Week Two

Well, the biggest change this week is that I’m on my own. My Mom has gone home and now it’s up to me to get the kids off to school, do the dishes, prepare meals, wash laundry, etc… She was a HUGE help and we all really enjoyed having her visit, but it went by way too fast.

Grandma’s got the touch – Katie’s out cold

Katie is eating better. On Saturday we retested her bilirubin level and it went down from 17.2 to 14.5 so thankfully that is no longer a concern. Hopefully by the end of the week the “process” of feeding Katie will no longer take an hour.

Katie continues to sleep a lot and I still have to wake her up to eat most of the time. Hopefully she’ll still want to sleep all night when I can actually let her. She’s starting to have more awake time though. I read in a magazine this past week that most babies cry between 2-3 hours a day. Thankfully, we’ve never had a baby that has cried that much. I can’t think of a time since we brought Katie home from the hospital that she has cried for more than 2-3 minutes. Hopefully that’s not just the jaundice and she truly does have a content and happy nature. She’s such a sweet baby.



Carly has been looking forward to giving Katie a bath since before she was born. I think her excitement is partially due to this picture she loves of her giving Jason a bath.


A few days ago Katie’s umbilical cord fell off so we were able to get out the baby tub and give her a good soaking.

For a nine pound baby she sure does look scrawny, but maybe that has something to do with seeing Jason in the same tub at 6 months old.


Yesterday was Katie’s first day walking Carly to the bus stop for Kindergarten. We’ve had a Baby Bjorn for several years, but I’ve never really used it much with the other kids. Katie really enjoyed it and I love feeling her snuggled up with me.

Doesn’t she look so small? Yet the fact that she was crammed into my belly just a few weeks ago blows my mind.

Week One

What an exciting, exhausting, busy, and wonderful week. Bringing home a new baby certainly has its challenges, but I'm in baby heaven and can't get enough of our sweet baby girl.

One of the first questions people ask is, "how is she sleeping” I really can't complain, Katie's been giving me 5-6 hours of uninterrupted sleep at night. There have been some nights when she'll want to stay awake for a little while after eating, but again in the newborn world I consider myself pretty lucky.

We gave Katie her first bath on Monday. Her favorite part was getting her hair washed and rinsed – doesn’t she look so relaxed?

Katie is taking a binkie very well and prefers the Mam brand (like Jason) over the Nuk brand (like her big sisters). She also enjoys sitting in the bouncy chair our friends loaned us.

Carly could seriously hold Katie all day. Okay, after a while she may ask for a little support underneath her arm, but it just doesn’t get old for her.


Jason adores his little sister and so far I haven’t noticed any changes in his behavior. I think if we are going to experience a little revolt it won’t be until after my Mom leaves.


I'd hoped Katie would be my child without any feeding issues, but it seems she's starting to follow after her big brother and prefer to sleep rather than eat. At her doctors appointment on Tuesday she was down a pound from her birth weight. We went back in today and although she hasn't lost any more weight, she hasn't gained either. So we're going to have to start a feeding "process" over the next few days and hope that she starts putting on the pounds. This also means that I can’t let her go more than 2-3 hours during the day without eating and 4 hours at night… oh, how I hate waking a sleeping baby. Today the Dr. tested her bilirubin levels and the results came back at 17.2 which is high, but not high enough to necessitate phototherapy treatment. Hopefully, the next few days her jaundice levels will go down and will result in a less sleepy and more hungry little girl.

Katie’s Arrival

We didn’t think we’d see the kids on Wednesday morning before heading to the hospital, but the girls were so excited for the big day that they couldn’t sleep in.

Me and my girls as we’re leaving for the hospital

7:10am - checked into the hospital

7:30am - two failed IV attempts... not fun

7:40am - Dr. checked me and I was already dilated 4cm. He broke my water and told me I could have my epidural as soon as I was ready.

