Our 3-year-olds

It was birthday week here at our house recently. Half of our family now have birthdays in the same week! That's going to be a lot of cake. I got Tanner and Natalie their own individual birthday cakes because I want them to feel like individuals and not a set, blah, blah, blah. Too much cake! Next year I'm doing cupcakes or smaller cakes. I didn't know they were going to be so big.
Anyways, they loved their Dora and Lightening McQueen birthday cakes and, despite the fact that we were just barely home from the hospital with Camryn, they had a great birthday. We just had my parents and my sister's family over for pizza, cake, and ice cream. So it was nice and simple. My mom picked up the cakes and balloons on the way over. I think if we'd given Tanner and Natalie nothing but balloons they would have been happy. They got plenty of other things too though.
I can't believe they are 3 already. That went so fast. More and more lately I am so grateful to have had twins. They play so well together most of the time. It's nice when I am busy with the new baby that they can keep each other entertained. Twins are hard as babies but there are definitely benefits when they get older.

Natalie has got such a fun personality. She's so spunky and determined that, even though she's been the smallest in the family (until recently), she will be heard. She's also very strong willed and only wants to do something if she thinks it's a good idea. I think that's why she was such a late walker at 20 months. She just didn't care for it and all the praise and encouragement she got from us didn't even matter. This is also proving true in potty training. But I know once she puts her mind to it she'll do great. Natalie also loves to get out of the house. It doesn't really matter to her where we go. She asked me today if we could go to Home Depot. I usually can't run an errand without taking her with me or causing a fit.

Tanner is such a sweetheart. He doesn't demand attention but he absolutely loves to be praised. If anyone is hurt or crying he is usually the first to show concern. He's surrounded by girls all day so he's learned that it's fun to get dressed up and pink is a pretty color. He's quite the fashion conosur as you can see by the outfit he wore on his birthday. Baseball hat, sunglasses, polo, plaid shorts, and winter boots. I've tried to convince him it's time to stash the winter boots but he won't listen. He's got plenty of boy in him too though. He loves to play with his cousin, Noah, and he always comes home plenty sweaty and dirty. Anyone who has ever tried to pick Tanner up knows he is a very strong and solid little boy.
This is one of my favorite ages. There are the tantrums and the potty training, but it's so much fun to see how much they learn at this age and watch them figure out how to interact with other kids. We are so grateful to have these two cuties in our family!

Introducing Camryn Elena!

Well she's finally here! I have to say that pregnancy went fast! I have fairly easy pregnancies so maybe that's why. So we had a repeat c-section scheduled for Thursday the 13th, but Monday night I started getting some regular contractions. They would be regular for a while and then slow down and they weren't really strong so I didn't think I was really in labor. They tapered off around midnight enough that I could sleep and kicked back in around 1:30 am. After about an hour of harder contractions I decided I must really be in labor. We had no plan for this. My parents were still on vacation in Italy and wouldn't be home until Wednesday night. I thought I would hold out until Thursday for the c-section, so we didn't really know who to call if I went into labor in the middle of the night. I was so worried that as soon as I called someone my contractions would stop. I decided to try calling my friend Shayla, and luckily she was awake doing laundry at 3 am! Silly Shayla. So she came over and stayed at our house with the kids until morning when Josh's sister Andrea came over. I can't thank those two enough for being willing to help us out that morning!
So we got to the hospital at about 3:30 and I was already dilated to a 5. I had kind of toyed with the idea of doing a vbac if I went into labor on my own. I was really nervous about it though since Sydney's delivery was so traumatic. (I tore a lot and my epidural ran out at the end so I felt EVERYTHING.) But my nurse reassured me that this time would be better, I was already halfway there, and they were always ready to do an emergency c-section. I felt good about trying for a vbac. I got my epidural pretty soon after and was able to get a little more sleep. At about 7:00 I was dilated to a 10 and they got me ready to push. I pushed for 4 contractions, maybe 15 minutes at the most, and out she came! It was SO much easier this time around. I was totally surprised when they plopped this messy little human baby on my stomach. It's so amazing that she grew inside me and came out so perfect. One of the biggest benefits of doing to vbac was that I got to hold her right after. The c-section delivery with the twins was nice too, but I did miss getting to hold my babies. It took us a day or so, but we finally settled on the name Camryn Elena Moore. She was born on May 11th at 7:36 am. She weighed 7 lbs. 8 oz. and was 22 inches long. Here are some more pictures.

The girls are very excited to have another sister. Tanner will occasionally pay some attention to her. He does a good job informing us that "baby's sad" whenever she cries.

Sydney loves to read to Camryn. This is a win, win, win situation. Sydney gets her reading practice, Camryn gets read to, and I get a shower.

These next pictures are from the hospital photographer. Gone are the days of those blotchy, unprofessional photos they used to take in hospitals! They do much more awesome ones now and it's fun to get a beautiful picture of your baby when they're just one day old.

We are all thrilled to have Camryn in our family now. Ever since the twins were born I've always felt like someone was missing. She's been such a joy and I am so grateful to be a mother to four beautiful children now.

Happy Mother's Day to me!

Sydney noticed yesterday that we still had our "Happy Easter" sign hanging on our front door. It's one of those things that's been there so long I don't see it anymore. She took it down today and replaced it with her hand-made sign for the next upcoming holiday - Mother's Day. If you can't read this, it says "this Sunday is Mother's day if you do not nowe (know) what you want to give your Mother then give her a dunch (bunch) of roses for Mother's Day." Excellent advice.

In all fairness

Well since Josh posted my most flattering pictures yesterday, I thought it was only fair to post the picture I got of him last night.

This is the look Josh gives me when one of the kids (or myself) are being difficult. It's the "what the heck am I supposed to do with this child" face. Yes, sometimes I act like a child too.

So now you can see why we have tons of pictures of the kids and very few pictures of ourselves! We went to Wheeler Farm last night. It was a little chilly and there were a lot of animals missing. I don't know where they went. But we still had fun and we always get some cute pictures there. I've been finally learning how to use Photoshop Elements 8. Someday I would like to get the full version or Lightroom but I've found that Elements has quite a lot to offer and I have plenty to learn for now. So I've been playing around with editing pictures today. Here are a few we got last night.

Oh Lisa...

So my favorite thing lately has been noticing the many faces of Lisa. Here are just a few (with thoughts below):

Seriously honey...

Oh my goodness (this is catching her rolling her eyes at me)

Ok...I do remember why I married you

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