Valentine's Project

To pass the time on during a very cold week that we can't go outside and play we did a little Valentine's craft a bit early.  I love the way these came out!

Puny Pirates

The kids have been obsessed with Jake and the Neverland Pirates since we went to Disney in September.  They were very excited when Grammie Diana brought them some Jake headbands and an Izzy hat!

 

Scentsy Consultants in Training

The kids love to help me with my Scentsy stuff.  They label all my bars as they come in along with critiquing them with a yuck or a yum, they help bag up orders and they help put together my samples.  It's like a little family business here at the Hickey home!

Little singers!

The newest thing the kids have been doing is making up their own songs.  They totally crack me up!

Cameron can hear!!!

For the past month or so Cameron's hearing has been getting progressively worse and his speech has been affected as well.  He only could really hear us if we yelled or if he put our face towards his.  Cameron and I were laying in bed last weekend and he said "moon and back Mommy" so I told him "Love you to the moon and back baby."  Immediately he started to cry and said "It's not nice to not tell me you love me!"  He didn't hear me!!!

The last time we saw this kind of pattern he had tubes put in and within days we noticed a huge difference.  This past Tuesday he had to go for his 6 month hearing check and Ben was taking him.  I was pretty sure that they would want to put in another set of tubes and told Ben I was fine with that so to go ahead and schedule that if the ENT thought it was necessary before they even tested him the doctor new it wasn't going to be good.  For several reasons they wanted to remove the adenoids too.  That scared me...none of my children had ever been put totally out and I wasn't feeling very comfortable with it however after doing research and talking to the pediatrician and the ENT we decided it was for the best.

I was talking to him the night before surgery and told him how Daddy and I were bringing him to get his ears fixed and he said "My ears not broken.  You just need to learn to talk LOUD!"  Little did he know we had been talking loud to him for weeks.

He was not a happy camper on Friday morning when all he could have for breakfast was popcicles, even though his siblings were more than happy to take one for the team and have nothing but popcicles too.  Cameron kept begging us for something to eat...anything...just a little bite.  It was heartbreaking.  Who the heck schedules a 3 year old for surgery at NOON when they can't eat after midnight???

Cameron was a champ holding his mask until he was put to sleep then I slipped out of the OR and waited (rather impatiently) in the waiting room.  He woke up pretty violent and they gave him some IV narcotics to take the edge off so we cuddled in the bed and he went to sleep for a bit then they tried waking him back up and he let them know that was unacceptable!  "I just want to NAP!" Cameron told them!

The ENT told us there was a lot of scaring on his ear drums, a ton of hardened ear wax and his adenoids were extremely inflamed.

We finally got him up and into the car where he proceeded to devour everything in sight for the next 5 hours.
The recovery has been harder on Cameron than the tubes were last time but so far we couldn't be happier with the results!  We went to lunch at a restaurant and he was amazed at the background noise of the radio...he never was aware of it before.  He kept looking around at all the sounds.  You could tell that he was in awe.  Last night he kept waking up crying and saying he was scared and pointing towards the window saying something was scary.  Finally I just brought him into bed with me for a little extra loving.  It wasn't until this morning when I went in to shut off the humidifier and he went with me and said "Why is that making scary noises?  It not supposed to do that!" did I realize he never heard the humidifier before.  No wonder he was so frusturated with everything.  I am hoping this surgery repaired him for good and we don't have to worry about anything else for the little man.

Goofing around before surgery


Killing time




Mommy and her baby


He has no clue what he is about to get into


Snuggle time after surgery

When you don't have a sister...

you do the next best thing and dress up your brothers!

Except for your brother who is too cool to dress up and is racing his scooter around!

40 months!

Trying to get a fabulous 40 month picture was a ton of fun!  They wanted to pose but unfortunately the "CHEEEEEESSSSEEEEEEEEE!" faces make me very grateful we no longer live in the day off the 35mm film cameras!







The Princess...


And her Princes...or as she calls them her Prince, her Beast and her Prince Dad...who gets which name depends on her mood of the day.


Goofing around!

Crafty kiddos

For Christmas the kids got some cool dot markers and books to use them in from the Canton's.  We had a jammy day because Mommy and Daddy didn't feel well and we wanted to just lay low for awhile so I brought out these for them to make some nice art projects.  I was very proud of the way they tried to stay in the lines and the beautiful pictures they created!

My favorite things about the threes...

The threes have been trying...to say the very least...but they have also been great in some ways as well.

1.  I love the way that they are willing and able to help out around the house...they like to help sweep, mop, dust, load the dishwasher, was the table, set the table.

