Kaleigh's "Graduation"

This was Kaleigh's second year to go through the HIPPY program. We really like it and they are serious about it. We had 30 weeks of lessons, 5 each week. It gave me the motivation to make sure I was spending quality educational time with her each day. Although some weeks we did all 5 five lessons in one day!

But with the year we've had, I was pretty proud to have finished all those lessons. For the end of the year party they had a luau. They were supposed to have an inflatable water slide but wouldn't you know it, a storm hit right before. When we got there, Kaleigh looked around and said "this does't look like anything". Uh, oh! Someone's not as easy to please as she used to be! But free ice cream from the ice cream truck made her day. She got a bag of books for finishing and we got some pictures of the girls in their matching clothes.

My plan for the summer is to still do a lesson with her every day. I want to sign her and the twins up for the summer reading program at the library.

A note from Alexis...

Dear Mom & Dad,

Lately I feel like I've been misunderstood. You write all the blog posts about how I'm "into everything" but I need to tell MY side of the story. For instance the other day you got onto me for this:



Well, you had just given me the same old boring breakfast. I was just wanting to try something new. And those little pointy things you use to eat with seem much more fun than just my fingers!





And you know how the other girls have been sick. I just wanted to supply Avery with tissues in case she needed them. I left a few in the box. I think Avery was very grateful!









Besides - you guys aren't so perfect either. I mean just look at these pictures of daddy. If you want to know why I climb so much, apparently I'm part monkey! I know this probably won't change things, but at least my side of the story is out there.






Love,
Alexis

Saturday we went down to OBU for my sister-in-law Kayla's graduation. We took all the kids so we were kind of "in & out" of the ceremony. It was outside so we were pretty free to come and go. During some of the slow parts we walked around the campus. It is so beautiful there and the day was so pretty that it brought back memories of sitting around campus on the grass in the sun and just being a carefree college student. After we graduated they carved our names into the sidewalk so we had to go and find our names.

After the graduation we went back to Kayla & Timothy's apartment and had lunch and visited together. All the kids played and had a good time.

We also took some 3 month pictures of Emory. Of course this little girl who is almost always all smiles would barely smile for us, but we still got a few cute ones! She is so big already. She's a little chunk and so loveable. I've been working on editing pictures lately. I downloaded Picasa and Gimp. Haven't really figured Gimp out yet for more advanced editing but Picasa is great for simple changes. It has the most fun facial recognition feature. I've been thinking lately that I need to upload my pictures and store them on the internet somewhere. Any ideas or suggestions on the best, most affordable place to do this?

What's Happening...

Nathan- you said you didn't know what was going on in our house since I hadn't updated our blog in a while, so here goes Nathan (& anyone else who might be reading).

You've been working on the deck when you get a free minute. After trying to preserve part of it, you decided to start from scratch. It doesn't look like much has been done, but progress should speed up quickly from here on out.

I started a chore chart for Kaleigh. She has to clean her room at night, brush her teeth 2x a day, and help me put away dishes. When she does these things she gets a sticker. If she gets enough stickers at the end of the week, she gets to do something fun with one of us.

The twins are now climbing on everything. They get up on the couch, then climb onto the kitchen counter. I'm running out of safe surfaces to keep things from them, so I actually have to put things away! Alexis has started hitting a lot recently. I pinch her hand when she hits somebody so she resorts to hitting furniture and toys when she's mad. Kaleigh's sweet though, she tells me "It's okay if Alexis wants to hit me". Those girls are destructive. They have pretty much broken Emory's swing from getting in it themselves and bouncing up and down. They've also climbed into her bouncer on top of her. They keep me on my toes for sure!

I went garage saleing last week since my parents were here. There were two big neighborhood sales. I got a bunch of stuff for the kids, especially shoes, Yay. My best buy was an almost new, pink pack & play for $25. Love me some garage sales! But don't worry, even with the pack & Play I only spent around $60 total.

Since it was raining Saturday and you couldn't work on the deck, we actually hung a few pictures in the house.

I just ordered a photo flipbook from Snapfish. It was supposed to be $30 but I used the coupon code ALLYOUMOM and got it for 1.99! That includes shipping! It's just a little spiral book that has a picture on each page and holds 45 pictures.

That's about all for now. Hopefully you will get the deck finished soon and we can talk face to face again!

DISNEY ON ICE

Several of my friends have gone to see Disney on Ice in the past and talked about how great it was, so I decided this would be a good year to take Kaleigh. It really was magical. I loved it and I just sat there watching with a big grin on my face the whole time. Kaleigh was pretty much entranced. Here favorite part, of course, was the princess' ball! That was probably my favorite, too because the couples skated to all the sweet love songs. I also liked this "around the world" segment where Mickey & Minnie celebrate in China, Japan, Hawaii, Brazil & New Orleans. Next year I want to take the whole family.

