More pictures and some blathering

My mother has given up facebook (for a hilariously funny reason that I will not embarrass her by saying) so I shall be posting more pictures on here. I have been neglecting this blog horribly, so maybe this will spur me to be more active here. Facebook has made me lazy because there is no need to spend time composing an entry with a decent length, it is all small snippets of feelings and information.

One thing that having a baby girl has done for me is inspire me to get my craft on. I have been making cloth flower hair clips and ribbon bows for Lily. I just hope that as she gains more control of her hands that she does not end up ripping them out of her hair (or in her case off her head since they are attached to a headband). It would be a shame for me to finally get a girl child only to have one that will not let me fix her hair. It is bad enough that Daniel had this gloriously beautiful red curly hair that I can't do a thing with since he is a boy. I am going to eventually have to trim it or he is going to get called a girl.

Pics for Grandma

Lilyzilla or life with a little girl that is not so little

Lily has been smashing all my preconceived notions about what her infancy would be like. I had assumed that she would be like the boys only you know as a girl. She is a bit of a diva and is doing things her way.

Car seats and drives were a great way to relax the boys. Lily will often scream for hours when forced to endure time in her car seat. This has gotten better of late but made for very miserable Thanksgiving and Christmas trips up to Grandma and Grandpa's house. I don't have the option of staying home or short trips because we live far from shopping so when we need supplies it is an ordeal.

Growth has been another eye opener. I had big babies that had slow but steady growth. All the boys would change cloths right around the month the clothing label said they were for. At four months Lily is in 6-9 month clothing. It is a good thing that I shopped ahead thanks to all the amazing stuff I have been finding at the thrift stores (it is becoming an addiction to me).

Sleep is the biggest difference of all. Very early on the boys were sleeping a good 12 hours at night. I would put them in bed around 7 and they would wake up around 7. Not Lily! She goes down around 7 but will wake up any time between 3am to about 5:30. After her feeding there is no way she is going back to bed until she has had some party time for a good few hours. She was also waking up in the middle of the night for feedings much later than the boys did.

She is proving that she does not want to be like her brothers and she wants to shake things up a bit.

Hey guess what!

I completely missed blogging on an entire pregnancy. I had not been planning on being pregnant again but got a surprise in the form of a baby girl. We named her Lily and I got fixed so there should be no more oopses. I am glad to be done with childbearing but also a bit sad that I am done. I really don't like being pregnant but I do love babies.

This pregnancy was especially rough because of the remote location that we live in. I wanted to deliver in a hospital with a NICU and to do so meant I needed to drive an hour each way to get an OB that delivered at the hospital of my choosing. Added to all that was that my last trimester happened during the summer when the kids were out of school. I felt bad that the summer was so boring for the older boys but there was nothing I could really do to change the fact that all I wanted to do was lay down and sleep all day or that it was too painful for me to do long walks. Thankfully that is all over and done with and now I am just simply sleep deprived and eager to get a full night of sleep in a few months or so if I am lucky. Maybe before I go psychotic due to sleep interruption.

Two!

We had a quick family party for Daniel after church. It is amazing how fast he has grown and how much he has changed this last year. Daniel is such a funny little guy and it has been a joy to have him in our family.

I heart toddlers!

I think that toddlerhood is one of my favorite stages. Daniel and I have been having a lot of fun with our morning alone time, it is nice having a little buddy around to play silly games with. Daniel's favorite game is Play With Forbidden Items which leaves me having to put a lot of things up and out of harms way only to have the older boys drag the things back out again when they get home.

I also love that he can go from this:

To this in five seconds flat.

Pictures

I haven't had too much time to play with my camera as my husband just got the memory card last night, but here are a few shots for the Grandparents.

Ack!

December has been kicking my butt! We were going to put up our tree last weekend only to have my husband spend the weekend out of town in readiness for an impending boat crash that never happened. I am glad that it did not happen because right now the last thin the environment needs is yet another oil spill. One of the head lights in my van was out so on Monday I treked to town to get a replacement and do my grocery shopping early. Today was Evan's dental filling and Harry puked in the car on the way home from an errand with my husband (I am so thankful that it was not my van and that my husband was the one it happened to so I got to avoid the wort of the barf cleanup). Tomorrow is going to be filled with a sick and likely cranky Harry who is stuck at home. I am sure the future has a lot of fun things planned for me.