7:41am - Told nurse I was ready for epidural (I was not going to take any chances not getting it in time or suffering any longer than necessary)

7:55am - third times the charm, different nurse finally gets an IV started, they start filling me up with fluid, penicillin (for strep B), and start pitocin

All morning - express desire for epidural, nurse insists she needs to get entire bag of fluid in me before I can have it

9:20am - anesthesiologist finally called, but she asks me if she can do someone else first. I tell her I want to say no, but feel bad making some other poor woman wait. We tell her about my history of quick progress once I'm dilated to 6cm. Thankfully, she decides to give me my epidural first which wasn't nearly as painful as the three IV attempts.

9:55am – measuring at 5-6cm according to nurse

10:07am – Dr. measured me at 6cm

10:30-10:45am - still feel somewhat uncomfortable during contractions, feeling like I want to push, asking for more drugs. Nurse gets me in stirrups and tells me she wants me to push a little through next contraction to see if I'm ready for her to call the doctor. I push for 0.01 second and she tells me to STOP. Thankfully doctor already on his way.

10:49am - Dr. arrives

10:50am - one contraction, two pushes and wala she was here!

As the doctor is delivering Katie I heard him say "she's a two _____ed baby." I asked him to repeat himself two times as my mind tried to figure out what my baby had two of. Thankfully, he had just said that because of her size he had to use two hands to hold her - so she was a "two-handed baby". Our nurse had thought he'd said two-headed.

That moment of meeting her was incredible. I wish I could find the words to adequately describe how I felt or there was some way to bottle those feelings up so I could relive it again and again. It was incredible. As Justin later described it, seeing Katie enter into this world was experiencing a bit of heaven.

We thought it was funny when the nurse commented that I was made for pregnancy. Difficultly getting pregnant, months of nausea and vomiting, extreme weight gain, back problems, painful recoveries, challenges with nursing, and many, many months (years) it takes to even get close to pre-pregnancy weight. I never thought it possible that I could make any aspect of pregnancy look easy.

Katie came out screaming and we thought we were really in for it, especially when she was awake from 2-6am our first night in the hospital. Thankfully, she’s done awesome since then. Of course it’s only been a few nights, but we’re hopeful she’ll keep it up.

Hearing she was over 9 lbs was just what this Momma wanted to hear. Having had feeding issues with all of my kids a little extra chub is a good thing.

Katie loved getting her first bath. The nurse said most of the hair on the top of her head fell out when she was washing it. She still has quite a bit of dark hair on the back of her head, but I’m sure she’ll lose that soon enough.

Justin was exhausted after our exciting morning.

The kids came by that evening to meet their new sister. They were all so excited to hold her.

We’ve been talking to Jason about the baby coming out of Mommy’s tummy, but I’m sure he didn’t understand. He’s been great so far though and wants to hold her anytime someone else is holding her. He’s also been very interested in helping me burp her.

Because I test positive to the Strep B virus I’ve always needed to get penicillin during labor to protect the baby. Because this labor went so quickly I wasn’t able to get the desired amount before she was born. As a precaution our doctor wanted us to stay in the hospital until she was 48 hours old so they could keep an eye on her. We’ve never stayed in the hospital more than one night, but it actually ended up being nice to have a little extra time with her before heading home.

We sure are enjoying our sweet little girl and feel so blessed to have her in our family.

First things first: the Name

Wow, what an incredible few days we have had. First I know everyone is dying to hear what name we have chosen for our sweet little girl. Obviously, if it took us two days it was not an easy decision. We went to the hospital with three names in mind: Cambria, Katie, and Madelyn. However, after she was born and none of those were "fitting" we went back to an older list and added: Jenna and Sadie. Adding two more names didn't make our decision any easier. Yesterday morning our pediatrician came in and was giving us a hard time about it. He had told us previously if we didn't have a name by the time we were discharged from the hospital he got to name her and this week he was choosing Esmeralda. We got talking about names and we asked him his opinions about the names on our list (he knew we were leaning toward Katie the previous day). He said he pictured Jenna as some high school track star (which Justin was ok with) whereas with Katie he envisioned a cute little girl with pig tails. He told us Madelyn was the most popular on our list and Cambria the most unique. But he added that Cambria sounded like a kid who might have allergies. It was interesting to hear some of his stories. The most unique name he has seen is Abcde (ab-si-dee). One of the worst name experiences he’s had was meeting the leather clad, rocker parents of a baby boy named Metallicia. He also said there are some names that just come full of problems like Brittany. In his experience Brittany’s tend to have many medical issues (little did he know Brittany had also been on our list at some point). Anyhow, of all the lists we've had Katie has always been on it. So as Justin started taking our things to the car I wrote down Katie on her paperwork (I also asked the nurse what we'd need to do if we got home and changed our minds). We're still not used to it, but we're pretty confident it will soon "fit" her. So we’d like to introduce you to the newest member of our family - Katie Fletcher.

