DeebleDaughter Christmas Greeting

Merry Christmas From the Deeble Girls from Elise Deeble on Vimeo.

Notable Ommissions and Other Reflections from 2009

Call us cheap - or, if you're kind, extremely busy. But welcome to the Deeble's full color, high resolution, unlimited edition family Christmas letter. 2009 was a year of many milestones and achievements. Perhaps, though, the most notable achievements were the ones that actually did not happen. Thus, we begin this annual memoir with our list of "Notable Ommissions."

we did not...
1. ...have any overnight stays in a hospital.
2. ...reach our family deductable.
3. ...ski even a single day (though we were in Winter Park for five).
4. ...contract H1N1 (yet).
5. ...add on to our house.
6. ...invest in any toxic assets.
7. ...take the dogs for a single walk.
8. ...visit one movie theatre together.
9. ...have any more babies.
10. ...hang Christmas tree lights on our house.

In so doing (or in not so doing), we made a very important observation: you really can't see your own lights. You can only see the neighbor's lights. So in order to get into the Christmas spirit, one only needs festive neighbors such as ours (thanks B, E, and G!):

favorite quotes of 2009...
1. "Bye Bye Poopie. See you tomorrow!" - Mia
2. "What About Me!?!" - Brianna
3. "Milp" - Hadley

We're a bit concerned that when a child can verbally ask to be nursed that maybe it's time to switch over to the cow....

most adorable moments: (click to watch any of the below)
1. When Mia first learned to pray.
2. Hadley singing Frank Sinatra with her Papa.
3. Brianna on a talking spree.

most heroic moment: Dad catching Hadley with one hand while still filming (see video#2) .

best vacation: lake trip and worstell wedding
worst drive: lake trip and worstell wedding

worst day of the year: family photo day
best day of the year: when we got our photos back

meanwhile, on the latest episode of "So You Think You Can Dance..."

most difficult challenge of our lives: pottytraining
greatest feat: hadley takes her first steps!

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a purposeful and rewarding 2010.

Spring Fever

It's only December 17th. We've only had one snowfall. The calendar hasn't even turned yet. And we - Mia, Bri, Hads, and I - all have spring fever. Long nights, cold days, and...us. Just us.

dinner table discussions

One night last week, I announced that I wanted to go around the table and tell each girl why I thought they were so special. So I turned to Bri, then to Mia, then to Elise, and finally to Hadley and shared with each of them. It went over well and the girls seemed to listen intently to my praise.

But then Bri announced that she too wanted to tell each of us why we are special. Here's what we heard:

"Mia, you booduful cause...cause....cause... you gwew up China. {insert garble, garble}. And you adopted. You born Mommy's heart I born in Mommy tummy. Mommy, you booduful cause...cause...cause... you fix dings. Had-lay, you booduful cause...cause...you dance.

Daddy, you so booduful cause...cause...{garble garble}...watch football."

About Foxes...

Untitled from Elise Deeble on Vimeo.

Final Score

Team Deeble, after a last minute surge by Team Meltdown and some rancorous debate among the home team, was able to hold on to close out the game.

Team Deeble: 3
Meltdown: 1

Game Analysis:

1st Quarter: a strong showing out of the gate. The deebledaughters slept til 7:30 (Dude!), our dear friend "Miss Sharon" came over and watched our two youngest so that Elise and I could spend some 2 on 1 time with Mia. Incredibly special time. Then, I took Brianna shopping - we went to the library, the grocery store, and she helped me pick out some new boots.

2nd Quarter: also a strong quarter of play but with a major setback at the end. A small mutiny occurred on the way to NAP time that caused TeamDeeble 3 penalties, a personal foul, and a stiff fine for inappropriate conduct.

3rd Quarter: starting out extremely strong. All 3 have been asleep for 2 hours. After their waking, we attempted to bake cookies for our neighbors. This was a disaster and required a quick audible by Elise (our QB). Coloring books and crayons kept us in the game.

