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.

1 month

Now that I am closing in on nearly 2 months old, I realized I needed to hurry up and do a 1 month old post! Life with three kids has been crazy. I knew it would be, and that was the part that was stressing me out the most about having another baby. When I had Lincoln, I was so beyond overwhelmed at having to take care of two kids by myself that poor Ethan didn't eat breakfast until 1 in the afternoon the first day I was home alone with them. This time around, I don't know if it was because I was used to juggling more than one kid at this point or what, but my first day home alone with all three kids, my boys were dressed and eating breakfast (waffles even!) by 9:30 in the morning! It was quite an accomplishment for me.

For months leading up to Jade being born, all my Grandma would tell me was that she just wanted to snuggle the baby. They needed bonding time. Because so much was going on when I had her, no one was able to pick her up and take her to the hospital to visit me. The day I came home, pretty much as soon as I walked in the door my mom called and asked if she could bring my Grandma over to visit. I love watching my cute Grandma with brand new babies. She always just lights up!

My friend Sandy is also cute to watch with new babies. She's also a lactation consultant and came to help me out of a rough patch. Life got much easier after that!

Nanan has been named the baby whisperer. Jade has been a lot more difficult than both of my boys. She cries a lot. I mean, pretty much every single time her eyes were open she was crying. Nanan was one of the few people who could get her to calm down and fall asleep. Love this lady!

Jade was less than thrilled when it came time to give her a bath.

She is definitely a drama queen! I'm in trouble when she gets bigger for sure.

Since we live a lot closer to my mom now (1 mile!), and I have a new baby and two rambunctious boys, she has been coming over a lot to snuggle and spend time with my boys. It's been so nice. Sometimes in Richmond it felt like we had no grandparents at all for my boys and it made me super depressed when I thought about it. I'm so glad she's getting to know my boys better now!

And when she visits, after she's done giving the boys popsicles and playing, she always has to have some baby snuggles.

As I look back over the last month (now two), you never remember how exhausting having a newborn is! Maybe it's just significantly worse because I have two other yahoos I still have to take care of. I love when Mart gets home from work and he goes all gooey over the girlie and spends time with her.

I've tried my best to spend time with my boys as well so that they still know that I love them even though I don't have as much time as I used to. I don't feel like I'm doing a very good job at trying to balance everything out and being the mother that I need to be, but I always hope my boys know that they are loved. It'll be nice when things continue to settle and we can get back into a good routine.

My mom got me this carrier, and it has been a life saver some days! I have been able to get things done that I wouldn't have been able to otherwise. It's super nice at the grocery store too!

Us after Ber's wedding. Jade had a busy first month of her life!

I haven't had a ton of luck getting really good pictures of the little miss, because as I said earlier, she cries a lot. One minute she looks like this:

And then I blink and she looks like this:

To help me out, my mom has been mowing the grass for us each week. It didn't take very long before she was tired of picking up dog poop, so she gave my boys a job. She told them she would pay them to clean up the dog poop every day. They don't seem to mind one bit! Ethan is going to have a good amount of money to spend next time we go to Disneyland!

It's still hard to believe that we have three kids, but Jade fits right in just like she has always been here. We sure love her! My boys adore her and can't stay away from her. She has the best big brothers!

My sweet girl at 1 month old