We've been super busy at our house! Since the last post we've been to the beach, Henry has visited UT and had a great stay with his Gran and Grandad, we visited Dollywood with Nanna, and managed to find lots of time to rest in the AC during this ridiculously hot summer! It has been beyond hot in our neck of the woods with the heat index above 100 degrees some days! July was cram-packed with all those activities and many more! To see a bunch of photos visit the peek-a-boo page.

Henry is growing like a weed and during our visit to the beach over July 4th he learned to master rolling over. Of course he did this while Mommy and Daddy weren't there. Little stinker! Here is a quick clip of Henry doing his new trick. He loves to roll over now so we can't leave him unattended anywhere!

Emma also took a quick trip to Nanna and Grandpa's house. While she was away Anna Grace became completely potty trained! I am so thrilled (and Bob is even more excited because it is one less person in diapers!). She was stubborn when I tried back in June but she really came through and mastered it all within a week! I am sure she will have an accident here and there, but we've been accident free for a few days now (yay!).

We celebrated the end of July with a weekend of date nights. The end of the month also marked the beginning of lots of birthday parties and other weekend acitivies that will take us through the month of August. It also means my official stay-at-home-mom time has begun!

Well the past few weeks have been filled with ups and a few downs. Henry is growing like crazy, as are the girls. They all have their own sweet little personalities that make them so wonderful. My days are filled with lots of laughing, crying :), diaper changes, games...you name it, we get into it at some point throughout our time together. Being home is wonderful, but I don't think it has quite hit me yet that I won't be going back to school in August. Since I'm always home for the summer this is kind of routine for me. Once August rolls around and all my teacher friends are back in the classroom and I am not, then I think reality will set in.

If you haven't heard from me in a while you are probably wondering why this post is called "Our Little Smurf". Just after Henry turned 3 months old, he turned blue on a few different occassions during his feedings. Nothing around the lips, no breathing problems-just blue hands and arms. The first time this happened I was in absolute panic mode and yelled for Bob to call 911. Instead we called our pediartician's emergency line and spoke with the on-call doctor. He told us not to panic {ha! too late!} because arms or legs turning blue during the first few months of life can be very normal for babies, but that if it happened again we should bring him in to see our dr. for a visit. Sure enough two days later it happened again. I took him in to see our pediatrician. He checked him over and said everything sounded great, he was growing well, but maybe we should do a heart ultrasound to be 100% sure. So, with doctor's orders we took Henry to Children's for an ultrasond. Expecting there would be no significant findings we went in pretty confident that things would be okay. A few days later we got the news that he did in fact have a hole inbetween two chambers of his heart called a Patent Foramen Ovale. Our dr. told us this kind of hole did not pose a risk but that we should meet with the specialist to discuss the ultrasound results in full detail. We met with Dr. Bremer last week and were relieved when she told us that this kind of opening in the heart is found in 1 in 5 babies. Most people have one and don't know it is there because it is never found. We really only found his by accident because if he never turned blue we would have never went for the ultrasound. By the way, the turning blue and hole are completely unrelated! Dr. Bremer said many babies turn blue in their extremities as they learn how to control their blood flow. She said he will probably outgrow this in a year or two, maybe sooner :). The hole may close up naturally so we will return to see Dr. Bremer next summer and check the progress. If it does not close Dr. Bremer said that surgery will most likely not be needed. This was wonderful news! We just hope it does close so that we'll have nothing to worry about in the furture. In the meantime, Henry can carry on as normal and do all the things babies and toddlers do.

Other than the blue news, things have been busy and very, very hot. If we are not at the pool or lake you can find us indoors staying cool. With temps in the upper 90s I have been leary about taking Henry out too much during the day. He gets really hot in his carseat and is so fare skinned that I am afraid he'll overheat! When we do go to the pool he stays in the shade and naps in his stroller. He is one good baby and super laid back so I am very lucky in that department because the girls, especially Anna Grace, can be very demanding when we are out, so most of my attention has to stay focused on the girls.

I'll end this post some videos. The first one is of Henry babbling and trying his best to roll over. He is so close, but just get over far enough yet to do it. CLICK HERE to watch our super cute boy.

