I somehow ended up browsing through some old posts on this blog from the past couple of years (fun Saturday night, huh?!!) and it's amazing how fast I've forgotten how things were and what the boys even looked like as babies and what the day-to-day life was like with three kids three and under.  Oh wait, I STILL have three kids that are three and under!  Seriously, though, so much of the details has been forgotten.  Basically all of it.  Amazing how parenthood does that.  Memory-loss.  I mean, just the other day I was going on and on to a friend about how Ella is the first of my babies to really be fussy when teething her front teeth.  I don't remember the others being really fussy with that (molars are a different story).  Then, just now, I found a post from two years ago where I was going on about how fussy Eli was with his front teeth coming in.  Go figure.  I just wonder if I suffer from greater memory loss due to having four kids?  Or do all moms/parents/people-in-general have this type of memory loss.  And if I didn't happen to look back on my blog entries, would I even realize that I was suffering from the memory loss at all?

Do I really have four kids?  Sometimes even that sounds CRAZZZZY when I hear it.

Well, it's getting late and I know if I continue typing I will just ramble and ramble for another hour...so going to cut this one short and just let it be the random, pointless blog entry that it is.

March Madness!

The four kiddos watching a train ride at the mall.

I just re-read my last blog post to see when the last time I wrote was....and PHEW...man, that was a busy month!   Things have definitely calmed down the month of March.  Out like a lion, in like a lamb...isn't there some saying like that?  Anywayyys, March is now coming to an end.  Not too much to report from this end.  We're all hanging in there.  We're all healthy (besides a cold/bad cough that all the kids go...Ella is still hacking a bit).  Even though the excitement of visitors and birthdays has slowed down bit, we are still busy-bees.  That just comes with the territory, I guess.  Though OUR family birthdays are over (until May), other friend's birthdays are not.  We've called this "birthday season" for the past few years.  Late January-May is "birthday season".  All of our friends' kids seem to have birthdays during these months, with March being the peak.  I swear, there is AT LEAST one birthday party going on every weekend, more often than not TWO...or more.  Okay, I think there is only ONE weekend this "season" that we have three birthday parties.  That is coming up in April where is one Friday, one Saturday afternoon and another one Sunday....so no overlap.  It's only getting worse now that the boys are getting invited to birthday parties for their classmates at preschool.  So we've been running the birthday party scene lately.  I enjoy it, actually.  We definitely don't go to all of them, we just can't, but we try to make it to the parties of our closer friends (Eli & Owen keep getting invites from classmates I've never even heard of...so we skip those).  It's fun to see my mom-friends (which at this point I should really just call "friends"...but the term started when I had Chloe and none of my other friends had kids...a way to differentiate.  I had my "friends" and I had my "mom-friends".  I still have quite a few friends who don't have children...so I still use the term).  Anyways, I enjoy the parties, but Myke is not a fan of kids' parties really.  He'd rather watch paint dry.  Any day.  Bah humbug!

My Aunt Debbie & Uncle Brian came for a visit on one of the rainiest weekends we've had in over a year!  They still got to go out and do some sight-seeing though!  Here is one of the cheesy pics from the Midway aircraft carrier they visited with Myke & Elijah.

Aunt Debbie gave the kids a little tea set and they love having tea parties with it.

St.Patty's Day 

We had a warm-weather streak with summer temps last week.

Boys had a blast with the water table out front!

Owen and his new helmet!

Baking banana muffins this morning with the boys.

Owen stirring.  

He was eager to help and I caught him JUST IN TIME before he dumped in 1/4 cup of salt into the mixture that he had measured out himself.

Ella's first In & Out experience.

Grilled cheese.  She LOVED it!  

True Cali girl!  

It's March!!!

The 6 of us with Pluto

And I kind of just want to breathe a sigh of relief...AHHHHH...!!

February was so busy and jam-packed with significant (to me and my family) events that I felt like I was left running on mere fumes there at the end of the month...but I couldn't let that slow me down because the month goes out with a bang with Chloë's birthday occurring the 28th, the LAST day of the month (except for leap years, of course). But now it's March..and THERE IS NOTHING SIGNIFICANT happening in this month for us (knock on wood, right?!)!

