Matthew

Yesterday, around 4:00 my cell phone rings.  I don't recognize the number but it's local so I answer. 

"Hello!"

"......."

"Uh, hello?"

(tiny voice on the other end) "Can i please speak to Matthew please?"

"Um, sure!  Can I tell him who this is?"
"This is Chrissy from his class and I wanted to talk to Matthew"  (the voice is getting less tiny and more insistent).
"Alright, hold on."  Deep breath, "MATTHEW!  SOMEONE WHO IS A GIRL IS CALLING YOU ON MY CELL PHONE!"

Matthew at least has the grace to turn bright red then grabs the phone and runs out of the room.  I follow him (of course.)
"hello this is matthew."

"hi chrissy, um, I'm kind of busy right now. Oh okay, bye"

"here mommy, here's your phone".  He returns to playing.  I get no explanation..nothing!

Later that evening I'm telling Matt the story.

"HE GAVE OUT MY CELL PHONE NUMBER TO A GIRL!  And didn't even tell me!!  And she called it!  And they talked!  I'm a little irritated!  Will you please speak to him about this?  It seems like more of a father son thing."

"Sure."

"Hey Matthew, I heard a girl called you today on mommy's cell phone.  Was she cute?"

Pea’s Adventure

So, last night was interesting!  We put the babies to bed around 8 as usual, and everyone seemed to settle down pretty well (except for the forty-five extra questions Matthew had about Very Important Things like ‘what are they having for school lunch two weeks from tomorrow’ and such).  Around 9:30 or so, Matt and I headed to bed-we pulled the gate closed at the top of the stairs so Chass would not be able to come up and snore right outside our door.(her favorite nighttime trick)  About 10 minutes after we turned off the light we hear a giant thump and then the sound of the gate being opened. We figured Chass had finally figured the gate out, so I went out ready to scold.  Instead, I find lil’ Pea…carrying a GIANT teddy bear down the stairs. 

“HANNAH!  What are you doing?”

Crickets..and the sound of Hannah ignoring me and continuing down the stairs and toward the kitchen.

“Hannah?  Yoo-hoo!”

Still nothing.  Apparently the child is a sleepwalker.  I guess the big bear was no longer welcome in her room. Or he just needed a snack.   She ended up carrying him all the way down to the kitchen and putting him on the counter where he spent the night.

I followed her downstairs and carried her back up…her eyes were open but she would never respond to anything I said.  It was a little creepy!!

Also creepy is the fact that Chass has been outside our door for at least two other mornings which means…this might not have been Hannah’s only nighttime adventure!  We are going to start hard-latching the gate (we really only had it slightly latched before). 

As you can imagine, Pea is a little grumpy and tired this morning…I wanted to take a picture of her in her brand new fabulous giraffe jammies that Auntie Gin found for her (among other treasures)….and I did get the picture…but Hannah was not happy!

That may look like a smile, but trust me…it’s not.  And that was all I could get-she refused any more photos.  Girlfriend apparently needs her coffee before she is photo ready.

I also had a nice little flashback this morning.  Check out what Ben’s wearing today:

(Btw-he also needs his coffee.)  Remember Matthew’s favorite airplane shirt??

That he wore all the time??

Well Ben has finally grown into it…time sure does fly!! 

Wii

Hannah has learned to play the Wii-

Can you tell that it’s Mario Kart?

And Ben?

…totally thinks he’s playing.

Too bad mommy took the batteries out of the remote.

Good Ol’ Groundhog

I am so happy that Spring seems to be coming a bit early this year.  In spite of a few days of heavy rain (which apparently we need) we have enjoyed some beautiful weather lately.  In honor of the groundhog’s prediction we bought the big kids new bikes which they really really needed! They were riding these teeny tiny bikes that made them look like clowns at the circus!!  These new bikes are definitely an upgrade-complete with gears and everything!!  They love them:

 

Hannah is riding her big girl bike a lot now…but never when my camera is out!  She seems to know when I want to catch her being a big girl, so this is all I have:

She was showing off on the baby bike…trying to ride with no hands.  She barely missed the cat.