Baby Fletcher

We are pleased to announce the birth of our not so little little girl. Holly and baby girl are doing great. Here are the key stats:

Time: 10:50am (4/14/2010)

Weight: 9 pounds 9 ounces

Length: 19 inches

Name: TBD

The delivery went so quickly that baby girl did not receive the desired amount of penicillin so we will be staying in the hospital through Friday. The extra 24 hours should give us enough time to finalize her name!

I am sure Holly will be posting a few more pictures once we get home...and hopefully we will have a name as well.

Break, Baby, Baptism

Spring Break

I wish I could say our spring break was as productive as our mid-winter break. But sadly it was not. In fact all my sorting and purging over mid-winter break (two months ago) ended up in the nursery. While we plan on having the baby sleep in our room for the first bit, we do need to relocate the girls to the nursery when my Mom comes - tomorrow. But oh my…

Where’s a magic wand when you need one?

Baby

A few weeks ago my doctor and I were talking about the upcoming arrival of our baby girl. I reminded him that we had both Carly and Jason on the dates we did because he was leaving town the following day. I told him I’d been thinking I’d like to have the baby on either the 16th or the 19th and somewhat jokingly asked him if he was planning on going out of town around that time. As my luck would have it, he’s leaving town the 15-20th.

At my appointment last Friday I was already measuring at 2.5cm. My doctor told me he thought there’d only be a 10% chance I’d make it until Wednesday, but if by some chance I was still pregnant he’d like to induce me that morning. He told me he was working this past weekend and he was certain he’d see me then, but we’re determined to hold out until my Mom gets here tomorrow afternoon. So if everything goes as planned… which it better… we’ll be having this baby on Wednesday. We’ll keep you posted.

Baptism

For several months Justin’s been teaching a family about our church. The Mom was somewhat raised in the church, but DJ and the 10-year-old son were not. They’ve wanted Justin and the missionaries to come over as often as possible. They wanted to know everything. Besides these weekly visits, Justin and DJ have developed a close friendship over the past several months and have been playing basketball, racquetball, and scuba-diving together. A few weeks ago the husband and son decided they wanted to get baptized. And being the somewhat-pessimistic person I am I kept waiting for them to change their mind. I kept asking Justin questions like: have you told them about not drinking alcohol or coffee? What about paying tithing? They really want to donate 10% of their income to the church???

Having been raised in the church the restoration of the gospel and the role of Joseph Smith are not foreign to me and it’s always made sense to me that our Heavenly Father would have a prophet on the earth today, just as in bible times. Paying tithing is something I’ve always done and living by the gospel principles has brought tremendous blessings to my life and to my family. But to hear all these things for the first time as an adult… that’s an entirely different experience. It’s made me grateful that I was raised in the church because I think it would be so difficult to accept as an adult. But this family felt the spirit and knew what they were hearing was true. They wanted to know everything about the church and were willing to make changes in their lives and habits to live according to its teachings. Their baptism was scheduled for this past Saturday afternoon – April 10th.

