Springtime sunshine

Bright sunshine, blue skies.

Walking with friends.

Stopping to climb trees, roll down the hill in the spring grass.
(How would my kids survive without friends?  who would teach them how to climb trees?)

Sharing snacks and hugs as we say goodbye.

Kids napping after the exertion.

Pretty much the perfect way to spend a day.

MIA?

so, did anyone miss me?  :)  Life has happened, I'm afraid.  Just life, nothing exciting.

Let's see.  Baby E turned 2.  She's still a tiny little pipsqueak at about 22.5 pounds.   Much smaller than either of the other girls.  She's chattering and we're attempting to decipher.  She thinks she's pretty big stuff, though, and does her best to keep up with her sisters.

K thinks that she is ready to start Kindergarten.  Mommy is SO not ready, but that is another story for another day.  She's still a bit of a space-case, but very bright and sweet. 

First grade is going wonderfully for B.  She is a reading champ and soaks in just about every single bit of information that she comes across.  This has been her first year in girl scouts and she's really enjoying that.  Daddy helped her sell GS Cookies last month and Mommy is looking forward to them arriving.....mmmmm, thin mints....

I'm full hog into school right now.  In the next couple weeks I will be applying for two different nursing programs, both of which have a fall start.  We'll see where God wants me/us.  I have found it to be an incredible mixed blessing to have that decision out of my hands.  None of it is up to me, yet I continue to worry about it.  Crazy how we do that, no?

Hubby is in school, too.  Two semesters left - yahoo!!!!  He's also working as a warehouse manager for a chemical company, trying to keep busy.....because 3 kids and a crazy busy wife isn't enough.  :)

We're in the midst of trying to update a bedroom for the oldest and the youngest.  This involves painting furniture (2 beds and a dresser) and much junk disposal.  Unfortunately, the painting is the easier task.

Other than that, life is the same: busy, challenging, rewarding, crazy fun, and we are realizing how incredibly blessed we are.   You wonder why?  Look at this:

New pictures!!

I always love seeing new pictures of everyone's families. It is one of my most favorite things to do.

My very talented sister, Mary, took some new family pictures at my cousin's house. They turned out GREAT!

The girls got a little antsy after some family "posing," so we let them run around and climb and swing and play.

My sister brought one of her older daughters who was able to help keep kids under control while we were otherwise occupied, which was fabulously helpful. How many photographers can boast an assistant who is cousin to those in the pictures? ;)












































It was so funny trying to catch personality from each of the girls. The oldest is a ham and totally cooperative. The middle cooperates but has a wonderful "picture" smile (that she gets from her Daddy.) The youngest is.....well, the youngest. She does what she wants. Mary did a great job, though, and I can't wait to get these up on our wall.


Of all of them, though, this last one of my three precious girls is my favorite. Makes me feel so very blessed to have this sweet little people in my life.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving week is almost done. I have a mental list of what I was going to get accomplished this week during my break from school--there are very few items marked off. Instead, we've played outside, visited with family, snuggled, put up Christmas decorations and eaten much too much sugar.














Here I sit, hot apple cider in hand, three little girls in their beds, enjoying naptime. Right next to my pile of laundry waiting to be folded and put away (though the fact that it is already clean is a step in the right direction.) I have homework needing to be done and a test to be studied for.

But this afternoon, instead of doing any of it, my honey and I went on a date. It was wonderful. We took the baby as it was her naptime and the neighbor we've been sharing babysitting duties with would have her hands full with 5 kiddos already. Sweet little E just snoozed in the sling and the stroller, while hubby and I were able to stroll through a couple stores--nothing needed, just looking and enjoying each other's time and company. Crazy how that part of marriage gets lost in the shuffle of life, kids, laundry, etc. It was fun to walk hand in hand and chat without interruption. To drink hot chocolate without sharing or worrying about spills.

We got home, were greeted by little girls running to us with arms outstretched followed by wonderful precious hugs and slobbery kisses. They had a wonderful time, obeyed well and are looking forward to the next time already. Hmmm....tomorrow maybe? :)














Times like this, I want to take a mental snapshot. Something to capture the moment to pull out when I'm having a rough day in the near future, sometime when kids are whiny and crying and I'm not feeling like the mom I want to be. But for now, I'm going to enjoy. Treasure the moment. Be thankful.

family pictures

We went to portrait innovations the other day to have family pictures taken. After seeing their advertisements for a picture package for $9.95, we figured it was worth a shot.

The trouble was getting 3 kids up, fed, dressed and ready. And happy. That was the kicker. If baby E was happy, K was wiggly and wouldn't cooperate, or B had a cheesy grin. BUT, we got a couple decent pictures. Definitely worth $9.95 for the family shot. We ended up getting the $9.95 package and a few of just the 3 girls. All you parents know how hard it is to say NO to a cute picture of your kid, right? That's where they always get you. We managed to walk out spending about $30 and had quite a few pictures in hand: 1-11X13, 3-8X10's, 8-5X7's, 4-3.5X5's and a truckload of wallets. Plenty to give as Christmas gifts to grandparents and aunties. Oh, then they threw in 5 photo Christmas Cards as well. Not too bad.

