Justin’s Pics

After Justin read my last post he mentioned that I needed to get the photos off of his phone as well.  Here’s a little of what he’s captured lately…

He took these pictures back in April when we were walking around some of the empty lots around our house.  Anyone know what sort of creature has prints like this?

There’s been the usual bear sightings this year, but also several cougar and/or mountain lion sightings lately.  Last week the kids were playing outside in the evening and apparently one of the neighbors could hear coyotes nearby.  We heard coyotes at night a few times when we first moved in, but haven’t noticed them much lately.  Apparently the neighbor thought they sounded like they were “feeding” and advised the kids to call it a night.  Not sure whether I should start being more concerned about sharing a living space with so much wildlife.

Speaking of wildlife... I didn’t get any closeup shots of Jason after he got his face painted at the bike rodeo in June – kinda glad Justin did.

With a new baby at home, Justin was usually the parent to attend Jason’s baseball games and practices.  It’s so hard to capture the beautiful surroundings we live in on camera, but it really is amazing.

Love that Justin thought to take a picture of my Mom and Val at one of Jason’s games!

Our friends who are building in the neighborhood have arrived and are living in an apartment nearby until their house is complete.  We offered to try out their swimming pool a few times before they made the move – outdoor pools in the northwest are hard to come by.

Justin took the kids to a Mariners game on Friday, June 21st for LDS Night.  Justin said this is probably Jason’s last year being small enough to play in the kid’s area.

As luck would have it, they scored seats near the other LDS family moving into our neighborhood this year.  Not so lucky that they were on the very top row of the stadium.

Last Friday was my birthday.  I gave many not-at-all-subtle hints leading up to my birthday that I wanted some cupcakes from Cupcake Royale.  I even not-so-casually mentioned where Justin could find coupons for it.  Last Wednesday Justin came home from work with my somewhat-surprising box of cupcakes – yum, yum!

Drew’s First Month via Cell Phone

I have a severe lack of photos of Drew.  I haven’t picked up the camera much and even if I did, what do you take a picture of, the boy basically sleeps all the time.  And since Justin usually doesn’t take pictures, I hardly have any pictures of me with Drew.  I pretty much always have my phone with me though – the quality isn’t great, but I downloaded them onto the computer anyhow and thought them worth while to include in our family history.  Jason likes to take pictures on my phone so it was fun to see what he captured.  As you can tell some of my favorite and most precious moments are snuggling up with Drew.

May 23^rd at 4:14am (10 hours old)

May 23^rd at 4:39am (10.5 hours old)

May 29^th at 10:32am (Day 7 and still in bed)

May 29^th at 10:50pm (7 days old)

June 4^th at 3:05pm (13 days old)

June 4^th at 7:48pm (13 days old)

June 9^th at 9:06am (18 days old and waking up to this sweet little face)

June 15^th at 9:37pm (24 days old and looking so content and tiny)

June 19^th at 3:22pm (4 weeks old)

June 21^st at 4:41pm (30 days old)

June 22^nd at 3:26pm (1 month old)

Just shy of six weeks

Working on this post made me sad, Drew is growing, someone commented recently that he no longer looks or sounds like a newborn.  He’s advanced to wearing size 1 diapers and last week he outgrew his first outfit, I hate that he's already to big to wear his little froggy jammies that he wore home from the hospital. 

Drew weighed in at 10 pounds, 3 ounces last Monday when we last met with the lactation lady, he was 2 days shy of 5 weeks old.   That's a two pound weight gain in 3 weeks, which is great.  As a result, I finally started to skip supplementing Drew with a bottle after each feeding which has made my life so much easier.  I've been so anxious to rid myself of the bottles that the trick will now be too keep them familiar enough that he'll still take a bottle on occasion. 

Drew has a heart shaped tongue; it has a little dimple or indention right at the tip.   The lactation gal I’ve met with a few times thought that might be part of the reason he struggled with nursing.   

Drew gave me his first real smile at two weeks old.   My mom was here and I don't think she believed me, until a day or two later when he smiled at her.  We now get smiles everyday.

I'm still not used to his name, I like it, but I haven't used it enough.  I often call him Bug or Bud.

Shortly after Drew was born we were watching the news with my mom one night and there was a story of a father who had put his baby in the freezer to get her to stop crying.   It was sickening to hear (which is why I don't watch the news, there are so many terrible things in the world) anyhow they interviewed a doctor who reported that on average babies cry three hours a day, for no reason.   We've been blessed with pretty content babies so I was shocked.  When I took Drew to his pediatrician at 2 weeks old, the doctor said that he always tells parents that babies crying will peak at six weeks old and he also repeated the whole three hours a day approximation.   I'm happy to report that we aren't anywhere close to that.  In fact the other day Justin asked if Drew had even cried at all that day.   Sure he can cry, but it's not often and rarely lasts more than a few seconds.  So grateful for our content little guy! 

