Well, Jack and Annie are 3 years old now. Freakin’ crazy, eh?!

Three years ago today we were at the hospital pointing out the differences between them (besides the obvious) so that we could tell them apart as they lay next to each other in the nursery dolly. Three years ago today we doubled the number of kids we had. Three years ago today we finished up our family. And now, three years later we’re pretty much officially out of the “baby” stage (even though we still refer to to them as the babies). In fact, just this morning as Jack and Annie opened their presents, Emily caught herself telling Annie not to let “the babies” get the small pieces of her new Polly Pocket collection. It was only after it was out of her mouth that she realized what she had said and had to backtrack.

I remember vividly the shock and awe Emily and I felt as we left the doctors after our first ultrasound appointment. Up to that point Emily had had several doctors appointments, but the doctor apparently hadn’t noticed the fact that there were two heartbeats. So as the ultrasound technician mentioned that both heartbeats sounded good, we did a bit of a double-take and I seem to remember saying “Wait, what?!” However, three short years later it’s hard to imagine our lives any other way. We obviously needed both of them in our family and I don’t doubt they needed each other.

We’ve been lots of places and had lots of adventures in the last three years, but we’re still just getting started. It’ll be fun to see what the next 3 years brings.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY “BABIES”!

Over the weekend of the 17th Jack and I were scheduled to go camping with our wards annual fathers and sons outing. I had actually been looking forward to it and had done my best to get Jack excited, but as these things tend to go, he ended up sick with a high fever the night before we were planning to leave. The other kids had had the same thing and it seemed like it was only a 12 hour illness so I was still a bit hopeful and had packed the Jeep Thursday evening, but when I got home from work Friday afternoon, Jack was asleep on the couch after having spent a pretty miserable day being feverish.

I figured that was the end of it and I had resigned myself to stay home, but once Jack woke up, he was still excited to “do (think “go” with a D) tamping”. I could tell he was still feeling sick, but I had gotten him so excited to go camping and sleep in the tent that he didn’t care about his 101 degree temperature. I felt terrible and knew he should probably stay home, but I also felt bad that all that built up excitement would be for nothing. We gave it a couple hours and I just mulled around the house waiting to see how he was feeling, but his excitement would not be pushed aside and he continued to ask if we could “do tamping”.

After some internal debate I decided we could give it a try and if he felt too sick we could always come home (we were only going to be about an hour from home). So we packed up in the Jeep and decided to head out. It started out well enough as we headed for Parley’s canyon, but after 15 minutes of curvy canyon roads Jack wasn’t feeling too awesome. The Jeep had been smoking up the canyon thanks to a small transmission leak so I pulled off as we got into Park City just to check it out and as soon as I stopped the car Jack lost what little dinner he had eaten into his lap. I felt horrible. I could tell he felt like crap so I pulled out one of the camp chairs, stripped him out of his puked on clothes and we sat in the shade of the Jeep in an empty parking lot with a light breeze blowing and cooling us off. I asked him several times if he wanted to head back home, but he wasn’t having it. “I want to do tamping!” was the only response I got.

After sitting in the parking lot for about 30 minutes (and providing directions to a poor lost Asian couple from Alabama) we hopped back in the Jeep to finish the drive to Rockport. He did ok the rest of the way and actually dozed off by the time we got to the camp ground. Once we were there though, he was up and ready to go sit by the fire. He impatiently waited for me to put the tent up and get camp settled and then we walked over and joined the ward around the fire. After about 15 minutes of that we took a walk around the camp ground and even got out our Master Replicas Darth Vader light saber to show off (the kids had been playing Star Wars steal the flag and most had brought plastic light sabers). Jack was happy to be the center of attention with our “real” light saber. He quickly set to “killing” anyone who came in range.

After we put the light saber away, we sat by the fire a bit more and he fell asleep on my lap as we watched the flames and the stars. He was still a bit warm, but other than the single loss of lunch in the car, he seemed to be feeling a bit better.

The next morning he woke up ready to “wock and woll” so we had some breakfast and then set out to explore. We didn’t stick around long, but Jack was happy to be outside and free to wander around camp. We even took our shoes off and waded in the river for a bit, but that didn’t last long cause the water was too “told”. I still felt a little bad for dragging him out camping while he was sick, but I’m glad he’s a trooper and wouldn’t let it drop cause we had a lot of fun hanging out with just the guys.

For Christmas this year Jack got a new Batman cape as well as a nifty new headlamp. He now combines these two items to become Bat-Jack. We’re not quite sure yet if he’s a super hero or a super villain due to the fact that half the time he wears his costume he’s up to no good. At present though we’re giving him the benefit of the doubt.

On a mostly unrelated note, one of the jobs that Jack as adopted as his own is the job of helping to make and deliver my lunch to me each morning. Although his cape isn’t required to perform this job, he does take it quite seriously and I’ve seen him slide violently towards the “villain” end of the scale when his job doesn’t go exactly as planned (meaning someone else helps or we forget to let him perform his job due to being in a hurry).

We just hope that he’ll eventually decide to fight for good.

Most of the time Jack is out of control. He’s almost always moving and most of that moving gets him into trouble. However, there is one thing that will stop him dead in his tracks. Headphones. He loves jammin’ to some sweet tunes and once the headphones go on, everything else takes a back seat. Just don’t try taking the headphones away. The result may be the tantrum of the century.

With 3 girls and 1 boy, I tend to be a bit conscious of what toys Jack chooses to play with. Not that its a big deal what toys he plays with, but I want to make sure that he has (and enjoys playing with) the few boy toys he owns instead of the plethora of girlie toys laying around the house. I realize that he doesn’t care if the toys are “boy” or “girl” in nature and I tell myself that I don’t really care either, but I think that on a subconscious level it does bug me just a tiny bit when he chooses to play with the girl toys.

So, the other day I walk into the front room and see this:

Now a house isn’t really gender specific, but I guess it tends to lean more to the “girlie” side. And so my immediate thought was… “aren’t there some trucks or something you could be playing with?”. I then proceeded to walk over so I could watch him for a bit and when I came around the other side of the house, I saw this:

Well… that changes everything! I’m totally ok with him playing house if the house is full of cars and dinosaurs. What red-blooded American boy wouldn’t want to live in that house? Now I just need to teach him to flex and growl.