New Year's

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Four Months

Wesley had his four month appointment today, was a mistake this close to Christmas. He is not handling the shots very well. So needless to say we may have a grumpy baby. His new weight is 16 IBS. 8 OZ, length I forgot to write the exact amount but I do remember they said 80 percentile. This little guy has been a great blessing in our home. He has a smile and laugh that can always make me smile. For the most part he is the happiest baby ever, I couldn't have asked for a better baby. So you know something is wrong when he cries constantly. It is really fun to see him try so hard to roll over. Tummy time is not one of his favorite things to do.

Bows and Wrapping

I certainly have a child that loves everything about Christmas, especially wrapping presents. Finally after putting him off for a few hours I gave in and let him wrap one of his presents. He actually did a pretty good job of it, we used a lot of tape :) Then Chan's next request or demand was to bake cookies for Santa. He kept saying that Christmas Eve is too late, we need to do it right now!!! And then we ran out of bows, so we had to stop at the store after Wesley's doctor appointment. Luckily the store was not too crazy. The parking lot was a nightmare, people turn into crazys right about now. So with bows in hand, buying only bows is impossible when you have three little hands grabbing everything. We went home and he had to put bows on all the presents that people had sent us. Needless to say we only bought a bag with 15 bows, somehow they are all gone. We are not going to the store tommorrow to get more. Tommorrow will probably be the same thing...we need to wrap presents, bake cookies and buy bows.

We were hit with a large snow storm, at least a foot if not more. It will take awhile to dig out.

Pics of our cutie

Wesley has become so much fun to have around. He has started to reach and grab things in his little hands. He has also started to smile and laugh a lot more now too. His siblings definitely love this little guy, always wanting to be around him.

Bread

Nate and I stole a Lion House cook book from his parents years ago and love to try recipes from there. Nate tried this bread recipe and it turned out fabulous. He did an excellent job on it.

Winter day fun

A few weeks ago we got our first snow storm, it was quite the storm. The night before we got all the snow stuff out and Lexie wanted to sleep in her boots. This little gal does not have a sheet on her bed if you noticed because she has a tendency to take her diaper off. That is the reason for the garbage sack on her pillow :), great gal. Nate and the kids had fun building a snowman and trying to sled down our little hill in back. Yes my crazy husband was wearing shorts, I keep telling him he needs to go buy some pants. A few days later for FHE we went and saw the lights at a local park, it was a great way to spend an evening.

Lexie..what can you say?

Why is it that when you are running late for church, kids find something to get into to make you even later? Nate had left at 7:30 to pick up some of the french members, so it left me to get five of us ready for church. We were almost ready and I walk upstairs and this is what I found. She loves to get into my makeup and usually I lock our bathroom door, so that she can't get into it. I think I started to cry, it had been one of those mornings. Lexie is quite the gal, she is always finding things to get into. I thought that Spencer got into alot of trouble and then Lexie grew up. I thought that our boys were dramatic, but now that she is almost two drama central. Every single day we go through about four meltdowns, because things are not going her way. Chan and Spence know what her buttons are and they push them a lot. It is fun to have a little girl around amongst boys, but sometimes she is a little handful :)

Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving this year was nice and cozy. We ended up having just the six of us for thanksgiving. We had a nice day filled with watching the parade and enjoying the chaos that is our household.

Dora and Airplanes

Lexie is obsessed lately with Dora the Explorer and airplanes. Every time she hears or sees an airplane we have to stop what we are doing and search for the airplane, it is hilarious. She has one outfit that has Dora on it and she insists on wearing that everyday. Well we were at Sam's a few days ago and happened to come across both in the toy section. Spence is always drawn to toys in every store we are in, and I was trying to hurry as fast as we could to get through. Lexie screams "stop, stop, stop", there on the shelf is a toy airport that talks. So of course we had to play with it and went to leave and she had the biggest meltdown, until we saw a Dora doll. I think we were in the toy section longer than it took us to get the four items we were there to get. Taking three kiddos to Sam's is quite the adventure:). The only way I could get Lexie out of the store was to tell her that Santa would bring her a Dora doll and an airplane. So ever since then she keeps saying, "Santa Dora awplane". I better make sure Santa brings those for her.

