Holiday Season...

To many of you November 30th is just the last day of November but to us Floridians this is the day we can start breathing a little easier. You see November 30th is the last day of the Hurricane Season. Not that we have not been fooled a few times AFTER this day. The rule of thumb is that the BIG Hurricanes have happened already & we can now take down our Hurricane shutters. I would take a Hurricane over any other type of Natural disaster. Tornados freak me out as do earthquakes. I guess that I was alway's meant to live in the Sunshine State. The freaky part about this date this year is that we are getting unusually COLD weather. They say it may even dip into the 40's! Are they out of their minds?? Florida is meant to be HOT! This is way TOO cold for this Floridian! Having four babies to dress during these changes in climate can be challenging. Their wardrobe is pretty much T Shirts & shorts! They do not even own a "coat". A coat can be too warm yet a long sleeve T Shirt is just not enough. Try finding cold weather clothes down here as well, we are in the land of swimming suits! LOL! I just know I will be improvising!! Most of all I am just SO happy to have the Hurricane Season over for yet another year. Just as one season ends a new one begins.. Welcome to the...


Holiday Season...

I've been replaced!

We have a visitor for Thanksgiving this year. My niece, Sarah, brought her best friend Alexis with her to share Thanksgiving with us. Well, Camryn took to her right away. It seems as if she has known Alexis her entire life. She ONLY wants Alexis to hold her, to feed her, to cuddle her, etc. It is BAD! No longer does Camryn want me ALL the time! It is a STRANGE feeling not to have her attached to my hip! I try to get a little snuggle time & she has no use for me! )= Last night we all went out to celebrate Dustyn's 13th birthday. Dustyn got to choose the restaurant & he chose J Marks, it just happens to be down the street from my Mom's house. The weather was perfect so three fourths of us decided to walk there. Of course Camryn wanted Alexis to carry her. Once inside we had to decide where each child should sit. This is important so you have enough helpers by each child. Sarah made the comand decision to place Camryn ACROSS the table from Alexis. It was SO funny to watch her stare at Alexis. She watched her EVERY move. Alexis even helped get her to eat her food. What a great help! It worked out really well UNTIL she had to use the restroom. You would have thought Camryn was hurt by the way she cried for her. Uh oh! I do not know what I am going to do when they all leave on Sunday. I definitely know who Camryn would like to babysit her when we are in Atlanta! For now I just feel like...


I've been replaced!

a day to give thanks...

Ever since I can remember we have been saying the same two prayers. There is the short version "God is good God is Great, thank us for the food we eat, Amen". and there is the LONG one. "Dear Lord, Thank us for the night, for the pleasant morning light, for friends and food and loving care and all that makes the world so fair. Help us to do the things we should to be to others kind and good. In all we do in work and play to grow more loving every day, Amen". I LOVED the 2nd one but would alway's forget how it began so one of my brothers would have to start it for me. That was such a LONG memory and what seems like a lifetime ago. I hope my children grow up with that. To have memories of "family time" with their siblings. I miss that! SO much has happened in my family that we have sort of "lost" that closeness. It is a shame because we used to be close. But time moves on & people change. Hopefully these memories that we create with our family will stick with them. Again, I look to the light at the end of my tunnel & cannot wait for 20 years from now on...


a day to give thanks

old traditions run deep...

