Happy 3rd birthday Chase

Dear 3 year old Chase,
   What an exciting year! This year you became a big brother!!!! You love your brothers so much. You are always giving them kisses and saying, "Hi guys!". They love you too. I knew you would be a great big brother. I look forward to seeing your relationships with them grow. I hope you always light up like you do now when you see them. We wanted you to have people to spend your life with.
   Besides getting new little brothers you got a cousin, Maddisen. You adore Maddi like a sister. You have a huge heart and adore everyone in our family. You have a special relationship with each of your grandparents. You often talk about Papa, Nana, Grandma, and Grandpa (or Papa) Marty.
   You think all kids are your friends. Today when I asked you who your best friend was you said Carter. You and Carter have been buddies since a couple months old. You like playing with your cousin Caelan and Conner and Holden when we see them. You love Zephyr and Brynna. You and your new buddy Ryder have some good times together. This year you made a friend in our neighborhood, Cole. His younger siblings are twins too! When you go for bike rides on your BIG bike you stop at Cole's house and ask if he is home. You love your neighbor buddy Joey across the street.
  We went on some trips this year to Yosemite and Monterey. You loved the waterfalls and beaches.
   You sleep in a queen bed in a new room now. I can't believe how big you are getting. Seriously, you are super tall!
   You speak so clearly. You have a few things you say funny and I love it. Like the word love is more wuv. Hamburger is a tough one for ya. Cement mixer sounds more like ment mixer.
   This spring you have been playing t-ball and love it. Last week you had a hit that made all the parents say, "Woah!"
   You like to pick out your own outfits. You love your Dusty shirt and neon socks.
   You are obsessed with the tv show P.A.W. patrol. You beg me to watch it every day. You just crack up at it.
   You usually order mac and cheese when we go to restaurants. For your birthday meals this year you wanted eggs for breakfast, roast beef for lunch, and steak for dinner. Tonight you said your favorite food was bread. You love cheese. You said your favorite drink was milk. You are a big orange juice fan too. You like red peppers. You like all fruit. Bananas might be your favorite. You LOVE cookies. You get one every time we go to the grocery store. Speaking of the grocery store, everyone knows you there and you especially like the checker Stacy.
   You have learned some new songs recently. I like to eat apples and bananas is a fave and skinamirarinky dink a dink.
   I think your shoes are size 11 now. Your clothes are 5t. Still in size 6 diapers. Your pjs and kids size 5. You've had too many haircuts to count now. We just got clippers and Dada gave you your first at home haircut and you did great. You have all your teeth for awhile. I think you get more at age 6.
   Since I was hugely pregnant and now busy with your brothers, you've gone to the pool twice with Papa. We are thinking about doing swim lessons this summer.
   When I went to the hospital to have your brothers we spent our first night apart. You did so awesome without Mama and Dada. A few weeks before I had your brothers Dada got some special books with you at the book store.

Austin you are almost 2!

   Oh my big silly boy, I can't believe you are almost a two year old! You are my little Chase never stops talking junior. I can't believe how much you are saying at two years old. Love when you say "right there" and "thank you, mama".
   You weigh about thirty pounds which seems huge to us but I think Chase weighed more when he was two.
   You cuddle and relax more than Ky.
   You have to wear your jammies backwards to sleep now too. When you dance you spin around with one foot. You love shooting baskets. All three of you love jumping on the trampoline. You love to hit the baseball and play catch.
   You are still a very passionate kisser.
   Thank you for being easy sometimes and giving things back to your brothers.
   These two years with you in our family have been crazy and wonderful. We have laughed and kissed and cuddled so much. I look forward to lots more!!!

Kyle you are a few days from 2

   I can't believe you are almost two years old, Buddy! I feel like you and your brother were just turning 1! At the beginning of this year, you were just starting to walk across the room and now you are walking down the stairs without holding on to the rail (even though we all tell you to) and using the potty before getting in the shower.
   Today, we visited your old physical therapy clinic. It was great to see familiar faces. I can't believe how much time has passed since we were going there once a week.You were so quiet when we were there. You talk more with me but you are definitely the quiet one of our three boys.
   You are such a silly dare devil still. You are always climbing and jumping. I say "get down Kyle and sit down Kyle" several times a day. If you fall and get hurt you go right back to whatever you were doing. You are always getting in to stuff and trying to get stuff off the counter.
   When Austin first started saying your name he said "Ky" so we often call you Ky or Ky guy or Ky Ky.
   You like veggies the most of our kiddos. You also love salmon.
   You love paw patrol, blaze and super why.
   You love sleeping with your choo choo and you need more sleep than Austin. You were the first to have to be put in backwards pjs for sleep.
   You have caught up to Austin in height. You are only a half inch shorter. You are 3 pounds lighter though.
   You have become a total Daddy's boy. Most nights Daddy puts you in your crib for bed. If Daddy leaves the room you get so upset. When he comes home you just hug in forever.
   You love to dance. Your quick knee bends and freeze crack me up.
   You are my runner. Everyone says how fast you are. I just wish you wouldn't always run away from me and into the street!
   You are our special little Ky Ky and we couldn't love you more. Happy birthday. I look forward to a wonderful year watching you grow and learn more.

