Lessons Learned

1.  If you scrub your bathtub until it shines, someone will poop in it during bathtime that same day.

2.  If you clean out the bathroom sink, someone will spit blobs of toothpaste in it.

3.  If you put fresh crib sheets on, someone will drink so much before they go to bed that they will leak through their diaper and mess up the sheets.

4.  If you clean the bathroom mirrors, someone will promptly flick water all over it after washing their hands.

5.  If you sweep the floor in the living room, dining room, and/or kitchen, someone will spill Goldfish (or popcorn or cereal or crackers) on the floor and chances are someone else will step on the spilled food before you can pick it up.

6.  If you put a white shirt on your child, they will get pizza or spaghetti sauce on it.

7.  If you wash all of the dirty laundry and take pride in the fact that it's all done, you will have a full basket of dirty laundry by the end of the day.

8.  If you finally organize and find room for all of your kid's toys, the kid will have a birthday and their toy collection will once again be unmanageable.

Cleaning is exhausting.

Some more pics

An update has been requested, so here we go...

Our Christmas was nice and quiet (well, as quiet as it could be with three little girls) and we enjoyed some time off of work/school.

The quietness and lack of work didn't last long though.  January has been very busy.  Kayla started playing basketball and I volunteered to be the assistant coach of her kindergarten team.  I offered to do this not realizing how insane work would be throughout the month, but we're making it work.  She has practice on Friday nights and games on Saturday mornings, so there's not much time to rest!  It might be a good thing though because they'll have less time to forget what we just taught them.  After the first practice she wasn't very excited about it because she got hit in the head twice, and I "was teaching her all the wrong things."  Practices 2 and 3 have been better for her and she has her uniform now, so things are OK in Kayla land.  She will be turning 6 in a few weeks!

Kendall has been much more of a big girl and helper, now that Kayla's gone during the day.  She will finally get dressed on her own, will put her shoes on, and will be ready to go when it's time for us to leave in the morning.  She's been busy going to kid's gym at the Y and is already making plans for her 4th birthday in March.  She wants a Scooby Doo party at Young Chef's Academy (it's this cute cooking place for kids).  She loves playing games on the computer and has been learning her letters.  Kendall has also been keeping up with counting school buses...we're at 4,412.  We've been counting since last fall I think.  She has recently decided that she will be a rock star when she grows up.  She loves to sing along to Barbie and Hannah Montana (yuck), so we'll see!  One of her frequent requests while we're at home is for me to "put the candle on fire."  It's great fun for her to blow it out...she must be practicing for the upcoming b-day.

Kate is by far the most advanced talker of all of them at this stage.  She can count to 10 and puts 2-3 words together.  She likes to tell us "Let's go!" and "Come on!"  And of course she like to say "NO!"  She's starting to have a mind of her own and is not shy about telling us what she wants.  She loves to play Dora, Little People, and Barbies and she loves Elmo.  Kate has also managed to break our rather expensive DVD/VCR player.  She shoved cookies, crackers, and a thermometer in it, and one day it quit working.  She doesn't get to watch her Elmo DVDs anymore and probably won't for a long time.  She and Kendall are buddies...I'll hear her say "Hi, Kendall" in the morning when she wakes up.  She is still very social and will tell random people "bye bye" as we're leaving.  She likes to carry purses around and will take care of her baby dolls.  Kate will put the baby to bed, cover it with a blanket, blow kisses and tell it good night.  Then she'll shut the door and blow some more kisses.  It's really cute.

The girls enjoying a fudgesicle...

Kendall and Kate surprised us the other night.  They came running out looking like this and thought it was hilarious. 

The sunglasses must give them super reading upside-down power.

And that's our life in a nutshell!  (As always excuse the typos...I don't care enough to check for them!)