Back on the bandwagon

Sorry friends, apparently I fell off the blogger bandwagon for, oh you know, 2 months!  It’s 9:00 on a Friday night, all 3 kids are sleeping and all I want to do is join them….but here’s a “quick 5” update for ya’ll on what we’ve been doing in the last 2 months!

1.  The kids and I spent a week last month in October with most of my family.  Poor Tom had to stay home –between work and National Guard drill, he just couldn’t get away.   We had a great time….but I won’t be taking any vacations with 3 kids by myself any time soon!  I can’t tell you how thankful I was to have my family there to help!!

2. House plans are in full swing –actually we have house plans in our hands and now we’re visiting with a few builders and getting bids so we can get one hired and hopefully start on a new house in the spring {its contingent on a few things, but I have high hopes that everything will fall into place so we can start soon}

3.  Major work changes are on the horizon!!  I can’t share a lot about this just yet –I’m staying at the same firm just making some changes to make it more do-able with 3 kids and I’m super excited about it!

4.  My baby girl is already six {and a half} months old, she talks all the time, giggles, rolls and LOVES go be right in the middle of all the excitement her big brother and sister create.  Where does the time go??  Gracyn is such a sweet baby, she’s happy most of the time and wakes up every morning with a smile on her face, wiggling with delight.  Love her! 

5.  My other baby girl turned FIVE last week.  Crazy!  Seriously, where does the time go??  It seems like just a few months ago that I was waddling the halls of the law school….and now she’s in preschool and telling me she’s ALMOST six (you know…only 51 more weeks!) Love, love love that girl!  She’s such a sweet big sister, she loves to help out (thank you God!), and she has an infectious smile and giggle!  I don’t know what we’d do without her! 

And because I can’t leave my Micah man out, you get a bonus quick 6.  We’re working on potty training….with lots of bribing positive reinforcement.  Seriously, I’m pretty sure Micah’s new motto could be “will poop for hotwheels cars.”  Sigh.  Some day he will be potty trained.  I’m sure of it….I just hope we both live to see that day!   Micah is ALL BOY, he lives for his tractors {and trailers….and please don’t make the mistake of buying him a tractor without a trailer….it will cause a meltdown because tractors NEED trailers}

I’ve had a ton more on my mind and heart lately….and at least 50 “deep” blog posts written in my head.  Maybe someday they’ll actually make it on here!  Happy weekend friends! 

Summer Fun {Picture update!}

Swimmin’ with daddy Bein’ extra cute	Hangin’ with our cousins Goin’ to the zoo
Picnicin’ a Eagle Point Park	Lovin’ on baby sister

p.s. – Anybody else think the makers of the Moby wrap ought to pay me for the free advertising?

A Day Worthy of A Blog

You may have seen my facebook posts, but I figure yesterdays excitement is worthy of a blog post too!!  We spent the weekend in Dubuque Iowa for Tom’s Grammy’s 90th birthday –SUCH a fun weekend….more on that in another post when all the babies are healthy! 

Friday night/early Saturday morning (like 3 am early), I was up nursing Gracyn and I could hear Micah making this awful wheezing sound when he breathed.  I knew I didn’t dare stop nursing Gracyn or she would scream her little head off and wake everyone else, so I nudged Tom to go check on Micah.  He picked him up and took him into the bathroom and the poor little guy had spiked a fever and started in on this awful cough.  It was seriously a cough I’ve never heard before – I don’t even know how to describe it.  Definitely not the dry, hacky cough you sometimes get with a winter cold….this sounded deep and rattly and sometimes almost like the barking that seals do. 

He continued off and on with the cough and fever all weekend…..but also had periods where he had no tylenol, no fever and seemed fine.  He played at the park, swam in the motel pool and was his usual ornery self…..then he’d start fevering and coughing and snuggle into my lap for a while.  When he was still coughing all the way home Monday, I decided I was taking him into the clinic first thing Tuesday morning.

And on our way to the clinic I had a friendly encounter with a very generous State Trooper –who reminded me that I was driving too fast and needed to slow down….thankfully with just a warning.  My children on the other hand – not quite so generous!  Makenzie reminded me all day yesterday –“mom it’s not good to speed…why were you speeding…did you know you were speeding….you know if you speed you’ll have to give the cop all your money…and on and on and on she went ALL DAY.  Micah man so kindly told EVERYONE at the doctors office, “my mommy speeded and the cop made us stop.”  Love them! 

We made it to the clinic….5 minutes late! And then waited for 30 more minutes in the waiting room….guess I didn’t need to hurry quite so much to get there!  The doctor gave Micah man an antiobiotic…..and then he got worse.  The poor guy just faded as the day went on.  He woke up from his nap coughing around 3:00 yesterday and NEVER stopped.  By 5 I was giving him phenergan with codine that we had in the closet from his last episode of coughing – then I dropped him off at Grandma’s so we could go to Makenzie’s preschool open house.  When we picked him back up at 7 he looked worse than he had looked all day and was still coughing –the cough medicine didn’t do a thing.  I called the ER and talked to the PA on call who recommended more cough medicine and tylenol…..gave him that and he coughed so bad he puked it right back up, so we headed to the ER.  

