A few quick pictures because I barely blogged this month.

I love when she practices with her spoon.  She takes the whole thing very seriously.

Cooper stole my coffee.  This is his new picture smile, BTW.

Dorothy is working on her forward roll

Also, the morning nap drop is a little rough-- she's a bear

But a totally sweet and snuggly bear.

Sometimes Cooper gets the urge for a pacifier.  He uses his entire hand.

She looked so fancy after breakfast with her yogurt gloves

He seriously loves decaf coffee.

Don King baby

Harry and Jack cannot stay off the dirt mound outside our window.

Should be grading...

I have to HAVE TO grade a large stack of essay exams.  I HAVE TO.

So, logically, I am writing this blog instead.  Because exams.  Yuck.  Yesterday, I made myself an answer key (which is kind of stupid since I wrote the exam.  But I thought it might make grading go faster).

I have nothing new or exciting to talk about.  Not even really very many pictures because I am at the library and the ones I took today on my phone are not uploading to my iCloud for some reason.  A reason that I am not bored enough to investigate, BTW.

Oh.  Wait.  There they are.  THIS IS SCINTILLATING STUFF.

Harry and Jack built some Geo Trax tracks before school yesterday, and Cooper played ALL DAY.

 Now that she has enough hair for 2 pig tails, I cannot imagine another hairternative.

 Cooper is also way into grooming, obvs.

 He even grooms Dorothy's sweet ride

 Ride 'em, cowgirl

 Not sure why she was so gloomy, but Cooper took this picture of me taking an iPad picture.  Meta.

 The teeth!  I just can't even.

 Every meal she eats is the biggest mess in the world.  I have missed this phase though because it is so adorable.  And it is so lovely and easy to have 4 self-feeding children at meals.

 Cupcakes for lunch because the bigs had early dismissal. 

 Sweet baby no nap.

I think that the morning nap is a thing of the past.  She has taken 2 this whole week.  This morning, I didn't even try to put her down.  She just finished nursing and scampered away to play.  The upshot is that nighttime sleeping is good, an I m getting a solid night's sleep for the first time in a year, which is LIFE CHANGING.  And now that I said that, I will never sleep again.

Food

I have the major lunch-packing blues. 

I AM SO OVER PACKING LUNCHES. 

Finally (FINALLY) I have discovered the magic formula that leads to a completely empty lunch box:  some kind of meat (chicken from last night, turkey from the WF deli, this truly revolting turkey sausage Jack likes on occasion, a leftover burger-- MEAT) with some kind of organic snack cracker, half a peanut butter sandwich, fruit of some sort (for Jack ONLY raisins or applesauce or very, very rarely orange slices, but Harry will eat anything but bananas), an Organic Valley cherry yogurt tube (NO VARIATION ON THIS OR ELSE), and something sweet. 

Sometimes they get veggies and dip instead of snack crackers but only if I feel like cleaning dip out of every crevice when the box comes home.

 If we have leftover pizza, that is an acceptable substitution for either meat or the PB sandwich. 

Occasionally, I can combine their meat and sandwich needs with a meaty bagel sandwich, but only sometimes and usually only one of them will eat it and not always the same one.  SO CONFUSING. 

Talk to me in 3 years when Coop needs a lunch, too.  And then in 4 years when Dorothy does.  But by then, Harry cannot possibly still want me to pack his food, right?  Or maybe by then I won't care about all the shit in school lunches, and they'll be buying all the time.  (Probably not).

You know what I am NOT over?  Making cute little people lunches for Dorothy.  Today she had organic bear-shaped honey crackers, a pear, and a grilled cheese sandwich with a cup of cow's milk, just like a REGULAR PERSON.  And then for dinner, she enjoyed chicken, cantaloupe, asparagus, and a chocolate chip cookie like everyone else.  It's too adorable.

We also eat the best ever when one of our babies first starts eating everything we do.  EVERYTHING in the house is organic from crackers to dairy to produce to meat to condiments because I cannot even imagine pesticides and gross preservatives in their tiny little bodies.  Gradually, exceptions begin to slide in here and there.  For example, I LOVE Trader Joe's chocolate chips and their apple carrot crushers, and I bet in a few months they will find their way back to our pantry.  Same with the occasional box of cereal from the regular store (gasp!) or package of Nabisco something terrible.  Or TJ's non-GMO but also not organic butter.  But for now?  Squeaky clean cabinets around here. (Although when I paid $5.79 for freaking graham crackers (she really enjoys a graham cracker after dinner), I thought longingly of Honey Maid, so maybe these exceptions happen sooner than I think...)

In other scintillating news, I finally figured out how to make a fish tail braid.  So that and a bottle of beach wave spray, and there you have it.  My hair plan until the end of the summer.

Tuesday Randoms

Sometimes my ability to multitask impresses even me. I have read 3 books today, given myself a pedicure, given a midterm, held office hours, participated in online class discussions, talked to a student on the phone, zeroed out my work email inbox, bought Dorothy a swim suit for vacation, planned several nights of vacation dinner reservations with Ben, exercised, grocery shopped for a few popular items we're almost out of, and I am swinging by the library on my way home from work.  Phew! 

In other random news:

I am waiting for 9 students to finish taking a midterm. I didn't think that anyone would use the whole 2.5 hours, and it turns out nearly half the class is using it. Oops. 

