Graduations and birthdays!

 Tori finished Pre-K this year.  There was a packed house for her moving up ceremony.

She was super excited to see us, but a little shy and nervous during the songs.



 

 Tommy was excited to visit the school, as he will be right behind her this fall, headed to Pre-K.

 And in August, little dude turned 4.  He requested a Hot Wheels cake, and daddy did not disappoint.

 I think he was a little excited about his cake.

Happy birthday, Tommy!

I'm sorry Tommy.

I'm sorry, Tommy.  You turned THREE nearly two months ago, and I'm finally getting around to telling everyone about it!  You turned 3!  We were so busy laughing with you that I forgot to post about it! 

For some stats...at 41 back breaking pounds and 41" in height, you beat your sisters at something, finally!

 

You are the most mercurial McGhee.  You can travel from outrageous laughter to stompy, pouty wailing in mere seconds.  You're, hands down, the best hugger--wrapping your arms around me and Daddy, ferociously, clinging to us as though your life depends on it, and holding on long enough for me to realize how fleeting this attention from you will be.

 

And, holy smokes, you're potty trained!  You were, by far, the easiest at this!  One day, you peed on the potty and the rest was history!  Nice work, little dude!

 

Handsome and smiley, you are our Tommy.  You insist you are not Thomas; nor Tom.  You embrace Tommy--that fun filled variant of your name...

Tori is your best pal.  You do everything you can to keep her interested in playing with you.

 

Tori's first day of Pre-K.  When she left, you spent the day clinging to Daddy, telling him how much you missed her and Dani.

 The king of comic relief...it is often a stretch to get you to pose for pictures without a silly face. 

 You know that ice cream is best eaten in only a diaper, in the sunshine.

 You love all things that drive.  When you aren't scooting around the house on a dump truck, you are pretending to drive!

 And, did I mention fearless?  You're the kid with the hand open feeding the goats, with your big sisters behind you watching to see what happens.

 Never one to shy away from a good tea party, you accessorize with clip on earrings and cheetah print feetie pajamas...while keeping it masculine with the Mario hat.

 You are the crack-up king---distracting Dani and Tori at meals while they laugh at your antics.   Sweet talking strangers wherever we go because you are just so friendly, and cute.

You, Tommy are our biggest bundle of energy, our little dude.  Our super, smiley light, that shines the brightest in the glow of your sisters, who adore you too!  Happy 3!

40 is the new, well 40.

I turned 40 a few days ago.  We had a rocking party, with lots of friends, and it was awesome.  There's an overdue retrospective of how I got here, and where I'm headed, but tonight's not the night.

 

It's been hard to make time for blogging lately.  Work has been crushing me, and things have been downright chaotic at home.  Not in a bad way, but certainly, I could and should be making more time for the things that are important.

Like this little dude.

 

 Our house is now officially high chair free.  Everyone sits at the dining room table, like big kids.  It blows my mind that my three children are pretty much conversational.

 Working so much means that I try to pack as much fun into the limited time I have with the kiddos.  Tori's always up for a fashion show.

Dani rocks her school uniform.

 We went apple picking.  I'd never been before.  There was a wagon ride, and a hay maze.  There was also a huge corn maze that I didn't dare take the kids into, lest the state police helicopters have to rescue us when three kids decided to run in three different directions into the corn.

 Every one in one hundred pics results in near smiles from everyone.

 I was pleasantly surprised at how low to the ground the apple trees were.  The kids had no trouble picking them.

 And nothing tastes as good as a minutes-ago picked apple.

 

 I love this picture.  Its the kids walking back to the apple farm, each following their own path, but sticking together, keeping pace with each other.

 We made masks this week, and tons of Halloween decorations--pumpkins and bats are all over our house, we're working on the Halloween costumes, which should be pretty darn cool this year.

 Tommy wasn't so keen on wearing his mask.

See his curls?  Gone.  Big Man gave the little guy a buzz cut while I was at work on Friday.  He went from looking like my little baby boy, to a kid.  A KID!  Where'd my baby go?

Spring has sprung.

No time to post much as SPRING HAS SPRUNG!

  It's warm, there's no snow on the ground and the kids want to be outside!

This will be Tommy's first real summer where he can walk around and enjoy it.

It was a beautiful day Saturday, and we took the kids out to play--running and blowing bubbles, riding bikes and sliding on slides--it was like there was 4 months of outdoor energy that had been trapped since Christmastime.  They had a blast.

 Tori made it her goal to pop every bubble Dani blew.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 And then it was Easter.

 Another failed attempt at a family photo!  Took a dozen--this was the best!

 We had a big ol' Easter egg hunt today.  I took the girls to one in the city yesterday, and it was mayhem.  Kids of all ages running and swooping in to grab eggs.  Dani and Tori each got 2; and that was with me, literally standing over each one so they could pick it up. I didn't care if they got a lot--but they needed something!