I did have a bit of buyer's remorse after we left for letting myself get talked into spending almost $20 more than I had initially planned. I justified it with the fact that it would take at least that much effort, time and inconvenience to try to set up something comparable at home, get a decent picture and get it edited and printed.

So, overall, I'd say, it was worth it.

Here are our pictures:

All is well

All is well on the home front here.

The big girls seem to be adjusting well to Baby E, if the amount of hugs and kisses she gets are any indication. :) I find myself saying the craziest things. Tonight it was, "K, do not bonk your sister on the head, especially not with pointy things." ...like it's OK to do it with NON-pointy objects. Seriously.

E is growing like a weed. Seems that there's no way possible she could be more than 3 weeks old already. At 2 weeks, she had already regained her birth weight and gained another pound (making her 7.14). Tonight I got onto the scale and she added 9 lbs, so I'm guessing she's more than 8 1/2 lbs now. She continues to be a very mellow baby, sleeping most of the day (often in 2 hour blocks) and only crying when she's hungry (or when she's been bonked by a pointy object.) We've gotten a few smiles, too, which makes the girls' day. E also is VERY grunty, mostly when awake or waking, but some in her sleep, too. It's adorable, of course.

Last night we had a terrific night. We (Baby E and I) climbed into bed shortly after 10 and we were out by 10:30. She woke up at 1:30 to eat, then slept until shortly after 6. YAY! Makes you feel like a new person to get that much sleep.

I've been sorting/editing pictures in preparation for Christmas, so here are a few that I have to share. Some of my recent favorites.

Enjoying the sunshine

1183??

1183....That's the number of photos that I deleted off my computer. Photos that I had taken in the last six months. They were all either blurry, had eyes closed, were comletely extraneous or were just duplicates of decent pictures that I had already edited.

After deleting ALL those, I still have more than 1,400 pictures left. For just the last six months.

Crazy. (I must have cute kids.)

The reason I do what I do...

My good, good friend...

....Also known as my camera...is in the shop.

March 11th was the fateful day that ended in frustration and dismay when my camera refused to cooperate and autofocus on my precious baby girls. Over the next few days, I continually tried to get it to work, but it stubbornly refused. I played around with manual focus a bit, but it just doesn't work with a crawling baby and a toddler. I'm nowhere NEAR fast enough to catch them in focus. I started to wonder if I would have any pictures for the month of March. I need not have worried. In those first 11 days of the month, I had managed to click 197 images. Not bad if that's all I end up with for the month.

So, we broke down and took it in, hoping and praying that they would be able to just flip a switch and fix it. No such luck. Their estimate was $150-250. Ouch. AND 1-2 weeks. DOUBLE OUCH. I'm so lonely for it. Eventhough it hasn't been working well the last couple weeks, it's still been in my possession. Totally different knowing that I don't even have access to it. I'm quite amazed at how attached I am to that silly (beloved) object.

When we went to drop it off, DH just ran it in while the girls and I stayed in the car. As I handed the camera over to DH, I half jokingly said, "goodbye good friend." B proceeded to grill me about my friend and why I was saying goodbye. Sheesh. It did bring the whole camera issue into a bit of a better perspective for me, though. It could be worse. My camera could be dead. :)

In memory of my beloved "friend":

AHHHH....baby bellies

For those of you that know me, you know that I LOVE being pregnant. If being pregnant didn't necessarily mean dealing with a newborn that grows to be a toddler and so on and so forth, I'm sure that I would do it at least a dozen times. The miracle of a little life growing is so precious and empowering for me. Much to my hubby's dismay, I've already been campaigning for another one (pregnancy, that is.) Mostly because of my aforementioned love of being pregnant, but also because several of my friends are pregnant and I'm sad that my little on will be so big when they have their babies.

We are not truly planning another pregnancy in the near future, as much as I may dream about it. But, here are a few preggy belly pics to help me feel like I'm there, anyway.

This first one was when I was 36 weeks pregnant with B. She was born just two short weeks later. Hard to believe that this was just over three years ago! Sorry for the dorky border, I couldn't find the original without it.

The next one is one of my current photos, and an extra from that same day. They were taken 6 days before K was born, so I was 37w4d. I was scheduled for an external version two days later and assumed that she would cooperate and that I would be delivering my second baby girl that same day. Little did I know that she wouldn't turn and that I would be sorely dissappointed, or that I would go into spontaneous labor less than a week later. Now I can tell everyone that I had a successful natural breech delivery and get all sorts of oohs and aahs and respect eventhough I didn't think it was any harder (or more painful) than a vertex delivery. (sorry for the run-on sentence.) Oh, and an extra.

Go visit Steph at Adventures in Babywearing for a bunch more belly pics and some really awesome birth stories.

new project

My "baby page" is doing something called Day in the life of.... I'm next up, so yesterday was our day. I had a slow start, missing a couple pictures that I really wanted in there, but oh well. Despite that, I took more than 250 pictures yesterday. Some of them are multiples of the same thing, but mostly I would just do one click and move on. I guess we had a busy day. I'm just loading all of them off the card onto the computer to start looking through. Can't wait to see how it turns out!

K was playing peek-a-boo with Daddy. SHE was doing it--lifting her arms to cover her face, then moving them down. It was really adorable. I didn't know who was having more fun with it--K or Daddy.