Move Over, Bob the Builder - Here Comes Nathan!

Nathan started working on redoing our deck. It wasn't built properly and we also need it to be bigger. Our patio table and chairs don't even fit on it. And since it will be pretty much the only level spot in the yard we figure we'll go all out. I know we will use it and enjoy it. He's also going to gate the stairs for days when I want to take the kids out but the yard may be wet, or whatever.

He also got our swingset back and put it up last week. It was Avery and Alexis' first time in the swings. They loved it! Avery loved it so much, in fact, that she threw an "all out, legs kicking, arms flailing, screaming, throwing herself on the ground tantrum" when we took her out of the swing. While Nathan was working on the deck she stood with her nosed pressed against the back door going "wee, wee, wee".

Here's what the deck looked like before:


And here are some pictures in progress. Nathan is trying to keep the frame so at least he won't have to redo that part, just the add on. It is tiring for him and me to have him do a project like this, but I know it will be worth it in the long run. I just keep imagining myself in a lawn chair relaxing in the sun!

All about Emory - 10 Weeks!

It's hard to believe Emory is 10 weeks already. Some people are surprised to know that the days just fly by for me, but right now they do.

Here is some of what she's doing:

• She started smiling right around 7 weeks. She smiles now when someone talks to her, as long as she's not hungry.
  
• She also will "talk" to us when we talk to her.
  
• She is the best little baby and usually only cries when she is hungry.
• At her two month doctor visit she was 10 lbs, 3 oz and 21 &1/2 inches. She was 5o% for everything.
  
• Sleeps in her swing, her bouncer or swaddled in the bassinet.
• Is staying awake longer now and will just sit in the bouncer or swing and look around.
• Doesn't like tummy time but is good at lifting her head.
• Has rolled from belly to back a few times but not consistently.
• She's a once a day pooper! This is nice since the twins are about 5 a day each.
• Her nicknames are Em, E, & EmmaRoo
  
• Not really on a schedule - takes 4 oz (I think she needs more) every 2 -3 hours during the day and naps in between most bottles.
• Night time! - Slept through the night Sunday night! Talk about wonderful. This is a record for our family. Kaleigh was 10 weeks and the twins were at least 6 months. She slept from 10 to almost 7 and has done it two more times since. Of course I still had to get up and pump but I shouldn't have to for much longer.

I think that's about all. We're enjoying her. Kaleigh loves to hold her and talk to her. She tells her "when you grow up you're going to be our sister". HA! Avery and Alexis give her kisses and love to run their fingers through her hair. Nathan loves cuddling her and giving her tons of kisses too.

A Picture's Worth a thousand words (Which saves me a lot of time!)







This is the view of our backset now! Me and Nathan like to say that there's a lot of cuteness back there! It's fun to look in the rear view mirror and watch them. Kaleigh likes having here sisters next to her and I think they enjoy being able to see a lot more.






Me and Nathan went to a wedding not too long ago. It was a nice date night for us. They had dancing at the reception and we partied and stayed out till 10 o'clock!







Kaleigh spent the night with her friend Sara recently and I picked her up and took them to Chuck E Cheese for a little while the next day.

Easter Celebration

We started celebrating Easter Friday night by going to "The Kingdom" at our church. It is a production of the Life of Christ they put on every other year and it is amazing. We brought Kaleigh to it this year and she really liked it but I think she's still a couple of years away from really understanding it all.
Saturday morning we had Easter brunch with Nana & Poppa (Nathan's parents). We had a wonderful meal then the kids did an Easter egg hunt and we took lots of pictures. Kaleigh is good at hunting eggs but the twins didn't quite get it! They would step over the eggs at first and just kept wandering off. Once they did get into it, they did pretty well. Avery would put it in the basket they say "good job!" After that the kids played on the trampoline - one of Kaleigh's favorite things to do with Poppa.











That afternoon we went to Bearden to stay with my parents. We hadn't been there in a while. My mom cooked some good food and we had great worship on Sunday and then another fun Easter egg hunt. Avery & Alexis were a little better at that one. We layed around outside for a while enjoying the beautiful weather and each other's company.

We got robbed last night.

Seriously.

Someone stole my Kroger brand Moon Pie ice cream right out of the deep freeze in our garage. There were 3 cars in our driveway, 8 people in our house (counting kids), and between 9 and 10 last night someone (hopefully kids) came into our open garage, got in the deep freeze, stole my ice cream and I'm not sure what else, and put a quart of buttermilk surrounded by 6 chicken nuggets on top of Nathan's car.

