Blogging…what is that?

Long time no blog! It has been busy around our house with Summer time activities. I am way behind in blogging, but we have had a great time together. I have been focusing on just being with my family rather than documenting everything. I might catch up and I might not.

Chase starts school next Monday. He has morning Kindergarten which I am THRILLED about. It really is the perfect schedule for our family. School, chores, and a little preschool (taught by me)  for Parker in the morning, and our afternoons are open for activities and naps .

I am starting to think about my homemade Christmas gifts. I am going to make an apron, 3 superhero capes, and a few other small things.

I am looking forward to going to a Giants/Braves game next week with my hubby. It will just be the 2 of us. Can’t wait!!

The following weekend my cousin is getting married in Half Moon Bay. We will be going down just the 2 of us and leaving the kiddos home. I am looking forward to celebrating with the happy couple and our family!

We feel so busy all the time. However, we don’t do much out of the ordinary. Our kids, work, school, church, and our family keeps our schedule full. We are tired. Life often feels out of control. Our home is LOUD and ACTIVE. I should be used to it by now, but I am not. Probably by the time I am used to it the kids will be grown and moving out . I am holding on for the ride!!

DIY Play Kitchen-Finished Project

This post is long over due! My grandpa did an amazing job. The kids love playing with them.

Before:

After:

Sewing is on this week’s agenda

I have to get 3 sewing projects completed in about a week. 2 dresses (for Maggie and Bridget) for the 4th of July and 1 superhero cape for Parker. He requested a cape for his birthday.

Here is the cape tutorial I am going to use.

 

Here is the dress tutorial I am going to use. I am a little nervous about the dress for Bridget. I am going to have make adjustments because she is almost ten and needs a much bigger size. Hope it turns out

I am going to get to use my craft table for the first time. I will actually get to leave the sewing projects out and not have to clean them up every night.

This table is made from the same barn wood. It is super heavy duty. Perfect for my craft projects.

Parker wanted in the picture

Some things I want to remember

My kids are young. They are needy, whiny, naughty, very active, and pretty much all-consuming. Every day there are mountains to climb all day. It is hard to take care of them. Keeping track of their eating, safety, laundry, playing with them, educating them, teaching them about the things of God, disciplining them is exhausting.

However, the cute little things they do and say in a day are so rewarding and special. It keeps me going. It is so special to see how God designed them so differently and individually. It is fun to see them interact with one another.

It is amazing to me how much I don’t remember about when the kids were younger. I have a pretty good memory, but I am forgetting things. It makes me kind of sad. I want to be more deliberate about writing things down. I want to remember this really special, exhausting time of life. It really is so short! People say I will miss it. Right now I don’t feel like I will miss a lot of it, but they are probably correct.

Some things I want to remember:

• when Maggie and Parker get hurt, they immediately look for their blankies and run to be held
• Chase loves to count money
• Parker likes to have wooden gun with him when he watches Swiss Family Robinsons
• Helping me clean the fingerprints off the windows is a real treat. They like to spray the Windex.
• Maggie loves to smash her nose up against the shower door and smile. It shows her top 2 teeth and she looks like Mater from Cars
• The boys love for us too lay in bed with them at night and listen to music. They fight over who gets to lay with them.
• Maggie shows us her nose by crinkling and sniffing. Hilarious!
• Watering the plants and trees in the backyard is a huge treat
• They love chocolate milk
• Everything is a treasure-a rock, a nuts and bolts found on the ground, old soda bottles, etc.
• Chase loves to sort things by color or size
• Parker loves to change his clothes (I don’t think this is cute now, but someday I might )
• Maggie gives kisses and makes the “muah” sound. Abe takes her on the kissing tour at night where she gives each family member a kiss.
• The boys like to watch the same movie over and over.
• The boys like to wear just shorts and no shirts.
• Parker pronounces”th” as an “s” sound. Think sounds like “sink.”
• The boys think imaginary friends are called “ordinary” friends.
• Maggie loves to look at pictures.

I am sure there are more, but that is what I can remember now. My life is so blessed, even though my attitudes and thoughts don’t always show that. Thank you Lord!

Me and my loves!

Sick baby...

My view

I am writing this sitting in my recliner and snuggling my sick baby. After a great spin workout, I came home and heard Mags talking/complaining in her room. I opened the door and was smacked in the face with the awful, unmistakable smell of vomit.

That smell is something that I can't handle. I had to turn around and walk out of her room and go get my hubby. Abe is my hero when it comes to vomit clean up. He does an amazing job.
After he cleaned up her room, I started the laundry and got Chase ready for school. My mom called and offered to keep Parker for the morning. They picked him up from Abe's work. That left just me and Mags at home for the morning.

