11 Months Old- Declin

Here is a quick update on our littlest man.

He says "Hi" all day long to whoever will listen.  He says it over and over again.  SO funny and cute!

He is a climber.  Anytime I kneel down on the floor he books it over to where I am and climbs right up me.  He wishes I would let him climb the stairs more.

He loves playing with the big kid toys in the basement.  I don't love hanging out down there but whenever we go down there he is in heaven exploring all the fun stuff.

Church is pretty painful already with him since he doesn't sit still, but if you put him down he will start searching through everyone's church bags.  So the hallway is fun right?  Only 7 more months till nursery.  :)

He still crawls on his hands and bottom of his feet not his knees.  He is really fast too and you can tell he wishes he was walking.

Hates vegetables.  He is a picky eater, and will already pick the veggies out of things.  I can't even hide them!  Luckily he HAS warmed up to the goat milk and loves it more then formula now.

He does occasionally watch some TV when it is on for the others.  His favorite movie is the "We are... The Laurie Berkner Band" DVD.  All of the kids love it, but Declin will just sit and watch through the whole thing.

He has out grown his baby toys now and wants things that are a little more complicated then just something to chew on.  So his favorite toys now are stacking puzzles and bowls.  He loves putting objects in things and we often find little treasures in our shoes.  He also has learned how to "drive" a car and will push one around the kitchen.

He wears 6-12 month clothes and has 2 teeth on the bottom.  He takes 2 naps a day and sleeps through the night consistently.

We love our Mr. Declin and are excited to see what toddlerhood brings with him.  Well not too excited... toddlers are BUSY!

Oh and his monthly picture is a little bit different then normal (you probably didn't notice haha!) but we had to go with that one since most of the others he looked like this...

"But mom?! I already took my nap today!  Why are you putting me in my crib?"

He hates these monthly pictures now and only a quick game of peek-a-boo would calm him down. 

Not excited for his 12 month ones!  

 

Baby Brother Declin

When I was pregnant with Declin I was SO sure that he was a girl.  I think I just wanted a girl so I convinced myself that it was a girl.  McKay said from day one (literally) that it was a girl and I wasn't going to argue with him.  We both went into the delivery room to meet our sweet little girl.  After he came out and as I was trying to gasp for air and recover from the very intense (to put it lightly) experience called "the last 30 minutes of labor" I remember McKay saying "It's a boy".  What?  To be honest I didn't fully connect with that idea for an hour... or two.  I just kept looking at this little boy and I couldn't quite grasp that he was the one that had been in my belly for 9 months.

Now you already know the rest of the story, but I am going to tell it to you anyways.  Once the pain meds kicked in I was able to focus and fall in love with the cutest dark haired little boy.  He was so calm and cuddly and 3 hours after he was born my thoughts of a little girl had completely vanished.   Of course we were supposed to have a little boy!  He was the perfect addition to our family.

Since then, that feeling has never gone away especially when I see him interact with Jensen and Adalyn.

Lets start with Jensen.  The little boy who can often be seen rocking his baby and wearing princess dresses NEEDED a little brother.  I can't wait to see their relationship blossom, especially next year when Adalyn (the queen bee of the house) is off at Kindergarten.  Declin is much more rough and tumble then Jensen and doesn't seem to show a lot fears so I think he will provide enough peer pressure for Jensen to face a few of his fears.

Adalyn, like her parents, thought baby #3 was a girl.  I was a little nervous to tell her that he was a he, BUT she took it in stride.  Turns out the girl just wanted a baby and the gender was not important.  Baby Declin has been her baby for quite some time and she takes to disciplining him quite frequently now.  If you were a fly on my wall you would hear me repeat several times a day... "Adalyn, Declin is a baby.  You cannot lock him in his room for a time out.  He is too young".  Yet she stills continues to put him in timeout anytime he touches her or any of her things.  Oh boy!

As Declin is on the brink of toddlerhood (he has taken 1-2 steps so far!!) we are having more and more fighting/crying/screaming/hair pulling between him and the older two.  He can grab, reach, and pull on all of their toys.  I am constantly saying "close the door" when I see the bathroom or sliding doors open because Declin will race you to the toilet/outside.  We repeat "watch out for Declin" over and over again, all day long.

"Hey, Declin!  The idea is to go DOWN the slide"

The hand on his leg kills me!

This week Jensen started following Adalyn's parenting style of control Declin any chance he gets.  I think this is the day for me to just give up my rights as a parent since I am pretty sure the rest of my children will call Adalyn "mama".

\

Tonight at dinner Jensen wanted to break up Declin's food himself.  