I might think it was kinda funny except I was really looking forward to tasting that ice cream.

What is this world coming to?

Catching Up...

We'll see how far I get on this blog before I have to tend to someone. Firstly, I need to say a Happy Belated 30th birthday to Nathan! He turned 30 on the 24th of February. I had already planned a little party and with the help of friends and family we were able to pull it off. John Paul invited him to hang out with the guys on the Saturday before his birthday. They went skeet shooting. I made Nathan think that was his celebration. While he was gone we had our family & the wives come over and surprised him when he got back. My mom and I made food and we had a good time visiting with everyone. He told me several times how much fun he had, so I was happy. I wish it could have been bigger, with more people, but that was all I could manage this year. I thought Kaleigh had ruined the surprise the night before when she told him "my friends are coming to your party" but he said he didn't even notice her saying that. I didn't even tell her about it, but she heard me talking on the phone to someone!

The next thing I want to blog about is the twins. They have been getting therapy for a year, and just had a reevaluation and no longer qualify. This is such a good thing even though we will miss Stacy coming and working with them. They have just been doing great though. They've really started talking a lot in the past month. They use quite a few words intentionally and repeat loads of words. Some that they say are Mommy, Daddy, Nana, Mimi, Papaw, Poppa, cheese, cracker, stinky, doggy, ball, more, baby, bear & bye-bye. It's so much fun to watch them interact. They really play together but one minute they will be fighting and hitting each other and the next they are kissing and hugging.

Emory is still eating and sleeping tons so while it has been a lot of work, I think it may get a little harder before it gets easier once she is awake more. I've been so blessed to have my mom come to help out a lot but she started working on the census this week so I'm going to be on my own more. Nathan's mom ended up getting sick after keeping our sick ones and is just now getting well. She's always good to lend a hand when I need it. I know that God has given us a wonderful support system to help with all our little blessings.

The pictures I'm posting were taken Saturday by our friend Elizabeth. She was mostly trying to get Emory but we also wanted some of the other girls. The twins are so hard to photograph right now but I think she captured their personalities pretty well! They are busy busy!

Settling In...

We got sent home from the hospital Friday with our sweet little Emory. And it has been crazy a crazy start. Very fortunately, my mom was/is staying with us this whole week to help out. I had some problems right off the bat, probably from lack of sleep b/c of the hospital experience. Emory seems to be doing great. She also wants to eat ALL the time. It does seem to be getting better though. She also wanted to stay up during the night for a few hours which was not fun, but we are really enjoying holding her. I know we don't need to spoil her, but it's nice right now to be able to do that.

Then Monday we woke up to a world of white outside our windows. We hadn't been following the weather, but I don't think it was predicted to have sleet & then snow, snow, snow. We needed some things from Walmart, but made do b/c that just was not possible. We did get some good snow pictures and Kaleigh had a lot of fun playing in it. So did Nathan! Then Nathan got an extra day off work today! Unfortunately, we had an unpleasant surprise today finding out that Alexis and Kaleigh are sick. The pictures below might be why... Both were running fever, and Alexis' was pretty high. I felt terrible but we had to bring them to Nana's (Nathan's mom) to keep them away from Emory. Kaleigh was excited, but I felt bad about Alexis. She always scares me when she is sick b/c she acts so lethargic and unlike herself. We have a doctor's appointment for all the kids tomorrow except Avery. So that's where we're at so far. Crazy start to life with 4 kids!

Welcome Emory!

As I said in my previous post, we were scheduled to have a c-section Friday, but things obviously didn't turn out that way! I was praying about whether a c-section was the right decision & really wanted a VBAC so that I could recover easier & care for my other girls with less complication. At the same time, we went ahead & set Friday as the "deadline". I know things would have worked out either way, but I don't think God could have answered my prayers any better. There was no point during this experience that we questioned whether doing the VBAC was the right decision.

We decided on her name, Emory Christine, at 11:30 last night, and the contractions started about 30 minutes later. I wasn't sure at first, but it got painful quick! We got to the hospital around 2:00. The contractions were probably 3 minutes apart at that point. The first time they checked me I was a "5" and right after I got my epidural (praise God for that!) my water broke. A couple of pushes & she was born at 4:45. It was the kind of labor I have envied friends having. Now I've gotten to experience all kinds of labor - inducement, a c-section, and now "natural". We were so glad to meet our little Emory. She's sleeping soundly right now. Looks nothing like her sisters. More like me, but with Nathan's dimples. We are tired but excited about embarking on this adventure once again!