So I have been sitting in my gym clothes holding my sweet girl the whole morning. This is a rare treat because she is normally running around like a crazy woman, and I am usually very busy with the other kids and housework. Not how I planned my day, but I am grateful for my wonderful parents and husband who are bearing my burden with me. I am enjoying the peace and quiet and nursing my sweet girl back to health. So blessed!

Fairytale Town

We went to a fun birthday party at Fairytale Town on Saturday. We took Chase when he was about 1.5, but we haven’t been back with Parker or Maggie. It was fun to watch the boys enjoy this special little place. It feels like you have walked back in time about 5o years. It is very simple, and I found it to be very calming.

When we entered the gates on Saturday, I noticed that they had memberships. I mentioned this to my mom, and we decided that Bridget and our kids would enjoy going throughout the year. We hopped in the car, picked up Chase from school, and headed over to buy the membership.

We went late in the afternoon, and there were about 4 other families. The kids were able to run and play on anything they wanted. It was nice to just let them go. They were safe and couldn’t hurt much or be hurt. It was so very enjoyable. Can’t wait to go back when the rain lets up!

Here are some pictures from that afternoon:

 

In the Tee Pee (sp?)

Had to get Mags in the picture.

At the top of the owl slide.

Bridgie!

 

Chase!

Mr. Parker

Maggie is THRILLED to be out of the stroller!

Trying to get all these kids looking in the right direction and smiling=close to impossible!

Grandma and Maggie

Boys MUST climb EVERYTHING. The great thing is that they are free to climb

Parker was driving the train away from lava! Love the imagination.

Maggie is trying to walk. She took 4 steps in a row later on that night.

Parker doing his ninja moves. Chase climbing again!

He got his dance moves from his mom and dad…poor guy! LOL!!

Sherwood Forest

11 months!

Maggie is moving out of the baby stage into “toddlerhood” so fast! She is standing up and cruising around everything. She is even trying to let go of some things. She loves to play with her brothers even though they are a little too rough some times.

She has started to love the park. She really loves to swing, and doesn’t like to get out. It is so nice to be able to take her to the park with the boys.

Here is a video of her walking with her princess car from Grandma Green (please excuse my poor video-taking skills):

Appearance: She isn’t changing as fast. People often comment about how blue her eyes are. They are very blue and don’t look like they will be changing anytime soon. People also comment about how much our kids look alike. It is hard for me to see, but they definitely have similar features.

Sleep: She takes a morning and afternoon nap. They are 1-2 hours in length. She goes to bed at 6:00 and is very cranky if she is awake past that time.  She isn’t waking up much at night. She is sleeping through most nights.

Diaper Size: Still in size 3.

Clothing: She is now pretty much in 18 month clothes and some 24 month thrown in.

Height: Not sure

Weight: Not sure.

Head Circumference: Not sure

Eating Habits: This girl loves to eat! She is eating mostly anything we eat. This is a wonderful stage. I love to not worry about packing so many different types of food.

Development: She is getting more and more active. She says “mama'” and “dada.” She has major separation anxiety. She does not like strangers to hold at all. She gets into EVERY single drawer and cabinet in the house. This girl is like a whirling tornado! Her top 2 teeth broke through at the end of the month. The bottom 2 are still growing in.

Maggie’s Nursery Projects

Maggie will be one next month, and I am now just getting around to taking pictures of the projects I did in her room. It was so fun to decorate for a girl. My mom and I went to Joann's last year and I picked out a fabric that I liked. I wanted something feminine, but not over the top girly. There were so many choices, but I kept going back to this fabric that had apples and pears with a blue background. It was so refreshing and cheerful.
Here it is:

Her crib bedding was made by my Grandma and was used by my sister, Chase and Parker. I just needed to change the ties on the bumper pads to something girly. I wanted to line some baskets with the fabric, make a bow board, and some wall art.
Here is what I came up with:
My inspiration was from this very talented lady! I actually traced the pear and apple from the fabric. I then enlarged or decreased the size of the images for the embroidery and felt cut outs.

The baskets with new liners. I used this tutorial. It was a little bit of a brain teaser, but once I figured it out it was very simple.

The bow board. I used an old memory board and covered it with new fabric.

Here is her name. This was the last project because we couldn’t decide on her name. My inspiration was came from a lady on Etsy. She had each letter framed separately. I thought it was so neat! Unfortunately, the link to her item no longer works. I embroidered her name on matching blue fabric and framed them in IKEA frames. I believe the frames were only about $5.oo. I found the fabric at Wal-Mart for about $1.50/yard.

