Happy May!

So sorry that updates are few and far between these days . . . life definitely is keeping us busy! I hardly get a chance to pick up the camera these days because when we are out playing, one boy is running one way while the other boy is going the other! ;) These boys love to go, go, go!! They do not care for being confined anywhere and do all that they can to escape. In fact, Michael left Charlie in the living room while he went to get Alex out of his crib after his nap. All he did was walk down the hall and back and in that time, Charlie had climbed over the couch and gate, opened the door, gotten down off the porch and went out to play in the backyard! Sigh . . . these boys are going to age me quickly!!


Some of these are pictures from my phone. . . some are from my camera. . . .but here's a glimpse into our life lately!

The kids love to play outside!! Blowing bubbles is a favorite!

We went for a walk in the neighborhood the other day and let the boys out at the end of the road to run around. They took great pleasure in collecting gumballs and bringing them to me with a big smile on their face. Even though they aren't "flowers," I took a picture so I could remember the first "bouquet" my boys ever gave me. :)

We have been trying once a month to have a day with each one of our kids. It gives us a chance to have some quality one on one time with each of our babies. Especially with having twins, it's nice to be able to get to know them individually since they are always together. This month, we had a day with Alex. Charlie went to Grammy's house and Lucy went to Gramma's house so everyone gets to have individual time. I thought that they boys would miss each other but it was quite the opposite. Alex really seemed to enjoy having the run of the house, getting to play with whatever toy he wanted whenever he wanted, having both parents' attention whenever he pleased . . . .in fact, once everyone came back home, it took the evening for him to readjust to not being an only child! ;) Here he is, riding Harry the dragon at Harris Teeter. 

I snapped this picture while the boys were watching Mickey Mouse the other day. I looked up from sitting on the couch and laughed out loud at my view . . .sometimes these guys remind me just how twin-like they are! :)

Sweet boys on the couch

I snapped these pictures in the yard the other day. It's almost impossible right now to get a picture of all three of them together, but this was the first one I snapped and miraculously, they were all looking at the camera! 

Can you believe this girl will be 5 in a month?? What happened to my baby?? I'm going to have to stop blinking or she will be off to college before I know it!

Lucy will sit and smile for a picture, but the boys??? Sitting is not really in their vocabulary . . .this is what you see most of the time. . .

Or this . . . 

At Union, I have been having children's choir for the past 6 weeks and the kids put together a program to sing for Mother's Day. Yes, there are only four kids singing, but it's a small church. They did a good job and while they were small in number, they sang their little hearts out. Hopefully everyone at church enjoyed it. :) I enjoyed having my baby up there singing . . .and a year from now, we'll probably have two more little boys joining in as well!

Every Mother's Day, I always get a picture with my reasons to celebrate. :) Remember how I said it's hard to get them to all look at the camera . . .at least they are still cute! 

We had dinner on Mother's Day with the Flacks. Pappy snapped this picture while we were out playing in the yard and I just love it . . . Charlie's smile (even upside down!) just lights up everything around him. Love this kid!!

We had Lucy's end of the year picnic today at the park. One more week of 4 year old preschool and then she will be a Kindergartener! She's had a good year at school and has grown by leaps and bounds. Academically, I'm not sure how much she learned at school, but socially, I have really seen her mature. I'm not in a rush for August to get here, but I am confident that she will do awesome in Kindergarten!

Happy Easter!!

Happy Easter from the Flacks!!!

The Easter Bunny came and left some presents!

My attempt at a photo before we left for church . . .Charlie was not feeling it!

We had a wonderful church service at Concord followed by a delicious breakfast. The church has an egg hunt after breakfast. Once upon a time, they had many kids at the church but now, my three are the only ones of egg hunting age. They still wanted to have the egg hunt, so we came to church prepared!

Once the boys got their baskets in hand, they were ready to go!!

Silly boy!!

We went outside and they had two sides of eggs . .. one for the boys and one for Lucy. Lucy helped the boys gets started since they had never been egg hunting before. Alex picked the concept up quickly . . . :)

It took Charlie a little while to get started. He picked up the first egg and discovered that there was a bag of mini Oreos inside. After that, he didn't want to look anymore! We finally got him to go and pick up a few more eggs.

Of course, he had to open every egg as soon as he found it to see what his prize was! ;)

Look at this sweet face! :)

 Charlie also enjoyed dumping the contents of his basket on the ground.

Once the boys finished up, it was Lucy's turn. The boys sat and ate their Oreos while Lucy found her eggs!

Lucy was so excited by all the eggs for her to find. She was so excited to find them in bushes and on the ground and hidden in the sign . . . with every egg she found, she would call, "Mommy, look at THIS one!" Of course, there were 50 or so eggs hidden for her . . . .

Two cute boys!

Lucy and her basket of eggs!

And one more sad attempt at a group photo . . .

After the egg hunt, we came home to enjoy the rest of our day. Michael was still at Union, finishing their Easter service. He wore his new suit today - doesn't he look nice??

A trip to Hands On

We let Lucy play hooky from school on Wednesday and took a trip up the mountain. We were going to get our taxes done and decided to make a day of it. We had told Lucy we were going to a special surprise and had planned to take the kids to the Play Lodge, one of our favorite places. However, we got there and discovered that they were closed on Wednesdays. :( We had to think fast, so we decided to get our lunch at Luella's (YUM!) and then drive down to Hendersonville and go to the Hands On Children's museum.

Charlie spent most of our time pushing either the shopping cart or the baby stroller around the whole museum. If you tried to take them away from him, he would scream!

