Catching Up

I can't seem to find those tiny spare moments to blog these days. But, good news! I looked around  really hard and finally found one of those sneaky little moments. Turns out, it was hiding under my pillow. Who knew? That should tell you how much time I spend with my pillow. I actually have a nifty dry erase board in my kitchen and there is quite the lengthy list of posts I'd like to blog about. It's filling up my board. *sigh* Maybe I should just condense them into one giant post. Ugh.

Evie is growing and changing at super speed it seems. She had her two month appointment...finally. Annoyingly enough, it had to be delayed due to the never ending colds that she seems to be getting. The doc says that her catching RSV and all the other nasties has just been what he'd call "rotten luck" and that she should be catching a break any day now. Here's hoping. Her stats for two months are as follows:

Weight 12lb 4oz - 75%
Height 22 1/2" - 42%
Head Circ. 38cm - 20%

So she's not the tiniest thing ever, but she's not ashamed to eat well. :) I will say I'm fairly certain that she wasn't measured right on her height because she's not even three months old. She's been wearing 3-6 month clothes already for about a month so I think she's taller than they said. She got her first round of shots, which I must say was quite the relief in a way. The doc told me how many cases of whooping cough are in our area and I am glad to know she's at least partially protected from it now. On the other hand, seeing those massive shots put into those teeny tiny legs breaks my heart way more than I remember from the last two kids. Poor thing. Not to mention our normal nurse was gone who is so much more awesome at giving shots. This nurse had the "suck it up, ya big baby" kind of thing going on I think. Not cool.

Evie checked out healthy and strong. We did find out, however, that she has one ear further forward than the other ear because she's been not turning her head left very much. So the doc said if she doesn't start to correct this by the time her next appointment comes, then it's off helmet shopping we go. Problem #1: I don't like that idea. I don't want helmet baby. Those things do not look fun at all. Problem #2: They cost (according to the doc) $2,500! Feel free to drop your jaw. I did. My new mission in life is to push tummy time and get that skull shaping up.

So for now, I'll bask in the glory of my own ability to finally put up a new post. I'm going to try to stop my brain from spinning in circles and get some more posts up. So much to say...so little brain power to say it. Until we meet again Mr. Blog...

2 Months old

2 months old

Little Miss Evie turned two months old on Friday. She's a completely different baby than she was a month ago. It's absolutely fascinating how much change can happen in a mere month's span of time. This month was pretty crazy for the most part. Alex brought home the dreaded chest cold from H-E-double hockey stick. Naturally, much to my breast-feeding mama disappointment, Evie caught the blasted thing. This chest cold...possibly muted flu (not really sure at this point)...was bad. And I mean Bad (with a capital B). Alex developed a horrific sinus infection that led to really scary atypical migraines, Abby developed pneumonia, and Evie? Well Evie had RSV and brochiolitis. The poor thing was in pretty bad shape. The retractions in her breathing and her O2 levels were not good to say the least. We had to go to the ER four times total and it was not a pleasant experience. She had to have deep suctioning three times and it was pretty awful to watch as a mother. Anyhow, after she was about 90% healed from that, this week she went and caught another cold on top of it and is as snotty as ever. *sigh* The other kids aren't even sick so I have no idea how she got sick again. So much for breastfeeding antibodies. Oh well. Marching on. Here is what Miss Evie's second month has consisted of.

Sleep- This girl can get her sleep on! She is now sleeping five to six hours at a time at night and never wakes up screaming or crying horribly. It probably helps that the crib is a few mere feet from me and I wake up at the slightest sound. It's wonderful to have a great sleeper for a change but still a bit odd as I adjust to it. Now, that being said...it's been so non-stop on the sick homefront that I am up way too much at night and was only getting roughly three to four hours of sleep each night.

Thumb- It's on to round two for us with thumb-sucking. The last week or so, Evie has been getting more and more efficient at sneaking her thumb into her mouth. She will wake up at night and I'll hear the cute little snorts and snuffs as she is trying to find a way to get that little thumb in her mouth. Then you hear the soft sucking sound as she's soothing herself back into dreamland. It's pretty cute and reminds me of Abby.