2.  They can dress themselves!  I do dress them most of the time, just to get it done but they can do it when we have the time.

3.  They love to play in the snow.  They try to build snowmen, they go sledding, they make snow angels.

4.  They use their imaginations, role play and make pretend.

5.  They learn new things every day when we do our preschool curriculum and are becoming smart little coookies!

6.  They have a sense of humor and know how to use it!

7.  They are beginning to understand the concept of time and can understand the difference between tomorrow and several days from now.

8.  They understand their emotions and know how to put to words how they are feeling.

I am sure there are sooooo many more things but these are what I can think about off the top of my head.  They are growing up incredibly fast and in a blink of the eye the threes will be a memory so I want to make sure I remember the good points as well as the bad.

Sledding!

The kids love to go over to Grammie and Papa's to play but they especially love going sledding on their big hill.  Even the little Princess enjoys it...after we convinced her to try it the first time!

Mommy and Brady time

Brady has been asking for some Mommy and Brady time because each of the other kids has had it for one reason or another over the past month or so.  Sunday morning I asked him if he wanted to go grocery shopping with me and I would take him out to lunch while Daddy stayed here with the other kids but he asked me if they could go grocery shopping while we stayed home.  So Ben got three kids ready to take shopping alone...I couldn't help but laugh because again I got the better ratio...and Brady and I stayed home and did puzzles, painted and read some books.  He was so happy and I loved getting time with just him.  I really wish we had the opportunity to do this more often!

Girl Day/Boy Day

About a month ago I heard an advertisement for Monster Jam coming to our state and knew I had to check into tickets.  The boys watch Monster Jam on TV every week and love it...the four of the hoot and holler the entire time it is on!  Aubrey is no where near interested in this craziness and neither am I for that matter so we bought 5 tickets and conned Uncle Tom into joining the boys and Daddy.  They had a blast at the show and Ben said it was worth every single penny!

While the boys were away the girls had to think about what they wanted to do so it was off to Littleton for a Princess mani/pedi for the little lady and a pedi for Mommy!  We followed that up with some shopping then a Norwex party at a friends and finally onto dinner at the Mooselook to see Grammie!

The three boys to one girl ratio works well in my favor! :)

Scary night...

Last weekend I went to bed around 10pm and fell fast asleep until Brady began stirring at 11.  I got up to go check on him and when I opened the bedroom door all I could smell and see was smoke.  I woke Ben and he ran downstairs to see what was the cause.  It was quickly determined that it was the furnace and after hitting the kill switch on that we packed the kids and headed to Grammie Diana's for the rest of the night.  The kids never made a peep while putting on jackets, being carried down the stairs or even getting in the car other than Aubrey asking me where we were going and when I told her she answered OK and put her head back down.

The next morning Ben came back to the house with a friend to look over the furnace when it was determined that it was plugged and that the oil line was leaking.  After that all got fixed and the house aired out we were able to return home.  I am very grateful that Brady was restless and woke me up because none of the 3 smoke alarms nor the two carbon monoxide detectors went off.  Needless to say I have done a lot of research over the past few days and new ones will be installed as soon as they come in.  Please take the time to read this article...it could save a life!

Aubrey the Princess

One minute in a room with little Miss Aubrey and you will know that she is truly a Princess.  Her whole life is about dressing like a Princess, playing with Princesses, watching Princess movies at every chance and of course wearing a tiara 99.9% of her waking hours.  If she is playing in her toy room you are almost certain to find her inside her castle tent playing with her Princesses...


We got this castle from our Fisher Price House Party and she now has the entire collection of the Princesses...she has only had all but 2 of them since Christmas and she can already repeat everything they say and sing word for word!

Frosty the Snowman

The kids were thrilled to wake up last week to a snow covered yard!  They were even more thrilled that it was vacation week and they had some big kids to go out and play with in the snow.  They were begging to go out since 7 am so I gave in around 8:30 and they played out for an hour or so...making snow angels and then a snowman who they named Frosty.  Brady was discouraged that I had no spare buttons only carrots so when Ben and I build a snowman with them on the next good snow we will be using our snowman kit so they can build a "real" one!  

Loving the snow!!!!

So proud of Frosty!

New Years Eve Tradition Continues...

We tossed around the idea of taking the kids to Santa's Village for the New Year's Eve bash but the freezing weather made up our mind.  We didn't want to bundle them all up and fight the crowds to be there for an hour before dragging cranky kiddos out of there so we decided to do the same thing we did last year...

Make a bunch of snack foods...


Put on a never seen before movie...



Eat in the living room...

Chill out and relax....








I can't think of a better way to ring in the New Year!