In their defense they are trying.  You can tell they adore him and mostly just want him to be safe.  Sometimes it is hard to have a little brother constantly pulling on your stuff or trying to pull your hair anytime you lay on the floor.

But the cute moments are worth all the trouble...

I often find Jensen laying on Declins lap letting him pull and poke at his face.  Declin loves it and squeals with delight (pretty sure it is the beginning of their wrestling matches).  Adalyn will take Declin in her room and play with him if I have something that I have to get done.  Declin really enjoys her attention and playing with her.  They all love to climb in Declin's crib in the morning and play while I get the oatmeal for breakfast.

These adorable moments are what keep me going.

Sibling CAN be so fun right?  Yes.  Of course.  Needed to remind myself of that today.  Because...

 today = So. much. fighting. :(

                  

What We Did

Because you all wanted to know what we did last week right?

Here is what we ate (p.s. need to do more food related posts.  Right?)

Turkey bacon avocado wraps-  We changed up the recipe slightly, but this version is really good.  

One pot Lasagna- which is SO much easier and almost just as tasty as the original stuff.  We use whole wheat noodles and plain sausage as the meat.  The rest of the ingredients are cottage cheese, pasta sauce, and a little extra cheese and garlic salt.  I loved it and Declin loved it, but the other kids have decided to boycott all things tomato sauce and pasta.  Say what?!  

Pesto Salmon and Italian veggies in foil- Salmon is pretty much the only seafood I can stomach so I we have it quite a bit in one form or another.  This one is probably second in line for the recipe that I hate the least.  This one is my top choice. 

Cafe Rio-  Yep.  SO loyal to that place.  Especially since my kids eat free.  Everyday.  

Blueberry corn breakfast cake-  Cake is misleading because this doesn't have very much sugar in it.  I am a big fan of this recipe especially if you go crazy and put fresh whipped cream on it. 

Can I admit that we had pizza for dinner Saturday night?  Blah!  Bad!  SO bad!

Speaking of Saturday.  We taught our kids a lovely lesson about disappointment.  It was pretty bad and totally mine and McKay's fault.  We tried to do something fun as a family Saturday night.  It started with wanting to go swimming.  We left the house at 5 pm and decided to grab dinner first so that hungry meltdowns didn't happen while we were trying to have "fun". Well a quick pizza at the park was not the best choice since by the time we headed to the gym for our family night of swimming we learned that the kids pool would close in 30 mins.  1st fail.  Then we headed to the 2nd and final swimming pool in town.  Also closed.  2nd fail.  Then mom opened her big mouth and suggested that we just go buy a cheap swimming pool at the store and let the kids "swim" at home.  Our kids are easily impressed so this idea sounded awesome to them.  Guys, you can't find mini pools at the store in August.  We checked several stores.  3rd fail.  So we gave up, got some free slushies and came home empty handed and let the kids run through the sprinklers as the sun was setting.  We are the best parents ever.

The rest of the week we just survived with out McKay being home.  Between and new calling (ward clerk) and round the clock overtime at work we only saw him on Monday night and Saturday.  I know there is a time and season for everything in life and I am adjusting to being a "single" mom of sorts for a little while.  This is a new role for me as McKay is normally home 4 out of the 5 evenings.  So spoiled I know.  

To help with the adjustment of the single mom life I have one of these in my amazon cart waiting patiently for me to buy it tomorrow.  Desperate times call for desperate measures and after almost breaking two of Jensen's toes at the grocery store on Thursday (I rolled over them with the cart) I decided I better play things safe (safer).  So the boys will both be riding in the cart from now on.  For the last few months I had been grocery shopping at night without kids, but that isn't working out as well so we are back to hauling the crew.  But honestly the hardest thing about not having McKay home is I just get SO dang lonely.  Love my kids, but I love adult conversation too.  These are the days I need my mom and sisters around the corner so that I can just go and talk their ears off.  But since that is not the case you guys get to listen to me here.  :) 

Thank Adalyn for this blurry one

Other things that are helping pass the time are getting an early start on Christmas shopping and a nightly ritual of a few episodes of "Once Upon a Time" (it is a TV series that is on Netflix if you didn't know).  Totally promised that we would never get hooked on watching TV every night.  But for the last 2 months we have been.  Luckily I don't think it will be a regular thing since McKay is MEGA picky when it comes to what he will watch (rightfully so).  That leaves very few shows for us to watch together.  We are almost done with season 4 and then we will have to watch them the old fashion way (aka. wait for each new episode to come out each week).  

