And off she goes...

One day I have promised myself that I am going to go back and blog about every event that I have left off of this blog.  One day I am going to dump all of those thousands of pictures I have taken of my children and our lives and write about them.  One day I am going to do it even though they are just iPhone pictures and even though they aren't the best.  One day I hope… but today is not that day!  I feel like I remember so much of the past 5 years because of what I wrote about it and I just hate that I'm so far behind.  But, in hopes of starting somewhere, I decided to jump right in with the present and share Caroline's first day of KINDERGARTEN!!  We now are 4 days in and she seems to be loving it!

Caroline started school on August 25th at Mohawk elementary school.  This is such a sweet little school and has already turned out to be so great!  All of the moms and families are so kind and caring and very, very involved.  We had a popsicle picnic to meet all of the kindergarten teachers the week before, as well as a back to school night.  Caroline doesn't really know that many kids in the neighborhood, but we are excited to meet them!

Mrs. Henderson is Caroline's teacher and is new to the school this year.  She seems very sweet!

8:00am came quite a bit quicker than we imagined it to in the morning and we hurried to take pictures!  Lots of grand ideas, but not lots of time!

 How can she really be this big???  We are so delighted to be her parents!

 Cooper was still sleeping when we were about to leave and she insisted that he wake up and be in the pictures… hence the Hulk jammies!  There was no way Carter was waking up!

 It was so convenient that Grami was here helping move in the von Goertz's!  It worked out great that she was able to bring Ellie over and stay with the boys while we took Caroline in to school by herself.

We drove to the school, but ended up walking quite a ways.  We are not far from the school and maybe should have just walked...

 Such a big girl with her own locker!

 Class of 2027, here we come!!!

 Hooray for a successful day and to a successful year!!

He's HERE! He's HERE!!

We welcomed Carter Robert Botts into this world on April 22, 2014!  He arrived quickly at 1:44 pm weighing in at 6 lbs. 8 oz. and 19 inches long.  We were so thrilled to have a safe, quick and easy labor and were so excited to finally meet our Carter!

 Although he does have hair, it was surprising to see just how different he looks from his brother and sister!  They both had VERY black hair and his is quite a bit lighter and quite a bit less!  He also has blonde eyebrows and eyelashes.  For now, his eyes are blue.  We will see what color they turn out to be as he gets older.  Caroline's were blue until after she was 1 and now they are very brown.  You never know!  But I'm sure ready for 1 kid to look like me…  :)

Things were quite a bit different this go round!  Josh and I didn't have to be at the hospital until 6am that morning and everything got started a little after that.  It involved a lot of waiting and just really hanging out.  I was already a little dilated so they gave me the epideral early and I really didn't feel much until it was time to push.  

Grami and Pop Pop stayed with the kids while we were at the hospital and they were right there to greet Mr. Carter!  Caroline and Cooper had been counting down the days and were so excited that TODAY was finally the day!

This picture completely sums up our family!  Little Carter IS in there somewhere and everyone is focused on different things!

Grandmother and DJ also came were right there to meet our little man!  Later that night we had a few more visitors, but it was pretty quiet and Josh and I really got to enjoy our third little bundle of joy!

We love you little guy!

"THE" Pink Elephant

Every night after dinner we ask the kids if they want to help us do dishes.  One washes the dishes at the sink and one clears the table and then we switch every other night.  They're actually getting pretty good at it and usually seem to enjoy doing it!  It's only a couple times that Caroline asks for a "fast" night and just lets Mommy and Daddy do it.  In exchange for them helping, they each receive a quarter.  They have piggy banks set up near the kitchen and every so often we count how much money is in there.  It started out that we would let the kids ride the merry-go-round at the zoo.  This is $2 and definitely fun for them to pay for themselves.  We then told Caroline that she didn't have to spend her money every time and could save it for something even better!!  She saw this pink elephant on a leash at the zoo gift shop and was determined to buy it!  She had to sit out several times while Cooper rode the merry-go-round and just watch in order to keep her money.  We wanted to keep the goal attainable, so instead of making her save the $16.99 in which it cost, we told her she needed $10 to buy it.  Well she was getting really close the last time we went to the zoo and while Daddy and Cooper rode the merry-go-round, Caroline and I went to check on "her" elephant.  Wouldn't you know… there were NO pink elephants to be found!!  She was crushed and pretty upset.  We told her that she didn't quite have enough money yet anyways, so next time there would probably be the perfect one for her.  Of course nothing else would work!

I dropped the idea, kind of googled other pink elephants but really had no luck finding much.  My amazing {and somewhat frustratingly focused} husband however, did not stop until he found this particular elephant!  He called the zoo and found out the manufacturer, called them and begged the wholesaler to just sell him 1 elephant and ship it to our house.  Yes, this was not super cheap and increased the price by about $20, but we decided it was worth it to teach her a lesson and not let her lose her enthusiasm for saving money!

