Look who's three!

My sweet little man turned three! I had asked him several times what he wanted his cake to be, and he told me he wanted Jake the Pirate from Jake and the Neverland Pirates. It was a really long week leading up to his birthday and I wasn't feeling well. I definitely could have done better, but I kicked out a Jake pirate cake the night before his party in just a few hours. It wasn't perfect, but Lincoln LOVED it! He kept talking about his pirate cake and wanting to take pictures next to it. Every time I would leave the room and come back in, he was sitting on a stool staring at it. :) His birthday fell on a Monday this year, so we had a small family party on Saturday for him at my mom's house.

Ber and her nephews

Ty and his BFF Jenna.

Kace and Ryan

Ber and Dallan

Everybody seemed stumped at what to get Linc for his birthday, so they all stuck with the Jake the Pirate theme, and he ended up rolling in Jake toys! He was more than thrilled!

Grandma, Ethan and Lincoln

Me and my birthday boy! I still can't believe he's three ...

Monday morning, I made my sweet birthday boy sprinkle pancakes and green smoothies (ice cream!) for breakfast.

They must have been extra delicious and special, because I think Ethan ate like 8 of them!

After breakfast we walked Ethan to school and came home for some alone birthday time! Lincoln wanted to watch a movie or netflix or something and so I turned it on and went to feed Jade. When I peaked back around the corner to check on Lincoln a little while later, he was laying on the couch with his blanket talking on his phone (the dvd player remote) to Grandma.

 

We asked him what he wanted to do for his actual birthday, and he chose bowling and pizza. Everyone had something going on, so we headed to the bowling alley with just our little family. It was empty, and we were the only ones there for a little while! It made it so nice, Jade was able to fall asleep before people showed up.

I forgot my actual camera, so I only had my phone for pictures. Some of them are blurry, but it shows the fun we had. Linc doesn't look all that excited in any of these pictures, but he had a blast. He couldn't wait for his turn each round and was so sad when we finished. I loved these tiny bowling shoes on his little feet!

Jade is a little small for bowling, but she was there too! :) She just took a little snooze instead.

Ethan was so funny and dramatic! The older he gets, the funnier he is when it comes to certain activities.

 

"I did it!"

Toward the end Grandma showed up to celebrate with us for a few minutes.

After bowling, we headed over to Jack's pizza and had some awesomely delicious pizza!

When we got home, we broke out the leftover cake and ice cream, lit up a candle and sang again. Lincoln loved the singing! He sang to himself.

I love this little man so much. He is so tender hearted, and loves his brother and sister so much! He just idolizes Ethan and looks up to him. He misses him when he's not around. He has such a sweet spirit and we are so lucky to have him in our lives!

Happy birthday little man! I love your face!

Feelings

I'm going to start off by saying I'm not sure if this is the appropriate outlet for my feelings, but as I use my blog as a journal for myself, I suppose it is. This may get a little long, but hopefully it'll help.

When I had my boys, the struggle for me came during my pregnancies. It was a 9 month battle to get them here physically and mentally. Once they were here, I was so relieved and seemed to go back to normal. I always wondered what people were talking about when they talked about having postpartum depression. Why weren't they so over the top happy about this new little baby that they just brought into the world?? With Little Jade, my pregnancy was a nightmare of sickness up until week 14 or so and then it went away just like everyone says it's supposed to. (I never believed that with my boys ... it never happened with them). I had aches and pains and normal pregnancy symptoms, but it felt a lot easier than my previous two. I went into have her and I wasn't nervous or scared, I was just happy to be there and be able to meet my sweet little lady. She was adorable, feisty and one of a kind and I loved her immediately. In the weeks that followed, I started to feel like I wasn't quite myself. I didn't know if I was just tired and stressed because suddenly I had three little people to care for instead of just two. Maybe I was stressed about being a new parent again and being homesick, I didn't know. I started to wonder if maybe I was getting the baby blues and hoped that it would just pass by quickly.

I felt okay and through stressful nights of Jade screaming non stop in my ears, I was able to just tune the screaming out and just rock her until she gave up and fell back to sleep. I never felt like I wasn't in control or like I might hurt her, but I did start to feel like a prisoner in my own home. I didn't have a car to go anywhere even if I dared to with three kids. (I still don't ... our second car STILL needs to be fixed.) I swear Jade had colic up until 7-8 weeks and I wasn't about to take her out screaming non stop all the time. The only time I had to recover and re-coop was nap time, and I made sure that my boys both took one so I could try and have some sanity.  Ethan got increasingly more difficult to handle and we fought almost daily for a month or two and I just couldn't take it anymore. I finally figured out his trigger and it made life SO much more pleasant for both of us! After I figured out how to chill him out a bit, life seemed to settle down and I felt like it would just move forward and get better from there. I thought I was fine and maybe I had just been stressed.

