Wednesday, October 31, 2012

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
 

Monday, October 29, 2012

Because tomorrow is the Halloween party at school...

So, what were you guys up to at 11:30 tonight? What's that? NOT making a pterodactyl crest? Well, that makes one of us!  Here's my creation:
Seriously difficult to take a picture like this.


And let's not forget creating a Diego costume from scratch earlier this evening, 'round about 9:30.
 
Gotta love the combination of holidays + procrastination!

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Pumpkin Pickers

Obligatory pumpkin patch post:
 
Hey, we got pumpkins!  Like every *totally awesome* parent should, we went to the pumpkin patch and took pictures.  It was pretty much NOT picturesque, it was so windy, but it was sunny so we hadn't brought jackets for the kids and they were freezing, so we just grabbed the first pumpkin we saw and got back to the car. 
 
Smile, Caroline, so we can get the pumpkin and get back in the car!

Why are we still out here taking pictures? We're all freezing!
 
Kari picked out a nice pumpkin for Amelia and smuggled one for herself under her shirt. You only THINK she's pregnant so she can get free pumpkins. 
 
Joe was the first to retire to the car since Eli was a total wuss. He didn't even pick out his own pumpkin. 
 
Jonathan guarded Addilyn and Ethan while the big kids (minus Eli) found their perfect carving canvases.  

The excursion wasn't a bust, though, as we had the Phelps over for dinner afterward and we warmed up with some cranberry bread we bought at the store at the patch.  And, of course, we got our pumpkins!

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Recovering

Ethan turned 1 month old... last week! Time flies.  He's getting nice and chubby and is sloooowly increasing his sleep stretches up to 3 hours at a time (if I'm lucky he'll do it twice in one night! I was definitely NOT lucky last night, he woke up every hour).

I'm recovering very well, continuing to take things slowly even though sometimes it feels like "c'mon, you should be back to 100% by now!" I suppose that's one of the benefits of considering this our last time - I'm in much less of a hurry.  In fact, I'm torn about the baby weight. On one hand I definitely hate not fitting most of my clothes and can't wait to get back to being toned; on the other hand, what if this is the last baby weight I ever have? It's the last things I can hold onto of pregnancy, I can be toned for the rest of my life, why be in such a rush to get it off me like it's a disease or something?  So I'm torn.

NOT torn enough to skip the gym, though! Joe and I signed our family up for the Pueblo Athletic Club last night so I got to go to the gym for the first time since we moved away from Thornton (where I went to the gym through my first trimester, when we moved). I am so excited!  The club is less expensive (including child care) than Fitness 19 was AND it has racquetball courts, a pool (one indoor, two outside), workout classes, and their daycare has an indoor playplace! SO NICE!! Don't worry, mom,  I just went on the eliptical for 30 minutes, nothing strenuous, and Joe stayed home with the kids. I am seriously excited to use those racquetball courts, but I definitely need to feel more put-together (my insides still feel squishy and not-quite-in-place) before I go sprinting around after a ball. Still, it felt really good to be at the gym again and I'm looking forward to going all the time.





In other areas of my recovery, I feel like I'm recovering a lot of my former self lately. With that beautiful piano in my living room I've sat down to play nearly every day, whether it's 5 minutes or an hour.  Yep, I actually practiced one hour one night! As soon as my fingers hit the keys either Eli or Patrick yells, from wherever they are causing mischief, "beautiful piano playing, mommy!"  Joe tells the kids to quiet down so they can listen me play. Warms my heart :)  Also kinda makes me feel like a piano rock star!  Maybe they're buttering me up because they're causing serious mischief... At any rate, playing piano was a big part of me, so while I didn't have a piano I was missing a big part of myself, but it couldn't be helped so I just enjoyed it whenever I could accompany in church and left it at that.  Now? SO AWESOME, and I love being able to practice my talent for myself.

