Call Me Maybe...

I think Brady has heard this song a few times!

A day at the museum!

Last year we took the kids to the Mount Washington Valley Children's Museum over in North Conway and they loved it! So when the chance came up for a play date there with our quad friends we were all over it!  The website did not mention that the downstairs rooms were being remodeled and there would be a big re-opening the end of March so we had to have our lunch out on a little picnic table in the entryway rather than in the lunch room but it worked and we had a blast playing all day.

A year later and it is still their favorite exhibit there!




Neigh!


They were so excited to be able to climb up into the tree house and slide down the poles by themselves!

Playing in the wind tunnel

The train room!

One Police Car and 12 quads...not a great ratio!

Playing veterinarian with the Nadeau boys!

When it was time to go it got a little crazy and we didn't get a group picture.  I think Cameron was the most upset by it...he sat at the table and pouted for a few minutes before getting over it.

We wish that we were able to get together more often with our friends but many miles and lack of time restrict us to a couple times a year.  Either way we always have a blast!

Sofia and Minimus

The newest Princess on the block is Sofia the First and she has a horse named Minimus so this is the new game to play in our house!  They were cracking me up playing at Burger King one afternoon.

My Princesses!

Brady loves Princesses almost as much as Aubrey and she has taught him that you need to dress up, spin and know all the words to the songs to be a Princess!

What do you do when something stops being effective?

Shake it up!  It seems whenever we find a good system it works for awhile then they start finding a loop hole in our system.  With the choices program they started finding a third option and telling me why that option was the right option to choose!  With the star program they stopped caring if they were getting stars.  They wanted the reward now or they didn't care if they were getting a star to go towards earning a reward.  Constant praise for good behavior and ignoring the bad behavior worked for a bit too then stopped.

I am constantly reading and listening to what other moms are trying and think about whether or not it is something I think will work for the foursome.  I came across this idea of getting an "X" on a chart for bad behavior...talking back, throwing fits, disobeying when asked to do something...and when they get 10 "X" marks they have to give up one of their favorite things.  Getting an "X" didn't seem to faze them...until tonight!

Tonight Matthew had a fit at dinnertime which resulted in "X" number ten.  He was given the choice of giving up his white dog, his special pillow or his horse.  He refused to choose so Ben made the choice for him and his horse was put up for the next 24 hours.  When he was done dinner he went to check his stash and found his horse gone which turned into a huge meltdown.

Shortly after it was clean up time and Ben asked them several times to clean the living room while I was cleaning the kitchen and no one was listening.  From the kitchen I warned them that when I came in the living room whoever was not cleaning was getting an "X".  I came into the living room to find Aubrey had cleaned up all her stuff, Matthew had cleaned up his stuff, Brady and Cameron...not so much.  They were standing in the middle of the living room telling me they weren't going to clean.  Two more "X" marks!  That put Cameron at 10 and he needed to give up something and he chose his pillow pet.  He went and got it but cried giving it up.  Brady still was only at 9 but he chose to give up his Britney dog too.  I tried explaining to him that he still was 1 away from having to give it up but he was adamant that he wanted to.

So, all three boys got new charts hung up to start with tomorrow and went to bed.  All three of them cried before going to sleep because they wanted their stuff back.  I am hoping this will be a lesson learned and they will reign their behavior.  We will see how long this one lasts...any suggestions are always welcome!  We will give anything we think will work a try!

Catching up!

I was gently reminded via facebook that I really needed to blog because it had been awhile.  There is always something going on that I intend to blog about but the days are never long enough and I never seem to know just what to write when it is just our daily life but we have had some exciting news around here!

First up Ben got a new job!  He started Monday working for VTrans out of Lunenburg.  It was a relief for him to find a job that provides us with medical insurance, a retirement plan and paid time off.  There are so many things we want to do with the kids in the summer and now we will be able to because he will have the opportunity to have time off.  A positive change for our family!

In November of 2011, I joined a company called Scentsy then added the Velata line up in May 2012.  I planned on using the money earned from the company to help us do the extras we couldn't afford otherwise. In July 2012, Scentsy released information on the incentive trip for the year and in the list of choices was Hawaii...somewhere I had always dreamed of going but never thought I would get there.  I set my sights on hitting the incentive and earning the free trip.  Through my hard work and the hard work of my team I was able to earn a solo trip and the opportunity to buy in a guest.  When all the details came out on how the picking was going to go I was fairly certain I wouldn't have to opportunity to pick Hawaii.  Someone was watching out for me and wanting my dream to come true because I got HAWAII!!! With Ben just starting at his new job he wasn't about to ask for time off so my mom paid the buy in so I didn't have to go solo.  Now it is just figuring out coverage for the kiddos!

This week has been school vacation so life here has been a little crazy but the kids enjoyed having different kids to play with and we even snuck in a trip to the children's museum in North Conway with the other quads...that will be a seperate post soon!

The kids have been asking all week for a camp out in the livingroom but I convinced them we needed to wait until Friday so we didn't have day care in the morning because I knew that they would want to be up late and I didn't want to worry about getting everything picked up before 6:45am.  Stay up late was an understatement...they were up until after 10pm and still were up for the day at 6am!  Needless to say nap time was a necessity today!

Sewing Sunday

One of my favorite blogs to read is  The Great Umbrella Heist.  I discovered it when I was pregnant with the quads and have enjoyed reading it every day since.  One thing I always love to see is all the cute skirts and dresses that she makes for her girls so when she posted this and this I was thrilled to give it a try!

The kids and I made a trip to the store and Aubrey picked out her favorite pattern and then material to go with it.  The boys kept asking what I was going to make them so I let them each pick their favorite pattern to turn into pillows.

I was a little nervous to attempt the skirt so I started with the pillows for the boys because I knew they would be a snap.  I sewed them and the kids had a blast stuffing them.  When those were all done I had no other option than to get going on Aubrey's skirt and it actually came out better than I expected!