Welcome Home Daddy!!

For the past month I have been single parenting. With a lot of help. Free help from awesome family and friends. And hired help as well.

Truth is, my crew require two parents. In fact we could probably make use of a third parent but we are not that adventurous nor do we have the time to arrange such a thing ( I'm joking, although recently while watching Sister Wives I had the epiphany that four moms in a family isn't such a bad idea!)

Anyways, my bout of single parenting made me realize a few things. First of all, single parents are my new heroes. Don't know how they do it!

Second, Mark and I could never get a divorce ( not that we want to, and I hope we never want to, but if for some reason we did, we actually couldn't cause I NEED that guy for our family to function!)

Third, I am the wimpiest army wife ever. Pre-kids, I wouldn't have batted an eyelash at a month long separation, but as we all know, kids change everything. I found it hard, and the kids did too. Rylen for the last two weeks has focused his play on "daddy being on course"... Every two seconds he was bringing it up. Clearly he was missing his pal.

It didn't help that my kids aren't great sleepers ( well actually one of them downright sucks at sleeping) and were also sick for 75% of the time that Mark was gone. ( I made four trips to the walk in clinic in nine days!!)

Anyways, call me a wimp or whatever but I was counting down to today like crazy!!

Rylen was super excited for his Daddy's arrival. He had it all planned out ( and we even practiced) that he was going to yell "Daddy!!!!!" and run like mad and give him a huge hug. But when the time actually came, he got all shy and emotional and hid his face in my leg. It was super cute.
Garrett and Rhys seemed pretty excited to see their dad too. Huge smiles from both!!!

It was so heartwarming to see them light up at their dad's face.

Welcome home Mark! You are one very loved guy!!!

Christmas...was that a month ago already?

A little late but never too late to say that we had an awesome Christmas 2012!

Truthfully, anything would have been better than last year. But, this year was super great for so many reasons.

Here's a brief review:

Elf on the Shelf whom Rylen first named Simon and then changed to Phillip. Note: Phillip did not have the desired effect of prompting good behavior. In fact, he quickly became a bit of a bother. And I'm not going to lie, he maintained his perch on the light for many many many days. No cutesie marshmallow bubble baths for this guy!

 

 

Putting up the Christmas tree which lasted about 10 minutes before a barricade had to be established.

 

Rylen being Santa on Christmas Eve

 

 

New Giroux Family picture!

 

 

Stockings...handmade by my talented Grandma!

 

 

Milk and "cookies" and letters to Santa

 

 

Three happy boys Christmas morning

 

 

Steam train! Santa came through! And he hasn't put it down since. (That face is actually a happy one believe it or not!)

 

 

Garrett and Rhys taking it all in.

 

 

Christmas with kids is so much fun! I almost can't wait for next year, except for unfortunately it's a lot of work too. I think I decided that next year I want to be all done my preparations in October. Then I can just enjoy the season with no timelines or rushing around.

Brothers

One of my favorite pictures:

 

 

I love how they do everything together. They are rarely far from eachother. Rhys is often the leader, and Garrett follows.

 

It's so sweet. I hope this lasts forever.

For Mark: Happy Anniversary

Six years,

Five billion kisses, hugs, snuggles, laughs, smiles and hours of FUN,

Four beautiful baby boys,

Three healthy, happy sons,

Two best friends,

One awesome life together .

Love you and miss you.

And thanks for the flowers!

I love you because....

....you insist on eating your ice cream cone from the bottom up.

Of course I love you for many much more meaningful reasons, but your little quirks (many of them born of your stubborn nature) are so special and sweet.

I love you Rylen!

Scuba diving on a cold winter's day...

Rylen's gone scuba diving twice today!

We've killed about two hours total doing this. Not sure why I haven't thought of it before!!

It's Fun to be ONE!

This blog post is extremely tardy. I just don't seem to be able to make time for things like this lately, but I will post more about that later... (if I have time haha!) But for now, here's my super late summary of the boys first birthday:

 

I always say how fast time flies, but seriously this year was ridiculous. I can't believe my little boys turned one over a month ago!!!

 

In my opinion, this was a huge milestone birthday for them. Back when we were in the NICU, I couldn't see past the next day, let alone envision their first birthday. Garrett and Rhys have done so well, we are so proud of them. They are healthy, strong, and beautiful. I love those guys!

I was excited to create some new "November 30" memories, as this day last year was not a good one for me. My birth experience was not your usual happy experience and I don't have many happy memories of that day. So, I was excited to have a fun birthday with the boys and celebrate their year of achievements!

Of course, we thought a lot of Ben on their birthday, as always. When I was birthday cake making, I had a moment where I would have given just about anything to be making three cakes instead of two. We did a balloon release for Ben on the morning of the big day, and it was nice and lighthearted and just made the day even more special.

 

www.cynthiakorman.ca

 

www.cynthiakorman.ca

 

 

We set up Garrett and Rhys' present the night before at the end of the hallway, thinking they would crawl out of their room in the morning and race over to their new toy (we did this with Rylen on his first birthday and he was super jazzed about his new car.)

 

 

Well, that was kind of hilarious. We had the video camera all set up and were recording away for seconds, then minutes and then it became obvious that they had absolutely no interest in the fact that a new toy awaited them at the end of the hall. It took them like 15 minutes to make their way over, at which point the touched the toy for like a minute and then proceeded to race over to the dishwasher which was open.

 

 

Nothing beats the dishwasher in our house. They are like ants to a picnic as soon as the door opens. There isn't a toy in the world that can compete.

 

 

The next day was their big party. We all had a great time and the boys enjoyed their cake!  I made sure to have some "little touches" in place to include Ben because we were thinking of him all day. See the blue and white balloons by the happy birthday banner?? There are two blue for Garrett and Rhys, and the white one for Ben.

 

 

The cake had three stars across the top: green for Garrett, red for Rhys and blue for Ben

 

 

Garrett enjoyed his cake more than Rhys which is suprising because Rhys usually wolfs food down enthusiastically while Garrett is more challenging to feed.

 

They got spoiled rotten and I think between this event and Christmas, I am going to have to invest in a few more toy boxes.

 

 

 

It was a great birthday celebration and I am very pleased with how it all turned out (despite a near meltdown on one occasion after going on Pinterest and discovering that my birthday plans did not even come close to measuring up to what some others do for their kids birthdays...one lady spray painted her kid's highchair to match the "color scheme"!!!! I have a beef with Pinterest but that's for another post....)

 

Sidenote: Mark and I sort of felt like we should get some kind of award or something for surviving the first year of raising multiples. Then, my friend Michelle B. surprised us with a gift for US in addition to a gift for the boys. It was like she was a mind reader! Thanks Michelle! I have the best friends ever!