The Jumper-roo

Man oh man, this little man is growing up too fast. I just recently decided (or realized?!) that Parker is old enough and big enough to sit in his little jumper-roo. Both of the other kids loved this toy, and it always bought me extra time to get stuff done while they were happily bouncing away in there. Parker isn't there quite yet, but I have high hopes for our third born:) One major difference is that Parker has A LOT of help at anything he does. Something Eli definitely didn't have since he was the first, and some Kamdyn didn't have to deal with either because Eli just didn't care much. But poor Parker......any time I set him down somewhere or place him somewhere new, his brother and sister are soon there by his side, or in his face, or half-way laying on top of him. You get the picture. This kid rarely gets a moment to himself, which is probably why he has some major meltdowns when I leave him alone. The constant companionship is sometimes good and sometimes bad. There are a lot of things I think Parker might like better if he didn't have so much brother/sisterly help and interaction. One of them being the jumper. But he is still pretty small and can't play with a lot of the toys yet because he's not sure how to work all the bells and whistles on that thing. And once he learns to jump in it, I think he will be hooked. Or I hope he will be:)

Either way, his first time in the jumper he was a happy camper. Gotta love new toys!
HA! You can see Kamdyn in the background of this picture.....pretty sure she's having a meltdown (probably the 80th of the day, and this was morning folks!) because I told her she couldn't climb on here with her brother in it. Oh the unfairness of it all!!!
See what I mean about always having help?:) This kid is rarely left to himself.


Such a big boy! He makes me happy:) And drives me crazy, but I do love him so.

Look who started cereal!!!

The most handsome little man sure did!

I finally got on the ball and started Parker on rice cereal. His first little taste of food (so glad he doesn't know all food isn't this gross, because this stuff tastes like cardboard....I know, I've tried it). I always start rice cereal on my kids around 4 months. Not because it miraculously helps them sleep better through the night (never makes a difference in my kids' sleep patterns), but because I want them to get used to the spoon for when they really start the good mush:) Parker started this about a month later than his brother and sister. Maybe subconsciously I was trying to delay this little babe of mine from growing up, but really, I just kept forgetting. I've had a box of the stuff waiting for his approval (or disapproval) since he was about 3 1/2 months old. Finally broke out the bowl and spoon about 2 weeks ago:)

I was pretty prepared for Parker to hate this stuff. Neither Eli nor Kamdyn were a fan of this stuff in the beginning. I was wrong. He is our first kid who actually liked it! And, he's already a pro with a spoon. Most kids (or at least our other two) were never really sure about what the heck to do with the spoon. Parker was opening his mouth like a pro after the second bite. He opens his mouth for me every time, and sometimes even gets a little impatient if I'm not fast enough for him. He still makes an amazing mess, but he gets far more in his mouth than I remember the other two doing for only being at it for two weeks. He's just trying to catch up to big brother and sister. He doesn't have far to go to catch up to his big sister on height and weight:):)

And now some pictures.

Warning: there are probably more pictures than most of you think necessary for the capturing of a Parker's first rice cereal experience, but I just could pick any less.....he's so stinking cute!!!

The infamous first bite face. Gotta love it. He's gotta be thinking....."that's not my milk!?!"

"Wait a minute. THis stuff isn't too bad!"
The only thing to do while you wait for mom to get another spoonful of cardboard-y goodness is chew on your bib. Yum Yum!
He got to where he started trying to "help" me. He was making sure I guided the spoon to the right place:)

And this is what started happening when I was too slow for his liking.

The Invites

I got the invitation idea for Kamdyn's birthday from this site I almost bought some from her, but then changed my mind and thought, nah, I can easily make those myself. I'm just too cheap! And I will never turn down an excuse to get some cute pictures of my kids:) I enlisted the help of my friend Allison (are you seeing a pattern here?? Allison pretty much takes all of my pictures. Thanks Allison!!) to take some pictures for the invitation. They were soooo cute! All I really needed was one good one, but I got two fabulous ones.

This was the other possibility for the invitation. It was a hard choice, so I think this picture just may have to go on some thank you notes so it can be used too:)

And here is the finished product. I loved the way it turned out. Maybe it has something to do with the cute little model on the front:) Either way, I'm glad I just decided to do them myself.

