Ev at 6 weeks

 

It is so hard to believe that this girl is almost 2 months old! She is the easiest baby we’ve ever had in this house and we bet much of that is because we are much smarter parents! Ev eats about 5oz  every 3 hours. She sleeps every night from about 7:30pm-7:30am, eating at 1am and 4am. You can tell by looking at her belly, cheeks and chin that she loves her food! Most of the time she is very happy but from about 5pm until bedtime she’d like to be held, bounced and sung to. She prefers any song we make up to the tune of the Adams Family song. Not kidding. It’s the only thing that calms her down and you have to bounce on up and down on the chorus. Ha! We’d heard going from 1 to 2 kids was much harder than from 2 to 3 and that is correct! We’ve had our moments of being overwhelmed but 95% of the time adding Ev to the family has been so much easier than expected!

Never turn your back

When I last saw Halle Kate she was playing upstairs in her room. I walked downstairs, said something to Matney and got a drink. When I got back upstairs just a few short minutes later this is what I found. 5 kids, 3 kids, 1 kid….it doesn’t matter. Tiny children can create GIANT messes in very short amount of time. As a parent, never turn your back! Ha! She also blamed her teachers because they “taught me to do it”. I think she means they have painted her hands before when making hand prints for art projects. Thankfully, I got to her before she got handprints all over the upstairs!
And this is also the reason I don't let any paints, markers or crayons in the house unless they are Crayola washables!

Lucky the Leprechaun

The girls’ preschool was taken over by a messy leprechaun named Lucky last week and we were worried that he might find his way to our house and make a mess (not that anyone would notice a leprechaun mess in this chaos!).  We made traps to catch him just in case but he was to sneaky for us!

We came home from a birthday party on Sunday and found our traps over turned. Lucky had enjoyed a nice rest on the dollhouse furniture while we were gone and left us a green glitter covered note to say thank you. Silly leprechaun!

Pretty sure we caught a yucky germ at that party because I’ve got two sniffling girls this morning. I am thinking we are about to have a day home from school with lots of girl time in this house. Hopefully it is just a cold and the baby stays well!

Sisters

One morning a few weeks ago the girls were all being goofy and I snapped some of my favorite pictures!

We LOVE having three girls!!!!!

And I love living in the south where bigger bows are better!

Big Girl Bikes

It was probably long overdue but the girls got big girl bikes this past weekend! We had a few beautiful sunny days and, after a long dark winter, Jared decided it was time to be outside and get the girls each a bike. Unfortunately we didn’t find what they wanted at the first store so by the time we made it somewhere else, got home and put together the bikes it was past bedtime. Poor girls! They had fun sitting on them for a minute in the garage though.

Matney picked out a princess bike with a carriage that holds a doll in front. Halle Kate picked out a police bike with a siren and flashing light! Hope Evelyn likes them both because she will be picking from these two when she is big enough to ride. Poor third child!

Sweet baby is back!

I am happy to say that the formula change made our baby girl sweet again! We had a great weekend and the laundry is put up and bathrooms are clean. Jared even worked on building a new swing set for the girls. Hopefully I will get the blog caught up this week!

She is a Real Baby

So, right now it is 5am and I am trying to get the blog updated. There are totally not enough hours in the day. I fed Ev at 4am and came downstairs….on a Saturday. That should be explanation enough of the week we have had around here! Until now Ev has been the perfect baby, the house run just about like normal and we’ve all be tired but doing well.
But the middle of this week? It all just fell apart! I have no idea why but Ev has been one very unhappy baby since Wednesday. She has screamed and screamed and screamed. I last showered Wed morning and I am a “need a shower every day to function” kind of girl. I switched her food last night and she seemed a little more peaceful so maybe whatever was bothering her is over.

In the midst of the screaming I tried everything - a bath, different clothes, new rooms of the house, the play mat, the sling, a paci (she’s not a big paci fan. Half the time when you put it in her mouth she starts gagging and once she is gagging there can be some serious puke coming!)….