My kiss-ups ;)

Scrapbooking has also helped me recover myself, as Kari and I have finally made dates to get together and scrapbook!  Mostly it's just catching up, I haven't had a chance to whip out any scrap masterpeices, but it feels really great to be working on it again.  I honestly haven't scrapbooked a single thing since last Christmas, when I was working on an art project for my dad and my scrapbooking table was taken over by that, then I got pregnant and tired, then we moved and my stuff was all packed up, then we moved again and it was all a mess... but now, on Sunday nights, we get our pictures out and do a few paged while the kids sleep and I love it.

All in all, I'm feeling much better because I'm feeling myself again!  What a way to recover.  

Sunday, October 21, 2012

100% change of moisture

Guys, Ethan is disgusting.

Yeah, he was gross when he was born, but this isn't about that. Now he continues to gross me out every day in sundry and exciting ways! Every day, without fail, he will poop on me. As a seasoned veteran in the diaper wars you'd think I would be so swift and stealthy I would never get fecal matter on me, but no. Either as I whisk away the old diaper and swoop in the fresh on he will let it fly (he's super-gassy so it's jet-propelled and actually flies, through the air) so my hand is between him and the diaper, or else he'll just poop so much or so forcefully that he has a blowout and it soaks through his clothes onto me.  Not awesome.  If it's not poop, it's pee!  He feels very *inspired* in the fresh air and pees all over the place - his clothes, me, the blankets, and four times now he has peed on his own face.  His own face! That's disgusting. It's it's not poop OR pee, it's spit-up.  I've had a touch of spit-up here or there, but none of my other kids were very spitty, so I am totally unprepared for the white, chunky deluge that hits me every time I burp him. Or carry him in the crook of my arm facing me. Or carry him facing forward so the chunks hit my pants and my toes and the floor.  It is just ridiculous how much and how often he spits up! And now it's ridiculous how complacent I am about having spit-up crust in my hair. "Eh, still good! After all, he's only going to do it again in 20 minutes." So I find myself, one way or another, constantly wet for being around him.

There you have it. Babies are gross. Ethan happens to be the grossest.

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Buddies

Who DOESN'T want to be held like this?
 
Well, anyway, I think it's safe to say Ethan was born with some ready-made buddies.  The boys LOVE him, especially Eli.  Well, especially Patrick, too, but Eli goes above and beyond to make sure Ethan knows it.  He always asks to hold Ethan on his lap, gives him pats and strokes his head, and suggests at the slightest whimper that I need to give him "my milks" (much less embarassing to call them that so he doesn't shout "boobs" in a public place. Like church.)

 
Ethan is doing VERY well, he was already up to 8 lbs 9 oz by his 2-week appointment, so he's gaining weight at an atrociously fast pace (in my opinion).  Sleeping in 2-3 hour stretches but now with 2 distrinct awake periods per day. Don't worry, this info is for me more than you because I've been terrible at journaling, so I'm jotting it down while I'm here on blogger. He actually has a very calm demeanor (again, I was so wrong!) and seems to like looking at faces.  At least, when he's fussing alone it calms him down to suddenly have three giant melons in front of his face, cooing "it's okay, baby Eeth, I'm here!" and patting him incessantly.  Funny thing is, I mentioned how Ethan and I are buddies and he calms down when I hold him and talk to him (versus poor grandma) but he ALSO seems to know Patrick.  I told Patrick to talk to him in my belly, and apparantly it worked!  Ethan doesn't react to the other kids' voices, but he turns toward Patrick when he talks to him.  Soon enough, this new buddy will join the bicycle gang out front :) 

Saturday, October 13, 2012

All Grown Up

While my mom was here I commented, and she agreed, that this house finally feels like our "grown up" house.  We've lived in apartments, both small and extra-extra-extra-teeny-tiny, and then we had our first house, our "project house," but now I feel like we're settled into a home.
 