Smiles & Coos- One thing is for sure. Despite being sick for the better part of this month, this girl is happy. She smiles more than I remember the other two kiddos smiling. She just gets to grinning and pretty soon is cooing and smiling as big as she can. She "talks" to me all day long in that adorable, too cute for words baby kind of way. She gets those feet pumping while she's smiling too and looks about excited as a bear finding a honey comb! Pretty darn cute!

So cute and holds her head like a pro!

Rollin'- She rolled for the first time as I've already mentioned previously on the blog (in one of those rare moments when I had time to sit down and write for a change). I don't know how she does it, but she somehow is shimmying her way down the crib at night. I put her on one end of the crib and by the time she wakes up she is all the way down on the other end of the crib. I have a feeling she'll be an early crawler. I'm so excited to think she'll be crawling all over the germ-ridden floors of every place we go. (sarcasm noted?)  It's not that I'm anti-germ or over-protective. It's just that she is so young and been sick so often. I'm ready for her to catch a break from it all.

Battle of Wills

Of all the bull-headed, stubborn creatures I've ever come across, Abby has to be one of the worst I've ever seen. That girl can take my patience and push it to it's furthest limits...and then some. I know, from what I've been told at least, that she probably gets it from me. I can be a bit hot-headed and stubborn. I admit it. But it must get worst as each generation goes on. That's my best guess.

Right now the greatest battle of wills has begun. Dinner. That's my greatest struggle with miss Abigail. She eats breakfast. She eats lunch. She eats lots of things. But dinner? Not a chance. Up until now, I've done the "catering" act. I did it with Alex and I'll do it with Evie later down the road. That being said, I stopped catering to Alex's food finickiness around the age of four and a half and now that kid can out eat me any day of the week. He's got a hollow leg. So, by catering, I mean that when they don't eat what I make for everyone, I give them healthy alternatives like fruit, turkey or carrot sticks. Abby will be turning five in April and I am so done with making separate food for her. This is how it goes every dinner: I put food in front of her. She pushes it away and eats nothing and tells me she's not hungry. She then gets down from the table and within 20 minutes she asks for food because she's (and I quote) "Starving!" She eats an apple and then talks about how hungry she is all night long. Ugh.

This week we began the game. I explained to her that she is old enough now to eat what I make or don't eat at all. She sits there with her arms folded and stares off into space with the ho-hum look of boredom. One night, she ate a tiny biscuit. The next night, it was a single fish stick. (What the heck?!? She loves fishsticks!) The next night? One handful of plain spaghetti noodles and a green bean. Tonight I told her she wouldn't get down from the table until she ate the designated piles of food that I made her. She sat there for one hour. One hour! Holy cow! That girl about made steam come out of my ears. But guess what? I won. Yup. Nothing is so satisfying as winning a fight like this against your four year old child. How sad is that? But she finally caved and ate it. She asked for dessert and I laughed. Not a chance baby girl. Not a chance. Let the long days of the battle of wills begin. Bring. It. On.

Evie Rolls!

Well, I don't have time to sit here and right a long blog about the insanity that has become my life over the past two weeks, but I do want to make a special note for my newest addition. Evie, much to my surprise, rolled for her first time today! Why so surprised, you ask? Because she hasn't gotten half the tummy time that Alex and Abby got. Why not? Because the last two weeks have been horrible for her. All three of the kids caught this terrible, nasty cold that did bad, bad things to all of them. More on that later, but let's just say that sleep for me has been...well...what is sleep again? I forget. Anyhow, miss Evie rolled tonight and it was so cute to watch it. It's kinda sad. It's the last time I'll get to witness the first roll. *sniff* Way to go Evie! Way to keep up with your siblings!

Christmas 2012

Though it may be ever so slightly belated, I hope that everyone had a wonderfully blessed and Merry Christmas this year! I know that we sure did. Very often, I'm approached these days by total strangers while holding Evie. Many of them say the same thing. "Looks like someone got their Christmas present early this year!" I always smile and agree with them wholeheartedly. She was by far my greatest gift this season. Ah, heck! All three of my children are my greatest gifts every year! Cliche, right? I know. But I'm okay with that.