4th Quarter: some bickering among the star QB and the back-up QB (dan) got the 4th quarter off to a rocky start, resulting in Dan coming in and pulling off some late heroics to finish off Team Meltdown.


All in all, a fairly solid effort by the good guys and, it seems, the win has lifted the spirits in the locker room as well. After his post-game interviews, Dan was seen heading to the showers. He and Elise crossed paths in the tunnel where he reportedly gave her a slap on the butt and said, "good game."

Karaoke Night at Butde and Pappa's

unforgettable from Elise Deeble on Vimeo.

a new approach

monday is my day off.
therefore, it's my most important day.
it is also my most exhausting.

i find that - to keep up with my girls - I have to be proactive, otherwise I will get pummelled and left for dead. so this morning I woke up with a new gameplan: I was going to approach the day as many football coaches approach a game....by quarters.

It dawned on me that a whole day from start to finish of taking girls to the potty, washing bibs, preparing meals, roughhousing, getting them in carseats, out of carseats, wiping noses, reading books, cleaning up, then uncleaning up what i had just cleaned up, etc...was just to much to get my arms around (i know, i know...i'm talking about just a day, when my blessed wife has to think in terms of years).

So I broke the day up into quarters.

1st Quarter: wake up through breakfast.
2nd Quarter: post-breakfast through 2:00PM nap time
3rd Quarter: post-nap through dinner
4th Quarter: bath, books, bedtime

My goal, you see, was to win more quarters than I lost and...to own the 4th quarter. I've kept a small scorecard. Here's how we did:

TeamDeeble: 4
Meltdown: 0

Oh yeah. We killed today. We decorated a Christmas tree, I raked/mowed leaves, Mia and I ran errands and had a lunch date, girls were hugging, they were sharing, there were new songs written, no one bit anyone,...I mean, it was a really good day and I'm sticking with my new strategy.

Elise is a bit worried, though, that I'm taking the football analogy a bit far. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that, after dinner, I shouted "It's the 4th Quarter baby!" and then made everyone raise 4 fingers in the air as we hit the showers - err, bathtub.

oh. so this is joy.

Before leaving for our 4-day trip to Colorado for Thanksgiving, I asked my friends to pray for two specific things: (1) Safety and (2) Sanity.

And God answered one of those prayers.

The picture below really says it all as Elise and our two oldest were ready to throw in the towel by day 4. This is not to say that there weren't great moments (such as Papa and Hadley sharing the Karaoke machine - post pending) nor that Butde and Papa didn't bend over backwards to make our time as relaxing as possible. It's just that the girls got sick. All of them. Fevers and snot galore.

One moment rises above the rest in my head, however, and it happened to be within the first hour of our 12-hour drive home. Our mini-van's dvd went on the fritz and we couldn't get it to work at all for the first 6 hours of our trip. So I just remember driving down the mountain with Hadley screaming, Mia sneezing, Brianna crying, Elise wacking on the DVD player - all the while a Veggie Tale's CD blared through all 8 speakers: "I've got JOY JOY JOY JOY down in my heart. Where? Down in my heart. Where? Down in my heart. I've got JOY JOY JOY JOY down in my heart - where?...."


If only we had brought the dogs.

P.S. We later got the dvd player to work after the girls fixed it. No kidding. It still required Elise to whack it every 5-10 minutes in order to make it work which prompted me to say "score one for the team" each time.

thanksgiving 2009

welcome to the jungle

The below videos should capture a vivid snapshot of what our nightly routine looks AND sounds like.

Video #1: Competing Melodies

Double Seeing Girls from Elise Deeble on Vimeo.

Video #2: Mommy Won't Sing and Daddy Can't
Also notice the excellent save by Daddy during the last 7 seconds. Hadley sneaks up on him, trips over his leg, and Daddy somehow (SOMEHOW I SAY!) manages to catch her head in the palm of his hand WHILE simultaneously capturing his own heroism on tape.

Not Singing Alone from Elise Deeble on Vimeo.

Video #3: Mommy Knows Best, Always, At All Hours, From All Angles.