The next video is of the girls dancing to Sleeping Beauty. Our dance parties resumed this summer! They love music and dancing so the tradition continues! CLICK HERE to watch our dancing princesses!

This week Bob had to jet off again. This time a whirlwind trip to the Northeast. While he was away, my Mom came to spend some time with us and keep us company. The girls seem to be getting extra spoiled while Bob is gone on these business trips. We enjoyed many meals out or ordered in, which was nice for me because I didn't have to worry about cooking and that is always a special treat for the kids too. Wednesday I ventured out with my crew to Target. My mission: panties for Anna Grace because, yes, the dreaded time has come to potty train her little self. Before we went I asked her what kind of panites she might like. I was certain she was going to say Ariel and I was glad because I knew those would be available. But no, what does my little princess decide she wants? Yo Gabba Gabba panties. Where in the world would I find little panties that had Broby on them? Not at Target I already knew. None-the-less, we loaded up and unloaded bright and early at Target, Emma on foot and the rest of the crew in the double, monstrous stroller. Anna is less than excited about potty training. She is perfectly happy in her diaper. Starting in early April she had her first successes at school and she is staying dry quite a bit throughout the day, so I've known she was getting ready to really start training, but having a newborn, I've been putting it off. Anyway, back to Target. Emma finds the Dollar Zone and goes bonkers over all the Hello Kitty items. I let her pick two things. We move on to the undies section and, of course, there are no Yo Gabba panties. Anna settles for Ariel. We continue to browse around and then move on to grab some food for lunch. As we are heading home the sky opens up and it starts pouring. Here I am with two children crying because it is lunchtime and they are hungry. When we got home it was still pouring and, unfortunately for me, our garage is not an accessable entry. One by one I unload the kids and try not to get drenched. After lunchtime, potty training begins. I started Emma out in panties and within two weeks she caught on. Anna Grace was a whole other story. She liked her panties but in true Anna Grace fashion wanted to wear all three pairs at once :-). This was the least of my worries. She kicked and screamed anytime we approached the potty seat. Then she wet her panties and didn't seem to care. I resorted to a pull-up which she wet shortly after. I am still continuing but she has not had any success. She may not be quite ready yet, but I figure if she does it once at school, she can continue the pattern at home. We will see what kind of progress we make over the next few weeks.

Thursday was great! Henry had his 3 month portrait session and actually giggled for the first time while he was being photographed. He was precious! The rest of day was spent shopping. It is really amazing what an entire day of 9-5 retail therapy can do for you! At the days end Mom and I found some good deals on kids clothes, a new beach/pool bag (our small one does not hold everything needed for 5 people), some new shoes, and few other things.

{happy 3 month old}

Friday afternoon my Mom headed home and the kids and I waited for Bob to get home. Unfortunately this was not going to be until about 9pm or later. We spent the day playing, watching Lady and the Tramp, turning our playroom into a "restaurant" (per Emma's request) and eating dinner upstairs, and playing on the new iPad Bob bought for us. That thing is so awesome! We are Blackberry users at our house, so we do not have the touchscreen luxury that our iPhone friends are use to. The girls are in love with it! Since it is a touch screen it is very easy for them to use, especially Emma. Her favorite apps are a fun spelling game, Toy Story read-along, and the game, Memory.

I'll end this post with a cute pic of my bunch of three! Here's to hoping the rain moves out and we can head to the pool or lake sometime this weekend!

This week Bob had to leave us to go on a short business trip. While it is hard to run the house without him, since I am not working things were pretty easy. This was the first time I had to care for all three children solo, single, uno...you get the picture. Since I knew I would be facing most of the week alone, I did a ton of laundry on Monday and Tuesday and cleaned up around the place so that I could spend Wednesday with the kids and not have to worry about household duties. By Tuesday night, all the laundry baskets were empty, the house was clean, and dinner was cooked {with enough leftovers for later in the week}. Wednesday brought Henry's 14 week milestone. The boy is growing like a weed! We had an unexpected pediartrician visit for him on Thursday {more on this in another post later} and he is weighing in at 15 lbs. even. He is so cute and chunky! Most of his 6-9 month clothing is fitting just right. I can't believe it, but I am not sure why I am so surprised because the girls grew quickly also. He loves grabbing at toys, smiling to music/at people, babbling-guh, ah-, and he tries to raise up when lying flat {he tries, but doesn't quite get anywhere :-)}. He is also on a wonderful eat, play, nap routine and sleeping all night {thank you Lord}.

