Happy Birthday Grandpa!!!

Wish we were there for you to play with and entertain!!! Have some pie for us!

We love you!!!

Busy, busy, busy...

Things were very busy this week! I guess that was why last week was so slow...God was preparing me for what was to come!

First of all, I had my first prenatal appointment and we are having ONE baby! Having twins again would have been fun, but I am pretty sure having 5 kids under four years old may have been a little rough. We are happy and so starts our next family journey!

We had dentist appointments for all three kids. We have the best dentist ever! Dr. Matt is a pediatric dentist and the office is so friendly and fun. Dr. Matt even brings his chocolate cocker spaniel to the office which the kids love!

After the dentist, we went to the Arboretum which is where we had Cash and Riley baptized. It was so nice out and we were all happy to be outdoors in the sun!

There were a ton of little waterfalls all over the park.

A fairly good attempt at a group picture!

And...I am losing them.

Tripp, happy to be out of the stroller!

This is the sun room where we had their Baptism. Funny to see them in here now. They were so small then and now they are 3 years old!

My friend from college, Erin and I took our kids to Little Monkey Business to celebrate their birthdays. We had to open our presents in the van because they wouldn't let us bring them into the play area. Whatever. There was nobody there, but we are rule followers!

Here is Maddie with Cash and Riley. Maddie just turned four on May 23rd which is also my birthday!

It actually got really hot this week so we decided to get out the sprinkler ball. Cash and Riley loved it. Tripp, not so much.

I also decided to give the boys haircuts! Cash has always had a short, buzz type haircut. Tripp has always had longer hair and even had a ponytail when he was really little. Nothing like a mom holding onto the baby hair and refusing to cut it. After many a comment about how cute "she" was, I gave in. Well, this weekend I REALLY gave in and buzzed his hair too!

He looks so cute. Well, we think so anyway. And, he has the biggest head on an 18 month old I think I have ever seen. =)

And finally, Sunday was my birthday!!!

I got my fridge for the garage which I will be loving once it is delivered next week. I never thought I would be so excited about an appliance, but it will make my life much easier!

Darin got me a cake which the kids were super excited about.

It was really sweet!

He even got candles!

My mom and dad sent me flowers!

Darin and I had a sitter stay with the kids while we went to our small group with Pastor Dave. Afterwards we went out to eat at Cheddar's and it was sooo good! It was nice to eat with out having to cut up somebody's food or pick up the floor when we were done, but we were excited to get home and have cake with these three!

And so were they!

Kinda Quiet...

Not too much going on this last week. It was rainy and cold almost everyday. We did have one fairly nice day which was nice because that was the day of the truck show!

Darin works for Murphy Hoffman Company where they do something with Kenworth trucks. I don't know. They have dealerships for trucks like they do for cars, I guess and Darin is the sales manager for all their Kenworth branches. I hope that is right anyway.

Sounds good.

They have their truck show every year and I took the kids out. It was at the Kansas Speedway. They had hamburgers and hot dogs, booths with a bunch of candy that I could not keep my kids away from and a band.

Of course, when Cash and Riley saw the racetrack they immediately started looking for Lightning McQueen. They just sat there and waited for some race cars to come out. I felt bad telling them that there would be no race cars. They would have loved to see one race around the track. They did have a couple trucks drive around the track, but it wasn't the same. We needed Lightning or The King. Even Chick Hicks would have been good!

They liked the truck though and just getting out of the house was good for all of us!

On Saturday, Darin took Cash to a bodybuilding contest at The Folly downtown while Riley, Tripp and I did some shopping. One of the guys from our gym was a contestant. He is the one on the end with the dark hair. I think Darin said he is almost 60 or something! This was the senior mens group. The guy on the opposite end with the white hair (if you can see in this picture...stellar photography work I tell you) was 67!

Makes you wanna go work out, huh?!

Well, for a little while it did and then I was back to being happy that I could eat pizza instead of two heads of lettuce for dinner.
Good for them though.

I don't know how they do it!!!

Well, I FINALLY go to the doctor tomorrow.

I am pretty sure that there is only one baby in there, but it will be nice to know for sure. That and Grandma can quit praying that there is two. I don't know why she would want to do that to me! 5 kids under four would be a little much, I think. We will see!!!

Our favs!!!

Show us your life--Favorite Children's Books.

So, my first favorite was a book that my brother, my sister and I read all the time when we were little. I can't find it anywhere these days. I have heard its out of print so if you have a copy...don't give it away!

My kids all love Brown Bear, Brown Bear
What Do You See?and Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Do You Hear? Tripp really loves them. He loves to say the name of the animal before you do and make their noise if he knows it.

I was never a big fan of this book as a preschool teacher, but my kids LOVE it and all of the other books in this little series. There are a few others that teach about opposites. They just crack up when they read these books about David.

This is a book my mom gave to Cash and Riley. It is one of my favorites. My mom is kind of the master at finding really good, cute books with special meanings. This is one of them! There is also a Christmas Cookies version centered around the holiday. They are really cute. These next two books are stories we had read at our children's Baptisms.

The Tale of Three Trees was the one we used for Cash and Riley.

We used The Oak Inside the Acorn for Tripp's Baptism.

And Here's to You is a story about celebrating diversity.

The Reese Family gave this book to Cash and Riley after their son, who was also a good friend of my husband, passed away in a car accident. In the book, it talks about "the bubble people" and Reese would have loved the Bubble People. And on the inside cover, Reese's mom writes "and how he would have loved you".

It is a special book to us.

I had to end with a few more childhood favorites of mine.

