My Kids

What can one say about being a mother of 3 under 3? There are a few moments each day that I think I rock at being a mother of 3. Then there is the rest of the day. The first 2 hours that Pepper and Tabor are awake are wonderful. That is when I do preschool lessons, house cleaning or workout videos. They cooperate during this time. Then the tables turn. I am trying to watch for what makes them turn but so far I am clueless. Pepper starts crying over spilled milk and while I tend to her Tabor runs off to squirt all the shampoo out of the bottle. At least that is what happened this morning. And it continues... in a tantrum Pepper throws the keyboard and it breaks, Tabor is in the pantry de-shelving, Kitt needs fed. So I feed Kitt while Pepper beats on Tabor. Then we all leave a messy house to go to the park. Mostly for sanity reasons. It starts to rain so we don't stay long. That was okay though because everyone was happier when we returned. Pepper pretended Tabor was a dog and had him play fetch, roll over and drink out of a bowl. Then we had PB&J's for lunch and the good moods fell apart again. Luckily after returning Tabor to his room numerous times and getting Pepper a drink and several other requests they are both down for a nap... first naps for them in a week! I just fed Kitt again and she is now sleeping as well. I have time to BLOG! Well I am off to go clean the house but it was nice to relieve myself of all the mumbo jumbo running through my head.

pictures for autumn

Here are a few pictures of the "new house". We are still working on a few un-posted rooms. Pepper & Kitts room did look better before the gate was torn off of the bulletin board and the ivy ripped from the headboard. Oh well, it looked good for a good 3 days before it was wrecked :)

It doesn't snow that often in western Washington, so it was fun to have the kids go out with Robert and play in the snow. I think Robert had more fun building the snowman than the kids because the kids got bored of it and started doing other things. However, they really liked putting the finishing snowman features and now the kids think that we have frosty the snowman in our backyard.

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Adjusting

Last week we had 3 major changes...

#1 had a new addition to our family
#2 moved to Monroe
#3 no longer live with grandpa and grandma

We moved into our new home on Monday. Robert has this week off work to ease us into these changes. Even with two parents around Monday - Wednesday the kids (mostly Tabor) were full of whines and tantrums. Today gave me hope. We went on a walk to the park this morning and then played in the backyard. Lunch. Nap. Played with blocks. Colored pictures. Golfed. Made dinner. Swept (Tabors favorite activity). Pleasant moods all around. I sensed a cry coming so rather then hear it we turned on Super Why. Almost story time & bed. Please... tomorrow be this good!

P.S. Kitt has been a good baby (so far) and Pepper absolutely adores her. Tabor likes her as well and both like to lay down by her and sings songs. (note: the bottom picture)

New Baby

There is no better way to bring in the New Year than with a sweet new baby in the home. Though I must admit we will not be staying up until midnight to celebrate, even though there is a good chance we will be awake. Kitt Lori Salmon graced us with her precence yesterday (Dec. 30th, 2011) arriving at 2:01 pm at 8 lbs 7 oz and 21 inches. Mother and baby are doing great! Pepper and Tabor came to see the new additional yesterday and both wanted to hold Kitt the whole time. I guess we will need to work on our sharing.

Her Own Style

For the most part Pepper has always worn hand me downs. We have gotten socks here or a white undershirt there but nothing we really had to "pick out". We were running low on long sleeve shirts so we went shopping. I let Pepper pick out a couple. I couldn't convince her to get the stripes or polka-dots... she insisted the one with the Guinea pig was her favorite. The shirt says "Be Yourself" and I do after all want her to be herself. She is a spunky one.

P.S. In the middle picture she is holding a lock. That is her watch. It tells her whether it is time for lunch, going outside or taking a shower.

thanksgiving + family = sick

We went down to Utah for Thanksgiving. And for the third year in a row sickness took over. Beforehand I planned a schedule for each day... and we definatly didn't feel up to doing everything on it. If we go again next year I am just going to plan a list of movies to watch and card games to play. But nobody was throw up sick (just fever, a serious cough, runny nose and ear infection). We did feed the ducks, go to "Jump On It", watch Robert play in a turkey bowl, swam at the legacy center, ate at Texas Roadhouse, hosted a Rook Tournament & went to culture night at the Kinghorns. Somehow the men didn't catch anythings so they went fly fishing and shooting as well. I am glad we went, it was fun although the kids whined a lot more then usual. Poor Korver couldn't touch Pepper without her crying (the top picture was a rarity for this trip)... I just think her body was aching and she was overly sensitive. She was still very sad to say goodbye.

grandpa is going to miss his helpers

No matter the weather my kids LOVE to be outside. They cry at the window whenever Grandpa tries to mow the lawn, take out the garbage, winterize the house or do anything else outside. So then I am a push-over and put on their jackets & boots and send them out. I am sure Grandpa loves the company :) But after following Grandpa & Grandma around constantly for almost a year we will finally be moving out of their house. The bank accepted an offer we made on a house in Monroe and if the inspection goes well, we get to move in mid-December. We will be about a half hour away. I think it will be perfect... we will get to see both the Salmon & Paxman grandparents on a somewhat regular basis, but not be in their constant hair.

from my window

Seattle is beautiful year round due to the blanket of trees EVERYWHERE. But most of the trees here are green year round. Green is good... but I have to admit my favorite tree has to be the red, yellow and orange one in our front yard. It really spices things up and makes it feel like autumn.

And I took a random picture of Pep because I like her :)

building blocks

Tabor is obsessed with these lego blocks. He spent hours building towers. Grandpa helped him build a "big big big big big big big tower" (he couldn't seem to fit enough bigs infront of the word tower whenever he pointed at it) and was so proud of it.