When Daddy is in Charge

Mommy gets VERY VERY good care! :) I got a bad cold (from the babies) and ANOTHER cyst ruptured! But what a wonderful man I am married to!! He pampers me and meets my every need. Although, he has refused to even touch me because he does not want to end up sick. :) He does a wonderful job taking care of all 3 babies too! They play and eat
and sleep and have lots of fun!!

This is what also happens when Dad is in charge for the day:




















A tipped over chair and diapers (clean) all over the floor, and a pile of dirty diapers on the changing table! :)


I don't know if you can tell but the bottom shelf of the closet is now on the floor!










So-the house is messy but the Momma got a lot of rest and the babies had a great day with Dad. So whats a little mess???

Remembering

I was sitting here thinking about this time last year a bunch of things had just happened. Going through losing my Grandpa and remembering him made me think of this time last year. Grandma was in Utah not doing well (this was mid September) and I had finally gotten out of the hospital and sent to stay with my Grandpa until the babies came. I was not sure how the was going to work. :) But my Grandpa was AMAZING! He took such good care of me! He made me all my meals and made sure I was comfortable. He would go out and get me stuff. He would come in a sit on my bed and talk to me, very short talks! If you know my Grandpa I am pretty sure he had ADD, bad! :) Looking back now I see what a special time I had with him, not knowing he wouldn't be around much longer either. And then about 9 months later I spent my time taking care of him. As hard as it was to see him decline that was also a special time that we could share! I miss him so much!

I've also been thinking about it being a year since Grandma died. Oh how I miss her!!! This time of the year is usually when we start planning our big girls shopping trip! It was such a fun time. We would meet for breakfast at like 8, go shopping until l 1 or so. Have lunch and shop for the rest of the day. Then we would usually end it with dinner! Such special wonderful times! She was such an amazing lady!

Also, we had just brought our all three of our babies home! Cameron and Madison had come home on the 23rd and Blake came home on the 28th. I tell you, leaving Blake at the hospital and coming home with the other two was the hardest thing I had ever done!!! I just knew he would feel abandoned and hate me forever and think I didn't love him! Oh, it was so hard! It was also scary to even bring two home! I was so used to having nurses around all the time to tell me what to do and tell me if they were ok. They had such a hard time breathing that it was scary not to have their monitors hooked up. But I can't tell you how amazing it was to pick up my baby for the first time and not have a million cords fighting me the whole way. Or how amazing it was to actually walk out of the hospital WITH my babies in my arms instead of day after day leaving MY babies in the care of someone that wasn't their mommy and me leaving empty handed! I was pretty scared about handling them at home too! We had to do a "test run" at the hospital the night before the were released. They have hotel type rooms in the NICU and you stay in there with your babies to make sure you can handle their more special needs. That night did NOT go well! We handled it obviously but it was a LONG, ROUGH night! :) But it all worked out. We were sleep deprived (wait, we still are!:)) but that didn't matter cause our babies came home - HEALTHY!!! I can't believe they were all about 4 1/2 lbs this time last year and now they are huge and learning to walk! Time flies doesn't it? It's so good to sit and remember how completely blessed we are - even when it's hard!!

13 Months

I can't believe my babies are 13 months already! Didn't I just post about their 1 year birthday??? They are growing so fast! They are learning and discovering new things daily! It is so fun to watch them. They are also getting harder these days - they are VERY into Mommy right now! Which, I do appreciate it's just hard when 3 babies are crying for you to pick them up. They are also getting real good at the temper tantrum business - they learned that from Jason! :) So I spend a lot of my time correcting and disciplining, but what mom doesn't? They are getting SO curious! Into everything they can get their little hands on!

Madison is our little strong willed dare devil! She is fearless this girl! She will climb on anything and jump off anything! She has NO concept of consequences! She is also a major mommies girl! Funny combo huh? She follows me around the house whining a crying until I pick her up and pay attention to her. We have had to work on breaking that habit cause I do have to get things done and I do have 2 other babies! :) She can be a very happy funny girl if she wants to. Key word is WANTS to! :) She has the funniest little laugh! I love to hear her talk and laugh! She is also starting to walk! She has taken quite a few steps just not quite ready to commit to it! This girl LOVES to eat too! Most days she out eats the boys! And she loves to dance to music. It's so funny how music can get her attention.



Blake has such a neat personality. He can be the most serious, just sit and stare and take
everything in boy I have ever seen. That is how he is a lot, but the the other times he gets SO loud and excited. He just bounces and screeches and jets around the house as fast as he can. It's the funniest thing to watch. He and Madison love to chase each other around the house. Blake is such a sweetie! He's like his Dad and is kinda a loner. He does his own thing and is very happy to do it that way. He is a tall skinny little fellow too! I don't think he has an ounce of fat on him! It's all muscle baby! :) He really likes music too and starts to clap and dance when he hears it. We are still trying to convince him that food is a good thing. :) He just really loves his bottles. He's warming up to the idea though. He finally got some teeth in and has one top tooth and one bottom tooth. Jason says he is going to be a flagger...... :) They all three LOVE being outside! If only their mommy had the energy to go out more often. :) Grammy bought them all snow outfits so we will be set to play whatever the weather! He is getting so close to walking. He will stand for a long time and get so excited. Then he will take one step and fall! I think he gets scared. Won't be long....