{so happy to sprawled out and working on rolling over, but not quite there yet}

Thursday we were all up bright an early. Henry had an appointment with his pediatrician and the girls were due at school for water play and fun day with their friends. In record time, all kids were fed, dressed, and out the door with me by 7:20a. We landed at school around 7:30a and then I whisked off with Henry to Target. Here I spent over an hour walking around aimlessly shopping. It was heaven. I am pretty sure when I'm in heaven I'll be strolling around doing the same thing :-). I found a few items of interest, for the kiddos of course, and then got some yummy Chick-fil-a and headed with Henry to the doctor. He and I spent the rest of the afternoon cuddling, napping and lounging. We headed out to the pick up the girls from school around supper time. I treated them to McDonald's {We NEVER get food from there and rarely do any fast food other than Chick-fil-a, so this was a big deal to them}. The girls were beyond happy with their Shrek Happy Meal toys and chicken nuggets. The night got better for them because I let them sleep in my bed since Bob was not home {this also NEVER happens}.

{showing off The Three Little Pigs and Rumplestilskin or "Rumple" as Anna Grace likes to call him}

Friday was spent with a visit from Nanna, Grandpa, and Great Aunt Maria. We all had a wonderful day spending time together. Unfortunately, I did not get any pictures during their visit. The girls had fun playing and entertaining everyone. If you know my girls then you know they quit napping around 18 months old. The girls will nap pretty consistently at school, but Bob and I can no longer get them to nap at home. They have to be absolutely exhausted...Here is what our house looked like at 4pm on Friday after visitors left...

{zonked}

{an even more zonked Anna Grace}

{totally thrilled to have free reign of the toys, tv, books, and Mommy}

Everyone was so happy to have Daddy back home after his time away. We all did well without him, but life is better with him close by! I have to say that I am proud of myself for holding down the fort with all the kids, the dogs, and the daily upkeep. Having three kids under three is a lot of work everyday, but it is not as stressful as I thought it might be {of course this is coming from the nut who had two kids exactly a year apart and ended up with a 12 month old and a newborn}.  These past few days also made me appreciate being married-How do single Moms or single Dads do it day in and day out? We survive on teamwork everyday at our house. Now, onto the weekend!

{The Three Amigos}

Whew! The past few weeks have been extremely busy! I just wrapped up another school year. I had a really sweet class this year, so I was sad to see them go. Bob and I officially decided that I should take a year off to be at home with the kids. I am beyond excited! Finally I won't miss any baby milestones like I did with the girls. That was always the sadest part for me {their daily report from school would tell me all about the neat things I missed during the day}. Luckily for me, the girls are still going to attend their preschool part-time. Even though I will have Henry at home on those days, I think I'll be feeling at little more sane with just one child to care for for a few hours. The girls love their friends so much and really benefit academically and socially from attending school so we opted to keep them in a few days a week. In the past month, Henry turned three months old {um, really? I'm pretty sure I JUST gave birth yesterday}, Emma and Anna attended birthday parties for friends, we took a trip to the aquarium in the Smokies, and all three kids have enjoyed a lot of time outdoors. Oh, and Emma had her first lake day with Daddy and some friends. She LOVED swimming and jumping off the back of the boat into the water. I didn't go, but hear the funniest part was her swimming/ doggie paddling all over place and barking at the same time {she takes her doggie paddling very seriously} .Unfortunately this month also brought a little bad news. My Mom broke her wrist and arm and will be down for the count for the next 6-8 weeks. We're all hoping for a painless, speedy recovery!

Because we had no help this week, and I had to be at work for the last 3 days of school, Super Dad stepped up to the plate and stayed home with all 3 kiddos for 3 days. He did a WONDERFUL job. He even cooked dinner those nights as well and took pictures of the kids while I was a work {hence the lovely photo of my three sweeties pictured above}. We truly have THE BEST Daddy {and Hubby} ever!

The coming weeks are sure to be very relaxing {well, as relaxing as it can be with 3 kids under 3}. Bob has a few business trips lined up, the pool will be open, playdates...We are all ready for summer to get underway!