Untitled from Elise Deeble on Vimeo.

This video can be best enjoyed with a transcript:
Mom: "Someone's gonna get seriously hurt."
Dad: "I know."
{Loud cries}
Mom: "Theeere it is."
{Pause}
Dad: "Whattya think?"
Mom: "She's holding her breath."
Dad: "Oh, ya think so."
Mom: "Yes!"
Dad: "It's pretty quiet..."
{Loud Screams}
Dad: "Oh yeah. You're right. You're right."

Hadley - No More Morning Nap :(

Much to my dismay, Hadley is giving up her morning nap but still not completely use to it. This is pretty much her new play position in the mornings.

Girls Sporting Their New Winter Boots

The older girls were all excited to wear their new winter boots to church on Sunday. I had to come up with outfits to wear them with. They looked like little teenagers with skirts, tights and boots!

Much to my chagrin I discovered the day before that both of the big girls had been wearing shoes a whole size too small for them. So Mia's complaints about her shoes were valid. Oops!!! Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep up with three girls with extremely fast growing feet. I literally had their feet measured about a month before.

Mommy and Baby

Here is a little video of the girls playing Mommy and Baby.

Untitled from Elise Deeble on Vimeo.

Matilda the Gorilla

So "Matilda the Gorilla" stands as the all time favorite baby/toddler song. This song was each of our girls first favorite song. Hadley was not even remotely peforming for the camera here. The minute we get in the car she starts saying "OO OO AH AH" and then goes crazy when it starts.

Untitled from Elise Deeble on Vimeo.

Mia and Papa Building Together

Mia our little engineer loves to build towers or in this case they call them sand castles. This one took a creative flair with Sonja inside the tower.

Butde and Papa Visit

So Butde and Papa came to visit to check out the new church building. As always we loved having them here.

On Saturday, Dan decided to take both girls to McDonalds in place of the one on one breakfast and to ask Papa to join them. They had a great time. The McDonalds staff now recognizes them as regulars and has started giving the girls toys. So this is how the happy meal stuff starts.

Hat and Slippers

Two of Mia's favorite things to wear: her bucket hat and her slippers. She always has to come model them for me when she puts them on. Sorry about the lack of pants in the picture.

Imaginations at Work

So one of the girls new things is to play mommy and baby. Brianna is usually the mommy and Mia is the baby. They love to play it upstairs in their room. Mia will get in her bed and Brianna will tell her "good night, I love you" and leave the room and close the door. Mia will then start crying and Brianna will say "I'll get you" come back into the room and go hold Mia. Then they start all over again. It is so cute.

Well this particular day baby Mia was crying and so Brianna told that she would hold her. She went and sat on the floor and them Mia got in her lap. Hadley of course tried to play as well.

Hadley

So Hadley is totally changing from our sweet, easy going, compliant baby to a strong willed, feisty thing with quite a temper. She had her first time out yesterday. Needless to say it didn't really work. It just made her madder.

But at the same time it is so fun to watch the light bulb going on in her head. She loves to read books and do anything that her sisters do. Our doctor at her 1 year appointment said that our current goal is to just keep her alive. That she is going to start trying to climb things like her sister. I thought current goal....that has been the goal since the day she was born.

Dud Blogger Award

So my baby sister just emailed me all mad saying that we win the dud blogger award. So stay tuned for some posts. :)

bri's new favorite phrase

"What About ME?"

top 5 quotes of the week....

1. Mia , while potty training: "Daddy, the poopy's stuck in my bottom."

2. Daddy: "Hadley, no headbanging."

3. Brianna & Daddy:

d: Brianna? What are you doing to Hadley?
b: I'm putting lotion on her feet.
d: Where did you find lotion?
b: From my mouth.
d: Bri, that's not lotion. That's saliva.
b: No, it's lotion.

4. Mia, while playing in the creek at the Arboretum: "Dude!"

5. Elise, commenting on my sermon from Sunday in which I talked about a big argument we had gotten into: "I think you really undersold just what a jerk you really were."