Evan was super good for his filling. I was glad it went smoothly. They gave him a numbing reversal so by the time we got back in town his mouth was back to normal and he could go to school. It was cute to see how excited his classmates were to see him when I dropped him off. I can't help but secretly worry that his differences will make him unlikable and it is nice to see that he is well liked by his classmates and that he has special friends in his class.

I did get a fun surprise today. The special errand that ended in puking was partly to get me my Christmas present. I got a new digital camera (something we have been considering for awhile). The funny/sad thing is that it is a billion times better than the old one (which is 7 years old) and cost about half of what we payed for our old one. I am going to have to play around with all the shiny buttons and post the results here once I get a memory card for it. The one from the old camera does not fit.

The trip to the dentist

I had been slacking while we lived in Kansas and did not take the kids to the dentist. We got a glowing recommendation for a pediatric dentist here that also is noted for working well with special needs children so I scheduled an appointment. They boys had a great visit, Daniel is the only one who cried and that was expected.

All three boy have a tooth that is not forming enamel as it should which is not entirely unexpected since I had that same issues as a kid. We are just going to keep a careful watch on the teeth and see if they start forming cavities or not. Harry apparently fell on his face and cracked the root of one of his front teeth so we are also going to watch that to make sure that there are no signs of infection.

Evan of course is the complicated kid. He has a cavity in one of him permanent molars. He is missing an adult tooth plus three of his wisdom teeth and one of his adult molars is not forming well. Apparently kids with birth defects often are missing teeth or have them malformed so this was not unexpected to the dentist. The wisdom teeth not being there could also be attributed to genetics since my father did not have any at all. The one wisdom tooth is right next to the malformed molar so eventually they can move it forward and put it where the malformed molar is. With the missing adult tooth the hope is that the baby tooth does not come out and grows with the mouth. If that does not happen then a cap can be put on the baby tooth to make it match the other teeth.

Happy Halloween!

It was a crazy start to the holiday rush. Evan and Harry decided that they wanted to be superheros. They have become very interested in Veggie Tales (thanks to us being able to watch our instant Netflix queue via our Wii on our tv) and there was an episode about Larry the Cucumber wanting to be a superhero. I drew the line at making them helmets with plungers for the ears so they could climb walls.

I bought some fabric markers and white shirts and colored versions of the superman logo on the front of their shirts. Pillowcases became capes as I have no idea where a fabric store is near by and really don't like running all over for things anymore. I guess that is what happens when you live in the middle of nowhere and it is a hassle to just go grocery shopping. I can't bag on the town I live in too much because there is a store in town that sells yarn and knitting needles (along hand knit and woven goodies for the tourists) so at least my knitting emergencies are easy enough to handle.

Daniel was going to be a punk rocker, but I found out that the hair paste I bought to turn his hair into a mohawk was no match for the stubborn curl of his hair. A quick last second search through our saved costumes turned up the kitty costume which fit him perfectly.

My husband was out of town for part of last week so out pumpkins were carved much later than me normally do but that was ok because that meant there was no visible signs of rotting when we hauled them to the ward Trunk or Treat on Saturday. That is where the pictures below were taken. Sunday my husband took the older kids out around the neighborhood and Daniel and I stayed at home handing out candy. I don't take my kids out until they are old enough to actually say trick or treat ect, as it really looks like a blatant candy grab instead of the subtle one that I have with the older boys.

Evan's ABC book

See if you can detect a theme to the ABC book Evan did in school.

Ap Car
What that is no one knows.

Bap Truck
Again a bit of a mystery.

Cloud Car

Dump Truck

Evan

Fish
He draws human faces on everything, even animals.

Garbage Truck

House Car

Igloo Car

Jello

Kite

Lego Car

Monster Truck

Nest

Old Car

Playhouse Car

Quiet Car

Wrap Car
The WR sound counted for the letter R since the kids are not expected to know the sound combos quite yet.

Sports Car

Truck

Under

Van

Wagon

A rather carish looking Xray

Yo-yo

Zig Zag


Here is a little bit of independent writing that I captured. It says Evan on the bridge.