Halloween Fun

Last week was full of Halloween parties. Spence had a parade and special snacktime at preschool. Chandler had a parade and party at his school. The boys were sad that they were not able to wear their masks. We all had a party at Nate's work. They do a trick or treat, games, pizza, and desserts. Then on Halloween we had a halloween party at one of our friends houses. And then that night went trick or treating, too bad it was raining. I forgot to get pictures of the friends party and that night, oh well. Chan got a fever on friday night, so he was not able to attend the friends party or go trick or treating. Spence and Lexie got enough to share with him though.

Life with four

The past two months I have managed to post a lot of pictures and not a lot of how we are really doing. It is easy to post pics of the happy times of life lately, but that has not been reality. These past two months have been an adjustment that I am not sure will get any easier anytime soon. I have tried to stay positive, but post partum depression has made it hard to keep from breaking into tears at any moment. My house always looks like a tornado, and after the kiddos are in bed I am way too exhausted to do much cleaning. I hate living in chaos and always feeling overwhelmed with all that is going on. There have been tempers flaring all around, never thought I had this short of a fuse. Over the years I have lost the ever patient Jill and have been replaced by someone I care to not be at times. The other three kids have gotten more needy and aggressive. Poor Wesley has gotten his face pinched and scratched a number of times. Chandler seems to be the only one that does not have to be in Welsey's face all the time, poor kid can hardly eat without someone in his face poking him. Luckily for the most part he is a mellow baby. For some reason it takes him forty minutes to get through a feeding. We have gone from milk to soy, them back to milk. The last few days he has started to spit up a ton, when he has never done that before. You would think by the time you get to the fourth you would have everything down, I guess not in our case. I have never been one to want time to go quickly and now I am. Just thinking about winter and all the sicknesses we are bound to get almost gives me an anxiety attack. This is one depressing post, but I guess it is better to get these things out in the open. I am hopeful that things will turn up, they have just go to, right?

2 Month stats

Wesley had his two month visit last week and is growing right on schedule. He weighs 12 IBS 6 OZ and is 23 3/4 inches. He has started to smile whenever anyone he knows talks to him. Lexie has started to play poo-a-boo with him and he really likes playing that. He still takes forever when he eats, I am hoping that soon he will start to eat a little faster. He seems to not really be in any hurry to eat. Some of his hair has fallen out in the back and front and then has gotten some new in places. I am thinking that he is going to have the same hair color as Spence, we will see. Life has been really crazy with four, our house is always in chaos mode.

Green Meadows Farm

Last week Spence had his first field trip, he said he didn't have fun. Nate thought that he seemed to have a fun time. It looks like a fun place to visit, although it was on the pricey side.

Kitchen Kettle

Three Saturdays ago we went up to Amish Country, PA. We visited The Kitchen Kettle area. They have buggy rides that actually go through working Amish farms. It was fun to have the kids see and hear about the lives of the Amish. We stopped at a farm and bought homemade root beer and Lemonade, it was delicious :). My lovely allergies caught up to me, so it looked like I was crying through it. They have a playground the kids can play on and a bunch of fun shops. Each time we have gone we have gotten some yummy ice cream and kettle corn. This was our first whole family excursion, it turned out pretty good.

Stitches

Poor, poor Spencer he has not had the best of luck lately. On Saturday night Chandler and Spencer were taking a shower, wouldn't think it would be dangerous. The shower door was somehow pushed open and Chan went to close it and Spence's fingers were caught in the hinged part of the door. I was changing the laundry and Nate was getting changed for the priesthood session. We both go running in there and see blood all over the shower. At first I was thinking they had somehow gotten a hold of one of our razors and cut themselves. Nate kept saying we have to take him to the hospital. I guess the door had taken the padding part of one finger almost completely off, and another finger sliced pretty good. On the one he got five stitches and the other they put dermabond (which is a glue). Luckily Nate was the one that took him to the E.R., I am not sure if I would be able to stand them stitching him up. I am really glad that it hadn't happened ten minutes later, Nate would have been gone. I decided not to post pics, changing the band-aid this morning made me want to cry. I won't gross everyone out, we will keep that part to ourselves. Nate bought him Scooby-Doo band-aids, so that helps with the changing process. I feel bad for the little guy, hopefully he heals quickly and no permanent damage will occur. We hope that this is our only experience with stitches, wishful thinking probably.

