Tonight the Hubster and I went on a date, while I was getting ready all three girls were in the kitchen eating dinner. Sadie (19mos) has a tendency to stand up in her high chair, so I asked Aubrey (5) to keep an eye on Sadie and to yell for me if she started to stand up.

I went to my bathroom to fix my hair and makeup and after about 3 minutes, Aubrey popped her head in the doorway.

Me: Hey, whacha doing?
Aubrey: I need some more milk…don’t worry Momma! I told Emma(4) to keep her eye on Sadie!
(I was a little worried, let’s face it. Emma is not the most reliable babysitter around.)
Me: Okay, let’s go get it.
I hurried into the kitchen to make sure Sadie wasn’t bungee jumping out of her high chair.

Emma:I keeped-ed an eye on Sadie, Momma. And her didn’t get hurt-ed…
Aubrey: Sadie, are you okay?

Sadie nodded in her exaggerated baby way.

I tried not to laugh at their seriousness.

Aubrey: Okay, just checking! Momma? Momma?
Me: What?
Aubrey: I need milk.

She rolled her eyes at my lack of focus, and I got her milk.

After spending some time going through Aubrey’s baby book with her a few weeks ago, and reading The Happiness Project, I was inspired to get my family photo albums up to date. (I haven’t printed pictures out since 2005, unless it was going directly into a frame.)

Aubrey’s face lit up as she looked at baby pictures and heard stories about herself. She asked me this afternoon as she flipped through the album, “Momma, when you had me did Emma just stay in your tummy?”

I wanted to cry. She truly didn’t remember a time without her sister. I explained as briefly as I could that Emma hasn’t always been around and relived with my girls some of our happiest memories as we looked through the photos.

Those pictures weren’t doing anyone any good on my computer, but printed out and put into an album we had a chance to remember.

I was so inspired by being able to generate our own happiness that I decided to put in a pool. (Ahem.) I sat outside with the girls and tried not to scream too loudly as Sadie got bounced all over the place and climbed up and down the slide with her sisters.

I made sure to take plenty of pictures, because five years from now I want us all to be able to remember this day as well.

I’m at the beach with all my kids, my brother and his 4-year-old daughter, Ella Grace and my mom. Having a 1, 3, 4, and 5-year-old in close quarters is entertaining and LOUD, to say the very least. They all want the same thing…at the same time…all of the time.

One of them says, “I want to play with the ball!” And immediately the other two chime in, in unison, “I want the ball, tooo-ooo-ooo!” (Three distinct syllables.)

“I want a snack!’

“I want a snack, TOOO-OOO-OOO!”

“I want to go swimming!”

“I want to go swimming, tooo-ooo-ooo!”

You get the idea.

Yesterday my brother, Matt, was making them bowls of cereal, and very wisely chose the plastic bowls over the china.

Aubrey protested, “Uh! I want a glass bowl!”

“Of course you do,” Matt said, “you want something that will break.”

My niece Ella Grace didn’t miss a beat, “Dad-deeeeeee! I want something that will break tooo-ooo-ooo!”