We read this book all the time.

This was one of my brother's favorites which I bought for my kids. They love it too!

I loved, and still love, this book. I still want to see the movie.

Now, I may have to put all my James Patterson favorites in another post! =)

Happy reading!

Some of you may not be ready for this...=)

Show Us Your Life - Your Kid's (or future kid's) Names...

When Darin and I found out we were pregnant we immediately started thinking about names. I have always wrote down names that I liked long before I ever thought about having kids. I even used to write down names for all my dogs and horses that I thought I would have someday! Anyway, so I was prepared when the time came.

We both loved Tripp or Cash for a boy.

Our last name is Johnson so we wanted something a little different since we had such a common last name.

The girls name was a little harder. I tend to like boy names for girls, but I also loved the name Stella. Weird, I know because it is a very girly name. I loved Lola too. Darin was not a big fan of either name. His grandma's name was Stella Brown which convinced me that we were meant to use that name! He said it reminded him too much of a grandma and not a little girl so we had to think of a new one to use.

I don't remember where we got the name Riley, but we both really liked it so it stuck.

So we had Cash or Tripp if it was a boy and Riley if it was a girl.

The middle names were pretty easy for us.

Darin's mom passed away suddenly and unexpectedly when I was about 4 months pregnant. We wanted to somehow use her name, Yvonne Clare Trudeau Johnson, in honor of their grandma.

We decided to use Clare for Riley's middle name and Trudeau for Cash or Tripp's middle name.

I liked Trudeau with Cash because then he could go by the initials of CT if he wanted to. I liked that.

Well, there we had it.

We thought.

When I was around 12 weeks we found out we were going to have twins!

Total surprise.

Crazy.

And since we don't find out the sex of the baby, or sex of the babies in this case, we had to think of a lot of names!

We had to come up with another girl name. Ugh.

We decided on the name Peri Grace.

So, two girls would be Riley Clare and Peri Grace.

If it was two boys, they would be Cash Trudeau and Tripp, hadn't decided on a middle name.

We decided if it was a boy and a girl, they would be Cash and Riley.

We got our Cash Trudeau and Riley Clare!

When I was pregnant, I was convinced that it was a boy and a girl so I didn't worry too much about Tripp's middle name.

That is until I got pregnant again when my twins were 9 months old!

Again, we didn't find out the sex of our 3rd child, but I knew it was a boy. I could just tell.

We didn't even really think too hard about girls names.

We like Carter Grace and Drew for a girl. We had a hard time coming up with a middle name that we liked with Drew. All I could think about was Drew Barrymore.

Anyway...

We were going to get to use Tripp.

We decided his middle name should be Michael.

My dad's name is Michael and Darin had a brother who passed away as an infant whose middle name was Michael.

We got our Tripp Michael!

Which brings us to today...

Pregnant again!!!

Yep.

I told you, some of you may not be ready for this.

No, I am not crazy.

I might be when January rolls around and I have 4 (or 5) kids under 4 years old.

Check back with me then.

I am only 6 weeks, but we have never been ones to keep it a secret or not tell anyone we were expecting. We tried this time, but it only lasted a few hours after I found out.

I have my first appointment on May 17th to make sure there is only one baby in there!

Whoa.

Anyway, back to the name thing...

So I am running out of names quite frankly.

We haven't even really talked about names too much this time, but we have thrown around a couple.

Well, I really like the name Brake.

Brake Johnson.

I just love it. I love the movie "The Missing" with Tommy Lee Jones and Cate Blanchet. I watch it everytime its on tv. Anyway, there is a character in the movie and his name is Brake.

Now, don't think about it the terms of your car brake or anything like that. Just use it in a sentence as someone's name.

Its cute.

Different, but so are Cash and Tripp, right?

Well, Darin thinks our little Brake would endure a future of ridicule and regular beatings so I don't know if I will get my Brake Johnson.

My Brake James Johnson.

If Brake ever wanted to go by his initials, that creates a whole other set of issues for him.

You get my drift?!

I guess some kids will think of any way to make fun of you though. If the worst is making fun of your name, so be it.

I mean, my maiden name is Nosbisch.

You gotta believe some kids had fun with that name in grade school.

What am I talking about? I had a professor in college who called me by my last name. Always with the addition of a "T", even after I repeatedly told him its Nosbisch, like "NOZ-BISH".

Ahh, Coach Henry. I still love you.

I keep getting off track...

We both still like Drew if its a girl and Reese if its a boy.

Darin wants to use Reese if its a boy or a girl.

I don't know.

What makes it harder is that we have friends with children named Reese and Drew.

The Reeses we know are all girls and the Drew we know is a boy. Maybe it would be okay if we just used the names, but on the opposite sex?!

Whatever, I guess we have awhile to think about it!!!

So there you go.

All our names in a nutshell...

a big, long, drawn out nutshell!

Lost & Found

Cash lost one of his Lightning McQueen cars the other day. In his world, the correct way to play with all the Lightning McQueen cars is contingent upon having all the cars in the exact order that they appear in the movie.

We were missing Chick Hicks.

Bad news.

He likes to take the cars to bed with him at night so I thought it might be in his room. We looked and looked for quite a while, but never found Chick Hicks.

Cash kept telling me "mom, he's green and he's mean and he has an 8 and a 6 on him".

Well, after some serious searching, he finally appeared.

You should have seen the look on his face. You'd thought I just handed him $100.

He was so excited and said "Thanks mom, you found him. Good job! You are the best mama."

Now, if I could only get him to sing my praises like that all the time...