I ate a truly delicious raw kale salad from Whole Foods for lunch today-- I highly recommend it. 

The boys and I are in the middle of Where the Red Fern Grows, and I can't wait to go home and read it-- I forgot how completely wonderful that book is. Harry and Jack are as hooked as I am. 

I am dying of thirst because I left a 1/2 gallon of Fiji water in my car. It will be nice and cold after class since it's 19 degrees outside today.  Blergh. 

Tomorrow promises to be in the 40s, and I may break out the double jogger after I take the kids to school. Dorothy is sort of dropping her morning nap, meaning I have been sort of dropping-- by which I mean rescheduling-- my morning stint on the elliptical. I am thinking about a gym membership, but it would be a better investment to just get Cooper a 4G iPad so he can watch Netflix on the stroller. Poor baby only has wifi on his iPad. I  am sort of kidding but only sort of because I like working out in my neighborhood and basement and I do not miss the general yuckiness of the gym playroom. 

7 students still writing in their blue books. 

OMG-- Dorothy can eat bagels!

I lost a week of my life to the kids' school carnival. Oops.

 What in the heck were Ben and I thinking being co-presidents of the school's parent-teacher organization?  We have spent every single second of the past week organizing carnival games, confirming volunteers, and creating and writing about the baskets for the silent auction.  the kids have been eating like shit, and I have been out of the house so much Cooper has a pet rock he calls Mama.

But, here's what you missed in the last week:

Cooper is a photojournalist

 Dorothy loves matazah

 She got her 1-year vaccines at her well-check (50th percentile across the board), and they turned her into a cranky little bear. So if she wants to wear bibs like sandwich boards, who am I to stop her?

 Harrison dresses funny

 Dorothy makes marshmallow soup

 Jack is suddenly ginormous and wearing most of Harrison's clothes.

 Dorothy loves Chipotle

 And so does Cooper.

 Cooper also loves to wear makeup.

AAAAAAAAnd that about sums it up.

Birthday girl

This was Dorothy Tallulah a year ago today

  

But on Saturday, she turned 1.  I can still barely believe it.

She opened a band in a box on her birthday morning, and the boys wasted no time helping her make music.

This picture is blurry because she was dancing and singing her face off.

Piano:  Also a huge hit with all

But especially the birthday girl

Her brothers were, of course, extremely attentive present openers.

It still cracks me up to see her tiny little self standing and walking around.

Ben was on spring break last week, and even though we worked on the party everyday, we were still running way, way behind on the morning of, when Dorothy (OF COURSE) did not go down for morning nap.  Things got stressful, and Ben had a full-on panic attack.  He gets panic attacks every couple of years-- in fact he was hospitalized with one on Harry's 4th birthday because he thought he was having a heart attack.  He freaked out and called his parents, his sister, and our college friends and CANCELED THE PARTY, claiming that he was sick with a stomach bug which is, of course, a sure fire way to make people not want to come to your house.  I made him drink some water (he panics when he gets dehydrated-- you should see him chugging water when I am in labor) and call everyone back. Because we worked hard on this party!  Our friends are awesome and know that we are bat shit crazy, so they said no problem, we're on our way.  Then my brother had a work drama and had to back out at the last minute, so our 21-person party was reduced to 14 guests.  WHICH?  MOAR CUPCAKES, I say.

My mom helped me use extra china to make little cake stands for our sweets table.  That's a tablecloth my grandma made when she was a kid!

Smash cake!  Organic!  Dyed with fruit (not the green-- that has a drop of food coloring in it-- leftover from the cookies I frosted)!  Had to scrape her name off and rewrite twice and it STILL looks like I let Harry do it-- no offense Harry

Ben made candy flowers and chocolate mustaches.

Here's the adorable china Jack and I picked out

Cute little table decorated with sweets

Dorothy slideshow on TV and clothespin ans string Dorothy banners hanging everywhere

This is my fave-- Instagram prints of all her monthly pictures (and one Polaroid from her b-day)

More Dorothy pics

So many cookies.

Anoth

While I made sure to get pictures of all the STUFF, I really sucked at taking pictures of others.  Luckily my dad took pictures of me and Dorothy on his iPad and shared his photostream

I love how terrible this picture is of both of us

I think we look alike here

I love he way she eats puffs

Cheese

Selfie

She was all about the puffs

Until she tried a cookie.

She loves her big brother

Lunch!

Sometimes people wonder how we deal with so many small kids, and we always joke that we let the third one go feral.  Except we're actually not joking.  Case in point: he went out to the deck where we were classily storing our classy beverages and helped himself to this.  THEN HE POURED IT IN A TEACUP.

More lunch!

Okay. seriously.  A thousand pictures of Dorothy eating her cake and throwing it on the floor.  At one point she laid her head on it and hugged it, but I did not get a picture of that:

Presents!  She loved the bags the best

Ben, with a cute cute dress from my aunt

Dorothy got a helmet, obvs.

Probably should have helped her, but instead I took a picture.

She likes this car, and she got another completely awesome outside car

And she LOVES cookies

After the party we went out for dinner with my parents, and OH MY GOD look how big my top knot is!  It's almost the size of my damn head.

Selfie

Cooper loves this car like no other.  He hasn't walked anywhere in days.