3 weeks old

Up until last week it seemed Drew would poop or pee while I changed his diaper nearly every day.   The boy has peed on himself numerous times and I tell ya he can project, though he rarely spits up for which I am very grateful.

Drew doesn't seem to have lost any of his dark hair. He hasn't grown any either so he's still sporting the old man look with it being really short in the front on top and long on the sides.

Drew keeps himself on a pretty regular feeding schedule, even at night he'll wake up to eat every 3-4 hours, though last night he went over five hours for the first time.  He always goes right back to sleep at night after eating.  If it’s after 6am there’s a chance it may take him a little while to fall back to sleep.  If that’s the case I usually just bring him into bed with me so I can help him keep his binkie in his mouth while I doze back into dreamland.

Still sleeps in a play n' pack in our room at night and all over the house during the day. 

Drew still doesn't mind loud sounds.  This morning he slept next to me in the Baby Bjorn while I got the house vacuumed. 

Drew is very patient with his older siblings, sometimes after Jason had been holding him for awhile I'll notice Drew is completely off kilter or scrunched up, without any objections from Drew.   Katie likes to get right up in his face and in a high pitched voice loudly talk to Drew.  He is adored by us all and gets plenty of snuggles.

Summer Schedule-less (and practically picture-less)

I've always looked forward to summer break.   I love the break from early mornings and busy schedules and I love having my kids home with me.   Having a new baby just as summer began I was nervous that the kids would struggle with being home too much and getting bored.   I'm happy to report that so far (we're only two weeks into it) we are doing so much better than I expected.  They haven’t even drawn from our Summer Boredom Buster jar yet.

From the get-go I explained to the kids that each day they would have jobs to do, similar to what they usually have on Saturday's during the school year.   I expected moans and groans, but actually they have been better about it than I expected, especially Abigail.   On several days she's asked me before bed what jobs she'll have in the morning and as soon as she's up she is hard at work.  

Not having anything in the morning has saved my sanity.   Katie and Jason still wake up early (usually before 8), but the girls are finally getting to the age where they like to sleep in. To be honest, I really don't know what time the kids are getting up these days cause I'm the last one up.   Jason has been great at getting his own breakfast and even helping Katie get a bowl of cereal and then they quietly entertain themselves.   I'm totally spoiled, right? 

So our mornings are slow going, by the time everyone is up and jobs are done it's around 11-12pm and then it's lunchtime.   Katie is down for a nap before the kids head outside, and then most afternoons they spend the rest of the day playing with friends. 

With the girls getting up so late each morning they aren't tired at the usual bedtime of 8pm.  We've pushed back lights out till 9pm but they struggle to fall asleep, often we'll hear then chatting till after 10pm.  

As the girls get older (and their room has more stuff they don't want their younger siblings getting into) they have attempted to keep the younger ones from coming in uninvited.   This led Jason to feeling protective of his space as well so a few months ago he created a sign for his door that said NO girls were allowed.   Shortly after my mom arrived, and she was sleeping in his room (he slept in a fort in the bonus room), I noticed his sign changed to something along the lines of, NO girls allowed except Grandma.   I wish I had taken a picture of these first few signs in his cute little five year old handwriting and his inventive spelling. 

Fast forward to one of the very first days of summer break when the kids spent all day creating in their room.  At the end of the day the girls bedroom door looked like this.   The can is their mailbox (there was two, but they kept falling down), just in case someone wants to leave them mail. Even two weeks later they are still diligent about turning over the “in” or “out” sign when they enter or leave the room.

And Jason’s door looks like this.  

The girls have spent many, many summer hours crafting and creating.  In addition to the signs on their bedroom door, they have gotten back into making things with duck tape (their newest product is wallets), and Abigail has made several friendship bracelets from embroidery thread while Carly has been occupied making lanyards.  They haven't played any DS or computer games all summer, I love that! 

The girls attended our stake activity day camp this past Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon.  They LOVED everything about it and I’m so grateful our stake leaders put in so much time and effort to make it such a wonderful event for the girls each year.

We’re off to a great start!

Baseball Season

Jason’s final baseball game was Monday, June 10th.  Jason had a really fun season, learned and improved a ton, and enjoyed going to practices and games.  Unfortunately, several of his games were cancelled due to rain, but such is the case in the northwest.  The perk of having all that rain is living in such a beautiful area.

I’m so grateful his buddy Everett was on his team – the option to carpool is a huge benefit.  I didn’t get any pictures of the boys during the season, but thankfully my Mom did.

Justin wanted to get video of Jason hitting the ball.  Jason hit the ball on the first try in both innings, but Justin was too slow the first time around, but was able to capture it in the last inning.

After the game the coach handed out trophies and cupcakes.

And the cruddiest team picture ever: