Ashleigh's 5th Birthday

Am I still considered to be a blogger, even though my last post before this one was Ethan's birthday back in June? Funny that the time since then has really flown by! I do have good intentions to continue blogging, but the Facebook pull is just too easy to write one or two sentences and post a few pictures and call it good.

So as an update on the last 5 or so months of our crazy life... Tyler's first tooth came in just two weeks ago and I think he's working on 3 others at the same time (you can see the top two and the other bottom one trying to poke through). He's a little guy in just the 10th percentile for weight and height. Some say they walk early when they have siblings to watch, but I think he's content just watching and won't pull up or crawl or walk for a while. He does a little army crawl on his stomach to move forward, but is happy just rolling around on the floor.

Ethan and Ashleigh are doing well. I started educating Ashleigh at home this year and just jumped in with a kindergarten curriculum in August. I didn't do a lot of research on the different types or even attend a curriculum fair as I've heard that's overwhelming. We're using A Beka Book kindergarten along with some supplement Bible reading and scripture memorization and I'd say God just fills in the rest. I just read this on why to choose homeschooling for my friends that are still undecided on the subject.

http://guiltfreehomeschooling.org/blog/2009/05/why-choose-homeschooling.html

Ethan's 2nd Birthday

Is it possible my Ethan is already 2?!? Where does the time go? With traveling to Minnesota the weekend before Ethan's birthday, Rob and I decided to keep Ethan's birthday small and low-key compared to our usual, have 30 family and friends over to our house for lunch or dinner, cake, presents, and fun. To make it special, we decided two days before his birthday to go to Chuck E Cheese's, a suggestion that came from a certain 4-yr old who has undoubtedly been influenced by a commercial or two since she doesn't remember going there with mommy, daddy, Aunt Jen, and Uncle John when she was 2. It was a fun day though and the adults enjoyed the games more than the kids, I think! Rob even won the Skeeball jackpot and got 250 tickets from that one game alone. We got Ethan a toolkit with all our tickets, since it was his birthday, and had pizza, cupcakes, and lots of fun! Here are some pictures from the day.

Minnesota Adventures

For Tyler's first vacation, I flew with my sister and her husband to Minneapolis, MN, where we rented a car and drove the rest of the way to International Falls (a 6 hour drive straight north to within a mile of Canada). He did great on his first flight, crying only a little bit during take-off and sleeping for nearly the entire drive - a great traveler! Once we got to International Falls on Saturday afternoon, we met up with my mom and brother at my grandma's house and I got to take a little break from baby Tyler while he had some bonding time with the grandmas and my siblings and I drove into Canada for a little sightseeing. We were only there a few hours, but enough time to walk through a beautiful park on the lake and drive the causeway north of Ft. Francis. Coming back into the country, my brother-in-law had an expired passport, driving a rental car with Texas plates that wasn't supposed to leave the country, and carrying a baby stroller in the trunk without a baby in the car, so we were asked a few questions. Thankfully, they let us back in the country without much delay.

The seven of us went to dinner together at the Chocolate Moose then headed back to the hotel. On Sunday, I attended my mom's old church with her in the morning, then went to City Beach at Rainy Lake with Jennifer, John, and my mom. We went to the visitor's center at Voyager's National Park, stopped for a moment on the lake shore, then went back to grandma's house for a wonderful roast dinner, complete with ice cream and cookies (and she said before we came out she wasn't going to cook for us, but insisted!). She said Tyler is the first great grandchild she has gotten to hold and I hope when my kids are a little older and better travelers, that they will be able to meet her too as she's an amazing woman. 88 years old and still going strong! I hadn't seen her since my sister's wedding 7 years ago and she's definitely gotten older in that time, but is still living in her own house (that my grandpa designed and they built 60 years ago) with help with the housecleaning and meals being delivered. I hope I can say the same when I'm that age!

Exciting family news! My dear sister Jennifer is pregnant with her first child, a girl, due October 15th. Her name is Kaitlyn and she's the first cousin for our family! I've heard cousins are such sweet friends for your kids and I'm very excited for Jennifer and John and the wonderful ride of parenting they are about to start.

Happy Easter 2009!

For Tyler's first Easter, we attempted to go to an egg hunt in Parker, but were 15 minutes late and missed the whole egg hunt! Not that Tyler is old enough to hunt for eggs yet, but still a disappointment for mom and dad. There were crafts, bouncy castles, and the Easter Bunny for Ashleigh and Ethan though, and Tyler didn't even realize he was missing anything as he was too cold in the stroller to notice. We did enjoy dinner at our house with Rob's family and my family - 19 people if you count our growing family of 5!

We've had a lot of crazy snowy and rainy weather lately. It's been snowing non-stop for the last two days with a big storm that dumped 1 and 1/2 feet of snow! Rob wasn't thrilled to shovel all that heavy wet snow that'll be gone on Monday when we have 70 degree weather again, but the kids do enjoy playing in it. Ashleigh and Ethan just finished building a snow fort and snowman with Rob. Here are some fun snow pictures from today:






Wishing for Spring!

Tyler at 2 months!

Wow! I can't believe how quickly these two months have passed! My apologies for not posting more pictures, but here are some cute ones. He's been smiling at me all the time lately and I finally caught one on the camera! His first smile came right around 5 weeks old. He also recently slept through the night for a 10 hour stretch about a week ago, but hasn't repeated it since, so he's still typically waking up one or two times in the night.

