Catching up

Okay, so I've just noticed that my last post was NOVEMBER 17th. Yikes! Sorry for the long delay, but life has been really crazy for the last few months. I hope it will return to our normal crazy, but for now I'll try and catch you up on the comings and goings of the Dodd family.

So, mid November we finally found a home to buy. It's in our same town of Monrovia, about a mile and a half from the house we were renting on Ivy Ave. It fit our criteria of: a new build, three bedroom, outdoor space for Myles, garage, in the ward boundaries, in a good elementary school boundary. Well it wasn't going to be good timing, but my life rarely has good timing. We entered Escrow on the 20th and had 25 days to get the loan done and funded. Mind you this is the start of holiday season. NOT a good time to move! I began packing almost immediately knowing that it was going to take some time with three little ones.

Meanwhile all the kids got sick. Audrey came down with a 104.9 fever on the 1st of December. I take her to the Pediatrician who send us to the Emergency Room. NOT what you want to hear when your baby is slightly lethargic and only 6 1/2 months old. She was tested for the flu, a UTI, and Pneumonia, all negative. No reason her temp. should be so high. Sent us home without an explanation. The kids are now trading cooties back and forth. Someone is always sick and I'm STILL packing.

Another week passes. My mom is now in town to help me out with the rest of the packing and the kid care. She is a life saver. I wouldn't have been able to do it without her. I don't know how the children would have survived without her. She was their mommy for 6 days. She packed, cleaned my old house, made dinner and fed my kids, and was a major support and help to me and Bjorn.

We start moving on the 16th of December. My brother Ryan and my Dad come into town on Thursday night and work like dogs to get my "punch list" done. They build storage in my garage, a lot of storage. They install my ceiling fan in my master bedroom, take out the glass doors in my kids bath, install a curved shower rod in the kids bathroom, patch and paint various holes in most of my walls. Then they paint accent walls in my master bedroom and living room, and build more shelving in my closet. They install towel rods in my bathrooms, and wood blinds in my kids rooms. It was a lot of work and they helped move furniture on top of all that. We unpack as much as we can, re-pack for a trip to Utah. Then three days later close the door and leave for a week of vacation for Christmas. It was hard to leave an unpacked home, but it was a much needed break from a month long job of moving. Oh, and the kids are still sick. I get sick as soon as we get to Utah. I'm out of commission for two days. Bjorn's back is still bothering him, so no skiing for him. But we did get lots of needed rest. Thanks for a great Christmas mom!

We arrive back home for New Years. We beg off for New Years Eve, just too tiered. But we did have friends over for a New Years day BBQ. It was a great day. We still had sick kids.

Last week we went back to the doctors to see if we can get a handle on all this sickness. Audery ends up with an ear infection, and a lung infection. She gets a round of antibiotics. The other kids are sent packing without anything. Two days pass and the other two are sounding just as bad as Audrey so I call and get them all on the same medication. FINALLY. I can't wait to have healthy kids!

The unpacking is going well. I only have a few more boxes to go. We've been shopping for furniture and are almost set. We are waiting for a dresser and chair to arrive then we will be complete. I've found a large mirror for the living room, a new bigger book case, a clock, Washer and dryer, a hall bench with storage under the seat, three rugs. One for the kitchen, one for the living room, and one for the hall. I still have to get a fridge(eventually), curtains for the master bedroom, finish the kids shower curtain, sew a pad for the hall bench, buy bath towels, and we need to hang our pictures and other things. It's all starting to come together and I hope our life is coming together too. It's hard when you don't feel settled. I promise to post house pictures. I was going to do "before" and "after" photos, but I didn't get the before shots done and now there will just be after pictures...way after.

Hope you had a nice and relaxing holidays!

6 month and growing...

The girls are now 6 months old and growing like weeds. They are still neck and neck for weight. Audrey is 16#9oz., Lydia is 16#6oz. And they are both 27 inches tall. That puts them in the 65% for weight and 90% for height. It's amazing that I have all these tall kids, since I myself am not tall, nor do we have height on the Dodd side. Hhhhmmmm, are these really my kids? LOL. One look at Lydia and you know she is all Bjorn. And the same for Myles and Audrey with me. Can't believe how different they are getting. Fun personalities too. They are way more interactive than Myles was at this age. It's really fun, exhausting, but fun.

Myles thinks that when you say "cheese" you close your eyes too. Can't get him to do otherwise. But he really wanted his photo taken too. Who could resist a face like that!

Growing up

So what does it say about your "little boy" when all of the sudden he is VERY interested in the Toys-R-Us Big Book of Toys? It's like my baby transformed into a big kid. He spent about 15 min. pouring through the pages of this catalog, almost like he knew what it was. I'm really not sure if he just liked the pictures and bright colors, or if he knew they were really toys. Either way I'm holding on to this little gem. It's 15 min. of uninterrupted time for me!