Getting some bread for his shopping cart

Alex had fun, as you can see. He wasn't interested in the shopping carts, but he wanted to carry the giant toothbrush around from the dentist station. He took this toothbrush all over the place and wanted to brush everything except for the teeth in the dentist chair!

Shopping with Lucy!

I wish I had more pictures to show you from our day, but Michael and I spent a great deal of our time trying to keep the boys away from the paint station. It didn't matter where we were in  the building . . .they always seem to find their way back to the paints! We finally gave in and let them. Here's Lucy's creation . . .sorry it's blurry!

And here is Alex and Charlie's . . .

They also had a great time at the rice table. This was the only thing that occupied their attention for about 5 minutes at a time. I know the people were glad to see us leave though because by the end, more of the rice seemed to be on the floor than the table . .. 

We had fun and then we got to see Kevin when we took him our taxes. Hopefully we will be able to work it out to go back up the mountain over spring break so that we can get in our trip to the Play Lodge too!!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day from the Flacks! Since we had no school again due to the snow, everyone got to have a lazy day today. Charlie and Lucy woke up around 6:30 and Lucy went out to the couch and laid down. Obviously, she wasn't fully awake because she didn't even notice the Valentine's gifts that were waiting for her! But when she did . . . .

We gave Lucy an Elsa ice palace. It came with an Elsa doll and an Olaf and then we got an Anna doll to play with too. Lucy LOVES the movie Frozen and while this is bigger than what I would normally do for Valentine's Day, this was a big hit. She has played with it ALL day! And she said several times today, "Mommy and Daddy, thank you so much!! I love it!!"  You can see her excitement in this picture below.. . 

The first thing Charlie noticed when he saw everything was the animal crackers from Aunt Nae for him and Alex. He picked it up and said, "Cookies!" He carried it back and forth across the room for quite a while!

We finally got him to notice his gift - a magna doodle. He has a love affair with his sister's and has been trying unsuccessfully to steal it from her room each morning. So now he has his own!

We also got the boys a box of Teensy Fruits (since they can't eat any type of typical Chocolate Valentine's candy . . .something I guess we'll have to deal with once they begin school .. .. sigh . . .) Here you can see how upset Charlie is once he realized he ate all of his already!

Lucy played with her Elsa castle for a good 15 minutes before she realized that there were a few other things for her. Aunt Nae had sent her the new Sofia the First CD. We have heard it for most of the day as well. Her favorite songs are "Good Little Witch" and "Ride of Your Life." How do we know they are her favorites? Well, whenever they come up on the CD, she begins belting them out at the top of her lungs! :)

 Oh, the cookie jar! :) Who knew how much fun it could be?

Charlie finally realized he had a Valentine's gift from Grammy and Poppa! He has had a good time with his puzzle today. He knows where each one of the shapes goes, but taking them time to line them up so they fit back in the right space? Well, it's much more fun to bang it against the bottom in the place where the animal shape is supposed to go . ..it makes a fun noise!

Lucy got an Elsa wand that plays "Let it Go" from Grammy and Poppa for Valentine's day. She loves it so much that she took it with her when we took Alex to the Dr's office this afternoon (more on that in a minute). We got to hear "Let it Go" at least 500 times! ;)

 Alex finally woke up and what was the first thing he went for when he came in the room? Why the cookie jar, of course!!

And then, he found the Teensy Fruits! At least his appetite is coming back . . .

Eating his teensy fruits while looking at his book from Grammy and Poppa

Alex had a good time playing with his brother's magna doodle. We got him a Fisher Price zoo from the WeeRuns consignment sale (it's so cute - the little animals make sounds!). However, he didn't want anything to do with it. Sigh, I should have just gotten two magna doodles! He did eventually come around to play with it - hopefully he will enjoy it!

It was a fun morning. Lucy eventually had to take her toys to her room so that her brothers wouldn't "help" her play! The boys spent the morning playing with/fighting over the cookie jar. Did they want to eat the cookies? Nope . . . just play with the little bear! Alex would talk to it and Charlie would drum on the lid. They would stack their milk cups on top and then knock them off and laugh. Why even bother having toys, right? For the whole day, the bear was never out of arms length of one of them. . . 

We took Alex to the pediatrician this afternoon. He has been sick all week and even though he is definitely a little perkier than he has been, he still will come and cuddle up and lay in your lap instead of playing. He has been crying a lot for no apparent reason and his appetite has been lousy. Now, while he is my sweet boy who enjoys his snuggles, this has been completely out of character for him. I wanted to make sure that he was ok going into the weekend. Of course, it's what I thought - another ear infection . . in his left ear. The doctor wasn't sure if it was an ear infection that was near the beginning or near the end (my guess after this week? Near the end!) but she gave him an antibiotic because he's been so miserable. Hopefully, he will be back to his normal self soon!

All in all, it was a nice day full of family time together. Even though life with three little ones can be so crazy sometimes, I wouldn't change anything about it. I am so thankful for my many blessings. I have a wonderful, supportive husband who is such an amazing father. I have a precious little girl who is so smart and funny and brightens up every day. I have a little boy who is silly and makes me laugh all the time. I have another little boy with the sweetest heart who loves to give kisses and hugs. Even though there are some days where I may be counting down the minutes until bedtime starting at noon, I am grateful that my life is so full. Tonight while we were watching Mickey Mouse before bed, Alex walked over and stood next to me, took hold of my hand, and just stood there, watching Mickey and holding my hand. What precious moments - my heart is so full. Happy Valentine's Day!