 Today, we had about 50 eggs, just for the three kids.  Much to Dani and Tori's delight, Tommy had only a passing interest at egg hunting.

 He did, however, just rock his awesome white trashy tuxedo tee!

Happy spring!  Happy Easter!

Dem bones.

Wow, there's a whole lot of learning going on in this house.  We've got these Leap Books, with a Leap Pen that the kids can use to point to words and pictures, and letters, etc.

One of the books has a section on the body, and Dani and Tori love to point to the bones on the skeleton.  And I went on youtube to let them hear the "Dem bones" song, and now it's the theme song of the week.

Tonight at dinner, Tori told me that when she grows up she wants to be a skeleton.

She is also known for saying, "I have a PELVIS!" "I have two patellas!"

Both Dani and Tori are happy to point out where their scapulas are, and are well-versed in metatarsals and metacarpals (and that's more than I know!)

Tonight, while skyping with my parents, Tori told them that she had phalanges.  When grandma and grandpa asked what those were (and I had no flipping clue) she wiggled her fingers to the camera and said "here".  The kid is not quite 3, won't poop on the potty, but knows the skeletal system better than I do.  It's adorable, but in a way where you start to wonder if you are turning your kids into little nerdies who will be teased mercilessly in kindergarten maybe not letting them watch enough Spongebob.

 

 Tommy is turning out to be the best mimic ever.  He repeats everything anyone says. He is really musical--can baby mumble sing the words to songs in perfect pitch.  It's really pretty awesome.  We've got to bank on some kind of artistic or athletic talent with that one--he's eaten more board books than he's read.

Dani asked me tonight if she could stay up all night, because last night she had bad dreams.  She came into my room at 1:30am literally shaking.  I had to turn on lights and she flipped when I left her in the well-lit bathroom to get a fresh underjam for her (ain't noone peeing in mommy's bed).  And then we had a mommy half asleep discussion about whether dinosaurs could hurt us, and I literally was teary and begging promised her there were no dinosaurs in mommy's bed and she went to sleep. I told her that she was going to sleep on Daddy's pillow and that always means good dreams. She was so resistent to sleep tonight--but in the eldest child, compliant way.  She went upstairs, we brushed and washed, and she pleaded to stay up, knowing full well she would get into bed when I told her to.  Then she begged for Daddy's pillow because it was the good dreams pillow (but Big Man was sleeping as he works tonight!).  Hmmmm, what to do.  I went into my dressing room and got out an old bracelet, a costumey one with stones.  After I turned off the light, I put it on her wrist and told her it was Mommy's good dreams bracelet, and that it would help her to have good dreams tonight...she was in awe.  I whispered, "Don't tell Tori because I only have one.  But if you think happy thoughts tonight and know you have my bracelet, you will be fine."  It seemed to work, but I'm guessing I will have company in the wee hours.

 Tori's making progress on the potty.  She's in pullups, but will always pee on the potty.  She always asks for a magazine when we ask her to try to poop.  She will just sit there, flipping through the pages.

It's the most wonderful chaos.

Just let me grab my purse.

 

That's what Tommy would say, if he could talk in sentences.

  He's been pretty happy to walk around the house sporting Dani's Hello Kitty purse lately.  It's pretty cute, and I actually think its cuter that there does not appear to be even the slightest sentiment among my children that there's anything odd about it--because, really, there isn't.  Dani and Tori don't really seem to identify anything of theirs as for girls, or of Tommy's as for boys.  Tori's as happy wearing a Spider Man shirt as she is Hello Kitty.  Tommy rocks the girls' hand-me-downs all the time.  Dani and Tori are just as likely to pretend they are Mario and Luigi as they are to play with their dress up dolls.  Tommy is as happy to chew on a Barbie leg as he is to chew on a toy car.

I think it's pretty cool. 

 

 This is the state they are usually in, however.  Running, chasing, shrieking and generally instigating each other into zaniness.  At any given time, one kid is acting silly enough to inspire the others to bounce off the walls.

 Inspired by one of my favorite nursery school toys, I picked up some building blocks last week.  Much to Big Man's dismay fatherly joy, they all required assembly. Strangely, Big Man kept referring to them as recyclables.

 We could not build them fast enough.

If you need me, I'll be in my castle.

Not-so Little Dude.

Hey, smiley little dude, or should I say not-so-little dude?

You aren't even 3 months old yet, so why do you fit in 6-9 month clothes? Don't get me wrong, I love that you're pretty much sleeping all night, but do you have to rush everything else?

You're still kind of a snuggle bug.

And you know your big sisters adore you, but you're getting SO BIG, SO FAST!

You are literally pushing yourself up so high on your arms that I told your daddy tonight that you'd be crawling by 5 months.

You can even sit up a little bit, if you have something to lean on. Come on, little snuggle bug, you're my last little one. Don't rush me!