My stress levels have just seemed to increase lately, to the point where my milk suddenly dried up out of the blue the other day. I had plenty in the morning when Jade woke up and then I wasn't able to really feed her for two feedings in a row, which just added a huge amount of stress and anxiety onto my shoulders and I knew there was no way my milk was coming back without help at that point. I researched online quickly and found something I thought would work, and thankfully it did. Within 45 or so minutes I had gotten some essential oils, and by the time Jade woke up (about 20 minutes after I used the oils) I had enough milk to feed her. Thank goodness.

I realized the other night that I'm pretty certain I am just one of those unlucky people who have had to deal with postpartum depression, and that unfortunately this time around, I got it. I haven't talked to my doctor or anything about it yet. I really did hope it would just go away and get better. So far, it hasn't. I have felt pretty lonely and again just stuck in my own world and in my house. Mart has been stressed and working a lot and isn't much help when he gets home and tries to get himself to unwind. I realized that apparently I have been unconsciously pushing people I love away from me without ever meaning to or even knowing I was doing it. Hearing about it just made me feel even more awful. I have definitely not been the mom that my children deserve or the mom that I want to be, and that makes me feel even more guilty. 

Now that I think I understand better what's going on, I am going to try and find a new perspective. Maybe I need to find something positive to focus on each day, even if it's just something small. I know that this too shall pass, but I just hope it's sooner rather than later.

Here's to a new outlook on life and hopefully some much better days to come! 

3 months

I cannot believe that my baby girl is already 3 months old! She's growing so fast and getting so big. Why can't babies stay small for longer?!?

Miss Jade at 3 months:

*She is still wearing a size 1 diaper
*She is wearing 0-3 month clothes and they fit her well now instead of baggy
*She has been consistently sleeping through the night for the last few weeks! (AWESOME!!) She will only wake up once every now and again.
*She loves her Mama! I can almost always get her to smile and coo at me, which is so much better than the constant screaming she used to do.
*She likes her binki more than she used to, but she prefers her fingers. Not her thumb, usually it's her pointer and middle fingers at the same time. Sometimes I'll catch her with her middle and her ring finger. 

*Sometimes I'll go check on her during a nap, and she'll just be laying there sucking her fingers. She doesn't make any noises, she just patiently waits for me to come get her. She's also figured out how to turn herself around and kick her legs until she hits the button on her crib noise maker. Little Miss Smarty Pants.
*She loves Ethan! He can almost always make her little face light up with the biggest smile!
*She still has greyish eyes
*Her hair is starting to grow back in and is getting thick
*She just fits right in with our little family!

Before pictures this month, I decided to girlie up the t-rex, Rexanne. I made her a Jade signature headband so they will always match. :)

Now on to the pictures of my sweet 3 month old!

Love this little peanut! Now we just need time to slow down a little so we can enjoy her tiny for a little longer. :)

Nanan and Grandad

Nanan and Grandad have been able to come spend the last two summers in Cache Valley with us, and it's always sad when it's time for them to head home. This year they had to head home earlier than last year, they had tickets to go to England to visit family. It seemed like we didn't get as much time to spend with them this year, it was a busy summer! Between being pregnant, having a baby, a wedding, recovering from my c-section and a third child, it was just a crazy summer. We were sad they had to leave.

The night they left we all went to dinner one last time to hang out, and Nanan had to bond with Jade one more time before next summer when she will be way bigger.

I am sad to see them go. I love having them here. I'm already ready to have them come back next summer. :)

Blessing

We had Miss Jade's blessing on the 1st. We wanted to make sure that Nanan and Grandad would still be here, and it worked out perfectly. It was a nice day and only mildly stressful. :) Lots of plans changed at the last minute and we weren't able to have everyone we had planned on, but we had lot of friends and family who came to support us. Little Jade didn't even scream through her blessing, which was a miracle!

My little family of 5!

Mart never feels quite like himself when he wears a white shirt, but I think he looks quite handsome.

Me and the lady of the hour

My friend Seantae

Grandma getting in some snuggle time

Mart and Jon

Jon, Mart and Trevor

Mart and Trevor

And here are just some pictures of the star of the show!

I loved these little polka dot shoes!

First day of Kindergarten!

I seriously cannot believe that Ethan is old enough to be going to school. I remember freaking out last year when I sent him down the block to go to preschool. This year, I was even more nervous, because it wasn't in a contained daycare. He has an entire school and playground to run around and escape from. I've been nervous he would walk himself home one day out of the blue, or ask to use the bathroom and leave and not go back to class, not play nice, etc ... I've been nervous that in a classroom with so many little kids, his teacher wouldn't be able to keep her eye on him as much as I have, so he will slip by. But, I do know that I need to learn to let go. I need to trust that he'll behave himself and that everything will be fine.