Milk and Cookies

To celebrate Kamdyn turning two, we had a milk and cookies party. Best. Idea. Ever. Wish I could claim it as my own idea, but I stole it. Original idea or not, it was fabulous. I love cookies (well to be fair, I love any kind of sweet, but cookies are awesome). And what are cookies without milk?!?! Such a fun party to have, and even though it's been used, I think I may have to do this again sometime in the future.

I made five different types of cookies.....well, a fabulous friend made one type for me (THANKS LIZ!!!!) and I actually bought one more.....but still, I made a lot of cookies. We had chocolate chip, oatmeal chocolate chip, peanut butter, no-bake, and snickerdoodles. Yummy!!! I also had some cupcakes and peanuts and chex mix. All the good stuff you know. I failed on being a mommy for the day because I was frantically trying to bake about 12 dozen cookies, but I'm hoping I made up for it that night with all the delicious snacks and a house full of friends.

We certainly had a house full. So thankful that the basement is finished, because it made things a bit more bearable. The kids pretty much played downstairs and the adults congregated upstairs. Don't worry, we had two 5 year old supervisors watching over all the kids:) Just kidding, kind of.....there was adult supervision with the kids downstairs too. B said he counted, and including babies in-utero, there were 15 kids there! And that's not even counting the adults. So like I said, it was crowded. But so fun. So many people to love on our little girl and make her feel special on her special day. We are certainly blessed! I think I can safely say it was a successful second birthday party for Kamdyn.

But to some pictures. My fabulous friend, Allison, brought over her camera and took some pictures for me between trips to the cookie table (it was hard to resist the pull of those cookies). I'm so thankful she was willing to take a few, because otherwise this party probably would have gone undocumented. Thanks Allison!!

The cupcakes....do you like my tiered cupcake stand? I finally made one! I've seen tutorials on these for ages and have been wanting to do it, but just put it off. What better excuse than a party!!

Gotta love milk. Especially with cookies. Enough said.
The cookie spread. So delicious. I had to send my mom with all the leftovers because I was eating them by the dozen each day. Might as well just go hook myself up with an iv of sugar!
Kamdyn's sweet friend and cousin getting ready to sing her Happy Birthday.

She clearly likes her cupcakes:) I was helping her before this, but when I set it down to do something else, she took matters into her own hands. Or should I say mouth. This was a no-hands kind of thing.
Yummy....gotta love the frosting up the nose.

Parker's future wife was there too. She's just too cute. Love those little chimpmunk cheeks!!
Kamdyn with her gifts. She was less than enthusiastic about opening gifts this time, but mostly because she was distracted by her friends and just wanted to open one gift and then play with it. She has a short attention span:)


Thanks to everyone who came and celebrated with Kamdyn on her birthday!

P.S. I will have to do a separate post on her invitation. It was so stinking cute (or so I thought, but I may be a little biased)

She's two

And such a sassy little thing. I know everyone says it, but I can't really believe that this little firecracker is already 2! She's growing up right before my eyes, and yet, at times not quite fast enough:) She may not be the first kid I've survived with to the two's, but she's my first girl.....And let me tell you, she wears me out on so many levels!!!!

She's such a sweet little soul, so loving, kind-hearted, full of life. Always the first to give hugs and kisses and say I'm sorry. She's our little pixie. But don't let her size fool you. This girl can be a handful. She went to the dr. last week for her 2 year check. She weighs 23 (almost 24 pounds) and is only 31 1/2 inches tall. It was so funny. They always tell you what the kids are percentage wise on the charts. Kamdyn's weight and height have always been in very low percents....like 3 percent or something. It was funny because our dr. told me she was in the 30th percentile for her weight (last time she was seriously in the 3rd percent or something). I made a comment like, "woo hoo Kamdyn, you are getting up there!" Our dr. just started laughing and said, "but her height isn't." She is 1 percentile for her height. Our little shrimp!!

Anyways......

She's a sweet little lover, but she is also highly opinionated, and, at two, discovering her voice quite well, and test every boundry she can. She cries. A LOT. Life is sure tough when you are two.....And a girl. She's our eater. I'm so thankful for that. Even though she doesn't necessarily like everything I give her, she's at least willing to give it a shot. Such a change from big brother.
I am often at my breaking point with this child before 8 a.m. every day. She is so dramatic. She wears me out! There is lots of whining and crying when it comes to Kamdyn. But I love her so. While I'm so thankful that God knows what we need and gave me two boys, I'm thankful he gave me one little girl to love on as well.