When I was a kid we, my entire family on my mom's side, would gather together at a local park EVERY holiday. Most of all on Thanksgiving. We had SO much fun having turkey & all the fixin's out in the wilderness. Ok it was not exactly the wilderness but we were outside under a pavillion in an extremely wooded park. This was the COOLEST park around & I was able to spend time with my relatives. This tradition lasted till I was about 18 years old. The extended family got SO large, the children started getting jobs & some even got married so we stopped doing it all together. I know, I was sad too! Fast forward many moons later & we sort of re created this tradition when I got married for our wedding rehearsal/BBQ. We, the cousins, realized how much fun it was so we decided to start the tradition up again for Thanksgiving. YAY! This will be our 3rd Re-Anniversary for Thanksgiving at the park. We invite our in-laws, friends, friends of friends, etc. Let's just say it is quite the party. Our family has grown a lot & a lot of my 2nd cousins have babies my childrens age. (I started mommyhood late!) Can I tell you how YUMMY the food is!? So many different types of fixin's that it ends up being a smorgasboard of food! Our little one's are just at the age to enjoy it. This park has nature trails, a tunnel that takes you out to the beach & it used to have an observation deck in which we thought took forever to get to. That must be looking at things through a childs eyes. The many hurricanes & years of use have taken it's toll & it is no longer in use. It was SO cool! From the top you could see the ocean through the trees or the boats in the intracoastal. Don't get me wrong, the park is still cool it would just be cooler is the observation deck was still open. I cannot wait for Turkey day! We are going to have such a fun time. I am SO thankful that...


old traditions run deep...

13

Today is our son Dustyn's birthday, his 13th birthday in fact! He is now a TEENAGER!! YIKES! I cannot believe it! It seems like yesterday when he was just 5 years old and I just started dating his Dad. He was a peanut then & now he is SO tall! Pretty soon he will be towering over me. I can wait for that! (= 8 years and 4 babies later he is a teenager! WOW! We have gone through SO many things together. Michael & I have been room parents in many of his classes, volunteered at his school, Summit Christian, even chaperoned some school field trips. I miss that! Now I get to savor his school memories from afar. Dustyn is one SMART cookie. He excells in Math, go figure! He is sensitive & inquisitive, he is alway's learning. Most of all he is a WONDERFUL big brother. The babies absolutely ADORE him! He loves them too! I think having these babies helped him grow as a person. He was the only child for so long. He's adjusted very well to having to share us with them. What can I say? He is one great kid! There is so much I could say about Dustyn. He LOVES cars, knows everything there is to know about them. Especially the high end ones. Knows how much they cost & how fast they go. I do not have the first clue about that kind of stuff. Where we live we have quite a bit of property & he loves to take his air soft gun out to shoot various things. He mostly shoots lizards to feed his dragon, yes we have a pet dragon. After we found some eggs under it he became a "she" & was named Puff. Puff the magic dragon she became, LOL! We have had many "boy" pets. MANY snakes, spiders, iguanas, a fish & even a dog. For now it is just a pet dragon. He is quite the well rounded child and keeps us busy. I need to remind myself that he is just...


13

"Hot"...

We constantly tell the babies to watch out because something is "hot". The stove is "hot", their food is "hot", their "cha cha"(hot chocolate)is "hot",etc. I think "Hot" was one of their very first words! LOL! Well the other night we brought new meaning to the word. It was FINALLY cold enough for us to light the fireplace. In Florida that is a feat! Daddy was excited & wanted them to experience their "first sitting by the fire". He went out & gathered a few logs that a friend of ours gave us from a tree he chopped down. Daddy was excited but I was AFRAID! Too afraid that they would burn their little fingers by getting TOO close to it or by touching the screen & getting burned. I never had a fireplace as a child so I did not know exactly how to "prepare" them. Needless to say I did not do well with this and I put Daddy in charge! Well, They did better than I thought they would. They stood there mesmerized by the sight of it, just watching the wood crackle & flames flicker. It is an AMAZING thing to watch and the aroma of a wood burning fireplace smells SO good. When Daddy opened up the screen to add more wood they paid close attention. I was afraid again that they would copy him & try to open it up themselves. You know how children can be, INDEPENDENT! After a few scoldings they knew not to touch. I just hope that they will remember that a fire is...


"Hot"...

the talk...