And in case that wasn’t enough excitement for 1 day – Tom called me as I was driving to the ER (keep in mind it’s literally 3 blocks from our house!) to say that Makenzie was throwing up.  (Thankfully that was all over and she was sleeping soundly by the time I got home with Micah!)  Gracyn went along with me to the ER so I could feed her when necessary – and thankfully my wonderful mama met us there a short time later and helped me care for both kiddos.  Seriously I don’t know what we’d do without grandparents around!!

At the ER, they drew his blood to test for pertussis (whooping cough), gave him 2 breathing treatments (the albuterol one didn’t phase the coughing but turned him into his naughty self for a few minutes and he was swatting at me and trying to escape our little ER room….thankfully that wore off pretty quickly!), gave him a rocephin shot in the leg (OUCH!!), took 2 chest x-rays to make sure he hadn’t swallowed something that was irritating his airway and 4 hours later sent us home with steroids to take for the next 4 days.  He did sleep pretty well after we got home, so I’m hopeful he’s on the mend! 

Makenzie has a bit of a cough today (she’d like to think it’s MUCH worse than it is ) and Gracyn seems to be healthy! 

Update courtesy of my new bffs: Iphone & Instagram

I have a new love in my life….my iPhone….and the camera on my phone!  It’s definitely not my Canon camera (another love), but SUCH an improvement over my last phone camera!

Warning before you start scrolling—the captions are all sorts of messed up…..but you can probably figure out which caption goes with which picture.  For some reason auto format is killing me tonight--it keeps moving my captions around. 

Seriously, how adorable is this girl!! 

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it when these two get along! Makenzie was “reading” to Micah!

Swimming in the backyard!

Biking in Breckenridge –4 adults + 3 kids (one on a tagalong, one on a “wee-hoo” and one in a trailer.  We looked a little like a traveling circus….but this little circus made it nearly 10 miles round trip!! 

Love these two—and iPads…seriously, what did we do without them!

Faith and Family: Memorizing Scripture with the Little Ones

A dear friend and I were talking a few weeks back about fostering our children’s faith, and one of the specifics we talked about was helping our kiddos memorize Scripture.  I’m obviously not any sort of expert on this….but we’re working on it and I’ve found a couple of super great resources to help me!  If you’re interested, here’s what we’re doing (as in my kids and I):

1.  Step Into the Bible --  I started this book with Makenzie before Micah was really old enough to do any memorizing.  It’s a GREAT book –it has short 10 minute or less Bible stories and a Bible verse to memorize with each lesson.  The really great part—the Bible verse stays the same for 5 lessons, so it gives you several days to really get the verse memorized!  Makenzie soaks this book up and even asks to do devotions in the mornings –and she’s done a great job of “keeping” her verses memorized!  Each morning we do a devotion, I’ll have her go through the verses she has previously memorized and usually if I give her the first word or two, she can take off and recite the whole thing.

2.  Another friend recently introduced me to Teaching Children Memory Verses –this is WAY more Micah style than the previous book.  My little man has the attention span of a mosquito…or maybe of a 2 year old boy! By the time I get done reading a devotion, he’s long gone….usually sitting on the floor making growling noises at me or trying to drive his cars over the book I’m reading to Makenzie.  This book is more like Sunday school materials –it has a color sheet/activity to go with each “lesson”….but the lessons are short and the activity is good for keeping attention!  They have these books for various ages --I bought the one for 2 and 3 year olds and it really doesn’t seem to be too young for Makenzie. 

I think my biggest struggle in all of this is that I want it to be grand and elaborate and perfect…..and well, 2 and 4 year olds just don’t go for this!  We’re talking a maximum 5 minutes of good attention.  But here’s what I love –God is faithful!  God made my kids with that 5 minute attention span—and He also made them more than capable of soaking up His word in that timeframe! 

The other struggle is time – 3 days a week we’re racing to get out the door to work and daycare and sometimes that means mom’s yelling at everyone to put their shoes on for the 17th time instead of sitting down to read a devotion or go through a Bible verse.  As much as I wish this wasn’t the case, I think it’s just life….if it wasn’t work and daycare it would be something else….one more year and we’ll be racing off to Kindergarten in the mornings.  (Man that’s hard to actually type out….I’m definitely not ready for that!)  The 2nd book is great for this –just this week, I gave the kids a coloring sheet at 7:45 am, we talked about the verse while I fed Gracyn and they colored, loaded up at 8:00 and practiced the verse as we drove to daycare.  They weren’t fighting, I wasn’t crabbing—and they LOVED it!  Both kids insisted on taking their coloring sheets to Trinity to show their friends and teachers.  I’m thinking “Memory Verse Mondays” are going to become a regular occurrence at our house because I’d much rather have my kids going out the door with a verse in their head than a replay of me telling them to put their shoes on/brush their teeth/ stop fighting etc. etc.

Moms - I’d love to hear your ideas—how do you do Scripture with your kids?? 

Quick 5

1.  Life is BUSY!  Probably you already know that….but seriously….its busy!  I find myself having to work really hard to not get overwhelmed by my “to do” list.  And I can’t tell you how many times in a day I wish I could just spend it playing with kids and that somehow the laundry, dishes, cooking, work etc. would just take care of itself.  Maybe I need to hire a “mom” to do all the house stuff so I can just do the fun mom stuff! And I might need to hire someone to show up at work for me too….they’re going to start wondering if I ever work if I don’t get some office time!  Between  maternity leave, court hearings, vacations, continuing ed, and out of office meetings, I’ve hardly been in the office since April. 

2.  And because we don’t have enough going already, we decided to add building a house to our “to do” list.   This is super exciting and super terrifying all at once!  Thankfully, we’re giving ourselves lots of time –we met with the guy who is drawing our house plans last night and I can’t wait to have a preliminary picture of the house! I took him 2 house plans I had found and literally said, I want the main story of this house and the 2nd story of this house, except I want the garage moved and the kitchen bigger and I’d like a built in pantry, oh and while you’re at it, can we put in a built in desk and lockers for all the kids.  And if he can do all this and make the house look good, I’m going to think he’s a miracle worker!   Right now our plan is to start building in the spring, but there are lots of variables in that, so we’ll see.

3.  Makenzie came home with a note from Trinity this week that said, “Its so nice to have one child who listens the first time.  Keep up the good work.”  Proud mommy moment!!  (But oh how I wish she listened this well at home!

4.   Micah has picked up a new favorite phrase, “why because?”  I can’t tell him ANYTHING without hearing “why because?”  And even though it drives me CRAZY, he’s just so stinkin’ cute, that it makes me smile every time. 

5.  Gracyn is pretty close to perfect—she smiles and laughs and tolerates her brother and sister’s “love” so well!  She needs to start making friends with her daddy and grandparents though –she’s in  a “cling to mommy” phase and screams when anyone else tries to hold her.   

Happy Birthday America!

Growing up too fast!

My littlest bug is 2 months old, my biggest bug is camping in the backyard with her daddy for the first time ever, and my middle bug….well he’s stuck sleeping inside with me tonight and I might be secretly hoping he wakes up early and comes in my room to ‘nuggle!  He’s my little snuggle bug and I hope he never outgrows it!!  

This has been a really fun weekend – and much needed after a couple of crazy busy weeks!  I have an appellate brief due June 22nd and a 2 day trial June 28 and 29…the combination of the two equals major stress and long work hours (usually starting after 10 pm when everyone else is sleeping and the house is finally quiet). Briefs and trials are a bad combination anytime…but briefs and trials when you’re still supposed to be on maternity leave are just plain miserable! Needless to say we’re counting down the days till the end of the month…and being VERY thankful that July looks to be a whole lot calmer!

I finally uploaded pictures and videos and found a few that I just have to share!  Maybe when July 1st rolls around and I’m operating on more than 3-5 hours of sleep a night, you’ll get a more coherent blog post—for now, you’ll just have to enjoy the pictures! 

LOVE that smile!!  She is such a happy babe—and so good natured, we are blessed! 

And Gracyn is blessed to have a brother and sister who love her to pieces!!

Makenzie LOVES to sing to Gracyn….and Micah loves to do anything his big sister does….and Gracyn loves to listen, she’ll even stop her fussing just to listen to her big sister sing.  Micah man’s singing doesn’t quite have the calming effect Makenzie does – imagine that, it’s only about 10 times louder and usually less than 2 inches from Gracyn’s face!  

Love this little man’s singing…even if it isn’t Gracyn’s favorite!

An Update the Easy Way

What we’ve been up to…..

Wearin’ matching dresses

More matching dresses….and finishing Enrichment (pre-preschool)

Our first gymnastics “meet”

Plantin’ our garden and giving Gracyn her 1st bottle

Hangin’ out with mama (this was literally attempt #354 at a picture on Mother’s Day)

Havin’ tea parties (and reading Fancy Nancy….notice the pinky (or pointer finger) up….that’s fancy!)

Finishin’ Kindermusic

Lovin’ on our baby sister

Goin’ to the zoo

Ridin’ on Daddy’s shoulders

Bein’ ornery…and maybe tormenting our sister

Havin’ pool parties with our cousins

Havin’ fun at the park

Playin’ “boat” (in the cupboard under the sink in the hotel)

Wearin’ our sun hats and lookin’ super cute!