Ethan started counting down to Kindergarten probably the week after he finished Preschool. He has been waiting all summer to start at his new school. The morning finally came and we started getting ready. He was beaming and so dang excited! 
 

We had been looking everywhere for a backpack that he would like (he asked for a transformer backpack), but he found one that he liked and no matter what I tried to bribe him with or talk him into, this is the only one he talked about for 3 weeks ... and so I finally gave in and got him the backpack he wanted. Yes, my 5 year old has a wrestling backpack. (I guess no one will accidentally take it home by mistake). He LOVES it!

We saw this idea on Pinterest last year and thought it would be cute to keep track of what he wanted to be when he grew up as he got older. (You can see last year's here)

He could not wait to get going, and was thoroughly disappointed when Dad drove us the first day instead of walking. Once we got there and I took him through the door into his classroom, he started to get nervous. The room was swarming with parents dropping off their kids and taking pictures. You could tell he was not sure what was going on! Poor thing.

I didn't think I would, but as I walked out of that classroom, I started to tear up. I told myself I needed to suck it up before I got back to the car so that Mart didn't make fun of me. When I picked him up, he told me that he had a great day and was so excited that he got to go back the next day. When I checked his backpack for homework, I found this gem instead:

Poor Lincoln isn't sure what to do with himself while his best buddy is gone. He is really sad that Ethan gets to go to school and he doesn't. When we go to drop Ethan off or pick him up, Lincoln has to wear his backpack or he has a royal meltdown (that happened today in fact. He sobbed the entire walk there, all the way to the classroom, the 5-10 minute wait in the classroom waiting for the teacher to arrive, and then the entire walk back home ... all because he didn't have his backpack).

Cute boys! Ethan was so ready for school again today, but Lincoln was not ready to let him go again.

It'll be so nice to get into a new routine. Poor Lincoln hasn't quite adjusted to his new schedule. About 20 minutes before we had to leave to pick Ethan up, I walked in the living room and found Linc like this:

His body hasn't gotten the memo that nap time is now 3 hours later than usual ... poor guy. He naps really good now though!

2 months

2 month stats:
Head: (Yeah, I have to look at the doctors notes) - 25%
Height: (Yeah, I have to look this up too.) - 25%
Weight: 10 lbs 10 oz - 50%

 Jade had her 2 month doctors appointment on Ethan's second day of Kindergarten. She had to get her first set of shots. Poor little peanut wasn't very happy, but after she cried for a minute she calmed right down and was asleep by the time we got home (that's saying something, we only live 2 blocks away from the doctors office ...). However, the rest of the weekend she was miserable. She got a fever and barely ate anything. I was getting nervous since we were blessing her that weekend, but she was a trooper and we made it through it. (I joked that it might make the blessing easier, because she might be quieter if she was drugged up ... )

Anyway, things about Jade at 2 months old:

*She is wearing a size 1 diaper
*She is mostly wearing 0-3 month clothes. Some are still way too big and others fit just right
*She has had a couple of different nights where she has slept anywhere from 6-8 hours straight at night (hallelujah!)
*She is loved and smothered by her big brothers
*Her eyes are still gray, but a brighter gray than my boys had. I keep thinking she's going to have blue eyes because they are so much brighter, but we will see.
*She still has pretty much all her hair
*Sometimes people thing I'm crazy because I put headbands on her everyday ... after having two boys, I want to make sure people know she's actually a girl. (The doctor even called her a boy during her visit! He felt bad after ... )
*She has started to selectively smile at us, and is starting to make cute noises instead of turning into a gremlin and screeching at us all the time.
*She smiles at me the most first thing in the morning. It's a much better thing to wake up to than my boys messing around
*She's still pretty dang feisty and only likes certain people if you do exactly what she wants you to do. You can't hold her the way you want to hold her, only the way she wants to be held.
*She is darling and she feels like she's always been a part of our family

If Ethan notices me trying to take pictures of Jade, he will run over and ask to have his picture taken with her. :) He loves her so much!

This next picture isn't great, I need to do it differently next time so the dinosaur isn't so much higher than she is .... but, anyway, we've gotten our kids a stuffed animal in the hospital gift shop for when they were born. We looked when I had Jade, but there was nothing that we liked. We've been looking for something to put next to her to take her month to month pictures (I had to borrow Lincoln's giraffe last month because we still didn't have one for her), and then we saw this dinosaur. We decided that the t-rex was perfect because it was so fitting of her! (Kind of mean, I know...but we are going to put a bow on it and we named it Rexanne!)

It's hard to believe that it's already been 2 months, but at the same time it feels like she's been here forever! We love her and are so glad she's part of our family.