Tonight started out like most nights. We all sat down & ate dinner together. Daddy at one end & Mommy at the other with our five children in between. Luckily we did not have any moments of flinging food (Brendan & Avery love to throw food!). After they were "All Done"(Camryn's new favorite saying) it was bath time. Bath night is every other night in the Fulton home. In the beginning I gave them a bath EVERY night but I was too pooped for words! So when they were 7 months old & I got post pardom (LONG story)everything changed. I went in to my Doc's office to talk about my "Life". When she heard that I bathed them EVERY night she gave me a reprieve. She said that she did not even bathe her child every night. So after a LONG chat & a RX later our bath night turned into every other night. It is amazing how a slight shift in the schedule makes everything all better! Dustyn, our soon to be thirteen year old, helps me with them during bath time. He will get their towels, shampoo, stand guard so they do not drown, etc. That was a VERY important job when they could just barely sit up. On quite a few occasions he helped me rescue a baby or two that dropped below the surface & almost drowned! Thank you Dustyn!! Things are MUCH easier now. I will scrub them up, let them play & pretend to swim for a bit then I ask one to pull the plug for the drain. They then say "bye bye" to the water & the bubbles. I then dry them off & they scurry off in their hooded towels to their Daddy in the next room. He lotions them up & dresses them in their PJ's. After the last one is changed we all gather on our bed & let them play. They LOVE Mommy & Daddy's bed. They even know whose side is whose. It is funny to watch how they interact on a KING size bed. Camryn will try to get away from us before she is even dressed. She jumps a bit and then usually finds her way to my side of the bed as if she were me under the covers. She just lays there like she is going to go to bed. It is a sight to see. Avery usually jumps around & then searched out my BIG brown teddy bear. I started snuggling this bear when I was pregnant & has become a hard habit to break. She LOVES it when I say it is MY bear. She then goes after it even more. Brendan just loves on everyone. In the beginning he would climb up to the head of the bed & run his fingers across the carved wood. For awhile there we wondered if he might be a decorator or designer since he noticed the details. Now he just goes up there & trys to give whichever sister is there a BIG hug. Sometimes he will hug on us too! Lindsey is our little joker. She LOVES to jump around from pillow to pillow as she giggles all the way. She likes to be tickled too! Dustyn will eventually hop on the bed and the six of us becomes seven. Tonight's routine was just the same. while we played with the babies we chatted with Dustyn about "stuff". Usually this is when we can get in some conversation about his life & especially about girls. We want to make sure that the info he gets is from us & not his friends. As you can expect he is not quite ready to talk to us about them yet. LOL! During this "talk" little Miss Avery comes by & tackles Dustyn. She is our little brut. Nothing fazes her! Well after the tackle Dustyn then smells something funny. Now mind you Brendan has been constipated & we are in search of a poop. PLUS they usually all poop after a bath, I know, GROSS but it is true! So we all have our "smellers" on to see if anyone does the deed. In addditon to all of that Avery has this very BAD habit of undoing her diaper or at least trying to by sticking her hands down her pants. Below is a picture of this that I captured purely by accident. Avery is in the background doing you know what!

I do not know why she does this or how to get her to break this habit! This is something we deal with EVERY day! It was in fact Avery that he smelled. So in a matter of 20 minutes she stuck her hands down there & she had stinky hands. No poop or pee just a weird smell. My WONDERFUL husband decides this is an opportunity to talk to Dustyn about even more "stuff". So he proceeds to tell Dustyn about how some women douche. I guess he thought odor down there = douching. I do not do this so I do not understand his logic. Well as you can probably already figure out that comment went right over Dustyn's head. So Michael then digs himself in even deeper by saying just like people with bad breath use mouthwash woman use things down there to make it smell better. OH BOY! Did I really marry this man? LOL! Dustyn does not need to know anything about "down there" on a woman! At least not about douching or vaginal odors. Like a baby even has odors! Needless to say we had a VERY red faced soon to be 13 year old! Yikes! We are lucky that he knows what to expect from his Dad. He got up from the bed & said I did NOT need the know that. Good for you Dustyn! I can just about imagine what kind of "talks" he will have with your siblings when they get older! I am just sorry that you had to endure...


the talk...