Bed Time Routines

I wanted to jot these down, because as much as they annoy me every night b/c it takes sooooo long to get Jenna, Jimmy, and Cassie in bed, their little routines are really sweet and sometimes even a little funny--just not at the time :)

Alli is so easy...she doesn't take a nap, and she is always at school or playing and having fun, she gets tired and tells us usually between 8-9 that she is tired and she wants to go to sleep. That is, if she doesn't fall asleep watching tv before we realize we haven't seen her in a while. But, we say our prayers...here is the one she made up and always says -- God is great, God is good, when we are up, and when we are sleeping. -- Then we pray for whatever special requests we have for others, ourselves, and give thanks for all the good stuff that happened that day. We give her a kiss and hug and we don't see her until the morning.

I wish the triplets were that easy!!! Besides getting them into their pajamas, making them go potty, putting a diaper on Cassie (just in case), and getting them into their room....here is the rest of it -

Jimmy - he is the easiest of the three. Once I get him into bed, we just tell him we love him, give him kiss and hug and he's good.

Jimmy doesn't usually sing and when he does, he starts adding in the pees and poopies and poopheads, etc.


Cassie - her stomach (or her legs, or her head, or her shoulders, or her hand, etc, etc, etc) ALWAYS hurts as soon as she gets into bed. More recently, she also always needs a tissue b/c her nose is running. She gives me a kiss and a hug and then she has to sing me a song. It's either "You Are My Sunshine", "Tomorrow" (from Annie), a song from the Doodlebops, usually "Ukelele" , or "Miss Lucy had a Baby" - the last song, she likes to sing really, really slow!

This was Cassie about 2 weeks ago.



Jenna - she has to have the corner of her 'feet blankie' from St. John's up to her nose so she can either smell it or breathe through it or do whatever she does. She has been doing that since she was a baby. Even though I'm not sure exactly what she's doing, she looks so cute doing it. When she was a baby, she would use anything she can find, sometimes the sleeve of her shirt. So, then we have to put the blanket over her, but it has to be PERFECTLY lined up on her, with no creases, no folds. One time she was even yelling at me b/c she saw a bump underneath the blanket. I was like, "Jenna---those are your feet under the blanket!" Then its time for kisses and hugs. It goes like this -

Jenna - "First I give you a kiss" - (so, I have to sit there and let her kiss me, and Heaven forbid I accidentally pucker my lips because then I have to start all over).

"Now I give you a hug"

"Now you give me a kiss" (so she lays there like dead weight)

"Now you give me a hug" I give her a hug. "My head was a little turned for that hug, but that's okay" and she cracks up laughing.

"Now we both give kisses"

"Now we both give hugs"

Then...."I will sing you a fast song - Miss Lucy is fast. No, no its not. I'll sing "Sunshine" She proceeds with the song and I tell them Good Night, I love you, Stay in Bed or we'll turn the TV off. Turn off the light and shut the door.

Jenna - about 2 weeks ago.


Cassie and Jenna (Jimmy sometimes, but he's pretty good) get out of bed and start playing with toys about 2 seconds after we walk out of the room. TV is usually off after about 5 mins. At least one of them is out of bed to tell us that "someone is waking them up and they can't sleep"....not like they were sleeping in 2 mins anyway! Or maybe their belly hurts, etc. Or, "Mommy, I don't want you to leave when I'm sleeping."

I think I'm just going to start saying a prayer with them and tell them we can't do the other stuff anymore! It's a chore just to put them to bed :)

Night at the Races - Mom's 71st Birthday

We always love to go to the Night at the Races out in Wentzville every year. Always so much fun. This year, we were big fat losers!!! We even took to betting on rock/paper/scissors b/c we couldn't win any races! Not even on the side bets! Jim, by the way, was not good at the R/P/S game...but I was :)

We also celebrate my Mom's birthday at that time b/c its always right around it. I put in all of these pictures b/c I think our family is so funny how they all jump into pictures (NOTE--It's not ONLY ME :)

Happy New Year 2012

We start the new year off at Billy and Kelly's house every year. Diets and resolutions don't start until Jan 2nd in our family. We spend the 1st day pigging out and enjoying time with family, talking, eating, and playing games. The kids love to play over there too!

Greg and Billy with their matching Christmas gifts from Brian---TOO FUNNY!!!

My beautiful girls
Cousins hanging out (Alli, Marissa, Jenna, Henry, and Billy)

Katie, Billy, Jane, Ken, and KellyCassie living the dream with all of the new toys!
Cassie and her favorite cousin Lexi
Playing dice....