First and foremost on my mind was that we have all of our children here (all of them as far as I know, I'm not swearing "no more kids, ever!" because that will obviously make God strike my overly-fertile womb with yet another small one just to tell me "shows you how much you know!"), and it's nice to have them here and just watch them grow, rather than growing them from scratch.  The second thing was that it's complete.  Weeeelllll, "complete" may be stretching the truth, but it's not a 3-year project like the Thornton house was.  It is comfortably complete, I should say. The third thing is this:

 
I GOT A FREAKING PIANO!
 
It magically appeared in my living room one afternoon while I was playing at the park with the kids, and I cried when I saw it. It's gorgeous, right?? I have always, always wanted a piano; I played and competed for years when I was growing up and I've enjoyed playing for other various things even after I quit lessons, but I never had anything I could practice on.  I dreamed of owning one of my own some day, and felt like when I did my house would be all grown up... and that day is now here!  Congratulations, Kirsta, you're all grown up and so is your home.  And thank you to everyone who made the piano happen, you know me better than I know myself sometimes.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Small One

It seems with each of our kids we've had a song that we sing to/about them, though it's not necessarily related to their name. 
 
Patrick we sang a little tune we created, "small man, small man, he does the things he can."  Sorry, no video!
 
Eli we sang the theme from "the good, the bad and the ugly" with his nickname, Boo, so it went "Boo-ee-oooo-ee-oooo.... wah wah waaaaaah...."
 
Caroline we sang plenty of "Sweet Caroline," of course, but we MOSTLY sang "Little sister"
 
 
With Ethan I've taken to singing "Small One," from an old Disney/Don Bluth short film.  I don't know how I picked it (actually, I'm not sure how most of our nicknames and songs come about, they just do!) but it sure seemed to fit, and it's nice to remind myself that even though he's growing at an atrociously fast pace he still is my small one :) 

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Bicycle Gang

So this is how we spend our days around here: on bikes in the front yard. It's the easiest thing for me, honestly. Since the kids aren't allowed in the front yard without an adult I just have to sit out there, and while I sit I may as well have a good book... they love their bikes like I love my literature and everyone's happy!
 
See? Happy.
Happy.
Happy.
And still more happy! 
I will only be sad when fall turns to winter and it's too dang cold to ride bikes and read books outside.




Monday, October 8, 2012

M-o-m spells "pampered"

My mom is the most wonderful person ever! You might think your mom is better, but you're wrong.  (Maybe that's why I also have the best sisters ever, too?)  She brought her wonderful self to Pueblo for the week and, in her usual fashion, we made a list of things to do while she was here.

#1. Hang out.  Check!
 
 
 #2. Organize. 


CHECK!

 
I don't have a "before" picture of the pantry, but trust me - it wasn't as neat and orderly as this, and there wasn't even nearly this amount of food in it when we started!  So we are seriously awesome.

We kept ourselves very busy and had a GREAT week. I said "I know how I'm going to get by once you're gone, but I sure don't want to!" Sure enough, less than 12 hours alone (Joe is back at work, too) I yelled at my kids, was fatigued to the point of tears, let the kids watch entirely too much TV because I needed a nap, and failed to start my full dishwasher.  Oh well.  Reality, here we come!

Sunday, October 7, 2012

2nd Impressions

Turns out, some of my impressions about Ethan were wrong! Yep, he still has the loudest scream of any newborn I've heard when he gets upset, BUT he no longer gets upset so much. Instead, he has taken to having nice awake periods, hanging out with me and his siblings. My mom stayed the week with us to help me out (and it was the best week ever, but more on that later) and during one project he was awake and grumpy while she held him but pretty content with me - I feel like he knows we're good friends!  Or else he was playing nice to get my milk...  but anyway, I'm SO relieved to find he's a much calmer baby than impression #1 led me to believe.

Here's Ethan being grumpy and loud with dad...
 
...And Ethan being grumpy and loud with Caroline (who seems not so impressed to have a new baby brother anymore)

 Here's Ethan with his new, nicer attitude.  Much more my style :)