Peanut Oral Immunotherapy Consult

   If you have been a reader for awhile or know me in real life, you probably know that Chase is allergic to peanuts. A friend of mine that has a son with peanut allergies told me about doctors in the area that are doing oral immunotherapy for peanuts. My first thoughts were this has to be a crock. No way would we be doing this to Chase. We did a little research and saw that people were dosing twice a day and there is a mandatory rest period after and we didn't see how we would be able to keep our child resting twice a day especially once he was in school.
   We did discuss with our very well respected allergist and decided to wait for the patch that is probably going to be released in the next few years.
   But we kept seeing more and more and joined facebook groups and started asking questions and finding out more. When we found out the local doctor was only dosing once a day and spoke with one of her oral immunotherapy patients we scheduled a consult.If you have no idea what I'm talking about, here is a news article about the doctor we are seeing.
   We know two other peanut allergic kiddos that see this dr. I expected the dr to want to get Chase's asthma under control or do a few things before we started oit. Chase's asthma has been pretty controlled this cold and flu season. He currently is on no medication and is doing great. Chase is only allergic to peanuts. His peanut IgE is 56.6 and most of it is Ara h 2.
   I was shocked at how well the appointment went. He had his environmental allergies tested again (which was a little traumatic). He is still allergic to dogs and cats, but that's it. Our doctor thinks he is a good candidate for oral immunotherapy and has had pretty good success.
   We have a start date scheduled and I don't see any reason why we would not start. When I was driving home I was thinking more people need to do this!

Tandem wearing twins

   A lot of twin moms hope to wear their twins at the same time. I did it a few times but I ended up being more of a stroller mama and just used the two ergos I was given/borrowed.

   When I went to my first baby wearing meet up I learned some things I thought I would share.

•  baby wearing experts like you to have two separate wraps so you can get a baby out without disturbing the other.
• they suggest in the beginning to do two ring slings or two woven wraps

   The ergos are comfortable enough but I hear Tulas are more comfortable. The twingaroo is a good option but you wouldn't be able to just wear one if you had a friend or family member around that could wear the other.
   My advice would be to do two ergos. If you want to spend a little more you could do two tulas. Here is the best video for tandem wearing twins. She does it with Tulas but its the same for ergos. Our twinsies are buddies too.

Holiday size list

   I am doing flylady's cruising through the holiday's missions. She has a free holiday control journal you can print from her website. Yesterday's mission was to figure out sizes for everyone in the family in case someone asks you don't have to scramble to figure it out. I didn't see a place for this in my holiday control journal so I really quickly this morning made this up. Feel free to copy and print.

Hubby sizes
top
Pants
Shoes

My sizes
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Pants
Shoes

Child #1
top
Pants
Shoes

Child #2
top
Pants
Shoes

Child #3
top
Pants
shoes

Have you started getting ready for the holidays yet?

Wrapping Closet

   I've mentioned the cleaning guru Flylady before. Well, she recently started a cruising through the holidays missions thing. I'm obsessed. It is day 7 today. You should definitely jump in.
   One of the missions was to get all your wrapping paper together in one place. I had been planning a wrapping closet for awhile. This was the motivation I needed to just do it. Plus Chase was at my parents' and the twins were napping. Here is the final result:

Let's start at the top and go left to right.The basket in the top left has my scentsy scents in it. Then on the shelf is my big tissue paper. I bought a big pack of white tissue paper a couple years ago at the dollar tree. Middle left is all our wrapping boxes. Middle middle in the bag is bags. Under that is one of those 5 drawer organizers from target. See picture below. Next to that is our wrapping paper in a plastic wrapping paper thing from target. On the bottom is extra flooring the owners left and some blinds. Here is the close up of the 5 drawers:

Top drawer has tags, then some more tissue, bows, some small wrap pieces, and more bags on the bottom. It had been on my to do list to find my big NIV study bible and look what I found!

I've already bought and wrapped presents and it isn't even Halloween yet!!