Since their decision to be baptized they have had several experiences that have tested their faith. The most recent was a trip to the ER on Thursday morning when DJ was experiencing severe abdominal pain. A cat scan revealed he had a colon infection and he was kept overnight for treatment. The doctors wanted to keep him through Saturday for further testing, but DJ was insistent that he be released so he could be baptized as planned. Talk about faith in adversity. When I got home from visiting my doctor on Friday Justin texted them in the hospital and told them what my doctor had said. Their reply was essentially “tell her to sit down and cross her legs, cause nothing’s gonna stop this baptism.” My doctors comments had Justin a little worried too. Had I gone into labor on Saturday I honestly think he would have had a hard time deciding between being at the hospital with me or being the baptism.

Thankfully, DJ was released from the hospital and I did not end up in the hospital. The baptism was wonderful and we are so grateful to have been a part of it. It’s been an amazing experience for our whole family.

Justin baptized DJ and one of the missionaries baptized his son

Gone Digital

I started scrapbooking way back in high school. It’s always been something that I’ve enjoyed doing and have spent many, many hours over the years scrapbooking with friends and roommates. However, in recent years it’s been difficult to keep up with creating albums for each of the kids as well as a family album. Even though I’ve been a “traditional” scrapbooker – paper, trimmer, adhesive, photos, etc… much of what I did was on the computer. Before getting pictures developed I spent time cropping and resizing them based on the layout I had in mind. All my journaling and titles were created on the computer and positioned just so it would fit exactly as I imagined. It was a time consuming process, but a process I enjoyed.

Back in January I came to a crossroads. I was an entire year behind. Nothing from 2009 was in an album. I’ve been tempted to go “digital” for a few years now and decided it was time to make the switch. So for the past few months I’ve been working on putting together our 2009 family album. Even though I’ve spent many, many hours creating the pages in Photoshop I still feel like the process was much quicker being completely digital (and much less messy too). This afternoon my finished book was delivered (FYI - I ordered through Blurb.com).

I was so nervous to see the final results. I was concerned that the colors and patterns that I created on the computer wouldn’t look the same in print and that the pictures would look grainy. Overall I am very happy. I do think you lose some quality in your pictures this way, but it wasn’t enough that I think most people would notice. I LOVE that I’m able to have HUGE pictures in the book without dealing with the added cost of printing enlargements the traditional way. And the major reason for me to go digital is that 156 pages takes up only ½ inch on my bookshelf verses the three or more inches of a traditional album(s). Another great positive is that now when I put together a book for each of the kids, most of the pages are already done – everything is saved forever and can be reprinted anytime – no more needing to physically create the same page two-four times. My one complaint, and it is a big complaint for a perfectionist like me, is that you don’t have control over what gets cropped during printing. I was very careful not to put any journaling, etc... on the outer edges of a page so it wouldn’t be cropped off, but their instructions didn’t say anything about losing any content on the inside edge. As a result, MANY elements appear off center in the middle of the pages and on several pages I’ve even lost some journaling in the binding. For example:

MAJOR disappointment, but I suppose I’ve learned what I need to do differently in the future. It will however annoy me tremendously.

Girl’s Night Out

Having done this before, we have a pretty good idea how much our lives are going to change in the next few weeks – adjusting to the demands of a new baby while trying to recover physically, the likelihood of nursing difficulties, waking up during the night, etc… One of the many other changes includes my loss of freedom. So we’ve been trying to do things now that will be more difficult with a new baby. On Tuesday, we got a sitter so I could meet Justin in Bellevue for lunch at Daniel’s Broiler (courtesy of his boss). After a delicious lunch I spent a little time shopping for the perfect diaper bag – which proved to be much more difficult that I’d imagined.

Last night I had a night out planned with my two favorite girls – Miss Abigail and Miss Carly. I know they are going to be HUGE helpers, but I also know that the demands of a newborn will be felt by them as well and it won’t be as easy for us to get time together. So I surprised them with a night out… just the three of us. I didn’t give them any clues to what we were doing and they bombarded me with questions all day. For some reason roller-skating kept coming up… for real, they think I’m in any position to take them roller-skating?? A friend recently told me about a nail salon in town that also caters to kids. I knew it would be the perfect activity for the girls. They LOVE getting their toes painted and I definitely wanted a little pampering as well.