The Terrible Twos

Sorry it has been so quiet on the blog front. The Deebles have spent the last few weeks just trying to survive this crazy busy season in our lives.

Dan has been super busy with work due to the church moving to its new location on November 1st. Woo Hoo! And I, Elise, have been practically home bound for two weeks with cold, rainy weather and three sick kids(two "Terrible Two" year olds and a feisty 1 year old). My goal at this point is just to survive. I have learned at a whole new level why they call it the terrible twos.

Potty training two strong willed 2-year olds with an equally as strong willed one year old and two neurotic dogs almost put me over the edge last week. Imagine a mom who is claustrophobic in a TINY bathroom, with a huge step stool, a children's little potty seat, three girls and two tiny dogs. One girl is screaming that she wants to "do it all by herself", the littlest girl is either dangling from the sink, or opening and closing the cabinet door or worse the bathroom door. While the other two year old is trying to drive her noisy ride toy into the already crammed bathroom. And then if that wasn't crazy enough having one dog who was apparently having a nervous breakdown huddling between my legs.

I have a whole new appreciation for the "Serenity Now" Seinfeld episode. Needless to say we all survived. And this week is already looking so much better. Today it is 70 degrees. The sun is shining. We got out of the house. Mia is pretty much potty trained. I have given up on Brianna. And I took the offensive in our main floor bathroom: removed Hadley's favorite climbing stool, put door stopper on the door, rubber banded the cabinet doors shut and my favorite REMOVED the batteries from the obnoxiously loud ride toy.

Still considering putting the dog on Prozac!

mo (and poppa) strikes again...

bow-sharing from Elise Deeble on Vimeo.

she came, she saw, she...

one big cupcake, one messy (happy) girl.

Hadley Turns "1" Monday!!!

these are her favorite glasses and she asks me (dad) to put them on her often.

Best of Friends

We can only hope and pray that our girls are always this supportive of one another (Mia and Hadley are just lending their support).

Untitled from Elise Deeble on Vimeo.

Hadley's First Coloring Session

Family Pictures

I don't know how Jamie does it. Amazing!!!

Dan and I just can't watch this slide show enough. It makes us both fall in love with all three of our girls all over again. It also makes me (Elise) smile because these pictures capture what an amazing and fun father Dan is. I am so incredibly blessed.

Click the link to see the slide show:

http://www.jamiemillerimages.com/slideshows/deeble/

Family Pictures - Sneak Peak

Last friday we had a photo session with Jamie Miller at Antioch Park. We arrived all clean, nicely dressed and excited for a fun time. In spite of Jamie's unbelievable enthusiasm and patience, we left exhausted, stressed, sweaty, dirty and frustrated.


Jamie does a fabulous job, but trying to get three strong willed, adventerous girls whose favorite phrase is "All by Myself" (at least for Mia and Bri) to stand still for one moment and look at the camera at the same time. Impossible!!!!!

I kept telling myself (Elise) that I needed to just chill out. Jamie was chilled, Dan seemed chilled but if you know me, that is usually next to impossible for me. After all isn't the perfectly happy, all smiling family picture a farse anyway? In reality, one child is probably being bribed to smile, another one is plotting revenge on a sibling and the parents have the fakest smiles plastered on their faces.

The biggest shock to me was that the most difficult to corral was Hadley. She is 11 months old but thinks she is two. She was so mad that she couldn't walk everywhere all by herself just like her big sisters.


Jamie as always was upbeat and positive. Saying don't worry we got some great stuff. She was right. The following link has a sneak peak of one picture she got: http://jamiemillerimages.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/IMG_5597e-copyblog.jpg


We will post the rest when we get them.

Sabbath Day

Today we visited one of Dan's old favorite (single days) sabbath haunts - the arboretum. It was a beautiful day. The girls had a blast walking the paths, smelling the flowers, doing a little landscaping, hunting for butterflies and throwing leaves into the creeks (probably illegal).

Poor Hadley was never allowed out of her stroller. And skipping her morning nap took a toll on her on the ride home.