Easter Morning

Luckily we were able to hold off on the Easter basket hunting until we had the whole family up and moving.  My nana came to visit so for the 2nd year in a row, she was around to witness the craziness that is the Hoffman Easter morning.  Mia only wanted to watch Diego, so Matt had to walk her around looking for her basket.  I guess the Easter bunny did a good job hiding it because Daddy had to ask for hints.

Madi got her basket full of binkys, car seat protectors and headbands

Our big bunny

 This video is hysterical. Makaela is so excited about her basket and gifts, but she can't recall what the gift is called. I love her enthusiasm.

 Mia ate 8 tootsie rolls and then proceeded to steal and eat everyone else's chocolate bunnies.  Now we know how she manages to keep those cheeks so chunky.

 The Easter bunny brought Makaela her own box of Thin Mint Girl Scout Cookies. She has been eating all of her dad's so he thought he would take the box as payback.  She would have none of that.

 Apparently Bailey didn't like his basket all that much so he decided to commandeer Leila's instead (or maybe he just likes pink dog toys....we don't judge).

My mom came over and brought us Easter brunch and by the time we were done eating, we had missed 10 o'clock mass.  We decided to go to noon mass, but it was all in Spanish...it's difficult to tell Makaela to be quiet and pay attention when I don't even understand what the priest is saying.  Makaela just kept saying, "I don't speak Dora's language" and a few people chuckled at her. Then Mia got bored and started to pratice her jumping skills on the steps of the kids' room which then enticed some of the other little church goers to join in. Mia tried to turn the room into a nightclub by shutting the lights off, turning them back on, shutting them off, turning them back on... and after all of that I never got to get communion because Mia decided she was going to beeline it across the church which we were waiting in line.  I ran off, grabbed her and then quickly exited the building. I think I will be sainted for this. Needless to say, that was an interesting experience and I think I earned that glass of Sangria I will be enjoying later on.  Happy Easter everyone!

Coloring eggs

Coloring eggs with three kids is a lot more difficult than I imagined and I was exhausted after it.  I had to leave to deal with Madi and when I came back, Mia had painted her legs.  The girls enjoyed it and I realized we had not boiled enough eggs to keep up with their creative tendencies.  Regardless of ho hectic things are, it was fun to watch them "design" their eggs.

Community Easter Egg Hunt

Family Easter picture

On Saturday, our community hosted an Easter Egg hunt for the kids.  All our neighbors were out and it ended up being the first warm day in quite a while. I had so much fun dressing up all three girls in coordinating outfits and since they were in white, got as many pictures as I could before everyone got dirty.

My little Navy girls

 They had a little petting zoo and the kids were very brave. Mia stuck her finger in a cage with a hen and her baby chicks and one of the chicks came over and pecked at her finger.  I thought I was going to have to deal with some crying, but Mia turned around and said, "the chicken kissed me".  So cute.

 Mia measures size according to "baby", "mama" and "daddy" sizes- baby being small and daddy being the biggest, so it was fun listening to her referring to the animals as daddy bunny, baby bunny.

 Mia decided she was going to enter the hula hoop contest but since she can't hula hoop, she improvised. She took the hoop and just spinned around.  People were amused by her and a journalist there took a bunch of pictures of her for the newspaper.

Getting ready for the hunt

 Mia was good and wasn't too greedy.  She picked up a few and once she realized they had candy in the eggs, she sat down and started raiding them. 

Makaela getting ready for the hunt

and she's off!

 Now Makaela is my hoarder. She grabbed as many eggs as she could and when her basket was full, she was trying to hold them in her hands.  I had to tell her to stop and leave eggs for the other kids- I wonder where she gets her competitive streak from??

Madi had a relaxing afternoon for sure

Happy Three Months Madi

Madi turned three months on 3/28/13. We have been running back and forth to doctors to deal with her reflux and her size. Two weeks ago she was 7 lbs 6 oz and then a week ago she was 7 lbs 7 oz so her doctor referred us to a nutritionist to discuss her diet and weight gain. I had to drive to downtown Jacksonville and I wasn't thrilled since I didn't think we could learn anything new, but the nutritionist did make some recommendations.  The nutritionist changed her formula (we need to add Gentlease to the breastmilk) and we need to increase the amount.  I also mentioned that Madi doesn't poop- in the past month, she went three times. I was told not to worry, but she suggested that I stop drinking milk...I'm not sure how that is going to play out since I am addicted to cheese and yogurt. After the appt, my mom thought she would take matters into her own hand since Madi hadn't had gone in 8 days and used a supository and sure enough, Madi pooped 3 times in a 12 hour span.  Needless to say, she slept peacefully and was all smiles after she went.  Sometimes mothers (and grandmothers) know best.  The good thing is now Madi weighs 7 lbs 11 oz so at least we know she is gaining.  She is still our little nugget. 

I love that she smiles now!