Fall fun

Well it's that time of year when the weather FINALLY gets cool, the leaves go "crunch, crunch, crunch" under your feet, and the little kids all say "trick-or-treat"! We have been busy making our Halloween rounds this year. It started last Monday with a "trunk-or-treat" at the church. We all dressed in costume and won the family prize. If you can't tell Bjorn and I are flowers and the kids are all our bumble bee's. Yea for the Dodd hive! The girls loved this costume because they love to be held and baby bjorn's simulate this. The night was full of chili dinner, ghost cup cakes, carnival games for the kids, and the trunk-or-treat to finish it all off.

Friday night was the Myrtle street fair. We like to take a walk down there every so often. Not every weekend, in fact I don't think we have been there since June. Anyway, with our big triple stroller you can imagine what a zoo it is to walk there. We get stopped every 5 feet and it takes a lot of patience to get through the place. It was a perfect night for us however, there were a lot less people than usual and we made our way through with ease. Myles even had a stop at the petting zoo for a pony ride. He's wanted to do this several times before, but I didn't think he would sit still long enough. He had such a great time! Take a look at his cute little face.

Saturday was trick-or-treating on Myrtle street. All the merchants come out on the street and hand out candy to the MILLIONS of families who parade their kids up and down the street. It's really a nice thing for little kids. It's early in the afternoon and you don't have to worry about where to go. It's fast and the kids get a good haul. Then you don't have to feel bad about putting them down to bed before the trick-or-treaters get to your home that night! What a successful Halloween. May they all be this easy.

"I can't hear you"

As a mother I take pride in the fact that I usually keep my cool. I am usually very patient and try to explain why I want Myles to do things. I try to use distraction in order to avoid temper tantrums. I'm usually very level headed when it comes to the kids but, what does it say when your two year old covers his ears before anything comes out of your mouth? Picture this: we have been having a really hard week at the Dodd home. Myles has been exceptionally grumpy and disobedient. This has caused me some stress(okay, A LOT of STRESS). I've tried everything I can think of, but when you have to put a child down for a nap for the 22nd time you just start to loose it. I'm not kidding about 22 times! So Myles was playing yesterday while I was doing my hair. He pulled out the keyboard drawer and then pulled out the extra space shelf, and I'm guessing here, used it to get up on the trunk. Of coarse it isn't rated for this kind of weight and it split the wood that housed the drawer. I came out to the sound of a crash. Myles took one look at me and covered his ears as if to say, "I can't hear you!". He knew I was going to be mad and yell at him. I guess I've been doing too much of this lately. It makes me feel bad, but sometimes it's either yelling or killing, and I think the first is the better option.

Back on the move

I'm now seeing how dark this picture is and I'll try and post a better one.

I've been meaning to post about this for a while now. I've had my "BIG" stroller for a while now and I can't tell you how much I love it and how happy it makes me. The kids and I can now get out of the house every day. It' s so nice to be able to walk at a normal pace and not at Mylo pace. You see that's how we used to do it. I would put the girls in the double and Myles would walk. Well you can guess how well that didn't work. He would walk in the opposite direction that I wanted/needed to go. Then he would walk soooo slowwwww. It took us 1/2 hour to walk 2 1/2 blocks to the grocery store once. So now that I have the big stroller we can zip in and out of the store. Or at least that we the plan. We must be quite a sight because I have yet to use the stroller when I didn't get stopped at least once by someone who was interested in all the kids, or the stroller, or both. It's funny how perfect starangers will tell you their life story if it has anything to do with the fact that they had twins, or knew someone who had twins, or for no reason at all. Anyway, we love our stroller, we love that we are now back on the road.

Celabration

I *HEART* Fall. I love the cool weather, I love Halloween, and I love the beautiful colors it brings. I also love that October bring my birthday month. I look forward to my birthday all year. I guess I'm still like a kid in that regard. I celebrated my 34th this year. Yep, I'm in my MID THIRTY'S now. Not that I really care. I'm still young compared to Bjorn who will turn 40 this January. I guess he can always say he is in his EARLY FORTY'S! Anyway, it was a great birthday.


I had a great time on Friday night at the baseball game. I love getting to watch the Red Sox play. I have a fabulous husband who planned a great weekend for me. He even did his own shopping for a gift, flowers and a cake. I was going to say that he baked a cake for me, but non of you would have believed me. You all know he doesn't cook anything but oatmeal. Then on Saturday morning we drove to the Farmers Market at the Grove and had Crepes. It's something we used to do often when we lived on the West side. Now that we are farther away we don't do it that much, but I do love it. I love the cool weather over there and I love the outdoors. I love the crepes too. Then to top it all off we had take-out for dinner.

We put all the kids into bed and had cake and ice cream by ourselves. It was a glorious day. A whole day where I didn't have to cook anything. What more could I ask for. It was a great birthday thanks to my sweet husband. I'm not sure how I landed him, but I'm thanking my lucky stars!