This year, Christmas seemed to peak for the kids as far as the magical level goes. They were super excited about Santa Claus and I enjoyed the whole thing myself. Each year I do something that helps with the magic. One year I had a couple of jingle bells that "fell off Santa's coat" while eating the cookies we left. Last year I went out and left reindeer "hoofprints" in our yard from when they ate their reindeer food that Alex got from preschool. This year, Abby got reindeer food from preschool and I went one step crazier. Brace yourself. This is pretty crazy. I "borrowed" some horse poop from my mom and when the kids went to bed, I strategically placed the poop about a reindeer butt's length from the pile of food. When the kids got up the next morning, they promptly put on their coats and boots and ran out to the yard to see if the food was gone. Needless to say, they came running back in the house yelling, "The reindeer pooped in our yard!" It made me chuckle. Can you tell I have too much fun with this? Josh rolled his eyes at me. I just grinned like a dummy.

Posin' with the reindeer poop. Priceless!

Each year, before the kids get to open presents we sing Happy Birthday to Jesus and we talk about what the reason for celebrating Christmas is. Each year, the kids seem to understand a little more and that warms my heart. They both enjoy praying together and with me and love having their Bibles read to them. This year, they each got special Bibles of their own that are geared toward kids. Alex's is set up like a really well done comic book and Abby's is a princess-like one with really great art work.

Santa brought them beanbag chairs and new blankets with new books to read and a new stuffed friend to cuddle with (Alex was Avengers stuffed toys and Abby's was a new mouse and bunny). Though I'm not sure Santa was taking into consideration the small, ever shrinking size of our teeny tiny house. What was he thinking bringing two giant stuffed pillows into our house?? But THEN my wonderfully thoughtful brother, Aaron, decided that sending each kid a mammoth sized build-able cardboard monstrosity was a good idea. Now my house has decreased in size by half. Thanks Uncle Aaron. Sheesh. Seriously though...they were awesome presents and the kids love them. I'm just not sure I'll ever be able to get rid of them. They were also, thanks to the combined efforts of Josh's folks and us, given Kindle Fires. I was extremely hesitant about this and am still unsure if it was a wise choice, but they seem to really enjoy them (on limited use of course). We'll see how insane they get with them. Josh loved the idea of course, but he has one of his own and I believe that he just wanted to stop sharing his own. :-)

Kids with their new Kindle Fires. Good idea or bad idea?

A forced hug for Christmas. Tis the season!

Yep...gonna have to smack my brother for these gifts.

Where is my floor?? Where is my living room???

Presents at my folks' house.

Abby giving Evie her new stuffed animals. (Abby was jealous of the horse.)

Evie and her first cow from mama. I did this with the first two kids too.

Christmas Eve. They get to open one present on this night and they chose to open their gifts from each other.

Evie with her loot. she slept most of the morning away.

Josh and his new Avengers shirt from Alex. Abby gave him a batman one.

And because it's so rare to get a picture with my mom smiling, here she is with her granddaughter.

It was a wonderful Christmas and I must admit that Josh actually working for the past few months made it much nicer. Here's hoping that you all had a wonderful time as well and from our house to yours, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

1 Month Old

1 month old

The first month with Evie has positively flown by! I can't believe how much she's already changed in that small amount of time. She's a great baby and I am truly blessed. Here are some of the things going on with miss Evelyn Belle.

Sleep - This girl is the polar opposite of Alex and Abby. She is a great sleeper! Right from the first days at home, she started sleeping four to five hours at a time during the night. At first it scared the poop out of me. I was so accustomed to the waking every hour and a half with the first two babies. So when she sleeps long like that I still find myself sitting bolt upright in bed like a bed bug bit my butt. I'm getting used to it slowly, but it's still strange new territory for me to explore.