So the morning we were planning on going to the zoo, we decided to take 2 cars.  We needed to renew our membership anyways, so Josh went early and after doing that, took our pink elephant to the gift shop.  The workers were happy to play along and said they only had 1 pink elephant left and Caroline could have it!!  She was pretty excited!

They even pretended to ring her up and had her check out with her bag full of quarters!

"Pinkie" went everywhere with us that day!

(This time Grami paid for the merry-go-round and let them keep their quarters.  Spoiled kids!)

What a great lesson and what a great dad!  We are now on our way to earning enough money to go and see Charlotte's Web at a local children's theater.  She's pretty determined!

And #3 shall be...

Well, it is official!  Our little boy is set to arrive just 4 weeks from now and we could not be more excited!  Although we did not set out to name all of our kids "C" names, nor is that particularly my preference for all to start with the same letter, but we have decided to continue the trend and name this little one Carter Robert Botts.  Carter was another name that we both really liked from the beginning and it just seemed to be right!  Robert is my father's name and a perfect middle name for this one!  We are SO excited to meet him and I can definitely tell you, that I'm READY for him to get here!  :)  This pregnancy has been a little more difficult.  I'm older, I'm busier and I already have 2 little ones with minds of their own who both weigh around 35 pounds and like to be carried!  My body is just plain sore at night and this one kicks NON-stop!  I'm not sure what we'll be getting with a third let alone a boy!  But we are excited non-the least!  The kids keep asking me when he's going to get here!!

We had our last ultra sound at 34 weeks.  This was a little early, but I have been measuring just a tad bit on the small side.  This was no surprise, as I was small for both Caroline and Cooper as well.  He measured just a little over 5 lbs, so nothing to worry about!  He will probably be somewhere around 7ish by the time we have him.

We LOVE you Carter!!

SPRING!!

Spring is FINALLY here!!  I feel like we have been waiting for this for SO long lately.  We had a wonderful day of sunshine here on the first official day of spring!  I wish I could say it lasted through this weekend, but at least we got to enjoy it when we did!

Cooper decided that he wanted to get out his new water table that he had gotten for his birthday.  I was about to start cooking dinner so I figured, why not?  He was SO excited and it kept him entertained that I really didn't even think twice about watching him.  I was inside and saw his head through the window with a BIG smile!  He said "Look at me mom!!  I'm a hippo!"  He had climbed onto the table, in the water IN HIS CLOTHES!  Jeans, socks and all!  He could not have been happier!

Of course minutes before dinner was about to be ready, little miss Caroline decided she needed to join in the fun.  She at least put her swimming suit on, but they still both managed to make a mess of my windows!

 Instead of spending time drying them off and making a mess, we moved dinner outside and enjoyed the beautiful weather!!  We sure love sunshine!!

3 YEARS OLD!!

So what do you do when you're nearly a year behind in blogging and you've missed SO many important milestones?  Well, I guess you have to admit to yourself that you just can't do everything and just start where you are.  Between teaching preschool, being pregnant, emptying my iPhoto of almost 40,000 pictures so my computer will work, while ALSO taking care of 2 little munchkins, I have just not found the time.

  

BUT... with all of that said, we were able to celebrate a special little boys 3rd birthday on Saturday, March 15th!  This was pretty much the first time we hosted a party at our house since we had moved in and the first time I had put enough effort into planning anything.  We had a B.L.A.S.T!!  And the best part is that I think Cooper felt just as special as we think he is!  

Of course Cooper's birthday of choice was, yet again, an Elephant party!  I decided to change it up a tad bit from last year and make it a circus party WITH elephants instead.  He wasn't too thrilled with the invitations and told me that all he wanted was elephants, but he was SO excited later on to have a CIRCUS birthday!

 The weather wasn't the best, but the rain managed to hold off until the afternoon, so an 11 am party was just perfect!  It is amazing how quickly the guest list adds up when everyone has two or even three kids!  We added it up and ended up having 54 people here!!  I {mainly JOSH} was worried that we would all be stuck inside and it would be a madhouse!  Our house actually did quite well and it didn't seem crowded at all!  {I think I can safely say that our marriage was saved!  :) }

I hardly saw either of my children the whole time!  Caroline disappeared in her room, but was a great host and played with all of her friends!

 Tough guys in their elephant shirts!

 No matter how old he gets, he will always be my sweet sweet boy!! 

 …and hopefully he never loses the mama's boy in him!

 We re-used the big elephant from last year and I made elephant tails for everyone.  We played pin the tail on the elephant and the kids thought it was hilarious!

Cooper did quite well!

His comment after the next person went was "Elephants don't have 2 tails!"  Smart little boy!  :)  He sure knows his elephants!

Next we broke a clown piñata.  The kids had fun moving the string up and down as well as hitting it with the bat! 

 But the most fun was the CANDY!!!

 Cooper had a large audience and enjoyed all of the Happy Birthday attention!

 Of course he also had a lot of help blowing out his candle!!

 We all had a great time!! Thank you to all of our wonderful friends and family who helped us celebrate!