Spring Break Fun

I decided to keep the girls out of school during Spring Break so we could get some bonding time, to go to all our routine doctor appointments and to save on some daycare costs.  I had some big plans, but I was overzealous.  I did get to do two of the big ticket items I wanted to get done: getting to the zoo for DinoTrek and pottytraining Mia! The first few days of potty training were interesting. Day one was amazing- she did great.  Then day 2 and 3 were progressively worse. We actually made it to the toilet only twice on day 3 and I was ready to give up.  I remembered I experienced the same issues with Makaela (actually I remember calling my friend Claudia on the verge on tears and she told me to just stick it out and sure enough, Makaela was pretty much trained by day 4).  Luckily, Mia followed in her sisters footsteps and by day 4, it was smooth sailing. Mia has had very minimal accidents and when she has, it has been because she had trouble taking her pants down or the toilet seat being down. On Wednesday, we ventured out to the zoo and Mia was dry the entire time. At the giraffes, she started saying "Pee pee" and we booked it through the crowds trying to find a restroom. Some people must have sympathized with me because I got a bunch of pity smiles.  She ended up holding it until we found an empty restroom. That was a proud mama moment.  

some slide fun at the zoo

Makaela as a leopard



Makaela as a chicken

climbing through the paleontalogist shelter

Discovering fossils

Mia was a bit scared of the dinosaur roars, but they both loved scouting the dinosaurs out amongst the trees

Now Mia is about 70% trained and only wears a diaper/pull up during nap time and sleeping.  I think she stores up her poop though (yes TMI) because she seems to have a surprise for me when we wake up all the time.  Still, it is a big improvement and I love seeing how proud she is of herself.  She going around getting high fives from everyone and jumps up and says, "I did it, I did it!"  So proud of her.

Ringworm!

The other night I had all three girls in the bathroom and was actually thinking "Wow, this night has gone so smooth; the kids might actually be in bed by 7:30."  I must have jinxed myself. As Makaela was getting out of the bath, she was complaining that she was itchy.  I assumed it was her eczema so I told her to wait and I would get her cream.  After I applied the eczema cream to Mia, I went to start applying it to Makaela and realized Makaela had some round rashes on her skin.  Remembering Weida and Buelow, I immediately thought "Ringworm".  I took a bunch of pictures and sent them to Monica and Brian and sure enough, Makaela had ringworm.  Problem was, I was by myself with the three girls and by the time I had some confirmation, it was 9:30 and the drug stores close at 10.  Makaela's eczema causes her to itch, so I was worried she was going to be spreading it as she itched her eczema spots (and she already had 7 spots of ringworm), so I wanted to get cream on her as soon as possible. Makaela also loves to "love up" on her sisters and I was freaking out that the other girls would get it too since I just had them all the bath together. Luckily, Matt was let out of work a bit early and headed to a 24 hour Walmart and got her cream.  We have been applying non stop since we found out.   Makaela has shed a few tears about not being able to hug her baby sister or cuddle in my bed, but she will survive. She hasn't been allowed to play with friends until yesterday and she has been announcing to people that "I got THE ring- worm". 

More of Madi

Madi is such a cutie, but it's kind of difficult to get good pictures of her. She is always squirming and she hates the flash.

I love this picture- she looks so pissed.



Mia thinks Madi is pretty special too.

Aunt Donna

Makaela enjoyed her Aunt Donna so much while she was here.  Here was a picture of their last night here.  We took Donna and Gerry out to Harry's and had a delicious dinner.

Gaelic Festival

The St. Augustine Gaelic Festival was the weekend before St. Patty's day so the girls, my mom, my aunt and uncle and I decided to go check it out (matt met us there after work).  There was a bunch of kids' activities and while the kids played, the adults took shifts and walked around the fair.  While my mom was walking around the Scottish clans, she saw our last name "Torrie" on one of the flags and found out a bit about the Torrie history in Scotland.  We belong to the Cawdor clan (I have to watch Braveheart again because they mention Cawdor quite a bit) and the Cawdors are part of an even bigger clan, the Campbells.  There is a Cawdor Castle in Scotland and as a Torrie, we can get free entrance (yes, now I have to plan a $2,000 trip just because I can get into a castle for free :-) My mom also found our family's plaid, so one day, I'll have to get some dresses made up for the girls.  It was pretty interesting.  My mom also experimented with some of the Gaelic food.  She was the brave one, and I was not- something about "meat" and "pie" doesn't appeal to me and anything called "haggis" can't possibly be good.
Of course, the girls were just excited to play, jump and jump some more.

Makaela enjoyed the water hamster ball rides- Mia kept getting tossed in it, so she opted to get out.

Makaela on the bouncey activity

she loved it!

and Mia, seeing her sister do it, had to do it as well

and of course, Matt had to make sure she got as high as she could go, so he helped throw her up

Afterwards, we let the kids run off whatever energy they had left at the park.  It was a great day.

The New Fantasyland

My aunt Donna and Uncle Gerald came into town and being big Disney fans, we headed down to Disney for the a day to check out the new Fantasyland- a new part of Magic Kingdom that has a new Belle attraction, a new Ariel ride and a newer version of the Dumbo ride. It was quite chilly so I left Madi home with my mom and Matt and took the older girls (pumping was so fun in the amusement park :-)  The girls were in heaven, as always. It was a nice way to spend the remaining weekend of my maternity leave.

Beast's castle in the background (it's just scenery but it's so pretty)

Waiting to meet Belle.  We got to visit her "provincial" home.

Checking out Belle's well

The Belle attraction is actually an interactive show, so Makaela got to play the part of "Chip". She passed up the part of the Beast earlier.

 Even though Mia wasn't in the play, she wanted to be and joined in when Belle started dancing with the cast.  When it was over, she ran right up to the line to meet Belle too.

 Disney finally got it right.  The newer rides have kiddie play areas so they have something to do while waiting.  It made the lines a bit more bearable and the kids didn't even realize we were waiting.  Here we are playing in the Winnie the Pooh area.

Mia loves the rides. She can't take her eyes off the animation.  I love watching her.