Black and Blue

OUCH!!!

I've tried to use their magic wand to help Kaitlyn become more graceful but to NO AVAIL!! This girl is just plain clumsy! She trips over her own two feet more than not.

This picture is after she climbed on the top bunk (even though we removed the ladder so she wouldn't) and fell. Actually we don't really know what happened, Grandma was watching her. She is pretty clever at finding a way to get where she wants to go. Poor little girl, she will have bruises all of her life I'm sure! I'm just praying the bones don't get broken and there are no bloody gashes or head injuries!!!

But, she is the sweetest little girl! She is my most obedient child so far!! Even if I ask her sister to do something Kaitlyn is right there to do it instead. She is very quick to obey too. Well, except when her "gingervitis" and "TERRIBLE Twos" set in. Then she can be pretty stubborn (I'm sure she gets it from her Daddy's genes! :-P ).

Oh, and if the phone rings, she is faster to find the phone and quicker to answer it than her mommy. She loves to "hock on the hone," and will insist to do so if it is Grandma Fisk or Aunt Rosie.

What can I say, my girls are GIRLS, and my boy is a BOY!

Dancing Princess Brianna

Brianna is a little princess! She is such a girly girl who loves to dress up in pretty clothes especially princess costumes. When we go to our friend's house she was always dressing up in their dresses. Up until Christmas we were just wearing hats and boas and gloves when we played dress up. Thanks to her Grandma Johnson and Momo she now has her very own princess dresses. She loves to have tea parties. Her Grandma Fisk taught her how to pour when Brianna was only two and enjoys having tea parties with her when they get together.

Brianna also love to dance. She asks me to play music on the computer so she can dance every day. I think she would dance all day long if I let her!

Her Aunt Rosie, who just adores her, has handed down some very sweet ballet leotards, a couple of tutus, along with wrist scarfs. Dressing up and dancing will be even more fun.

Sir Joseph

Joseph is my little warrior, he loves the idea of fighting, I know it is a guy thing. He wants to fight for RIGHT and defend people from the foe. He was very upset when we had the "Bad Lady" incident at the Library because he felt he should have been there to PROTECT his sisters from bad people.
His instructions after finding out was "Next time, Mom, you need to come and get me from school so I can make sure nothing bad happens, OK?"


As always with Joe, he is obsessive! He wants to take his swords with him everywhere. He wants to take them to the park, to the grocery store, to school, on our trip to Oregon to see family over Spring Break. I have even found them in his bed under the covers before he goes to sleep.

His drawings depict men with swords too. His latest assignment at school was to draw a picture of something he sees himself doing in the future and then writing a few sentences to describe the picture. Can you guess what it was? Right, a Warrior. He rescued a princess, and I had to talk him into marrying her. After talking him into marrying her and having a bunch of kids his thoughts just flowed. He would teach all his boys how to fight and then drew about ten boys varying in age all with swords. He would become a leader and protect the people from the enemy. He didn't want to stop writing (which was astonishing to me!) normally he would write three sentences and be done with it.

I am looking forward to meeting Sir Joseph in the future, I hope he still feels the desire to defend and protect people (especially his family) from the enemy. Maybe just not with swords...

Thermometor or Excitment Indicator??

Elizabeth used to do this funny thing with her tongue until late. Whenever she would get excited or happy she would stick it out. When I'd carry her around in the back-pack people would stop to talk to us, I could usually call when her tongue was sticking out. We got the funniest responses and made most people laugh.

Just about every time we'd put her in a swing she would stick out her tongue too. Her daddy said it was to test the air, I think she really liked swinging. The tongue would usually come out and her hands clench and shake in excitement.






She doesn't do it much anymore, I miss it a little. Luckily there is always something new to look forward to while she enhances her communication efforts.

Scary!

Today the girls and I went to the library. Had to use the bathroom (remember I have three (3) little girls). I had quite the conundrum before me. I would usually take all three in the same stall (baby in a backpack or carseat), but this time I was holding the baby and didn't want to place her on the floor. So, I put her on the diaper changing table just outside the handicapped stall...I strapped her in, and asked Brianna, my three year old, to watch the baby while mommy went to the potty real quick. Kaitlyn, two, was already pulling down her pants in another stall. I asked her to wait for momma to help her cuz I was going to be real fast. And I was...real fast, but heard the baby cry, yelled "Oh, Shit," while pulling up my pants as I opened the door (I didn't take time to flush!). There was no baby on the changing table, no baby on the floor, and no three year old either!

As I am calling LOUDLY after Brianna I'm checking all stalls and find my Kaitlyn still waiting for her boost up. I tell her I'll be right back as I open the bathroom door to an empty lobby area but hear my baby crying. I find her on the floor around the corner all scraped up. I scoop her up and continue looking for my daughter all the way outside asking if anyone out there had seen a little girl. No one had. So, I went to get Kaitlyn out of the bathroom and search other places. As I turned the corner to the bathroom I saw Brianna trying to get back into the bathroom. Assuming she had been hiding from me I asked her if she had pulled the baby off the table and put her on the floor and then hid. She replied, "No mommy, the bad lady did."

We finished up Kaitlyn's potty time while I asked Brianna a few questions about this 'bad lady' not sure I really believed her. She said, "she had dark hair like Daddy and Bubba (Joseph)." I asked if she could recognize her if we saw her again, she thought she could.

I know I didn't have all my wits about me because I just wanted to get my babies home and out of dangers way. Once in the car I questioned more, without offering details. Originally she said the bad lady put her in the bathroom, but I had checked all the stalls on my way out and knew she hadn't been put in a stall. It ended up being the Boy's bathroom which coincided with me seeing her trying to get back into the girl's bathroom.

I questioned my own thoughts as I suspected a possible abduction gone bad. Could it be my three year old had actually pulled the baby off the table and was trying to cover up? The more I replay the situation the more unlikely I realize those thoughts were. Brianna can barely walk two steps with her "big" baby sister let alone open the door by herself without difficulty. The time it took for me to open the stall door after hearing the baby cry was not long enough for her to even carry the baby across the bathroom floor, at least I would have caught her trying to open the door. I think someone had taken them, heard me coming, and put the baby down and the three year old in the men's bathroom, either ran out the exit 10 feet away or hid in the men's bathroom until all was clear.

After I got home I did call the library to report the situation and see if they had any serveillance equipment that might have caught the incident. They said they did not have any surveillance, the assistant manager was empathetic to my situation and was glad the children were all safe. ME TOO!! She suggested we fill out a police report which we did, even though there was nothing they could do since there was no suspect and the "witness" was too young to question successfully. The officers said there could be a few scenarios: the three year old did it and created the story, a concerned person seeing two children without obvious adult supervision may have thought they were helping and then decided it was none of their business, or a possible abduction aborted. I still stick with the abduction gone bad theory.

Long story short...I am glad to have my babies home safe and sound. I will never do that again! And I think public places like the library should have surveillance equipment covering all exits (this would have covered the bathroom door as there was an exit not 10 ft away from where I found the baby on the ground). I wish I knew for sure what happened, but I'm gut-wrenched when I think of what might have been. Be ever vigilant, and hug your little ones close!!

Announcing the new Porter addition

Our upcoming new addition

We just found out that we will be having another girl! I'm excited!! Little girls are fun to dress up and seem to potty train faster. :-)

Although we haven't thought of her name yet we do love her tons.