guinea pigs, best friends, fun, and more

Alyssa

Alyssa was ecstatic when she was able to take her class pet home for the weekend. Let's just say that Max the guinea pig was a very messy house guest. It made me kind of happy when we were able to take him back to school. She did love taking care of him though, we even went to see the movie G-force in Max's behalf.

Alyssa is enjoying the second grade and seems to be making lots of new friends. Her newest friend of maybe I should say foe is a boy named Simon who chases Alyssa and her friend around at recess. Tonight we are having a sleepover in honor of Simon because he doesn't chase her around the playground as much. The sleepover was all Alyssa's idea trust me.

Alyssa has become a teenager overnight, she is on the phone constantly. It always seems to be right about the time that I need to use the phone too. I don't know what I will do when all four girls are yakking on the phone all day.

Kelsie

Kelsie's new highlight besides starting preschool is that she also started dance. She and Alyssa are both taking ballet, and so far it seems to be going well. We have never done dance lessons before so this is a first.

Kelsie has an obsession with hair already. She loves doing her own hair as well as creating hair-do's for Leah and Audrey. I am amazed how well she does. Kelsie is all about fashion and changes her outfits and hair constantly all day long. She even gets Alyssa's clothes for her.

Kelsie has the biggest heart and is so concerned with her sisters well being. She adores her big sister and loves being a big sister to Leah and Audrey. I can't believe how fast time flies. It doesn't seem that long ago that we brought this little black-haired bundle home from the hospital. To think that she is almost five years old is crazy.

Kelsie's best friend Maya returned home from her long 3 1/2 week vacation and boy were those the longest 3 1/2 weeks of both mine and Kelsie's lives. We are so glad that Maya is back.

We have a crazy life but it's a good life, and I wouldn't change it for the world!

Kelsie's first day of preschool

Kelsie was so excited for her first day of preschool,and she just looked like a million bucks in her cute outfit from Sam's club. Preschool doesn't start until 9:00 a.m. She woke up at 7:15 a.m. and couldn't wait to get going. I told her that she had to have some breakfast first and she maybe ate 2 bites of her eggs. We loaded up everyone in the car around 8:30 a.m. knowing that the drive takes less than 5 minutes. We went for a little drive and even had to wait in the preschool parking lot for a while. Her preschool is actually inside of a church, and her first comment when we pulled up was, "wow, I am the luckiest girl in the world because I get to go to preschool in a castle." It was so cute! She had a very good day, and enjoyed every minute. Her best friend Maya is also in her class and she is very excited about that as well.

I didn't know what to do with myself not having Kelsie around. The day was quite boring to be honest. I really missed her, and especially missed not being asked to play Memory for the 100th time.

sibling rivalry

There isn't enough fighting in this house between Kelsie and Alyssa so now our twins have decided to become part of the action too. They fight non-stop over everything but mainly toys. I never understood it when people told me that I should have two of every toy, they should be matching and everything. Now I get it. These two videos were 2 days apart. Can you believe these two? Usually Leah is the instigator while Audrey is usually the victim. Sometimes I can't help but laugh at their fighting which I know is going to get old really quick.

We have an artist on our hands

Should an almost ten month old already know how to draw on walls? Well, she does! I came into our office downstairs the other day and found Leah intact with a pencil in her hand. She was holding onto the wall with one hand while she did her lovely artwork with the other. Here is the proof. Leah what are we going to do with you?

I've definitely been in blog hiatus lately, and I have wanted nothing to do with blogging or reading blogs. To be just completely honest I just haven't been feeling myself lately. The stress of kids, life, and medical problems has just almost become unbearable. I kind of knew that something was wrong with me a couple of weeks ago when I took my twins in for their check-up. I asked our pediatrician if she wanted to call the Division of Child and Family services on me. She pretty much gave me the weirdest look and sweetly said, "no way, you are a great Mom, and don't you doubt yourself for one minute." I then went on to tell her all of the things that I felt made me a bad Mom. The list was long, and I don't really feel like mentioning them all. Again, her reply was something like, "you are too hard on yourself, and your expectations are ridiculous." Were my expectations of myself too high? It was definitely something to think about. Over the course of the last few weeks, I have realized that my expectations aren't too high, they are IMPOSSIBLE! What I expect of myself is perfection and unfortunately I am never going to be perfect. I guess that's why I had to stop reading blogs for a while because I felt like people had such a false sense of perfection. In blogs you can be anything you want to be. Whoever says that everyday is filled with rainbows and sunshine is lying! Life sucks sometimes that's just all there is to it. I do believe in optimism and think that you should try to see the good in every situation but sometimes there is no good. Take last week for example. I went in to see the neurosurgeon for my follow-up. He did not have any good news for me, in fact he had bad news. That being that what he thought was tumor was actually scar tissue. He barely removed any of my brain tumor, and now I get to have a lovely shot in my rear end every month in hopes that we can shrink this tumor. If that doesn't work then we will go on the path towards radiation. This isn't what I had envisioned but it's what I have been given and therefore I am going to deal with it the best I know how. I am going to focus more on what I am doing right, and focus less on what I am doing wrong. Nobody's perfect including me!