4 Months

Brynn hit the 4 month mark last week and had her check-up yesterday. She is such a delightful and beautiful little thing, but I feel like it has been the longest 4 months of newborness yet! Between the ear infections, conjestion, reflux, tubes, and constipation from her reflux medication, we have spent way too much time at the doctor's office and pharmacy! Here's what's happening with our little Brynnie at 4 months old.

15 lb. 8 oz. (84th percentile)

24 inches (35th percentile)

16.3 inch head (62nd percentile)

She love love loves her brother and sister - they can always get a smile or laugh out of her!

She started rolling from front to back about 2 weeks ago and is quite proficient at it, but figured out that she doesn't like being stuck on her back so she doesn't do it as often.

She has also been army crawling - yep, you read that right, army crawling - for about 3 weeks now. Not your typical infant getting mad and scooting herself backward crawling, this is full fledged crunching her knees under her to push off and scooting forward with her arms. CRAZY!

She sleeps through the night (10:30 pm - 7 or 8 am)

She loves to giggle and smile.

She loves it when you make her "run".

She HATES the car...which made our road trip awesome! Every time I put her in her car seat, she starts screaming and we have all learned to tune her out in the car until she wears herself out and falls asleep.

She is such a sweet little cuddler with everyone except me - I must smell too much like ice cream to her.

Her favorite position is still lying face down on your lap while you pat her back.

Her favorite thing is watching the ceiling fan in our bedroom.

She is definitely the sensitive one in our family - she gets this little pouty look on her face when she gets upset and her lip gets all quivery before she starts crying.

Even though it has been a bit of a rocky road these past 4 months, I feel so lucky to have this sweet girl in our home! I am so excited to watch her grow into the beautiful woman that I know she will be. I love you Beanie!

7:52 pm

and this is me...

...not much different from today at 7:52 am! It's been a long day of moving furniture, painting a bookcase, folding laundry, getting kids to take naps and holding a very irritable baby girl. That explains the no makeup, ponytail, pjs and paint stains. Such is life!

It seems to me

that if you get a coupon in the mail for discounted admission to the tulip festival through May 31 that if you were to go to said festival on May 26 it would still be going on, right?

Nope...not a single tulip in the place...and when I asked this seemingly obvious question they looked at me like I was the crazy one! Apparently the festival ended on May 5, but the coupon for the festival is good until the 31st...go figure! :)

Regardless...good times were had by all...who needs tulips anyway?

Patience is not my best quality

Okay, if we are being honest here, patience isn't really anywhere on my list of qualities! Lucky for me, our grass literally grows more every day! It is so darn exciting! (Yes...we are so excited that we have already set up the patio furniture out there on that supercool patio, but we can't get woodchips out there quite yet, so the park bench isn't in it's new home next to the patio quite yet).

Unluckily, most other things in life aren't quite so easy for an impatient gal like me.

For example...

Full-time Mom job listings should definitely state patience as a neccesary job skill!

Splurge and Save

As most of you know I am involved in a little love-affair with IKEA. Not only do I love their stuff and their great prices and the fact that you can get stuff in the As-Is section for dirt-cheap and paint it to look like new (which, considering that I paint just about every piece of furniture I buy, is no big deal), but these one-day sale extravaganza's are AWESOME! Thank you to Seth and the kiddos for letting my go on a little IKEA excursion today and get my own mother's day present (a new duvet cover) along with a couple of extra things ;) (bookshelf, chair, cute napkins, etc.)! And super duper thanks to Grandma Colleen who came along for the ride and waited with the kids in the car while I was in line waiting up to pick up my super-cool chair, which took for.e.ver! So worth it!

Growing...

Things are really growing around here...

our little grass buds are popping up (this was taken Monday morning...it is even better now!)

Our very extensive garden - peppers, tomatoes, strawberries, carrots, beets, watermelon, zuchini, cantaloupe, pumpkin, beans, peas, and onions. (The landscaping project opened up quite a bit more room for gardening)

My potted herb garden - cilanrto, basil, thyme, rosemary and more tomatoes.