The girls were hooked up with fun massage chairs, including their own video monitor to watch a movie on. I had a nice grown-up chair right beside them.

After their pedicures I found out it would only cost $3 more to get their fingernails done too. The girls know of my dislike of painted fingernails, but I figured they were going to be waiting for me to get done anyhow so I caved in and broke our rule… but stressed that it was just this once. I have to admit they really did turn out cute and to the girls it really was the cherry on top of an already incredible experience… so well worth it.

We were trying to think of a way to show off their painted/jeweled thumbs and still have their faces in the pictures… Carlys came up with this...

After we were all fancied up with went to Dairy Queen for dessert. The girls got to order whatever treat they wanted (something that they think only Grandpa lets them do). It was such a fun evening and it was obvious how much it meant to them. It really was a special night for me too and made me realize - even more - how lucky I am to have these two girls in my life.

In case someone’s interested we went to Perfect Nails on 16th Street NE – you won’t get a spa-like atmosphere (it’s in a strip mall), but from now through the summer adults get a manicure & pedicure for $25 and it even includes paraffin dip.

Easter Weekend

We got a lot of rain last week, but thankfully the rain held off Saturday so we could enjoy our morning activities without getting poured on. Our annual neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt started at 9:30am. The grass was wet and soggy but rain boots kept our feet and pants dry.

Here’s Jason and Carly ready to go.

Jason’s age group started first. The eggs for his group were just laid out on the blacktop, but when everyone started running around I think he got a little spooked. He caught on eventually, but I think he only ended up with a total of five eggs.

Of course Carly knows the concept of gathering eggs and did a lot of running around collecting eggs.

Abigail’s soccer game ended just in time for her and Justin to make the Easter egg hunt for her age group. Here she is with her friend Alyssa ready for the hunt.


Their Loot

It was disappointing for Abigail that all the candy we received was chocolate which means that even if it doesn’t contain nuts it’s “made in a factory that processes nuts” so neither her nor Jason was able to eat anything we brought home. I had some errands to run that afternoon so I picked up some candy at Wal-Mart to surprise the kids on Easter morning.

By the time Justin and I got out of bed Sunday morning the girls had already decorated the house with Easter eggs they had drawn, cut out, and taped on the walls. My “Easter Egg Hunt” was to find all of them.

We told them we had a surprise for them, but they had to go wait upstairs for a few minutes. Justin and I hid eggs all over the downstairs. When they saw their baskets at the top of the stairs they were thrilled.

It was a little strange not to go to church on Easter Sunday. Instead we were able to enjoy an entire day at home (in our sweats and pjs) watching General Conference, spending time together as a family playing games and eating loads of sugar. The kids were entertained by setting up several Easter egg hunts throughout the day. All that sugar elevated their energy level quite a bit, but overall it was a very relaxing and enjoyable Easter.

Baby Shower

I made a comment to Justin the other night that logistically it really wouldn’t matter if we had a boy or girl. We haven’t settled on a name. We have re-decorated the nursery. And we haven’t purchased A SINGLE thing. Truly, not a single thing… how can that be when we are just weeks away from having this baby? Weren’t we supposed to go shopping immediately after we found out that we were having a girl and buy an adorable little outfit? This pregnancy has been long and difficult, I knew it would be. But there hasn’t been a moment when I haven’t looked forward to her arrival and I have never had a moment of disappointment that we are adding another girl to our family… I wouldn’t have it any other way. I suppose my lack of preparation has just been my way of not letting myself get too anxious too early.

But it’s official… I’m anxious. Two of my wonderful friends threw a baby shower for me Friday afternoon. While I’ve never been someone who enjoys being the reason for any sort of party, I must admit it was great to get together with friends and celebrate our baby girl.