Christmas shopping is too fun.  I love kids toys and trying to find something fun for each child.  I haven't actually bought anything, just shopping around and organizing my ideas.  So far I have 100 ideas for Jensen and only 1 idea for Addie.  But I am SURE Addie will let me know what she wants as it gets closer.      

Oh and my new obsession is Ebay.  We have a very strong love/hate relationship.  I had sworn it off forever a couple months ago but after deciding that kids shoes are SO expensive especially for the nice durable kind I decided to lift my vow to avoid it and have now found some good deals for the whole family.  I haven't gone overboard yet (luckily) but got a few essentials that we were already in need of (Jensen is happy to have shoes now).  Ebay... I love you.  For now.  

She LOVES this dress and I really don't.  I try and hide it, but she always finds it.  I guess some battles are just not worth it.  

Notice the real tortoise in the background.  He is huge! 

And a few more "highlights" from our week

-Preschool went well this week and 4 years old is a fun age to teach.

-Declin is SO smart.  He will be 11 months old tomorrow, and he is fun to watch.  He dances now, says a few words, and will actually "play" with toys the way they are meant to be played with. Such as push a car along the ground or throw a ball.  Oh and as the 3rd child know how to hit, scream, and pull hair.  Usually the recipient deserves it.  Except when it is my hair.  Long hair is so fun with a baby.  

-I attempted to potty train Jensen.  He is so happy go lucky and doesn't have a clue about what he is doing.  He gets the whole #2 business, but hasn't figured out #1.  Bless him, but he may be in diapers for a few more months.

Last week was interesting, but life is good.  

        

    

      

Lowering Expectations

For me, I have found that having expectations and kids are not a good mix.  Kids throw you surprises around every corner and if your not careful you can end up cranky, upset, and disappointed really fast.  We often blame failed attempts on the kids saying they were "too noisy" "too cranky" too... whatever" when in reality is probably just our expectations that were set too high.

Going into this summer I had some pretty high expectations.  I really wanted to try a few new goals and do some fun adventures.  But life got in the way and I have now learned that this is not the season of life for lofty ambitions and major personal goals.  Today I should not attempt a heavily involved diet program.  I may not get to run 10 miles by the end of the summer.  The grand canyon is REALLY big and not my speed these days with 3 little cuties.  I may not even get to hike at all this summer.  Our garden will probably look more like a pile of weeds then carefully planned boxes.  Camping trips attended with kids will last 2 days tops and it will take me 3 weeks to recover from each one.  Heavens don't even go swimming because 1 vs 3 is just plain unsafe.

But it is OK.  I knew all along that babies #3 and probably #4  would be a really big challenge for me.  That there would be no "extra" time for crafts and hobbies, but eventually life WILL settle down and the kids WILL grow up.  Someday I will have a child that can buckle and unbuckle their own carseat.  Someday Adalyn will be able to babysit and our $70 date nights will be cut in half (counting down the days on that one).  These are the physically demanding years (don't even want to think about the emotionally demanding ones... I hope my heart can handle those years).  

So after rethinking my life a bit and lowering my expectations I think we have had a great end to this fun summer.  Even if we didn't get to everything we had planned. ;)  

Last Saturday we went to the splash pad as a family.  Splash pads are definitely our speed these days and the kids loved it.  

The bottom of the slide was Declin's favorite spot

I left for a little bit and went to the temple down the street (we were in Rexburg).  Then when I got back we had a picnic lunch and went on the carousel.  

  The older two kids were done in the water by the time I came back so no water pictures of them.

 They always love the carousel and it is so fun to ride it with them and see the excitement in their eyes.

Family time in the summer is the best no matter what you are doing!    

        

Preschool Prep

Preschool starts this week at our house.  Lots of my "free" has been spent organizing our preschool stuff, planning our weekly themes, and revamping our weekly schedule.

This will be Adalyn's last year of preschool before kindergarten next year and I want to make it a good one.  Part of me feels bad for not letting her have a true preschool experience with a real live teacher and friends.... BUT really I love teaching them and the "stay at home with mommy" years are so short anyways.  Why make them even shorter?  McKay thinks that I should home school until they are 8 years old, but that doesn't feel right for me yet.  So we are planning on sending her to school next year and we will go from there.  :)  Oh and this will be Jensen's first official year joining us, but he still has 3 years till kindergarten.

Last year I tried using someone else's curriculum that I found online and I didn't love it so this year we are doing our own thing.  I came up with themes to go with certain letters.  A is for Apple, etc.  We are not going in order of the alphabet, just doing which letter fits best.  Such as C is for Christmas at Christmas time.  We will change our theme every other week since I already know that I am not ambitious enough to change it every week.  Themes may be slightly tacky, but... just like matching my kids in coordinating clothes I love it!  So we do themes here, but they are probably more for me then them.    

