big brother

How to carve pumpkins…

~ hunt2005 ~ 1 Comment

… when you have four extra sets of hands.

Step 1) Strip all small children naked. Cut the top of the pumpkins off to ensure full messiness can be achieved.

Step 2) Let the oldest of the children remove the insides of the pumpkin. Have parent #2 finish entirely scooping the second pumpkin out in the time that the oldest child manages to get one seed and a few strings of pumpkin.

Step 3) Let other small children play in the pumpkin gunk. Older son wants nothing to do with the ickiness of it, so let the other three make up for his lack of excitement.

Step 4) Let younger brother show older brother how it’s done.

Step 5) Quickly carve the shapes on the pumpkins and let older son help every few minutes to include him, yet ensure that pumpkins are done before it is too dark to see anymore.

And there you have it. Pumpkin carving with 4 under 5.

Why I love our Pre-K

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Last year we missed out on field trips. The school just didn’t do them. Their version of a field trip was walking around the neighborhood. While yes, that is fun, I missed a good old field trip.

This year? They get to take trips almost once a month. And on top of that? The kids can ride in a school bus if they so choose!

The kids were given the job of picking apples. The trees were low enough to the ground that even the shortest of the kids could do so without issue, and Aiden certainly had no trouble.

The babies even were allowed to tag along for the field trip!

After the kids got to eat apples and drink juice, and even bring some home!

All about big brother…

~ hunt2005 ~ 1 Comment

Today was big brother’s first day of Pre-K. What does that mean exactly? I’m not really sure. More than preschool, less than Kindergarten, I guess. Here in CA they don’t really have “Pre-K” programs, but we managed to find a really good one surprisingly on base and I’m quite excited about it. Whoever decides to be a teacher to 20+ 4-year olds is a saint, in my opinion. I don’t know how they do it!

On our way to school:

Signing in. They have to write their own names (!). He did surprisingly well!

The only kicker is that we have to walk them in and sign them in too. Hopefully next quarter Steven’s courses will adjust some where he can handle drop off or pick up, but until then I get to load all the kids in and out for drop off and pick up.

Camping in Yosemite

~ hunt2005 ~ 9 Comments

What do you get when you combine a mom, a dad, a 4 year old, and three one year olds with thousands of acres of woods, no electricity, and only tents to sleep in?

A LOT of fun. And a LOT of stuff.

I mean, really, what 4 year old boy doesn’t like dirt, bugs, fire, the dark, flash lights, and the possibilities of scary animals? Oh wait, that would be mine. Thankfully he learned to appreciate some of those (the bugs and dirt mostly, thanks to some fellow older kids at our campsite), and to manage the rest (namely the dark and the animals).

We learned a lot. Such as the fact that baby trees grow into big ones. Have you ever done a 5 mile hike with a 4 year old where the conversation is one about how baby tries grow bigger into big trees and then drop seeds and those become baby trees… and continue?? Yeah. Fun. Not. But at least he learned something??? He also learned that bears like to eat berries. And mommies. But not babies or big boys.

We also learned that no matter how cold the water is, a 4 year old is going to want to get in. And no matter how steep the rocks are, he’ll want to do what all the 5 year old boys are doing and climb down.

Luckily he didn’t know the rules of splashing yet: You splash mommy, and she gets you back!

All in all, the camping itself wasn’t even that bad. I wish I’d taken pictures of the interior of the tents. We brought the peapods (little popup tent things) for the triplets and so they were in those inside my tent. They’ve used them on all of our trips, so I think it helped to have that bit of familiarity, and it kept them contained in their own little spaces while we sat around the campfire at night after they went to bed but before we were ready to.

The Ikea high chairs were also amazing. Completely plastic, so easy to wipe down, and the legs come off for easy travel. (Insert free advertising for Ikea here:)

Aiden learned the magic that is a marshmallow on fire, when it is combined with a piece of chocolate and some graham crackers. I think we all ate WAY too many of those, but seeing as we have more left and a gas stove, we might have to enjoy a camping night at home here soon.

All in all, we survived. Thrived. Enjoyed every minute. Well, except for the 20 minutes following Aiden tripping and falling and requiring a bandaid. Because his leg was so injured we were sure it would need to be amputated. Or not. But if you had heard him screaming? You’d have thought we were doing surgery without anesthesia only using a dull spoon.

But who goes camping without at least one injury??

Mother’s Day musings

~ hunt2005 ~ 1 Comment

Wow. My 5th mother’s day. Hard to believe. And yet, they keep getting better and better.

You know how some things, the more you do them, the more mundane they become? If you run the same trail 100 times, by the last time you start to not really see what’s around you any more and it becomes just muscle memory. If you drive the same route, you eventually get to the point where you arrive at the destination, and forget having made the right turn or that you had to stop at a red light to get there.