Cameron is our funny man! He just laughs all day! He laughs at himself if no one else is paying attention or he laughs when anyone else is. If he is wanting to get some attention and other people are laughing or talking he just starts laughing AS loud as he can so that everyone will look at him. Yea, he likes the spotlight! :) He is always coming up with new funny faces or sounds or tricks to do. He does the Indian thing with his hand on his mouth. He drags his finger off his lips to make another noise. (These are hard to describe in writing! :)) He clucks his tongue and the list goes on! He is also my very sensitive kid! He cries at the drop of a hat! Madison pretty much keeps him crying! You can hurt his feelings very easily! He is also our little short chubby boy! It's so funny to see the differences between him and Blake! He's SO cute though! :) He keeps me laughing most of the day! He hasn't even attempted walking yet. Still a little unsteady. He walks around with push toys and things but hasn't quite worked up the nerve to try. All in good time!

We love these cuties!! Can't believe how fast they are growing up! Enjoy every minute - it goes by SOSO fast!

I'm Feeling

Sad! I'm feeling lost, overwhelmed, stressed and way behind on life! This is a hard season, going through loss! I miss my Grandma who has been gone almost a year now. I'm not ready to say goodbye to Grandpa too! The roles they played in my life are so amazing. I just wish they could still be here.

I do have to say how thankful I am for the Grandparents and Aunt Jean that I do have left!! I have been amazingly blessed in this life to have not just 1 but 2 sets of AMAZING Grandparents! Each set so invloved and so much a special part of our lives. Most people don't even have one set of Grandparents that involved. SO I have been blessed. But, that also makes it just that much harder to say goodbye and let go. I am glad that Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Jean are here, loving us and their Great Grandbabies!

Just a quick post

to document Madison first steps!! She took about 4 steps yesterday evening while playing with Jason and I. She has refused to even try since then - go figure! :) But hey it's the still counts! :) She is growing up so fast, such a cutie!

Loss....

is such a hard thing! Grandpa Martindale passed away on Saturday night. I was staying in Boise with my Mom and Dad since Jason was out of town. My Dad took me to go say goodbye on Friday night, I am glad I had that chance. It was one of the worst experiences of my life though. Grandpa look AWFUL! He looked like he was dead. It was so hard to see the man that I love so much and have had so many wonderful memories of laying there - all 75lbs of him - looking like that. He had lost 100lbs in less than a year. Even though it was hard I cherish the time that I could just sit and hold his hand. He said a couple words and squeezed my hand.

We will miss him so much. Not even a year since Grandma died! They were they cornerstones of our family! Because of that though they taught us how to be a great close family and I pray that will continue even though they are not here to enjoy it with us.

Grandpa was such a funny great man! It's hard to explain him! A few years ago he pulled quite the stunt! Picture a old man, a classy, successful businessman. He decided (with the help of my cousin Stacie) to see what it was like to be a bum. He got some old, dirty tattered clothes, blacked out his front teeth and made a sign that said "Will work for Beer!" He then stood on the the street corner (in front of their business) with sign for hours. I can't remember what happened just that he did it!

He also started our Winnebeggo fund for his grandaughters. Every month we paid dues and have saved money for about 10 years now. He was very good with money and investing and wanted us to learn the same thing. So he would have meetings with us, help us invest and make decisions. It was a great thing for us girls!

He also taught us how to gamble! Yep, that was Grandpa! Every Christmas, Grandpa would spot us $20 and we would play for hours!! He loved it and we loved it! We looked forward to it every Christmas! I got pretty good too - would walk away with some after Christmas shopping money!! Also on Christmas after a DELICIOUS dinner, Grandpa always had a game of bingo ready for us. He had envelopes of money from $5-100 and we would play until it was gone. Each winner got to randomly pick an envelope if they got a bingo! So fun! He also started a tradition of everyone taking a turn to talk about their year and the blessings in it!

For about 10 years Granpa had been sending out a newsletter to all the kids. He would write some of the funniest things! Sometimes serious sometimes just silly. We loved them - he was such a character! Always full of Grandpa's advice!

The stories could go on and on about the things (some good some bad :)) that he taught us, the things he did for us and the time he spent with us. He was a wonderful man! My Dad said that he accpeted the Lord last year afer Grandma passed so we are holding to that hope that he did and is now in heaven and happy!! He will be soo missed!! I am not ready to say goodbye and I can't describe the hurt. But - we have to! So I will just try to remember the good times and remember how blessed I was to have both Grandma and Grandpa Martindale! They left such an amazing legacy for us to carry on!

PARTY!!!