All of our accessible flower beds.

Chloe's hair...she even has little itty bitty piggytails today.

Blooms in my yard - because this bouquet from my front yard makes me so happy, I planted a BUNCH of daisies in various colors so that I can enjoy fresh cut flowers in my house after my roses have all bloomed and gone.

And in the true spirit of spring and new life I feel like I should say that my tummy is growing or something...which it is, but not with a baby, just from all the In-N-Out burgers we ate in California!

Happy growing season to all!

To my love

It isn’t an anniversary or holiday or anything of the sort, but I feel the need to tell my sweetheart just how much I love and appreciate him. In the midst of 3 kids, work, school, callings, landscaping a yard, going on "vacation" and all the craziness of life, I often get overwhelmed and exhausted by the hard and monotonous work of motherhood and forget to express appreciation to Seth for all he does. In fact quite often I find myself getting frustrated by what he doesn't do and not even noticing all that he does until I really stop and think about it. Sure he may leave his crusty dishes in my shining clean sink and forget to put a new garbage bag in the can after he takes it out. He may leave the cupboard doors open after he gets something out of them until all of the cupboards in the kitchen are hanging open. Sometimes he wrestles with the kids just before bed time and gets them wired and sleeps through pretty much every middle of the night waking, but the many many other things he does more than makes up for it!

So, Seth, thanks for all you do for our family. I do notice all the little things you do and all the big things too, even if I don't always tell you out loud! Thank you for taking out the garbage and the recycling and sometimes even remembering to replace the bag in the can :), thank you for taking Callie out on her leash every time she needs to go potty and making sure she gets out to run, thank you for making sure our kids eat breakfast in the morning, thank you for driving the whole way to and from California, thank you for downloading The Office episodes and burning them to discs so we can watch them together, thank you for running errands with me, thank you for picking up new movies from Blockbuster, thank you for planting our garden and taking care of the yard, thank you for musing with me about where the flowers should go…even though you really don’t care, thank you for taking the garbage and recycling cans to the curb every week, thank you for changing the oil in the cars, the filters in the heater and the many diapers you change when I’m not looking, thank you for always helping out when I ask, thank you for letting me pick out the kids outfits before you get them dressed, thank you for folding your own clothes, thank you for organizing the garage, thank you for studying hard and working hard and serving dilingently in your calling, thank you for putting family first, thank you for playing Wii with Morgan, snuggling up and reading to Chloe and making Brynn smile and giggle more than anyone else, thank you for always, always, always making sure we read scriptures together every day (even if I am already asleep), thank you for serving others without hesitation, thank you for your wonderful sense of humor and thank you for giving me such a wonderful and happy life! You do so many more things than I could ever list, and thank you for all of those too! I love you so much!

Still Here...Did you miss me?

Just a quick note to let you all know that our family is alive and well...since you wouldn't know it from our blog! That could possibly be the longest I have ever gone without posting on here! I have lots to share because...we were on vacation...for the whole week! I was gong to post before we left...but then I thought it might not be a super idea to let the whole cyber-universe know that we wouldn't be home. I have to say, though, I think the term vacation should not be used to describe packing what seems like our entire house up, taking 3 kids in the car for 12+ hours - each way, stopping at least every 2 hours to nurse, finding random parks to stretch our legs, get burgers and animal style fries at every In-n-Out possible, potty stops at gas stations and Dr. Pepper refills, throwing the kids nap/sleep/eat schedule entirely out the window, dealing with their less-than-agreeable temperaments due to lack of schedule, and packing so much fun and excitement into each day that the thought of sitting for another 12 hours on the drive home seems welcome. Not to mention the chaos that ensues when you get home and have to unpack, do laundry, clean the house, clean the car, and attempt to get kids back on their schedules even though everyone back at home is dying to see them (thanks for missing us fam!). But, while I don't think it is much of a vacation for mom we had so so so much fun and enjoyed spending time with Seth's sister and her family. Plus, I really appreciate being home....and that is saying something! We should go away more often!!!

Anyway...lots more to come...so many pictures to sort through...

Super Psyched

Today has been one of those days that just made me feel happy! My wonderful wonderful uncle brought his bobcat and moved 24+ yards (2 full dump trucks) of dirt into our backyard. We spent the rest of the day raking, leveling and prepping the back yard (and the portion of the front lawn that we tilled yesterday). We have a little more to do tomorrow morning (fixing some sprinkler heads, adding some edging and leveling the front planter box) and they are coming to hydro-seed tomorrow afternoon! I cannot tell you how excited I am to FINALLY have grass in our backyard! :) It makes my sore muscles and exhausted body worth it! I'll post some before and after pictures in a few weeks! WOO HOO!

Brynn's Blessing...Finally

After rescheduling twice, we finally blessed Brynn on Sunday. Seth gave her such a beautiful blessing and we were so grateful to be surrounded by our sweet family and friends! Thanks to all of you for your love and support! We had a party at our house afterward...of course...and here are some pictures.

Brynn wasn't super psyched about all the photos, but Grandpa Mark had the magic touch, as usual, and so this is the best picture I have of her in her blessing dress.
Seth and I are so spoiled to have such amazing Grandparents who are around to support us and at Brynn's blessing we had 3 different sets of 4 generations.

And, by the end, Brynn was totally pooped. Luckily I got her out of her pretty dress before she pooped, though, but it was quite the blowout!!! I always expect a blowout on blessing day! :)

When you buy a cute outfit...

You have to take a million pictures of your adoreable child wearing it that very first time - before it has been pooped in, spit-up on, or grown-out-of. So, that's what I did!

Are those eyes amazing or what?

Teacher Appreciation

I decided to whip up a little somethin' somethin' for Morgan's preschool teachers for Teacher Appreciation week since they have been SO amazing with him this year. I found this idea for felt flower broaches in my craft blog surfing the other day and decided it would be a cute thing to do. So, I had Morgan draw some cute flowers for me and I copied them in various sizes and stitched over his drawings onto the felt. I layered one, added the buttons and made a darling broach, and then I decided I wasn't sure the teachers would think it was as cute as I did, so I decided to keep that one and elaborated on the idea for the teacher gifts. Instead of broaches, we used the flower pattern Morgan had created for removeable felt embellishments for library totes and they turned out super cute!

And, being the proud mother I am, I L.O.V.E - LOVE the cute flowers Morgan drew all by himself. I love that he was so specific in picking the color of the flowers and ribbon he wanted to use for each of his teachers! He loves them so much! Mostly, I love that, start to finish, the whole project - idea, 3 bags, flowers, and guiding Morgan's card writing - took me less than 2 1/2 hours!

Pain Free and Happy

Brynn is so happy that there is no pain needing to be dulled that she feels the need to stay awake...all the time! Sure I am glad she is pain free and happy, but I am not so thrilled about the no napping during the day thing! I am happy to report that the surgery seems to have helped though, and there is no more snorting around here!

Scent of an Easter Egg

So Chloe has some irritation from potty training and the treatment for it is 20 minute baths in vinegar and water twice a day - with no soap or bubbles in the water. First of all, let me say that she has never bathed this much in her life and it is hugely inconvenient to plan 20 minute baths into a morning and evening routine every day when she typically takes a bath about every other day!

Second, every time she bathes, it smells like we are dying easter eggs...if there were color in the water, she would be very brightly colored. Nothing like the easter eggs we dyed...those things were super pale and mostly cracked from their quick and less-than-gentle encounter with the cups of dye.

To sum it up, Chloe is taking a rediculous amount of baths, but she gets out of the bath smelling like she needs a bath. I think the vinegar might be stimulating some hair growth though!

All is Well

The surgery went great and she came out of the anesthesia quickly and smoothly! Hooray!