William is no longer "broken-back fang baby". He was so cute as Fang! He is now "crawling all over the place with 7 teeth" baby. He is so fast! He dragged himself around pretty quickly before, but there is no stopping that kid now!

Catherine had her 9th birthday today. It was a "Polly Pocket" birthday. She counted and she now has 13 PP's, with various outfits and companion animals. She loves playing with them and spends too much time dressing them. She especially loves the new little pool with water slide that she got as a gift today. I must say that I would have really enjoyed a toy like that when I was a kid, as long as none of my boy-friends knew about it.

I had an AVON open house yesterday. Last time I did that, Rebekah keifed the sample lip glosses, and over time, they were all gone because she'd used them all! She also loves nail polish and kept asking if she could have that. This time, I watched her like a hawk. She didn't get any lip gloss, and cried when I told her she couldn't have any more lip balm or body paint, even though "I yoss mine!" When she asked about the nail polish, she answered her own question with, "maybe tomorrow, is dat alright?"

Now that it is spring, we have to be even more careful with Thomas, the escape artist. He's not actually an escape artist, just and opportunity escapist. If there is any kind of door open, he runs for it. And he runs fast! Laughing the whole way down the street. The kids are totally oblivious to him running down the road whether he has clothes on or not. I do let him roam around the back yard, where he usually goes to see the dogs. One of the very few sounds he makes is a dog barking. He stands at the window that looks out to the dogs and barks. It's really quite hilarious. Today we went for a walk, and there was a guy with a dog ahead of us. For the longest time, Thomas just kept barking at that poor dog. I wanted to yell to the guy, "Seriously, it's the only sound he can make!" except that wouldn't be totally true now, since Ryan finally helped him learn how make a sound of, well, a sick cat.

Well, I'm off to bed, since it's entirely too late to be awake.

The Return of the Raisin

Okay, so I totally forgot the most important thing that happened yesterday. At 9:00 pm, Ryan and I were in our room with the door closed. The kids were supposed to be asleep, but I had given Rebekah a bowl of raisins because she was hungry and couldn't go to sleep. We heard crying and knocking on our door. We were trying to ignore her so she would just go away and go to bed. But she wouldn't stop fussing. Her speach isn't really very good, but I kept hearing the word "raisin", and I finally caught the word "nose". So I said, "you have a raisin stuck up your nose?" to which she replied....drumroll please..."yes!" I, of course, couldn't ignore her anymore in the hopes that she would go to bed, so I opened my door and looked up her nose. I couldn't really see anything, but she cried when I touched the outside of her nose up toward her sinuses. Just great! She blew and couldn't get it out, so I tried finding the bulb syringe to no avail. Finally, I had her blow and blow a whole bunch. In the middle of a blow, she stopped and smiled and said "the raisin came out!" Voila! Back to bed, and no more raisins for her! It's hard to believe, but it took 5 kids for any foreign objects to be stuck in an orifice, and we didn't even have to take a trip to the ER. What a great night!

pictures

Here are some more pictures of the kids. The ones of William in his little seat were funny because, as you can tell, he was falling asleep. Speaking of which, I failed to mention that he sits up pretty well by himself.

Ok--so it was using a different scale--I really didn't gain 5 lbs. Thank goodness! However, the part about eating junk was true. I think I'll go back on Weight Watchers. I did go "running" this morning. It was a half-and-half morning--two laps walking, two laps running, for a total of two miles and 25 minutes. I keep thinking that I'm Super Woman, and should be able to jump right back to where I was before I stopped. It's hard to get past that way of thinking, even though I know it's true, and to not be disappointed at the little that I can do. If I can just be consistent, I believe it will be fairly quick and easy to get back into shape so I can start training for my half marathon. But I need to stop being disappointed! Argh!

Last night, Margaret lost a tooth. She's pretty excited. Too bad the Tooth Fairy forgot to come and visit last night. What is it with that woman?

I'm posting some pictures of the kiddos. These include a Valentine's Day party we went to, where William got to try his first sucker. He LOVED it! I was holding him turned away from me, and after a while, he dropped his sucker. It bounced on the floor. When I picked it up, I realized that he had gotten all the way to the center of the Tootsie Pop! (how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop? *sing* whatever it is I think I see becomes a tootsie roll to me!

Thomas really enjoyed being inside the tunnel, which was just a rolled up gym mat, and was thrilled when the kids rolled it along the floor with him still inside of it!

Rebekah made pancakes by herself--she poured them on the griddle and flipped them over all by herself. They were, of course, unedible because she didn't cook them long enough, and refused any kind of help from me. But she was proud of herself, and that's what counts, isn't it?