We received lots of cute outfits, a few blankets, and some essential diapers. We’ve also found a great car seat we can purchase from some friends. I think it’s finally time to do a little shopping for our little girl, but I think we’re just about ready. A friend of mine had her two week old baby at the shower. Holding that little eight-pound baby definitely made me excited. I’m sure some people would think that by the time you reach #4 the newness and excitement wouldn’t be as great, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

We each created “my baby” out of playdoh and I was supposed to pick the winner. There were definitely some cuter babies than others…


The baby shower was during the day while the girls were at school. I left everything in the gifts bags so when the girls got home from school they were able to open everything and experience that excitement.

I can’t remember if the girls were doing peace signs, rabbit ears, or holding up their fingers for “two” of something… I just think the look of concentration on Jason’s face as he tries to copy them is cute. I’m such a lucky Mom!

Not much, but an update

Justin informed me yesterday that he keeps checking the blog for updates and reminded me that I haven’t posted in a while. It sounds a little strange that our family website would be the means of him keeping on top our family happenings, but unfortunately it seems to be the case these days. Justin been busy, busy and it seems like we’ve seen very little of him lately. Things at home have also been busy, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Abigail wrapped up her first basketball season undefeated. We had an entire three day break before she started practicing for spring soccer.



Yesterday I spent most of the day at the Seattle Temple with our stake Relief Society. This was the first Saturday in several weeks that Justin was home (technically, he should have also gone since one of his church responsibilities is working with the stake Relief Society, but we felt he was needed more at home). He asked me for three things that I wanted him to get done while I was gone… considering we’re in the middle of “March Madness” I was happy that he accomplished two of the three. One of the jobs was to dust the cobwebs around our 20+ foot ceilings. He even thought to have Abigail take a picture of the contraption he put together to get the job done… I thought he was quite clever. (That’s our broom and mop duct taped together)




The kids have been building lots of forts lately. I remember when I was a growing up we’d build huge forts in our basement. So fun - and hours of entertainment.



My before-baby-to-do-list is still incredibly long and sadly I am becoming quite useless. Just walking upstairs is exhausting – by the time I reach the top my heart is racing. My body is not cut out for this pregnancy stuff – it sure would be nice if someone else could carry her around for a little while for me. In spite of all the aches and pains, I am so grateful and excited for this baby to come into our family. I keep a calendar on my fridge and updated it this weekend. It’s exciting to know that somewhere on this calendar is our baby’s birthday. Now that her arrival is finally getting closer we’re thinking about names and it’s time to start looking at car seats, diapers, etc… Things I haven’t wanted to do because it just seemed SO far away. While I haven’t talked to my doctor about exact dates yet, I’m quite certain the latest we’ll have this baby is four weeks from tomorrow.

Just a cute picture of Abigail giving Jason a piggy-back ride.

Jason Lately

Okay so I know I’ve posted lots of “tidbits” about my kids lately, but over the past week I’ve written down several Jason moments that I want to remember and so I thought I’d might as well post them too. Besides that there’s an adorable video clip – so if you all the journaling is a bit much for you – just check out the video cause it really will make you smile.

Budding Artist? - Jason has had very little interest in anything artistic. We’ve been able to leave out crayons, markers, and scissors without any worry about Jason picking them up. I’m not exaggerating at all when I say his interests still lie heavily with cars and trains. The other night Abigail brought in her piano book and showed me that Jason had just scribbled on a page with a pencil he’d found lying around in the living room. Then he came in the kitchen showing Justin and I the pencil and saying “draw.” I proceeded to explain that we only draw on the kitchen table. The next thing I knew Jason was doing just that – drawing ON THE kitchen table. Justin and I couldn’t help but laugh, Jason on the other hand was shocked that I was stopping him from doing just what I had explained he could.

Next American Idol? - I wrote a while back of Jason’s love of Curious George. He definitely still adores that speech impaired monkey, but we’ve recently added Elmo to Jason’s favorite TV characters. Last week I was sitting in the office doing my thing while Jason was watching the last of Elmo’s World and during the closing song I heard Jason singing along. For most parents that’s probably not a big deal, but with Jason’s limited vocabulary that was HUGE for me. So I grabbed the video camera, rewound the show and caught it on tape:

Isn’t that just the cutest? I can hardly believe that Jason’s been doing speech therapy for almost a year. I still think that much of what he says can only be understood by me, but at this point being able to understand my boy is HUGE. We’re starting to get three word phrases and one of our newest phrases is “what’s that?” which he uses when we’re looking at picture books. I love being about to have little conversations with him. His voice is just adorable and the way he fluctuates his voice (imitating me I’m sure) cracks me up. He’s definitely making improvements and he seems to surprise me daily with some of the things that come out of his mouth. He’s a super smart kid – just a man of few words.