Mother’s day is the complete opposite. The first it’s surreal that you actually get to celebrate it. You find it kind of silly, after all, you’ve only been a mother for maybe a couple months (weeks? days?). The second, you feel a little more deserving. I mean, heck, you survived a whole year. But yet, your child is too small to understand it, or make you a card, or to really celebrate it. Still seems kind of silly.

Dinner out the night before… because 6 people, including 3 highchairs/boosters, is just a bit much to fight the crowds on Mother’s Day proper.

Then they get a bit older. The view changes. You start to realize how much life has changed in the last year. Your now toddler/preschooler might come home from school with a craft they made for you.  Or they don’t, because they didn’t want to (yes, that would be my child who didn’t want to make the bracelet because it wasn’t Mother’s day yet).

And you realize that next year is going to be even better. Because by then, he’ll be able to write his entire name himself. And maybe the craft will be made by him with his own intentions without having to be coerced. Or he’ll still decide not to do it. But either way, it’ll be a choice by a child, not a toddler or an infant.

(Not made by the toddler… This was intricately crafted by a local jeweler, James and Company Jewelry Repair, just for me!)

Aiden picked out his own card this year. It was a beautiful card – pink, with a bouquet of flowers, and it played music. Never mind that it was in Spanish and neither he nor I had any idea what was written or what words were being sung. We tried to talk him into a card that we could read, but I guess in his mind, what’s the difference? He can’t read the English letters either, so why is this card any better or worse than any other? So he got it. And it was beautiful. Even if I don’t have a clue what is written (I’m assuming that in there are the words Happy Mother’s Day, but for all I know it could be a graduation card or a “Congratulations on the New House” card!).

Nevertheless, he had a say in this Mother’s Day celebration. He chose when to open the gift (thanks for choosing the day before, Aiden, you win favorite child for that!). When to open the cards. And maybe next year he’ll pick out the gift himself, and we’ll both be able to read the card, together. Wouldn’t that be something?

Today I’m joining Multiples Monday over at Capri + 3 (You should check out this blog, Theresa’s got a great story!)

multiples monday with capri +3

3 years

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Wow. I made sure when we went to the San Diego Zoo a few weeks back to take pictures that I remembered taking on our last trip there back in 2009. Boy, am I glad I did!! Check out this collage of Aiden from 3 years ago to now…

Attack of the babies

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Steven thought it would be funny to add all the babies to my lap and see what happens. Lets just say it doesn’t work nearly as well as it used to!

And the big brother has taken a fascination to writing/drawing. His latest exploit? Showing us what not to do. This was his gentle (or not-so-gentle) way of telling us to stop talking.

Other than that, I cannot believe another month is down. Today the babies sat at the table with us for breakfast and ate french toast sticks, gold fish, puffs, and some fruit, and it was just this surreal moment when they didn’t look so much like babies anymore. How did that happen??

9m stats

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Jacen: 18lb15oz, 28″, 47cm head
Jaina: 16lb11oz, 26.5″, 43.9cm head
Valerie: 17lb7oz, 28.25″, 44.5cm head

Wow, my babies are growing! They’re ahead of schedule for their adjusted age, and do most of the things on the 9m checklist, so we’re pretty proud of those little guys!

Updates lately: Jacen’s working on getting his teeth on the top to come in. He has discovered how to scoot backwards around the room (slowly). Jaina pulls up to standing with ease now and has started trying to transfer from one piece of furniture to another (Lord, help us!). Valerie still is toothless, but she has a couple that are working their way in. She’s figured out how to army crawl, but only when it’s to steal a bottle or toy from a sibling. Here’s a couple pictures to tide you over :
Costco trip:

Aiden being incognito at the zoo:

What a weekend!

~ hunt2005 ~ 2 Comments

Wow. Busy weekend, but it was wonderful!

First, Steven got a surprise day off of class on Friday, so we headed out of town to the Jelly Belly Factory in Fairfield.

It was a great trip. Jaina thought the best part was eating her hat, and Valerie really enjoyed chewing on the little box of jelly beans.

After that, it was time to get ready for Aiden’s birthday. Apparently, turning 4 is a VERY big deal (especially to the newly-turned-4-year-old!). We did presents at home on his actual birthday, Sunday.

Then on Monday it was time for his birthday party! What do you get when you combine 18 3-4 year olds, a giant room full of bounce houses, and end the party with sugar? A mommy who is very glad 17 of the children had to go home to their own families afterwards! 😉

Even the babies got in on the fun play time!

And one of the littlest girl sitting up by herself: