March - Quin's 5th Birthday Interview

Last year I started the tradition of interviewing Quin on her birthday.  (I hope to begin interviews with the triplets next year on their 4th birthday also.)  Although Quin's birthday was over 3 months ago {OUCH!}I did do this interview within days of her birthday, promise!  I asked the same questions as last year, and added a few new ones.

QUIN's FaVoRiTeS:
Food:  apples, chocolate, ice cream, strawberries, kiwis (she now also likes pizza)
Vegetable: apples, bananas, pears (um, yeah, we need to work on the concept of a vegetable)
Drink: chocolate milk
Restaurant: Red Robin
Place to go: Izzy's house, out to eat
Color: pink
Toy: Strawberry Shortcake dolls
TV Show: Strawberry Shortcake
Thing to do: hide-and-go-seek, tag
Type of weather: warm and sunny
Place to play: bedroom
Game: hide-and-go-seek
Book: Bible

If you could change your name, what would you choose? Katie (I have no idea why...)
What is something Mommy says to you? "I love you Q"
What do you want to be when you grow up? a teacher
Who is your best friend? "Izzy, of course!"

Here are some new questions...
What is your favorite outfit?  any pink dress
What is your favorite snack?  strawberries
What is your favorite animal?  puppy
What do you like to take to bed with you at night?  Bunny and her pillow pet
What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast?  oatmeal
What makes you happy?  "when my brother and sisters are nice to me"
What makes you sad?  "what my brother or sisters hit me"
What do you like to learn about?  animals
What do you like about school?  Mrs. Wiersema (her teacher)
What was your favorite birthday present?  "My little Strawberry Shortcake dolls from Gigi"

March - HAPPY BIRTHDAY Mike!

One neat thing that Quin has in common with Jason's brother, Mike, is their birthday!

This year Mike celebrated his 40th birthday - congrats Mike!  We were able to go over to have dinner and cake with Jason's side of the family.  

Jason is the youngest of three boys.  Jeff is on left, and Mike is in the middle.  

Three boys, less then four years apart...  All I can say is they were Trouble when they were younger ;)  

 It was so sweet of Mike and Christy to get Quin her own birthday cupcake!  She couldn't keep her fingers out of the frosting :)  Thank you for helping make her birthday special too!

RIP Jinx

***  I'm back...  Ahhhh, summer vacation, how I love thee ;)  Notice a trend???  The last of my clumped posts happened over spring break, and then I totally disappeared.  Yeah, sorry about that.  Now that summer is here, you may be hit with many emails/post updates until I am all caught up now!  Sorry!***

For those of you who knew us prior to having children, you know that our dogs WERE our children.  We were so sad when we had to put Miya down, and didn't think that it would be long until Jinx would have to be put down also.  Well, how dare I forget that he was a fighter!  When we first got Jinx, he had a broken hip and only walked with three legs.  He wasn't a year yet, so we went ahead with hip surgery and rehab.  He recovered very well, and unless you knew his history, you couldn't even tell that his hip was broken at one time.

Jinx was a huge pain in my rear, for well... most of his life!  He was a crazy dog, with a bark much larger than his bite!  He was mischievous and kept us on our toes, but we loved him!  I truly think that his brain never believed that he was older than a year or so.  He was attempting to chase squirrels and eat food from the counters up until a few days before he died.  At the end, his heart and lungs pretty much just gave out on him.  He lived a long and happy 12 and a half years, and is dearly missed by all six of us.  

It is truly my hope that he is up in doggy heaven running after other dogs, pain free!

I know I posted both of these under Miya's RIP post, but they are two of my favorite pictures!  

I have always loved that it looks like Jinx is smiling in this picture!  

February - Dress Up Day

Sorry to everyone who I am friends with on Facebook.  The following pics are repeats, but I couldn't resist documenting them on our blog :)

In late February, Quin had 'Dress Up As What You Want to be When You Grow Up' day at school.  How sweet, she decided she wanted to be a teacher when she grows up.  She had a very definite outfit in mind when we were putting together her outfit.  She thought she needed khakis, a cardigan, a necklace and a bag.  

When filling her bag she NEEDED pencils, a white board with markers, a pointer, a ruler and lamination (because ALL teachers have that, you know!).  HA!

 I was hesitant to let her decorate her own side of the bag, but I am so glad that I gave in.  I am in love with her picture!  She drew the two of us getting into a van to go and teach TOGETHER!

 I was so excited to come home and hear all about her morning at school.  When I asked her how her day went, she gave me a sympathetic look.. and told me that it went "good", and then paused just staring at me.  After a few moments she told me "I am sorry mom.  I think I want to be a police officer instead".  What a hoot!  I told her that she has many years to decide what she really wants to be, and all mommy wants for her is to be happy!!!

February - Valentines

After I posted last year about Quin's Heart Crayon Valentine's I had a ton of people ask how we were going to top it this year!  We have been so busy lately that my creativity has just been drained.  There were SO many cute ideas on line this year - so amazing!  I decided to use other people's ideas and change them up slightly :)

Quin passed out these adorable mint valentines to her classmates.  I found the idea here.  

 I have seen several different versions of this one floating around Pinterest.  I have seen them used for everything from back to school, to Christmas to Valentines.  I used Rolos for the inside of one pencil and Mentos for the other.  

 Quin and I happened to find these adorable gummy butterflies at our local candy store and she wanted to make a special valentine for her friend Izzy!  We used a freebie bag topper from here, and then added a butterfly cut out.  

 I made these for my own students - we are the Sizemore Superstars :)  They were a hit!  I found the idea here.

A huge thank you to all of the talented and creative people who share their ideas all of the time!!!

I have to say that I had some excitement when I glanced at my stats in early February.  I had over 800 hits on Quin's Heart Crayons post - just in the first two weeks of February.  It was also 'pinned' 22 times - hee, hee!  I know those are small numbers compared to the crazy talented craft bloggers, but it was fun to see for a few weeks :)

January - Birthday Hats

 Keeping with tradition, below are current birthday hat pics!  They were taken a few weeks after the triplet's birthday, but still are great benchmarks for how they look now! Boy how they look more like 'kids' and less like 'toddlers'.  If you go here, you can see my post from last year that had each kiddos newborn, 1 year and 2 year old picture.  Below I added last year's picture along with their new, 3 year old, picture.

Ellery

Ellery continues to be the most serious of the triplet's.  She takes everything in, and is full of questions!  She is stubborn and strong willed, and will probably give me a run for my money in about ten years.  She loves to color, cut and create with playdough.  She could sit and watch TV all day long.  She isn't a big eater, but loves anything sweet.  She loves Quin, and mimics everything Quin does.  At times it feels like we have two sets of two because Ellery and Quin play very well together!  (All four do play well together too)

Ellery was discontinued from speech right before her 3rd birthday.

Gianna

Gianna is our 'mini-momma'.  She is sweet and loving, but does have a short fuse.  G is her own little person, and doesn't mind hanging out by herself.  She can surround herself with all of the babies and play.  She is very protective of 'her' things, and tends to hoard things that she is afraid someone might take from her.  If someone is hurt, she is usually the first to give out hugs.  She is shy and takes awhile to warm up, but watch out once she is comfortable.  Gianna (along with Easton) goes to speech therapy once a week.  

Easton

And then there is Easton!  Our 'lil stinker ;)  Easton is the epitome of BOY.  He is non-stop, and he is loud.  He has a killer smile, and is a huger lover.  He loves cars, tractors and still loves his vacuum.  I can't bribe him to watch TV for a half hour.  He is a little peanut - weighing/measuring in at 4% on the growth chart - his personality makes up for it though.  He is rough and tumble, and loves to torment his sisters - but will not go to bed until he gives all three of them a kiss and hug goodnight.  He and Gianna are buds, and are often playing near each other.  

I am so happy to say that all three are POTTY TRAINED - Woo Hoo!  I was shooting for them to be potty trained by three years old.  Gianna and Easton were close in the fall, but Ellery was stubborn and held out as long as she could.  We went away for a few days over spring break and put them in pull ups for the sake of my sanity, but they out and out refused to go in the pull ups.  Good news for them, not so good for us as we quickly search for clean public restrooms!

January - Junk Day

Right after the babies were born, I 'created' a new family tradition... Junk Day.  It just so happens to coincide with Super Bowl Sunday - hee, hee!  I came up with Junk Day because the triplets were in the NICU and I knew our family of six wouldn't be going to any Super Bowl parties for years to come (I sure wish they would have the game early in the day, but that is besides the point!).   I really could care less about the game, and although the commercials are fun to watch, they are usually released early.  What I knew I would miss the most was the food.  I LOVE appetizers!  I am not a big 'meal' person, but I could graze all day long on, well, junk!  

Keeping our Junk Day tradition alive, we invited my brother, my parents and my sister and her family over to gorge upon junk food!  We could have called it 'Smother Isadora Day' too ;)  Poor girl!  She is one loved baby!

 A few shots of our goodies

 And, yes... the day ended with more smothering of Baby Isa!

I couldn't tell ya who played, or what the best commercial was... but I can tell you what we ate that day!  And I was able to share the day with my family!  I am calling it a win for me ;)