Baltimore Zoo

Nate took the kids this past Saturday to the Baltimore Zoo. It is a good size zoo that not only has animals, but a fun place for the kids to play and feed animals. Chandler did not enjoy the hour or so drive, he was thinking that they were never coming back home. He seems to have a hard time since we moved to MD with longer drives than about 15 minutes. The kiddos seemed to have had a great time. In a few weeks we will start actually going places as a whole family.

Wesley 5 weeks old

Here are some updated pics of Wesley. It is amazing how fast they grow. When I took him for his one month he weighed 9 IBS. 10 OZ and was 23 inches, so he had gained two pounds and a little over an inch since birth. He is a pretty good baby, he cries really loud when he is hungry. For the most part he eats pretty good, just really slow. And he is the hardest baby to burp, you could be doing it for a good twenty minutes before he burps. Like most newborns he loves to be held and talked to, which Nate would say I do too much. It is really hard not to want to cuddle with this cutie all day....but I guess there are other things that need to be done. The kids have really been good with him. They want to hold and love on him all the time, he doesn't enjoy when he is trying to eat.

Sisterly Love

I was changing Wesley and Lexie came up and asked to hold her brother. She definitely loves to hold him every chance that she gets. For the most part she is really good with him. Every once in a while she will come up to him and smack him on the face. He is pretty good, he usually just looks at me at gets a really sad face. It probably really shocks him that she would hit him. I was thinking she would have a really hard time adjusting, but it hasn't been too bad.

Phillips Farm Birthday Party

Chandler had a friend from preschool last year that had invited us to her 6th birthday party. They were the best of friends, that is all he talked about when he would get home. Unfortunately she goes to a different elementary, but we still get together every once in a while. It was at Phillips Farm where they took a hayride, feed some animals, got to pick out a pumpkin, had pizza, a bonfire, pinata, and smores. It was quite the party, the kids really enjoyed it.

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Carnival

A few Saturdays ago we had a little carnival in our community. I took the boys over to enjoy the festivities. They had two moonbounces, balloon popper, facepainting, treats, and a rockwall. We stood in line for a half hour to get their faces painted. Spencer really wanted a Batman across his face like Chan, but of course would not hold still. So he had to settle for one on the cheek. It was a fun afternoon, and best of all it was for free :).

Real Life...

For the past three weeks, since Wesley's birth I have had extra helping hands and starting tomorrow real life sets in. Nate had the week right after his birth off, that was great for him to spend some time with the other three kiddos. My mom flew in and helped for a week and then my dad flew in for a few days. I think we really wore my mom out with all the energy my kids have. The day that my parents flew out Nate's parents came, perfect timing. Through all the changing of people I only had a few hours which I was on my own. On Friday Nate's parents flew home, so the three weeks of help are over. I am forever grateful for all of the help that our parents gave while they were here. They were probably glad to be going home after being in our crazy household. It is always a sad thing to see your parents leave and know that it will be quite some time before you see them again. I am a little nervous to see if we can get Chandler on the bus on time, it might be a little rough the first little while. Having four is a lot more nerve racking than I had anticipated it would be. The other three kiddos have had a little bit of a hard time adjusting to having Wesley here. They seem to be acting out more than I had thought that they would. I keep telling myself just take it one day at a time, we are bound to get a semi normal household (hopefully:) ). Thanks again to our wonderful families for their support and for Nate he has done a great job entertaining the other kiddos.

Spencer's first day of Preschool

He was not too happy with me trying to take his picture. He was really excited to be going to preschool. He did fairly well, I think he thought they would just play all day. Instead they had a schedule that they followed, big surprise to him. Nate's parents came out for a few days to help and Spence decided to take a picture of them.