Working Hard – When kids are learning how to talk they need lots of reinforcement. As parents we give them praise when they say something new and we often repeat what they say – for example: kid says “wa-wa”, parent says “oh, you want some water?” Jason still struggles with a few consonants like “C” and “G”. So saying “Carly” is super difficult for him. So instead he calls her “Esa” Not sure how that sounds anything remotely like Carly, but he’s consistent with it and we’re grateful he at least has something he refers to her as. It cracked me up last week when I heard Justin mimicking Jason and called Carly “Alyssa”. I’ve found myself doing the same thing several times.

To help him with these difficult sounds, his speech therapist will use an infant spoon to hold down the tip of his tongue and then he’s can do it. She tells me that he just needs to catch on to what it feels like to say “C” and “G” and what his tongue needs to do. Right when she got here on Friday he ran into the kitchen and started rummaging through the utensil drawer for the spoon. She said that was the cutest thing that’s happened to her all week. Most 2 year-olds wouldn’t tolerate someone sticking something in their mouth and then expecting them to try and talk - while my two-year-old is completely cooperative. He works very hard during therapy and is definitely improving.

Early to bed, REALLY early to rise – Over the past week or so Jason has started waking up before 7am! In my house anything before 7am is still considered the dead of night and is unacceptable. The first time he woke up he went into the girl’s room and hopped up on their bed and woke them up. The second day he went into the girl’s room and started playing with a musical bus, we all woke up to “stop and go, stop and go on the school bus…” So he and I had a little talk after which he understood he can’t go into the girl’s room anymore in the morning. He’s done fantastic with that, but now he comes into my room instead. Sunday morning it was 5:53am! Thankfully, I was able to convince him it was still night-night-time and he went back to bed for an hour. So it’s looking like 12 hours at night and a 4 hour nap during the day is becoming too much. He still needs a nap though and I can’t imagine putting a time limit on how long he can nap, but the alternative of early mornings doesn’t sound so appealing either. Maybe he’s just trying to get me adjusted to the sleep deprivation I’ll be experiencing once this baby comes.

Mr. Sensitive – No kid likes to be corrected or told they can’t do something, but lately Jason has been VERY sensitive to correction. If he does something he shouldn’t and we (even in the nicest possible way) tell him he did something wrong, he breaks down in tears. Not tantrum, spoiled-little-brat tears, but you’ve broken my little heart tears. It really makes us feel bad for him… maybe we’re just totally getting played.

Pearly Whites - Last week we all visited the dentist for our semi-annual cleaning. And drum roll please….everyone came out cavity-free. This was Jason’s first visit to the dentist and I wasn’t sure how it would go. The girls were three when they started going to the dentist and did awesome. They let them take all the x-rays they wanted and sat perfectly still, mouth wide open while they got their teeth thoroughly cleaned. Jason is much more of a wild card, but thankfully he did awesome. They put Nemo on TV he was in the zone. The hygienist said she could have tap danced on his head and he wouldn’t have noticed. And he didn’t have any problem getting the x-rays either. Hooray for Jason!

Carly Turns Six!

Thursday was Carly’s sixth birthday. We knew we had a busy evening and wouldn’t be able to celebrate after school so Justin stayed home that morning so we could all eat breakfast together. Before we could do anything though Carly had to open up the box my Mom sent her last week. It was the perfect gift for our crafty-loving Carly. Lots of scissors that cut fun patterns, foam paper, and glitter glue.

It took less than a minute for her to have the kitchen table covered with her new supplies.

Whose idea was it to put chocolate chips in the pancakes??