Being snuggly before leaving him with Grandma Debbie for our first date night alone. We went out last Saturday night to a great wine bar in Parker and had a great night of munching on Tapas, sipping wine, and having uninterrupted conversation - priceless!

Ashleigh's First Poker Game

So we aren't corrupting our little daughter just yet. We don't play serious poker, and this wasn't even with real money, but we do have quite the Maverick on our hands as she actually won the last hand when Rob and I were already down and our two friends had two pairs they were comparing, when Ashleigh pipes in with look what I have - 3 Jacks! Unbelievable! She was not happy about winning though as it was bedtime and she was crying because she wanted to keep playing!

Stuck, stuck, stuck

You wouldn't think a pre-schooler's head would fit perfectly in this ring.

Yesterday, Ashleigh was playing with a toy that has two paddles and a ball you hit with the paddles and managed to get the paddle centered perfectly around her head and wouldn't come off. She panicked, and after trying for a bit to get it off without hurting her forehead or yanking too hard to injure her neck, I panicked a little and called Rob. Ahhh, my level-headed husband, already in problem-solving mode at work had some suggestions for how to cut it off (all I could think of was to saw it off - being made of hard plastic, but then had visions of the saw slipping and doing permanent damage to that cute rosy-cheeked face). His solution - cut off the net and use wire cutters to cut the plastic. Much safer! Well, after cutting off the net, the ring slipped down around her neck (again much safer than being right up against her head!) and the whole thing came off like a shirt, face first, and no cutting involved! Problem solved, whew!


My Hero!

Here are some pictures of the improvements Rob made to our bathroom last weekend - he's amazing! Problem-solving, level-headed, and great at starting and finishing home-improvement projects. I love my husband! In one weekend, he replaced the downstairs bathroom faucet, towel bar, toilet paper holder, light fixture and all the toilet seats in the house. Also, for you potty-training moms, Home Depot sells a toilet seat with a kid's seat that folds into the lid, which we also got for the upstairs kids' bathroom.


Before


During


After

My Poor Boys!

Feeling better here than they are today!


Ashleigh holding Tyler (almost 1 mo)

Sad to report today that both my little guys are going through little illnesses. Ethan has a case of diarrhea and runny nose and our newborn has thrush right now. It's a yeast infection of the mouth where naturally-occurring bacteria grow at a rapid rate and is fairly common in newborns under 2 months. I started him on the antibiotic Nystatin last night, but he needs to be on it at least 7 days and for three days after the thrush clears up. Thankfully, we haven't been passing it back and forth yet, but I am treating myself as well, just to prevent that. Here's a picture of the little guy. We caught it just in time before it mushroomed into full mouth where it was just a few bumps when we started the antibiotic. If you Google Image search Thrush, it's pretty scary, so I'm glad we caught it early! It does explain the sporadic sleep pattern he's had the last few days and his inconsistent feedings! Last night was the hardest with him crying until midnight, then awake again at 4am, the alarm going off for Rob at 5:45, then Tyler waking up again at 6:15am. I know it'll get easier, it's just hard to see that in the midst of it.

Taken last night, before starting him on the antibiotic (see his upper right lip?)

Although I'm sleep-deprived, we are still getting into our routines a little bit, including pre-school with Ashleigh and going to a few activities with my moms' groups. I can't make it on time to anything and have trouble going out with the three kids right now, but that will also get easier with time, I'm sure! Rob and I were even able to go out for a date night while Rob's brother Jon watched the two older kids and we took Tyler with us to a movie. We saw the Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Tyler slept through the entire move (3 hours long!). So nice to get out though for a date night, even if Tyler was with us! New parents need them, for sure!


Listening to Uncle Jon's iPod and looking much older than she is!


Ashleigh making a block tower pattern

Life with Five!

I must say it's been a busy time with the five of us! It has been quite an adjustment period and Rob and I are getting by with less sleep now. I think when you go from two to three kids, you've lost quite a bit of your selfishness and that makes the transition much easier than the zero to one transition. For instance, you gave up sleeping in on the weekends long ago and are definitely more used to a routine with young kids. It is nice not being pregnant anymore and while the sleep is for shorter periods, I think it is better sleep without the heartburn and going back to sleeping on my back.

Tyler is waking up about two or three times in the night right now, but Rob is such a great husband and helps out as much as he can with bringing Tyler to me in the night and sometimes burping and settling him down after nursing. Our other two kids are definitely going through an adjustment period since they don't have as much of our focused attention as they did before Tyler was born. We did start our preschool routine again this week and I noticed that Ethan is more interested in what we're doing now and enjoys learning too. We did our first science experiment today, complete with a hypothesis and actual results for what will float and sink in a sink filled with water, so that was fun. Ashleigh was correct with 8/10 of the items and has a great concept of what will happen already!

Here's an amusing story about life with the three kids. Yesterday, I wanted to take the three kids to the decorate Valentine's Day cookies and do crafts at Calvary's Moms' group. It started at 9:00am, so I made a special effort to get myself ready and showered as soon as Rob left for work (6:30am). I got Ethan and Ashleigh breakfast after that, got them dressed, hair combed, teeth brushed, then around 8, I got Tyler up to nurse before we left. Things were looking good until Tyler had a large diaper blowout right as we were headed out the door and I needed to change and wash both his clothes and my clothes! It went through his diaper, onesie, velvet outfit, and into my pants, so we were a half-hour late to the craft, but still had time to do everything, and so it did end up being a fun activity. Just stressful getting three kids and myself ready and out the door by a certain time! I'm sure that will also get easier with time and getting out won't be quite so much of a drawn-out process!