I had a frame without glass from the game board art project. Got my inspiration from this blog. I found the punch at Michaels, and I had the paper in my scrapbooking stash. Very inexpensive and I was able to use the frame.

Here are the bumper pads with the new ties.

10 months!

We are into 2012 and Maggie is getting closer and closer to ONE! Last year at this time we were preparing her room, buying a new car to fit our family of 5, and preparing to add another little one to the family. We have adjusted to the 3rd baby, but her mobility is adding challenges. She is into EVERYTHING!! She gets into drawers and pulls things out. She loves to crawl in all the rooms to find things to put in her mouth. This child finds the smallest things and immediately puts them in her mouth! We are trying to be careful, but it is so tough to keep the floors perfectly clean.

She crawls around here like a mad woman! She is fast. She can stand up really well while holding on to things. She has now moved onto holding on with one hand. She can climb things pretty well, so she gets herself in some precarious positions. It is kind of funny!

Maggie celebrated her first Christmas. We had multiple celebrations with our family. She got a few things to play with, but we really didn’t worry about too many gifts. She really enjoyed the boxes and wrapping paper. We had a wonderful time celebrating the birth of our Savior and spending lots of time with family. It was a blessing to have Abe off for a week. The best Christmas present!!

She is now feeding herself. She loves to pick things up and she is really good at it!

Her first tooth is finally through right around January 18th. The second one is coming and will break through really soon as well. I can tell it won’t be long until the top 2 will pop through as well.

She was really sick again with a cold this month. Poor baby can’t seem to get well. We had to stay home from church quite a bit due to sickness. During that time she developed full on separation anxiety. She now HATES the nursery. She cries almost immediately, and I get called up to pick her up. Our other kids were the same way and Parker still struggles. One of these days we will hear a sermon. LOL!

Appearance: Her hair is starting to grow and fill in. Her eyelashes are also growing and they are dark and long just like Daddy! Swoon

Sleep: She takes a morning and afternoon nap. They are 1-2 hours in length. She goes to bed at 6:00 and is very cranky if she is awake past that time. She is waking up one time during the night around 3:00 to eat and goes right back to sleep.

Diaper Size: Still in size 3. Thinking we will order the next size up for next month.

Clothing: She is now pretty much in 18 month clothes and some 24 month thrown in. We can get away with 12 month shirts because she seems to have short-ish arms.

Height: I think she is about 29 inches

Weight: Approximately 18.5 pounds

Head Circumference: Not sure

Eating Habits: Like I mentioned above she is feeding herself sometimes. She can pick up chicken nuggets and meatballs which are 2 of her favorite foods. She eats some veggie purees still along with apple sauce. We are starting to give her what we eat for dinner sometimes. She also started eating butter and jelly sandwiches. She loves them! She nurses 4 times per day and now gets about 8 oz. of formula.

Development: She is crawling very fast, holding on with one hand to things, opens and closes drawers, says “mama” and “dada,” she recognizes her brothers by name (we ask her where Chase is and she looks at him and same for Parker), she is kind of loud, she likes to pinch HARD, and she begs for food all the time.

8 Months!

Maggie-girl is 8 months old. She is pretty much crawling now. She will sometimes revert back to her inch worm scoot, but most of the time she crawls. She is attempting to sit up, but is very unstable.

Maggie celebrated her first Halloween by staying home with Grandma Berger in the nice warm house while the rest of us went trick or treating. She was definitely in a good place.

She is learning to like baby food. We had our first success with yellow squash and rice cereal. We have had success with carrots and peas as well. She has also learned to like apple sauce. Thankfully, feeding her is less of a battle. I am not sure how long she will tolerate baby food. She loves to have little bites of our food. At Chase’s birthday party she was getting tastes of chocolate cake. She was getting angry when I would take a bite and skip her. She thought it was all for her. LOL!

We think this girl has a sense of humor. She loves to laugh and finds things to be hilarious. She is almost always happy even when she is very sick. She is loud and talkative. She seems to be taking after big brother Chase in her personality. We think we have another ham on our hands.

Appearance: She hasn’t changed much! We think she is cute as can be of course . Everyone thinks she looks like either Chase or Parker. We think she is a good mix and looks just like Maggie!

Sleep: She is still loving her crib. She wakes up about once a night around 1:00-3:00 AM to eat. She takes a morning, afternoon, and sometimes an evening nap. She seems to be dropping her evening nap and heading towards 2 naps a day.

Diaper Size: Still in size 3.

Clothing: She wears mostly 12 month clothes, but and some 18 months. She has small feet and wears 6-12 month shoes. We got her the most adorable, warm Robeez boots. CUTE!! She runs cold, so she wears a t-shirt and 2 pairs of jammies to bed.

