SIX! Here we are. The world of counting our age on two hands. Out of littlest kid territory and inching their way toward big kid territory.

As I hear Steven, Sammy & Amaya read, play games with each other, talk about school and their friends and just, overall, navigate the world I can see how ready they are the move through their expanding world. It’s amazing (and a little scary for my mom heart).

Just prior to the kids’ birthday we had our annual family photo shoot. Here are some favorites. <3

Right here. ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ My heart.

Next year, I think we’re going to push the photos out until April or early May so we can get outside, too. I’m keeping my eyes out for when the leaves are back on our trees.

I feel like I often say this on Sunday but it’s hard to believe that Monday was just a week ago. SSA’s 6th birthday already feels so far in the past. But it was just Monday that the clock officially ticked over.

The kids didn’t have school and either did Gabby which worked out well because Jason and I both had work. In fact, he had to leave for work and I had to leave for an airport run before our birthday kids were even out of bed!

Fortunately, I was able to meet up with Steven, Sammy and Amaya for a birthday lunch at Chili’s. Such a treat!

For their birthday afternoon, Gabby took the kids to Build-A-Bear! They got birthday stickers, crowns and even got to put special birthday hearts in their stuffed animals.

Steven selected a cat named Catty. Sammy went for a Darth Vadar bear. Amaya picked out a bear named Spotty.

It was so thoughtful of Gabby to take them. Thank you!!

We wrapped up the day with bedtime books and FaceTime with Nana.

A definite theme of this birthday was Legos. Legos, legos, legos. Not that I mind one bit.

Still to come…

The influx of new lego sets required a little organization of what we already have.

SSA haven’t had any real homework yet but this week the boys came home with an assignment to complete a math worksheet. While I’m sure this won’t last, they were excited to give in and do their work and it was so cute to watch them in action.

We also have a school wide project, following a assembly, to complete a footprint activity where you write how you’ll be a hero at school and a hero at home. Amaya only gets materials sent home on Mondays but the boys got to complete their footprints this weekend.

Can a weekend be calm and busy at the same time? If so, that’s how I’d describe this weekend but maybe it’s the contrast of the past 4 or 5 weekends which were full of travel, visitors, holidays and birthday events.

On Saturday, the Cline Men and Cline Women split up for the better part of the day. Jason, Steven and Sammy headed off to the Lansing area to watch Nancy play in a Quidditch tournament with her college team. This was also an opportunity to visit with Grandma Sunshine and Aunt Annette.

Amaya and I took sweet Sally to her annual vet appointment and then she had a birthday party for her friend Maia.

The appointment for Sally took forever and, even with her fear of Sally, Amaya was cooperative and patient. (Which was welcome after our morning together where I had to tell her I’d get a babysitter to come stay with her if she didn’t stop arguing with me about everything.) Unfortunately I have to take Sally back because my girl does not like pokes and they couldn’t get a blood draw. They sent me off with some gabapentin which I’m supposed to use to keep her calm. I think I need some of my own gabapentin if I’m supposed to get this cat of mine to take meds. 😉

“Make sure people know I’m actually happy in this picture.”

Sweet Sal

We made it to the party right on time and Amaya had a blast. She’s come so far! We used to go to Pump It Up for parties and she’d steer clear of the bigger slides. Now either from age, a desire to keep up with her peers, or both, she’s completely fearless. I’m sure it doesn’t hurt that her favorite friend Abby loves the big slides.

Amaya and Abby

Today was Steven, Sammy and Amaya’s first day of school. When we arrived, one of the kids said, “All of these people are Jewish!?!” When I said, yes, they said, “I didn’t know that all these people celebrate Hanukkah in MI!”

It was an exceptionally warm welcome. Everyone was expecting us and the kids were thrilled to see their friend Brianna, from pre-k, in the class. It made Amaya feel much better about me leaving them there. When Steven got upset about me leaving, someone else asked if he wanted to be line leader and that did the trick.

When I picked the kids up 2 1/2 hours later they were all smiles, and not just because they get a piece of candy at the end of the day. They told me that they played “Jewish bingo”, did a get well craft for their primary teacher who broke her ankle and went to Hebrew class where they learned words like head, hand and foot.

From what I can tell, they’re looking forward to going back.

Red Robin. Yummmmmm.

Since we were in the area we stopped by the JCC for camp registration day and Winterfest. The kids were beside themselves to get to see Ms. Shannon. She seemed pretty happy to see them, too.

Sammy was my buddy today. We snuggled during lunch and cuddled at winterfest.

After we registered for camp, each kid had a chance to spin a wheel for a prize. Sammy won a Starbucks gift card so I told him we could stop for hot chocolate on the way home. Steven was fine with it because he won his own prize. He said something along the lines of, “When we spin the wheel we win different things.” Amaya was beside herself that Sammy’s prize was something that’s “not healthy”, though. It didn’t matter to her that she had a dumdum at the event and Sammy didn’t. It didn’t matter to her that, yesterday, she had a cupcake, cookie and ring pop at the birthday party and her brothers didn’t. She’s obsessed with junk food. (Yesterday at the party I had to draw the line when Amaya also wanted to add a piece of cake to her list of treats. More tears.)

But now she’s home and she has this great bird house that she got to built, Sammy’s hot chocolate is all gone, and she seems to be past it. And maybe even happy that she has a prize that she can keep.

This handsome guy.

Just a few more highlights from the week…

Books! Goodness, we love books.

I loved Amaya’s scarf fashion.

Seeing the kids with Sally makes me so happy. I wish I could help Amaya get past her fear. She was better for a while and even started to pet Sally but she claims Sammy told her Sally will bite her and now she’s scared again.

I’m seeing progression on the kids’ phonetic spelling.

Amaya’s come a long way from conferences in November when we couldn’t discern anything she was trying to say. I was able to decode this one for myself.

Elifunt!

Finally, because it must be said, after 26 years, Jean Luc Picard is back on my tv and I’m beside myself. The show airs every Thursday at 12:01am PT which means I’ll be waking up early on Thursday mornings for the foreseeable future.

Have a great week!

This weekend we had the great fun of celebrating Steven, Sammy and Amaya’s 6th birthday. It really does feel like I blinked. Emotionally, though, 6 is a lot easier for me than 5 was. I think the kids entering kindergarten anchored me in the mindset of bigger kids. But still, SIX. How are we here?

As always, SSA have customized birthday shirts. I like to think this will be a forever tradition, even when they’re way too old for them.

We had guests join us for the birthday celebration. On Friday night, Papa, Aunt Sara, Charlie, Uncle Austin and Krissie arrived. <3 Such lucky kids.

We were a little worried that snow would interfere with the kids’ party but we lucked out and it wasn’t enough to keep Michiganders at home. Steven got a kick out of watching Jason clear the snow with our snowblower.

At noon, we all headed off to Chuck E Cheese, where Steven, Sammy and Amaya chose to have their birthday party. We invited both of their classes and ended up with a party of 33 kids. I really enjoyed knowing the kids from my visits to their classrooms, and some of the other parents, too.

We had some interesting “triplet” conversations as people arrived:

• From a mom of a child in the boys’ class: “What are your plans for Amaya’s birthday party?”
• From another mom of a child in the boys’ class: “[My daughter] said that Steven and Sammy are triplets but I told her she must be mistaken.”
• From a mom of one of Amaya’s friends: “I wanted to let you know the twins can come to the party, too, but I know Amaya likes to have her own space so I understand she might not want them there.” (I’m still cracking up at “twins”. And she’s right. Amaya would hate it if her brothers came to the party.)

As soon as we got our wristbands the kids are off and I barey saw them while I played hostess at our tables. We had a great day for the party because there was only one other small party happening at the same time and, other than that, it was pretty empty. The kids had a blast!

Sammy and his favorite friend, Owen.

Pizza and cake an ice cream time!

For cakes, Steven picked chocolate Paw Patrol, Amaya picked chocolate Barbie and Sammy picked vanilla Batman.

SSA each had an opportunity to go in the ticket grabber thing. Steven wasn’t feeling it so Amaya got his extra tickets for him.

These kids were spoiled by their friends.

Mommy and Chuck E!

This has been a weekend of sugar, sugar, sugar. We’re going to need a Cline Kid sugar detox next week! But SSA and Charlie ate it up. Literally.

When we got home from the party, the kids dove right into opening their gifts from their wonderful friends. Legos were a big theme in gifts for the boys which thrilled Steven. Sammy’s favorite gift is a Hot Wheels set. Amaya loves her LOL doll.

Sammy and Charlie playing the Headbanz guessing game.

<3 <3 <3

We had an awesome, lazy morning today which let the kids dive into their gifts. Charlie and Amaya spent a good portion of the morning twinning.

Amaya is in new PJs that she received as a gift. She loves them.

What? More candy at 10am?

We’re so lucky to have a hill in the backyard. On days like today, the kids can have a ton of fun outside and I can peek from the comfort of my warm house.

In the afternoon, after lunch at Deadwood, we made some birthday cupcakes – Amaya’s request thanks to the baking shows she watches.

Happy Birthday!!

+ Tears because the wax dripped on her cupcake and ruined the pattern and design in her frosting.

But she recovered. 🙂

While we missed the family that couldn’t spend the weekend with us, it was a great birthday weekend for Steven, Sammy and Amaya. I’m a very grateful mom.