One day I thought the Baby Bjorn was a winner and sent Jared this picture. Don’t you know he loves getting emails from this house during the day! And clearly this was Wednesday when I was still clean and had makeup on. I’ll spare you any pictures from the rest of the week. And she only stayed quiet in there for about 4 minutes. Now she hates it.

By Thursday night Matney was leaving drawings like this on the door for her Daddy to see when he got home. She “drew what she was watching in the living room”. From left to right - first head, HK. Second head, Evelyn screaming. Third, Mommy. 4 and 7, HK watching TV. 5 and 8, Ev not screaming because she has a bottle.

I didn’t show you more because it looks just the same all the way down the paper except the mommy face starts to not be smiling. Eeek! Thursday and Friday were the first days that I’ve been overwhelmed since Ev was born. A screaming baby can put any one a little bit closer to the edge of sanity but when it is your baby and you can’t fix her it just stinks! The big girls needed extra attention that I just couldn’t give. The house has stayed pretty picked up and the laundry caught up….until the end of this week. It looks like a bomb exploded and that makes me just a little big closer to crazy! Add little/no sleep and no Coke Zero in the house and by last night I was laughing so that I didn’t cry! Thankfully a friend took Matney to school for me so that we didn’t have to get a screaming baby in the car and our next door neighbors brought over 2 Cokes!
Now it is Saturday, Jared is home for the weekend and we have a fun birthday party to go to this morning. I’m going to get off the computer now so that I can workout and shower before the girls are up. We’ll get the house back together and the laundry put away this weekend and, if that baby stops screaming, be back to normal. I think making it a month before a meltdown is pretty darn good! Now, if Ev screams all day again then I may just grab one of my Cokes and run away from the house!!!!
And if you’re waiting on me for something please just call me! I have a stack of cards to mail, emails to return, more blog posts to do and they are all just going to have to wait another few days!

Love the Differences

Here are our big girls getting ready for dinner. Matney got her place ready first.

A princess in a baby carrier, her purse on the back of the chair, outfit with cupcakes and bows and her new birthday bracelet. She has worn the bracelet every day since she got it at her birthday party and is very particular about taking it off at night and putting in a special place. Big girly girl!


And here is HK – a baby boy in a dump truck and covered by a Spiderman blanket. She is wearing a monster shirt and bear/fox pajama pants.

I love the differences in our girls. Can’t wait to see what Evelyn likes!

Evelyn 1 Month

It seems impossible that Evelyn just turned one month old! Or it seems like she has been here forever and should be making a mess with the big girls! I took her to the dr this week and she weighs 9lbs 12oz and is 21 3/4” tall – both 75%. Not sure we’ve ever had a child past the 50% on height before. Maybe she will be the one of us lucky enough to grab some height from my side of the family. Although if she ends up taller than the rest of us then we’ll all be jealous.

She is hitting all of her milestones right on time. Right now she drinks about 5oz every 3 hours. She has been great about knowing night from day since the beginning, although looking back I think a lot of that has to do with how smart her parents have gotten compared to when we had Matney! Sometimes she can go 4 hours between a feeding at night which means that we get 3 whole hours of sleep at a time which seems fabulous compared to 2 or less.

Her hair is falling out and right now she has a very funny looking hairline! Some tiny fuzz is growing back and it does appear to be red so she may look just like her sisters after all.
Everything checked out great and our girl appears perfect!

What a difference a year makes

This is kind of random but I just came across this picture in my email. It is from Feb 2012. What a difference a year makes!

Adventure time!

All the girls in the house had fun early morning adventures with Daddy this weekend! We had matney's birthday party today and as soon as I get cleaned up around here I will post pictures and a one month baby update!

Arr, Matey!

Peter Pan is the greatest movie for our girls. Matney loves Tinkerbell and HK thinks that a pirate ship, crocogator and Captain Hook are the best things ever. They will play, often without fighting, for hours with these guys!