Height: Not sure

Weight: We weighed her at home and she was about 18 pounds.

Head Circumference: Not sure

Eating Habits: She is still nursing well about every 3 hours. She also get one bottle of formula at night now. See the rest of the update above.

Development: Crawling, learning to sit up, laughing and talking LOUDLY, loves to chew on everything, loves toys and remotes, loves her brothers, and loves her mom and dad. She is beginning to have separation anxiety. We usually get called up to the nursery at church after about 30 minutes. She is fine for a little bit, but then gets very upset. We are going to keep working on it though. We need to hear a sermon every once in a while.

6 Months-Already!?!

September 18th means that our baby girl is 6 months old! How did that happen? She is as amazing as ever besides her affinity to party during the middle of the night. She is rolling all over the place! She can move from one side of the room to the other by rolling.

We have a new nickname for her. We call her “Big Baby.” Think the doll from Toy Story 3. If you can imagine that doll before it was all tattered and torn, Maggie looks very similar. We also call her Mags, Maggie Doo, Sweet Darlin’, and the Ga-Doo (Daddy’s favorite).

Appearance: She is long and thinning out a tad. She has little feet and tiny fingers. She is definitely a mix of her brothers with a girly twist. We think she resembles Chase’s pictures the most though.

Sleep: She is waking up 3 to 4 times per night. What a stinker! She wants to eat and then goes back to sleep, but it is still really hard on me. I think she is hearing us and knows that I am right next to her. The time is coming for her to be moved out of our room. We got the boys bunkbeds, so she will soon be in her own room. She is still taking a long morning nap, a long afternoon nap, and a short evening nap.

Diaper Size: She moved to Size 3 diapers in the middle of August.

Clothing: She is still wearing 9 month clothes. We had to buy her 12 month jammies. She already outgrew the other ones. Crazy!

Height/Weight:

Height: 28 inches (98th percentile)

Weight: 17 lbs. 5 oz.  (75th percentile)

Head Circumference: 17 inches (75th  percentile)

Eating Habits: She still eats every 2 to 3 hours. I have tried giving her a bottle of formula at night before bed I hopes that she will sleep better. It really hasn’t helped. I think she needs the extra milk though. I tried rice cereal, and she hated it! We will be working on adding solids to her diet this next month.

Development: Like I mentioned earlier she is rolling everywhere. She pushes up on her hands. She is noticing if a stranger is holding her now and is not too sure about it. She is chewing on everything and drooling quite a bit. Maybe some teeth are on their way. She sucks her toes and almost curls into a ball while doing so. Love it! She is still a thumb sucker. She is grabbing at our cups and she pinches our faces now.

Five Months!

This update is super late, but better late than never. She is still growing like crazy. The biggest change from 4 months is that she started to soothe herself by sucking her thumb and holding her blankie. It is the cutest thing to watch. When we lay her in her bed, she almost immediately rolls on her side, grabs her blankie, and puts her thumb in her mouth. ADORABLE! I have never had a thumbsucker, so this is new territory for us. I think it is so cute now, but someday I will probably not think so. I am going to enjoy it for now
She took her first trip to Trinity Center in the outside world. Janna and I were about 8 weeks pregnant last year and SUPER ill. It was a much better trip this year. Maggie and Jake spent most of the time with the Grandmas in their cabin while we entertained the older kids. It was non-stop fun! Swimming, hiking, fishing, eating, mini golf, and family time. It was a blast! We already have our cabins reserved for next year!

Appearance: Not much has changed. Her hair is growing so slowly. It looks like it will be strawberry blonde. She is nice and plump with lots of pinchable rolls. Love it!
Sleep: She is on a pretty regular schedule. She wakes up once or twice. She gets up for the day around between 7 and 8. She is back down for a nap within an hour. She takes long morning naps lasting about 2 or more hours. She only awake for 1.5 to 2 hours max. She is then ready for another nap. This pattern lasts all day. She finally is ready for bed around 9 or 9:30.
Diaper Size: She is still Size 2 diapers. 
Clothing: She is in all 9 month clothes. She is a big girl!
Height/Weight: Nothing new to report.
Eating Habits: She still eats every 2 to 3 hours. I am breastfeeding her. She is a great eater.
Development: She is still very happy! She loves to smile and laugh. She is on her tummy more to play. She squeals and screams quite a bit. She will roll sometimes, but is still pretty safe on a bed. She is not showing much interest in crawling. We started putting her in the Johnny Jump Up. She loves it! See video below. She gets lots of good exercise