Happy New Year!

On New Year's Eve the Children's Museum hosted a Happy Noon Year event with a countdown and ball drop at Noon. The line to get into the museum was about a mile long and I didn't think we were going to get in before the countdown.

 

 

Charlie made a noise maker

Evy got her face painted

Happy Noon Year! See that clump of stuff falling from the parachute? It all landed on Evy, Charlie, and their friend Heather. This caused the rest of the kids to rush towards them and Charlie freaked out! Nothing like crying on new year.

 

Closer to midnight we celebrated with some other families at a friend's house. Will even got to play duck-duck-goose. Photo credit goes to my friend Kate who captured this great shot!

 

We got home around 11 p.m. and this is what the kids looked like as soon as we walked in the door. I think they partied pretty hard all day long.

That's a Wrap: The Rest of Christmas

 

The kids are eagerly awaiting the arrival of Santa on Christmas Eve.

 

On Christmas morning I heard Evy and Charlie rush out to the living room around 5:45. There was lots of gasping and guessing which gift was for who. At about 6:05 they came to wake me up. I asked, "Did Santa come?" Evy said, "I don't know we haven't been out in the living room yet."

 

 

Evy was concerned that Will only had two gifts under the tree. Turns out, the 3rd child doesn't need a whole lot.

 

Santa brought Will a dump truck!

 

Playing with Evy's new horse barn.

 

Yummy Christmas morning breakfast. This picture says so much about Charlie's personality. I told Scott she reminds me of the The Big Lebowski.

 

Santa brought Evy the Razor Flash. It was so nice on Christmas day that she was able to take it for a test drive.

We celebrated Christmas with Scott's family on the weekend after Christmas. Once again we barely captured any photos.

The girls lining up to find the pickle. The traditional Christmas game that turns quite competitive.

Who will find the pickle first? Kate was the winner this year.

Christmas #1

We kicked off our Christmas extravaganza at my parent's house this weekend. I just now realize that I did not get a single picture of my Mom or Dad who did 100% of the gift buying, wrapping, and food preparation. Thank you!

 

 

These cousins had a ton of fun playing together.

 

Great Grandma Maxine and her great grandchildren.

 

Great Grandpa Rex and Great Grandma Elouise with the crazy crew.

6 Months

 

Lots of new skills clicked for Will this month. He is a pro at rolling over and will spend time on his tummy without getting immediately mad. He is also sitting pretty good on his own and he has started babbling Daaaa-Da-Da-Daaaaa. I think he likes to hear himself talk. It's fun for him to contribute to the noise in the household. Unfortunately he has continued to be sick. He's had a horrible cough for over a week. I feel like the little guy can't catch a break. This means he is still not sleeping through the night. He loves to whack his hands on things, we call him a boxer. He still loves his pacifier (so do we). He is a happy guy, for the most part. A cute guy for sure!

Catching Up

Wow! I think this is the longest I have ever gone between blog entries. It's indicative of what's going on in our life right now. The adjustment to three children, a new job with lots of hours for Scott, and me doing all of the kid shuffling while working part time has left very little time for anything else. I'll do a quick recap of the last month.

After a month and a half of solid ear infections Will had tubes put in on November 25. The procedure was fast and easy and he was feeling great shortly afterwards. He slept through the night for the first time in two months! He hasn't done it again regularly, darn.

 

The next day I had some basal cell skin cancer removed. I had to wear this beast of a bandage for 4 days and couldn't lift anything heavier than 5 pounds for two weeks. Wouldn't be a problem if I didn't have three children under the age of 6. Scott had to adjust his work schedule to do all of the daycare drop offs and pick ups for a week. I had 25 stitches but the scar is healing nicely.

 

 

 

The next day Scott took the kids to his parent's house to celebrate Thanksgiving. This gave me a nice 24 hour break from kids demanding things from me. And gave the kids some great time at Grammy's and Papa's.

 

Earlier this month Scott got to escape for his annual deer hunting weekend.

 

Because I was still on my lifting restriction Grandma Joan and Papa Jake had to come to town to help me out. The girls got to see the Nutcracker and take a horse drawn trolley ride.

 

 
 

 Last Friday night we started our Christmas cookies and finally wrapped them up on Sunday. 

We ended the weekend with our annual giving event.

Charlie was adorable at her preschool holiday program. Her class started singing their first song and one girl started stomping her foot. Before we knew it the entire class was stomping their feet and you couldn't hear a word they were singing. Too cute!

 

Sleepy?

 

Doesn't he look guilty in this photo? In addition to being guilty of being cute he is guilty of being a horrible sleeper. In fact, I crown him the super-duper grand champion of not sleeping. This kid is killing me. For the past 2.5 months he has not slept through the night. Not even close. In fact, he wakes up and wants to eat every 3 to 4 hours. He went for longer stretches when he was 6 weeks old. I've tried to break the habit by letting him cry. He cries for a solid hour with no signs of relenting. I've tried to rock him back to sleep without feeding him. He wakes up every 40 minutes if I do this. We've tried swaddling, not swaddling, cereal in his last bottle, pacifier, no pacifier. Nothing is working. Last night we put him to bed at 8:00. He was awake at midnight. I rocked him to sleep and he was awake again at 12:45. I fed him. He was awake again at 5:45. At this point we are just trying to hang on until next week when he has his tubes put in. We are praying this will provide all of us some relief. Little stinker!!

Five Months

If I had only two words to sum up month five those words would be ear infection. Poor Will has had 3 consecutive ear infections over the past month. They have been so bad that he's had two ruptured eardrums. They hurt so bad that he refuses to eat. The pain and hunger mean he's waking up multiple times each night--anywhere between 2 to 6 times. He hasn't slept through the night a single time in the past month. I am also in pain. Last week, after the 3rd diagnosis the pediatrician gave us a referral to ENT. We will be getting tubes soon. When he is not in excruciating pain he is the happiest little guy. He loves to smile and talk and watch his sisters. We've gotten a few laughs out of him this month as well.