The rest of the day was pretty ordinary. She wanted to take something into her class for her birthday, but her teacher doesn’t let the kids bring in any food. I was having a hard time coming up with something to hand out. Carly suggested pencils so being the cheapskate that I am we rummaged through our stash and came up with enough unsharpened pencils for everyone. Sad, I know, but why in the world would I buy pencils when we have plenty to spare?

We had her birthday party yesterday after school. I’ve known what I wanted to do for her party for several months. There’s a little yellow house on one of the main streets in town that we pass all the time that does ceramics. I checked it out a few weeks ago and knew it would be something Carly would love to do. We invited five friends to join us (plus two cousins and a sister). They were each able to pick out a small figurine to paint. It was interesting to see who was very detailed oriented (Abigail could have painted for hours) and which kids just slapped on the paint and called it good. We’re excited to see the final results after they get fired in the kiln. All the kids seemed to have a great time.

Afterward we came back to our house to open presents and have cake & ice-cream. Carly was so excited to choose the kind of birthday cake she wanted. She changed her mind several times, but that morning she settled on a butterfly cake. She chose the colors as well and insisted on black antennas.

It was an easy party to pull off which is exactly what I needed, but most importantly Carly had a blast and felt very special on her special day.

Few tidbits about Carly at six:

As mentioned she loves to be crafty. She loves it when I have scraps of cardstock for her to use. She pieces things together into fun designs. Recently Abigail even asked Carly to give her craft lessons. She’s very artistic and never says she’s bored – she’s always got something she wants to create. It seems we never have a meal in which Carly doesn’t have to clear off the kitchen table beforehand.

In the last few weeks Carly has started writing stories. I love this stage of development. She still asks for help with some spelling, but I love seeing her ideas written on paper.

Carly has a split personality when it comes to social situations.

Personality #1: She is very outgoing around people she knows. She is very friendly and gets along easily with others. Sadly though she has very few friends her age, but it’s not that she’s a loner. I asked her teacher who she hangs out with at recess and she told me she’s basically a floater. She plays with everyone (boy, girl, doesn’t matter). Nobody at her birthday party was her age – her friends are either older or younger than her. Thankfully she has a great big sister who includes her with all of her friends and Carly seems to fit in just fine.

Personality #2: Carly is very shy. She still hesitates to participate in church when she’s called on. She doesn’t like to be put on the spot and often shies from attention. Just singing Happy Birthday to her yesterday had her slumped down in her chair where I could hardly see her.

It must have been over a year ago that I was having a conversation with some friends about how our kids handle conflict. When it came to Carly nobody (including myself) could imagine her getting mad at someone. It’s not that she wasn’t sensitive, because she was (and is), but it would have been so unlike her to defend herself. Totally not the case now. She speaks her mind. She has strong opinions. And she’ll let them be known.

Carly loves to shower (while her older sister doesn’t) and she always wants to blow dry her hair. But she’s definitely not a high maintenance girl. There are many days as we walk to the bus stop that I notice we never even combed her hair and her clothes don’t match.

Carly knows how to push Jason’s buttons, but she does pay the price sometimes. Jason isn’t a hitter or biter, but he has (on more than one occasion) pulled Carly’s hair. She is very loving to her little brother though and is a big helper to her Mom.

We recently got a piano and if Carly isn’t crafting she’s playing the piano. We’re not going to be able to hold off piano lessons for her too much longer. The interest is definitely there and it’s amazing what she’s picked up just from watching Abigail.

Carly is SUPER excited about having a baby in our house. She plays at a friend’s house that recently had twins and she LOVES to hold them. Recently she was mentioning that she wants to help feed our baby, but she pointed out that I would need to feed (nurse) her when she’s really little. I told her that was true, but that I’m sure there would be times when we could give the baby a bottle. She then told me that I should probably be the one to give the baby a bottle so I could get used to it. Apparently, she’s the pro and I’m the one who needs some practice.

Happy Birthday Carly – you bring so much sugar and spice into our home! We love you!