susie are still running low fevers, Susie is coughing a lot, and Becky sounds like a pack-a-day smoker, but their spirits are remarkably high.  When we were putting the girls to bed tonight, Susie asked me to take a picture of her “sleeping.”

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Don’t you wish we could all have such sweet dreams?

First Time For Everything

Well, today marked a first for Danny, but it wasn’t one for the baby book (not that I’m on top of keeping one anyway!).  Today was the first time he got sick.  Both he and Becky woke up this morning with a barky cough.  While Becky’s cough slowly improved over the course of the day, his worsened.  I ended up taking them in to the pediatrician (all four of them, and it actually went much better than I expected to be 4-on-1 at the office), and Danny was prescribed an oral steroid to help him breathe.  His oxygen levels were fine, but the doctor didn’t want to take any chances, given his young age. 

So, even though I can hear him hacking away upstairs, I’m praying he sleeps peacefully tonight.  At least he was all smiles before bedtime!  

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Puzzled

He doesn’t quite grasp the concept of puzzles yet, but he’s getting close!

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See?  “All done!”

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Count on It

When Jim empties out his pockets at night, he deposits his change into boxes by his bed.  He currently has a big stash of pennies, so I told the girls that they could help me count them out.  I gave them each a bunch of paper bags and told them to put ten pennies in each bag.

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After they had each collected ten bags, I helped them write out the numbers 10, 20, 30, etc. on the bags so they could see how the numbers added up to 100.  I explained how these 100 pennies equaled a dollar, and told them that, in exchange for their help counting, I was giving them each a dollar to spend on an item in the Target bargain aisle the next day.  They were very excited.

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I’m not always very good at explaining things, so I’m glad this exercise seemed to work to show them the value of a dollar.  Or at least, the value of getting bribed to do household chores!  

Laughable

Here’s a video of my joyful Danny and his belly laugh.  At the end, you’ll notice that I briefly call Danny by the wrong name.  I must mix up Jimmy and Danny’s names at least ten times a day.  Think they’d let me stick nametags on their foreheads? Smile 

Can’t Get Enough

I was browsing through my phone’s camera app the other day and laughed out loud.  I saw this picture:

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And then I saw this:

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And then I saw this:

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And this:

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And this:

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And at least FIFTY similar shots! 

I can’t get enough of this girl, and I guess she can’t get enough of herself, either!

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Mirror in the Morning

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Danny: “Mom’s so silly!  She’s trying to take a picture of us in the mirror!”

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Danny: “Good thing I’m photogenic enough for the both of us! Smile

Out of Reach

The baby gate.  It doesn’t just keep a baby in…

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…it keeps a destructive toddler out!

Special Outing

Last Saturday, Jim watched the boys so I could take the girls out for our very own “Mommy/Daughter Lunch” at Panera’s Bakery.  The girls were excited about leaving their brothers behind!   

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Before we left, I had told the girls that since this would be a very special time, I would let them have cookies after lunch. Becky thought for a moment, then replied, “If we’re going to have a special time, then we should have a cookie FIRST!”

I didn’t go quite that far, but I did let them each have their own cookie, and that’s significant considering Panera’s cookies are about the size of one’s head. 

See?

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So between the company, and the sugar, we had a very special time indeed.