Speaking of the cat…she is really living up to her name, ‘fatty patty’.  Check it out:

…and now she doesn’t have the pregnancy excuse.  We made sure of that!  But she is a good little outdoor kitty (for the most part).  Matt spoils her to death in spite of his “allergy”.  He gives her a treat every night, and most Saturday mornings she wakes up to a bowl of milk.  (gee.  I wonder why she’s so fat)

Chassie, on the other hand is more trim than she has ever been in her adult life.  She has been on a steady diet of runs, walks and/or swimming-especially on the weekends.  She is so happy to have nice weather return because she knows that her owners have no excuse for not going out and exercising (dammit). 

But back to the kids!  BenBen is actually the outdoor instigator.  Anytime the weather is nice, (and even when it’s not) he will run up to me and yell, “UNNDATSIDEWAGON!!!!”  (or something like that).  He loves his wackin’ (not to be confused with the conventional ‘wagon’ that is NOT used to ram into people’s ankles) and knows exactly where we keep it:

UNDAT!!! UNDAT!!  he says.  And when we get it out he chases everyone around the yard with it:

Except when it needs routine maintenance:

…but then he’s back to chasing and wackin’:

And speaking of chasing, one of Caitlin and Matthew’s favorite games is tag…they spend so much time racing around the front yard and tagging the base:

Shew!  Thank goodness for the base!!

Hannah usually plays too, (running around madly yelling, GET ME!! GET ME!!) but today she made a late appearance-apparently the entourage was more difficult to round up than usual:

She rarely goes anywhere without Stretchy, Giraffe, Stretchy’s Daddy and a few of the Tinys. 

While Caitlin and Matthew have always been best of friends and usually spend most of their time together, I’ve noticed that they are not exclusive…very often Ben and Caitlin/Matthew and Hannah will team up to play together.  Today, that was the case…Caitlin wanted to drive Benben in the Gator and Pea wanted to play with Matthew.  So they split off:

Matthew and Hannah were playing some game where they collected berries to cook in the playhouse…

And Caitlin was perfectly content to drive Ben around and around the yard.  Since riding around is Ben’s favorite activity, he was thrilled:

I hope this nice weather sticks around for a while…we are all really enjoying it!! 

Here are some extra pictures I took today as well…they don’t fit into the sequence but I don’t want to leave them out

 

One sure sign of Spring is the appearance of very, very white little manlegs.  I just love them!

Nice socks, Matthew!!  Apparently this style is all the rage at the elementary school….

Ben is giving Pea advice about how to put on the helmet.  He’s good like that-

Lil’ Pea

…and Ben the man.

Getting Back To Blogging

So yeah.  I’m slack.  I have a lot to post…mostly pictures, but they are all on my other computer (how convenient!).  But I got a couple of pictures of Matthew and Ben on this computer, so that is what you are getting.  Lately I’ve noticed that Matthew has really been bonding with BenBen…in fact at school he wrote the following “story”:

My Baby Brother Ben

My baby brother Ben is nice.  Some times he hits me.  But I still love him.  I canot wate till the weekend so I can play with him.  Ben likes me.  Ben also likes balls and trucks.  Ben likes my beach ball I have.  And ben plays with my solgers.  I love ben.  the end. 

 

And Matthew is exactly what Ben needs.  All Ben wants to do is roughhouse and wrestle and yell and throw and hit and generally be a boy.  Mama’s just not good at all that.  However in spite of all his boy-ness, he does (occasionally) take a minute to relax and enjoy a good book:

Thank goodness Matthew knows how to read!! 

Pea starts gymnastics tomorrow so I will have some pictures of that.  She is very very excited at the prospect of meeting new friends-and I am excited too.  Hannah tends to be a bit…talkative (she ran her mouth for an entire 35 minute stroller ride.  Not sure she even paused to take a breath.)  I think it will be good for her to have another outlet for all the many many things she has to say-ha!!