Easy as One, Two, Three

I know a lot of you are waiting for some birthday party photos, and I will post them soon, but in the meantime, have you noticed I have THREE kids?! Man, that's a lot. Okay, maybe not a lot, I'm certainly no Michelle Duggar, but there are days when I'm amazed by all these little people that we made! For one thing, the grocery bills are starting to get a little scary - can you imagine what its going to be like when they're all teenagers? And don't get me started on clothes and shoes! How do they grow out of them so quickly?! All I can say is thank goodness we're being treated to all of Abigail's hand-me-downs otherwise people would be very confused when they were introduced to our daugher Elliot dressed from head to toe in her brothers' cast offs.

Its been quite fascinating to watch the twins and Elly start to interact more and more, she's really becoming their little sister, not just the baby. She's already making moves toward their toys, their food and their hair (baby 101 - when in proximity to hair follicles, pull as hard as you can). So far all of this is greeted with delight or amusement by Owen and William, but I'm wondering when all that will change. I can already hear the chorus of "MOM! She's got my stuff!" Actually, what I'm hearing these days is "MOM! HE'S got my stuff!", but I think I'll save my ranting about brothers and all the ways they find to bug each other for another day.

But like I said, she's still got the cute/novelty factor working for her, so Elly is safe from brotherly torture for now. Here are some pics I took of my three amigos before bedtime.

And a video too! Note my tired voice and sighs. It was a Thursday night, Mark was out for the evening and I was doing bedtime solo.


And speaking of three, we did a neat decorating thing this weekend. Mark and I are sick of the boys throwing their coats onto the floor in the hallway when they come inside, but they can't reach the hangers in the hall closet. I looked around for some interesting hooks to put on the wall by the side door, found these and these, but in the end, we did this instead:

The kids were thrilled with them

And we were pretty pleased ourselves. Now every time we walk down to the basement we smile a little. Mark said last night "Its ridiculous to feel so much pleasure over a set of hooks, but I can't help it!"

However, you will note that there was no room for a fourth hook. So we are clearly, most definitely NOT having any more children.