We had my 10K race that I had been training for, Ella's birthday, Valentine's day (complete with parties in the boys' classroom and Chloë's), Myke's birthday, Disneyland trip, an overnight getaway for Myke & myself, the dog's birthday, Chloë's birthday, and 5 family members visiting over a five week period with overlap (we're still in the 5 week period).  So busy busy busy!  But definitely fun fun fun at the same time!!  Can't complain!  And I'm not.  I'm just a bit tired and I'm searching my reserves for some energy...I'm just yearning for a few minutes somewhere in the days/weeks where I can sit and read a book/magazine or something along those lines in peace & quiet.  Just 15-20 minutes.  Or update my blog...like I am now!  Yes!  I'm having that moment!  Myke and I tag-teamed naps today (Saturday) while my mom, aunt & uncle are out touring around San Diego.  He napped for awhile and then I napped (since the kids DID NOT nap all at the same time and one of us had to be up at all times)...and I JUST woke up from my nap, turned off the sound machine (which I have to have on or I would never fall asleep with all the noise in the house), walked out my bedroom door and listened.  It was silent.  The BEST way to wake up from a nap!  No ONE was here!   So jumped back in bed with my laptop and here I am.  Ahhhh :)  Loving this!

Disney!  

Myke took a power-nap at the play area in Toon Town

Mom-Mom & Gramma with Eli & Ella

Chlo & O

Eli dancing with Mom-Mom

Disneyland was magical...might sound silly, but it really was.  We had SUCH a fun time (I'm speaking for myself, but I think everyone else did, too).  We went on Myke's actual birthday but the trip was a celebration of all the birthdays.  The weather was beautiful, all the kids napped at one point or another in the strollers (we took both our single Bob and our Double Bob..which I'm glad we did!).  Even Myke got a nap in on a bench in a busy toddler play area.  That man can sleep anywhere.  It amazes me.  He definitely likes (and needs) his naps.  We got to go on rides, see characters, play in Toon Town, see live music, watch the parade, etc.  The boys had never been to Disney and seeing Mickey, Minnie, Donald and all of those guys was just so cool for them!  They are usually terrified of characters in costume (Chuck E. Cheese, Shamu, Elmo, Santa...those are the ones I can think of that they've seen) but they actually gave hugs and/or high-fives to Mickey!  I almost teared up when they did.  How lame is that?!!  But it was so cool to see how excited they were to up close with Mickey.  Wow.  Something you ONLY understand when you have children. 

 The only other time I had been to Disneyland was when we went for Chloë's 3rd birthday two years ago.  My mom was in town so she had stayed home with the twins (who were about 9 months old at the time) and we went up for the day with her.  I remember it being cool weather and basically empty on the day we went.  Even with that, we were tired out and left before the 7pm parade.  This time we had no problem staying for the parade...and even afterwards.  We didn't get back home until around 11pm.  Now that we're in Encinitas we're only about an hour and 15 minutes from the park, so that's nice.  A lot of people stay overnight there either the night before or the night after....but that just doesn't make sense for us.  I'd MUCH rather be back at home in our own beds than pack for a night away!  A night away with 3 kids that are in cribs and 3 kids in diapers would be no bueno.  So much work, so much to pack...and would anyone actually sleep?   Yuck.  No thanks!  Anyways, it was such a fun day and really fun to have both Myke's parents and my mom along with us.  Can't beat a 5 adult/4 kid ratio!  Wish my dad had been with us, too, but he was back in Richmond working on rehearsals for the next theater production he is involved in.  

Okay, I'm rambling about Disney.  Here are some photos of other happenins from this past month: 

Yummy cupcakes for Ella's 1st birthday!

My sweet girl

The weekend following Myke's birthday we went down to Pacific Beach for dinner & drinks with some friends from our old "group" that we hung out with non-stop before kids.  Back when friends were your family....I miss those days sometimes :)   : 

Myke is 35!!

(and here are those same guys at Myke's 30th birthday back in 2009!)

Chloë got a special pre-birthday outing with Mom-Mom & Pop to Build-a-Bear and to Cheesecake Factory where they spoiled her rotten!  She had an absolute blast and has a bear named "Michael the Bear" to sleep with at night and remind her of the fun.  Here are some pics from Mom-Mom:

My girls :)

Lounging in the swing

Ella-Bella the one-year-old!  

I caved at the last minute and let Chloë invite some neighborhood friends over to share pizza & cake with her on her actual birthday (last night) since she wasn't supposed to have a party (since we went to Disney).  It was an UN-party, I guess :)  

Pop going to the boys' Valentine's party at preschool

Uh-oh!  I hear the kids.  They're BAAAACCK and I hear Myke saying "Let's go find mom!"  Better save this and abort!  BYEEE