Smiles - She's officially smiling! It's so adorable. But true to form, she is mostly smiling at a wall. I know that seems a bit random to read, but the same thing happened with her bro and sis. For some unknown reason, when lying on the changing table, she will stare at the wall and just smile as big as she can. And it's only that one wall. She has a favorite wall. How odd is that? Don't get me wrong though, she's smilin' at mama too. The best time to get a smile is to give her to dad for awhile and then when I walk up to her and start gooing and gagaing at her, she just grins like mad. I love it!

Cooing - It's not just spit-up and screaming shooting out of Evie's mouth these days. She's starting to coo. The other new vocalization is more entertaining. Well...entertaining to me. Not so much to Josh. When Josh holds her and she starts screaming, it's the kind of screaming that Josh swears would be efficient as a useful form of torture to your enemy. It's angry to the max. When I go to relieve poor Josh from the woes of his screaming child, she immediately, through her crocodile tears, tells me about her horrible story. She still cries a bit, but it's more of a wispy cry that comes between the sudden wide-mouthed yell that isn't really mad, but rather a matter-of-fact statement spoken only the way a one month old can convey. I believe she's telling me about how angry she was that I wasn't holding her at that present time and how terrible it was. :) A mama's girl already.

Spoiled - No sense in denying it. Evie is spoiled. Well, they say you can't spoil a baby and that's probably true. But she get's held a lot. And she gets to take naps in someone's arms more than she should. She spent the first three or four days sleeping non-stop with me on the couch due to the c-section. I couldn't sleep on my bed so she stayed with me on the couch. Shhh...don't tell anyone. I know that was very naughty of me. :)

Thumb - She is desperately trying to suck her thumb. And guess what? She got it today. And she sucked it for a good long time too very contentedly.

Tummy-time - She doesn't get as much tummy time as the other two did, but she does great with it. She holds her head like a pro and can roll on to her side when on her back. She'd better get movin' with the rolling though if she wants to keep up with brother and sister. They rolled at one and one and a half months old. But no rush miss Evie. I'm patient.

Cold Turkey

I am proud...and slightly sad...to say that miss Abby has decided to give up sucking her thumb. It's been four and a half years straight of thumb sucking and hair twirling (once she got hair). Yes, I said slightly sad. It's a bit heart tugging when you see your little ones grow up and change. She started preschool this year and each time she gets sick, I explain to her that if she stopped sucking her thumb she might not get sick as much. She hates...and I do mean hates...being sick. Even though her colds are insignificant compared to the doozies that Alex seems to get, she despises having a runny nose. She gets that from her dad, I believe. Josh hates colds too. When I get a cold, I just deal better than Josh does for some reason. Probably because I pick up every single cold on the planet. (Thanks for nothing, you sorry excuse of an immune system!) Anyhow, telling her this seemed to make her consider the possibility of giving up her trusty and ever faithful thumb. It wasn't enough though so she continued to pop that bad boy in her mouth just as often as she always did.

Then the new baby came along and something in my little daughter shifted. She's became outgoing and a little bit more crazy than before. Her teacher commented on how different she has become since Evie was born. Josh and I both notice the big changes she's been going through. So about two weeks after becoming a big sister, I nonchalantly asked her if she was going to quit sucking her thumb now that she is a big sister. She said she wanted to quit. I was shocked and told her she could go pick a toy at the store for giving it up if she didn't suck it for a week. She counted down those days one by one and on the last day she picked a new Barbie (that came with a horse of course). The first two days were hard on her. She kept putting it in her mouth and then quickly popping it out when she realized it. When I noticed, she'd say, "I'm not sucking it mom. I'm just cleaning it off." The first two nights she also chose to still suck it at night to help her go to sleep. But that didn't last very long. She now hugs her stuffed animals while she sleeps to help her remember (her words, not mine). So for the most part, she went cold turkey. I'm proud of the girl. It was a challenge, but she succeeded wonderfully. Needless to say, she's as proud as can be too. Today she had to get a small cavity filled and the dentist made a big deal of her thumb and gave her two prizes. She was pretty happy and did fantastic getting a filling done. What a trooper that girl is! The dentist said she did amazing for a kid her age. Didn't even flinch at the needle! Heck...she did better than I do! Way to go Abby! You're a big girl now.