I will share birthday pictures next!!

Let's Jump

The kids got a trampoline from their grandpa for Christmas. It's pretty amazing. And at the insistence of one of my dear friends (she wanted Eli's bff to come over and jump with him:)), Brian was a champ and got out to the backyard and put it up one afternoon. One of the many perks of having a hubby that's a teacher.....we got to spend lots of time with him over break. The kids loved it! Daddy is definitely more fun than mommy:)

Someday they will appreciate me too though because I fix them dinner and wash their cloths. That counts for something, right?!?

Anyways, my dad got them this trampoline for the back yard. It's got a safety net all the way around (as you can probably see), so you don't have to worry about little kiddos falling or bouncing out. They love it. It's been ever better because so far this winter we have had fabulous weather. It's been in the 50 and 60's a lot, and we've been soaking up all the beautiful weather and opportunities to be outside in December and January that we can. We need to move somewhere where the coldest it gets is 40 in the winter. And where it's really sunny. I love me some sun! But I also hate huge cities, lots of traffic, and it's pretty much totally necessary for ALL of our family and my fabulous friends to move with me. Don't know what I'd do without all of them! So, maybe let's get on that guys?!?!

Ok, enough of my rambling off the subject. The kids love to go out and jump and chance they get. They do really well with it too. It's pretty cute to watch. I have a feeling I'm (and daddy too!!!! (hint hint)) are going to have to get a lot better about picking up dog poop since I foresee the kids spending a lot of time in the backyard.

4months

This little man is 4 months old.....creeping dangerously close to 5 months old as we speak. And I'm not real sure how I feel about that. I haven't yet given him permission to grow up. In fact, I'd rather we just froze time with him right now.

I could be a mama to babies probably forever. It's just my favorite stage. Toddlers not so much. I love all my children dearly, but I don't enjoy the toddler phase. But man do I love this sweet baby stage. They are demanding and exhausting in their own way, but I adore it.

I feel like I am cherishing these moments with this little man more than the other two. B says we're done (and I'm ok with that only because I can't handle those toddlers!!!! I told some of my girlfriends the other day that we probably shouldn't have a house-full of kids just because I enjoy being pregnant, delivery, and the baby stage. HA!), so maybe I'm trying to enjoy every moment of baby that I can. Because already he is changing before my eyes. Becoming less like a baby, and more like a little boy. Each day brings him closer to less dependence on me and more independence for himself. Each day marks a day closer to reaching a new milestone in his life. Each day brings him one day closer to becoming that ornery toddler that I know he's going to be:)

And while I'm not REALLY okay with that, I am:) I'm excited to experience life with three older kids. I'm excited to see them experience life as they grow and see all of them change. I'm excited to do special things for the first time with all of them, and to create fun memories as a family with them. I'm excited to exit out of the toddler years and into the next fabulously challenging stage:)

But for now you can bet I am soaking up the baby-ness of my third. My sweet baby boy. Because before I know it, and LONG before I'm ready, he's not going to be a baby anymore.

Man, that was sappy. Which wasn't my intention when I set out writing this post. Must be feeling sentimental or something today:) But isn't he handsome!?! He is growing like a weed too. Can't remember all of his stats from his 4 month check because our doctor's office is changing their computer systems, and my print outs are different now. But, he was 14 lbs 4 oz. Getting to be a little chunk. And I'm pretty sure he is getting to be pretty close to being just as long as his big sister:)

Finished room, and I'm DEFINITELY sleeping in here now

Several weeks ago, I showed you the makeover of Kamdyn's room. It was mostly done at the time, but I've added a few more things. And it's official, I'm totally in love. And jealous. Wish our room was as fun as Kamdyn's! And really, she could care less right now. She would have been perfectly happy with it the way it was before. But I sure like this better for my only girl!

I decided that I wanted to do some bunting around the top of the room. Mostly just because there was one corner in particular that I felt was way too bare. I could have bought it, but some of the buntings you can buy are kind of pricey. So I got some fun fabric and just did it myself. It was so easy (and a whole lot cheaper than what most places charge for it!) All I had to do was trace/cut out triangles and then straight stitch all of them together. Easy peasy. Here's her finished room!!