Was going to get a cute picture of Ann and the boys, and then one bonked he in the nose ;)

And she wins it!!!
Never enough candy and snacks for Jenna

Found this old post

So, I was already far behind, but now almost a year! Here is a post I found that I guess I never posted. I'm just going to post as is and I'm really going to try to get better!!!!! I'll add a few captions to the pictures though.

Wow! I've been REALLY bad about updating lately....I just went through the pics on my camera and some old posts and realized that I missed a lot of summer stuff....so I'll just post a few cute pics. We did go to Tunica this summer (without the kids), went to North Carolina to visit with our cousins from Poland. That was fun---I love to see them--they are so nice and fun to hang out with. So glad we have a relationship with them and we've been able to get to know them :) We also went to Lake Michigan (we stayed in IN). Quick easy trip that was so much fun and almost the whole family went.

We tried to go to the Biltmore Mansion, but we didn't know it was like $60 a person....forget that!!!! We just took a picture in front of it :) This was on our way home from our trip to North Carolina.


Aunt Joan, and my cousins Alicja, Victoria, and Genny Me and my girls - this was at the pool at Steve and Victoria's...they made us dinner when we arrived and we sat around eating, drinking, and catching up.

Steve, Radek, Uncle Dan, and Jim
Aunt Joan, Jenna, Me, Alicja, Victoria, Genny, and Mom

We went to see a band at a park and it seemed like it was going to be so much fun....then a huge thunderstorm came and we all had to leave....so we went back to Steve and Alicja's place and drank some Polish vodka and hung out :) The whole trip was so much fun and relaxing and just all about seeing our Polish family!Playing at McDonald's on the way to North Carolina....had to stop a few times to break up the drive and keep the kids happy :)

Alli lost her 1st tooth last May...on her last day of preschool and the day I registered her for kindergarten! What a busy day---she's really growing up! She just now lost her 3rd tooth last week---another is lose...Tooth Fairy is going to go broke ;)
Stopped in Nashville on our way home and met up with my friend Donna for breakfast at Cracker Barrel. I'm thinking she couldn't get out fast enough---our kids were a little wild...they aren't too used to going out to restaurants (b/c we know its a lot to handle and b/c its hard to go out to eat with Alli's milk allergy--we go to a lot of the same places where we know she can eat the food). They are getting better now at restaurants, as we have been taking them a little more now. It was good to see Donna---we stayed close after she moved back to Nashville and we used to visit each other a lot, but I guess with kids, its harder. She has two and I have 4. Hopefully I'll see her sometime this year again when I visit Jackie.

I guess this was last spring or summer....this is my Cassie wearing her "poker face" :)

A little more Christmas

We took the kids to the civic center to see Santa. They all did good this year, except Jimmy was still a little bit shy/scared/nervous. You can tell by the expression in the picture :)

We decided to get all of the grandkids picture taken for Lynn this Christmas, so I packed the kids up and drove up to Springfield to meet them all. Jim was supposed to go, but at the last minute, his friend called and invited him to the hockey game, so I took the kids alone. The drive there wasn't bad, but the drive home sucked--it rained the whole way home! I'm already not a great night driver, but I'm extra nervous in the rain. Anyway, I think it turned out really good :)

Front row...(l. to r.) Grace - Josie, Middle row (l. to r.) Cassie - Jenna - Alli - Jimmy, Back row (l. to r.) Nick - Cody - Makenzie

I wanted to get separate pictures of my kids, but it was getting sort of late and hectic in there, so I only managed to get a group one, no individuals.


Here are there school pictures too---I know these are all so late, but I never get around to scanning down in the basement. My big kids!!!

Trimming the Tree 2011

The kids were so excited about decorating the tree this year. We put it up in the stand two days ago, but it was late. Then last night Jim had a survey, so we had to wait until tonight to decorate. Anyway, they did a pretty good job and we didn't hardly have to move any ornaments. Just a few that were weighing the branches down on the bottom. Alli said it's her favorite part of Christmas :) So, here is the finished product and then a few pictures of them doing all the work. Jim picked out a pretty tree this year and the house smells so good :)

Family Cardinal Game

Back in September, we finally made it to the Cardinal game as a family....after the one two years before, we didn't make it back last year. It was too hectic. This year was a lot better, but we did take the kids to play and left in maybe the 6th inning....hopefully next year we'll be able to do it again.