We will try and do "preschool" Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday each week and save Monday and Friday for errands and other fun stuff.  Our focused preschool time will only last for about an hour each day unless we have a big project going on.  My main goal is to keep things simple enough that we actually stick to our plan.  Because the fancier I try to make something the less chance of me actually sticking to it.

As far as set up goes we have an extra coat closet in our house that I have turned into preschool closet.  The closet has 7 main shelves.  Each week I put out 6 educational activities that the kids can choose to work on.  I will be there playing/working with them the whole time.  The 7th shelf is for the books of the week that we will also read together.  My biggest focus is for us to just spend quality time together and learning something new is bonus.  We will also do calendar time, weather, letter of the week stuff, and memorize a scripture as we start each day.  The kids loved the mini circle time stuff last year so all I changed this year was adding in a calendar.  The calendar will be awesome since Adalyn is so curious about time, days, nights, weeks, etc.

The preschool closet is always a work in progress, but here is what it looked like at the end of last school year.
 

Not included in preschool time is music and dance that we usually do after lunch.  The kids love to listen to me sing silly songs or to dance to their favorite Disney songs.

If I get really ambitious at some point throughout the year I hope to have a couple holiday parties with their friends.  Such as a valentines party or Halloween party.  You know, to keep them social.  We also just got a zoo membership so that is a good place to escape to if we all just need a little fresh air, yet we can still feel like they are learning something.  We may even attempt the fire station someday (probably getting ahead of myself on that one) lol

Last year was a good trial run for how we wanted things to flow, but I am excited for this first full year.  I love preschool and watching my kids learn and grow!

          

  

Let's Celebrate- Adalyn's 4th Birthday

Addie's birthday was on a Monday this year, which doesn't always lead to a fun birthday, but when you are turning 4 in the summer time a Monday birthday works out great.

Birthday's are a huge deal to a 4 year old so we tried to make her feel special all day long.  I think in the end we were successful, although she has already started planning her "friend" party for her 5th birthday.

The night before her birthday as we were tucking her into bed she asked when her friends were coming over the next day for her birthday party.  For a moment I felt terrible since none of her friends would be joining us, but luckily my sister, Mykelti,was coming over and that did the trick to distract her from the lack of friends.

Her day started out with a little birthday decor.  Balloons and a birthday sign made her so giddy and excited!

After Mykelti arrived we headed out for some birthday fun or as much as I could muster with $15.  :)  We ended up going to the party store and letting each of the kids pick out a "special" balloon.  They though this was so much fun I think I will make it a tradition for every birthday.  Although don't leave balloons in hot cars because they don't last very long (sorry Addie).  Also don't let your 2 year old take his balloon for a walk outside (sorry Jensen).  But hey I love watching money float away.  ;)

After our balloon shopping we headed to Leos place.  Leos place is a local pizza place that has arcade games and a massive indoor play ground.  I went there as a kid, but this was our first time back since moving to Idaho Falls.  I have an indoor play place phobia, but we went for the sake of childhood memories.  We were the first ones there for the day so that gave me some comfort.

Adalyn is fairly cautious though so she loved the little rides and the arcade games more then the playground.

Mykelti and I even had fun playing a few games.

That night we did the traditional birthday dinner, presents, and cake and ice cream after McKay got home from work.  We got Adalyn a her first bike and she LOVES it.  But has a little bit of practicing to do to get the hang of it.  :) Grandparents got her some baby dolls and a game.  She has already picked her favorite baby from the bunch and it comes everywhere with us now.

 
   She choose the flavor of cupcakes.  We ended up making these ones and we had fun making them together.  Oh and they tasted delicious!

She loved having us sing to her and being the "special" one for the day.  She even let Jensen blow out one of her candles.  For a 4 year old I think that was pretty good!  

I loved her birthday and spending the day celebrating her and I hope she did too! 

We love you Adalyn! 

Happy 4th Birthday Adalyn!

Newborn.

One. 

Two.

 

Three.

Four.

Happy 4th Birthday Adalyn!  

You are so special to us and a wonderful addition to our family.  You love dress-ups, baby dolls, and coloring.  You love friends and thrive on spending time with them.  You want to be just like mommy and love it when our shoes match.  You and Jensen are the best of friends and you love creating little stories for you guys to play.  You love Dragon Tales on netflix and have the little song memorized.  Your favorite color is pink followed closely by green.  You have been looking forward to your birthday for months.

So we hope you enjoy it and know that we love you!