And just a few other highlights from the week…

I was away for my work trip until Tuesday afternoon but got this photo of my smiling brood from Penni on Monday night.

On Wednesday morning I took Steven to get an orthitics fit check. It was with someone new who confirmed that he does still need orthotics and his current ones still fit. Steven was disappointed. His first choice was that he doesn’t need them anymore. His second choice was getting to pick a pattern for new orthoics. But he handled it like a champ.

The timing worked out well for me to volunteer in Amaya’s class after dropping of Steven. Amaya was so cute while the class finished their activity. She kept peeking at me and giving me sly looks and sweet smiles. I love that she loves me there.

One activity I assisted with is “read the room.” The kids get a sheet that has two columns with a vowel at the top of each column. In this case, Aa and Oo. The kids walk around the room and look for cards that have a picture e.g. rat. They have to sound out the consonant-vowel-consonant (cvc) word and decide if the vowel is an A or an O and then spell and write the word in the correct column. I was really impressed with how well the kids did!

During independent reading time Amaya was so proud to read Sam the Cat to me. And I was so proud of her!

Finally, on Friday I joined the kids for their long-awaited stint at the cafeteria birthday table! For a $10 donation to the PTA, you can sign up to eat with your child(ren) at the table on their birthday. We were all really excited. I loved being with them and also getting a chance to see school lunch in action.

So now it’s Sunday night and we’re getting read to say goodbye to everyone AND celebrate Steven, Sammy and Amaya’s actual birthday tomorrow. Amaya is so sad to say goodbye to Charlie so we’re getting through it with a picture of them on her wall and a strategically pointed night light. I know how she feels. 🙂

Have a great week and a great January 20th!

This update comes to you from NY where I’m on a brief work trip. With the return to normalcy after a month of holiday prep and fun, the week felt long. But I was happy on Monday morning when the kids got on the school bus without complaint and jumped back into their routine.

We’re starting religious school on Sundays on 1/26 and, with that, came a synagogue membership. We joined Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, MI. It is one of the largest Reform congregations in the US with over 3,100 member families. I grew up in a Conservative congreation so it will be a change for me but it feels right. There are many, many families with interfaith marriages and they are progressive with regards to things like same-sex relationships. That kind of visibility and acceptance matters a lot to me. The temple has a ton of programming and an active community that I’m excited to be part of.

Religous school is Sundays from 9:30am- 12pm and runs 24 Sundays of the year. It would be nice if the round trip drive was a little shorter (for me lol) but it sound like a great, play based program.

To welcome us, a member dropped off a challa last Friday which SSA enjoyed for breakfast on Monday morning before heading to the bus.

Nothing like a little fun with daddy before bed.

Evening story time is often a pile-on, which I love, but it’s a special treat to get 1:1 reading time. (This was Amaya’s new library book which everyone wanted to hear and I ended up reading three times in a row.)

It makes me so happy when the kids are loving with each other. There’s a facebook group called “TRIPLETS” that’s open to anyone and adult triplets often share photos together. I know there’s so much I can’t control about it, but I do hope that Steven, Sammy and Amaya are connected and friends as adults.

I have a cute video I’d share, too, but YouTube has removed it for “inappropriate content”. Same with another video of the kids having a freeze-dance party at bedtime. Such salacious content!

Sammy has taken to sleeping between the wall and his beanbag. He falls asleep in a flash and seems to stay asleep so I’ve just been covering him up with a blanket before I got to bed. I’ll be able to add some of these pictures to the internet montages of “weird ways my kid sleeps”. 😉

Mama and Sal. Still my first best girl. Sammy and I had a talk the other day about how long cats live. He said he hopes she lives longer than most cats and I agree wholeheartedly. <3

We had family photos this weekend. I can’t get over how old Amaya looks. I paid her $1 her to wear this dress because “the color is brown, not yellow, and it’s ugly and I won’t even be able to look at the pictures”. She also wanted me to cut off the strings at the top but got comfortable with them when I told her we’d make a bow.

Another win for the day was collaborating on a hairstyle we were both happy with. And it didn’t even cost me!

Here are a couple of behind the scenes sneak peeks. No more red couch family photos! It’s the end of an era!

On Saturday the kids and I dove into this month’s Raddish Kids recipes. The theme was Swedish Eats and all of the recipes were Nordic which was really cool given that I just traveled to the region this summer and Jason is a viking. All the kids got into it, though Sammy was the only one willing to touch the raw meat and only for a few minutes before he got grossed out.

We made Nordin cinnamon rolls and Swedish meatballs. Both were delicious.

Sammy did an amazing job helping me with the gravy. We talked about how to stand safely at the stove and why we want to hold on to the pan handle while we stir. He’s going to be quite the (safe) little chef.

Serving the spoils of our labor!