We also got her her very own "reading" chair after Christmas. Eli's huge chair like this is just about the most comfortable thing in the world, so I wanted Kamdyn to have one too (mostly just because I wanted a comfortable place to sit when I was in there!) She likes it too though:)
Here's the original reason for doing my bunting (or Nepalese prayer flags as B refers to them:)- they remind him of the prayer flags you see at the top of Mt. Everest) I felt like this corner was too empty. The picture frames were just a last minute add in. The kids have a book (it's actally you are my sunshine), and Kamdyn loves to read it and sing the song too. I also just love the pictures and colors in the book. So I just scanned the pages and printed them off on computer paper and then framed them and hung them up.
Her room makes me happy:) I hope she thinks so too when she get older!

State of the art technology here

Sorry for the absence around here the last few weeks. I always say I will be better about posting, but then I get too lazy to go down the stairs to upload pictures so I can post stuff happening in our lives. Oh well. Here's to doing some catch up now!

Did you know we can listen to music anywhere in our house?!? I walked around the corner one day to put some laundry in Parker'r room to discover that some headphones had been "plugged in" to our door knob. Our two year old thinks the door knob is a viable candidate for headphones. Wonder what kind of jams she rocking out to on there:) Too funny!

It' January 1, so let's talk about Christmas:)

Christmas came and went in a whirlwind. I always feel like it is so far off, then it sneaks up on me, and before I have time to blink, it's over. We've finally dug out of the mess that became our house.....the toys and trash were overtaking it. And I was losing my mind......it's very possible that I'm still crazy:), but at least the mess in the house is getting more bearable (I can't blame it on Christmas anymore.....now it's just daily living with 3 small children).

We had a great Christmas. It was busy, but full of lots of family, good food, and fun. I know why big holidays only come around once a year, it takes that long to recover! Or to save up the money until next year:) In our family, December and January are saturated with birthdays as well as Christmas. Anyways, that's beside the point. We had a great weekend celebrating Jesus' birth with family. The kids were spoiled like crazy (big surprise here) and are throughly enjoying playing with their new things. So here's a little review in pictures. If I was less lazy, I would probably break this up into different posts, or at least put the pictures in a fun collage. BUT, I'm lazy:) So just bear with me.

First celebration: Granny and Papa's house on Friday
Kamdyn definitely got the hang of opening presents this year. She just went right to town and had a blast pulling her new things out of the bags and boxes.

Funny story......Kamdyn got this doll from Brian's Aunt Susan. It plays a song and dances. This quickly became a favorite of hers. That's all fine, but it only plays one song. And she likes to listen to it. Over. And over. And over. And over. We pretty much all have the song memorized (or maybe I just tell myself this so I don't feel like such a dork every time I sing along with it:)) Kamdyn has even started singing along, which is so stinking cute. The funny thing is that it annoys Eli more than anyone else. He gets so mad when she plays with that over and over. He is always trying to take it away from her and says, "mommy, will you take sissy's dolly away?" Too bad for him, I won't. It's not like she's the only one whose ever had an annoying toy........it's cute to see how much she loves it:) And the song is a catchy little tune:)

Second celebration: Grandpa Bob's house on Saturday
This little girl is such a lover. She makes me smile. We don't see my grandparents very often (totally my fault), but she acts like they are the best of friends every time she sees them. I know it brings them so much joy. She was loving sitting by my grandpa this day. He was just thrilled that this little munchkin was spending so much time with him:)
His smile melts my heart. I love him so much!

Eli is pretty good at the present opening thing too:) He stocked up on trains at grandpa's house, so he was one happy camper.
Little lover had to show her equal affection. Who knows what she was telling great-grandma about, but have no doubt that it was very profound.

Third celebration: Our house Christmas morning

Final Christmas: Nana's and Grandpa's house Christmas day


Eli got some really great things at my moms (and he loves everything NOW), but his cousin James got a set of train tracks.....Eli saw them on the floor and thought they were his. When I told him they weren't his, he had a break down. A serious one! I ended up opening the rest of his presents for him. Toddlers.
An attempt at a cousin picture. This is only going to be current for another month (can't wait to meet my new nephew!!). I think our error here was that I told each one of the kids that they could help hold Parker to get them all on the couch. There just wasn't enough of that little man to go around. Sorry Parker!!! I shouldn't have sold you out for a group shot (sadly this is the only group shot I have....and I didn't even get any family pictures. Fail!)

That was our Christmas in a nutshell. Lots of fun, but busy. I love the holidays, but they sure wear me out!