This morning I head to NYC – early – for a work conference. I had a chance to see Amaya before I left which was an unexpected treat. I have a great view from my hotel room on 6th and 54th and sent some photos to Jason to share with the kids. Steven saw them and said, “Oh, she’s in the city?” <3 I love that so much.

Jason has an early work meeting on Mondays so Grandma Sunshine came to spend the night and the five-some went out for dinner at Outback followed by frozen yogurt. I wish I was with them but appreciate pictures so I can live vicariously.

Have a great week! We have a big one ahead – birthday lunch at school and Steven, Sammy and Amaya’s birthday party!

We spent most of this past week in NY, celebrating the New Year NY style. (Well, not quite NY style. No Times Square for this crew!)

We had a longer than usual wait to check out bags so the kids got their wiggles out while we waited. Getting those wiggles out helps with the sitting to come. 🙂

Steven and Sammy also made friends with an adorable cocker spaniel puppy. Goodness that was one cute pup. (Meanwhile, Amaya cowered behind me and made me promise that the dog wouldn’t come near her.)

Obligatory stop at McDonalds for happy meals. At this point, our routine is pretty much sealed in in stone. I’ve even, finally, memorized the kids’ orders.

There was a big debate over who’d sit next to the friendly stranger on the flight to NY. Sammy said it wasn’t fair that he always has to, which was a reasonable point, so I let the kids know that whoever sat across the aisle could sleep with me for two nights in NY and the other two kids would each sleep with me for one night. That was all it took for Steven to take his seat across from me. And he even had the bonus of a dog on the floor of the seat next to him!

Thank you, Aunt Sara, Uncle Dave and Charlie for coming to get us!

We made it to NY in time to celebrate the New Year! This is the first one where SSA really understand the changing of the year and they were very excited for it to be two thousand twenty.

Amaya made Charlie a matching shirt with her silk screen kit so they twinned for the night (and the next day).

Thanks to YouTube and Netflix we got to watch some celebrations found around the world and do our own countdown to midnight at 8pm. Charlie thought it was hysterical that her cousins thought it was actually midnight. 🙂

Cousin sleepover!

On Wednesday morning the kids came to me and told me they found something “suspicious”. There were poison jars upstairs. (These are decorative jars that do have a poison label with a skull and crossbones. They were in Savta’s house for years and she gave them to me a decade or two ago.) I explained that they were Savta’s which totally set them off. They spent the entire morning finding “clues” that implicated Savta as a witch. They couldn’t wait for her to arrive so she could explain herself. Verdict: She’s a good witch.

Since Nana can’t travel to MI for Steven, Sammy and Amaya’s birthday, she and Papa gave them their gifts this weekend. Amaya got beautiful hoop earrings – her first new earrings since her ears were pierced at 6 months old. She absolutely loves them. All week I caught her sneaking peaks in mirrors.

Aunt Sara and her cuddle bug.

We even had a visit from Dod Shuki and Auntie Anita on Wednesday. <3

A perk of my job is that I can work remotely, and that includes working from NY. On Thursday I spent the day working with Charlie, Steven, Sammy and Amaya spent a good portion of their day having a blast at Savta’s house. There’s always so much for them to do and see there.

Even Amaya’s doll had lunch.

Our big adventure was a visit to the Empire State Building on Friday. The kids are very aware of the Empire State Building and they visit for free until they’re 6 so this was the time to do it. Nana didn’t join us at the top but she did make the trip to the city with us.

Ready!!

A huge highlight for SSA was this area on the 80th floor where it looks like King Kong is reaching through the building. The set up was really cleverly done.

The good and the bad of our visit. The bad – it was so cloudy and foggy that there was zero visibility. Zero! The good of our visit was that the kids thought it was so cool to be in the clouds. And it really felt that way. We could even see waves of fog moving by us. We’ll have to hope our future trip to the Freedom Tower does offer some views, though.

Two kids were tuckered out by the time we got home. (I love how Amaya sleeps with her legs crossed.)

Chase had a fever the first part of the week so we were really excited to get to see him on Friday!

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Cuddles with Bobes

On Saturday morning, after our sleepover, Sammy and I worked together an a castle that we built to his detailed specifications.

We finished our trip to NY with a belated Hanukkah party with our Zargari cousins. This year, each child drew the name of another cousin for gift giving. It was a nice touch.

Amaya and Mike in a thumb war.

Present time!

Savta and the great grands.

Finally, some pre-bed games with Nana.

Steven was gifted more lego sets this weekend and dove right in. He’s getting better and better at following the instructions correctly. Amaya, too.

And we’re home to Daddy!!

We all had a very relaxing afternoon that culminated with various beauty salons and a some hard work on Steven’s part to turn Jason into a firefighter.

And, finally, Viking Steven!

Have a great week!