Little Growing Emery-4 Months

This sweet girl is already 4 months old. Her time as my sweet baby has been spent a little differently than my other two. Things have been so busy and some days I feel like she is just along for the ride. Some days the guilt of this is more than I can handle. Then there are other days I purposely cancel everything just to sit and cuddle her all day. I miss that. I love when she falls asleep when I hold her. I love her smiles and giggles. I love the joy she has brought into our family. I love how the girls love her and talk to her and about her like she is the best thing in the world. She is a fantastic baby and so mellow. She eats every 3 hours during the day...most of the time I have to wake her up. She still nurses most of the time but has a bottle if she needs a little extra. She has a bath every evening before having a bottle and heading to bed. She is in size 3-6 months and size 1 diapers. She has started waking up 1x a night for the last couple weeks but I hope she will balance herself out soon and get back to sleeping at night...I would really love that. Her hair is feeling in faster than her sisters has and it is a light brown color rather than blonde. At her 4 month check she was

weight-12 lbs 12 oz(20%)

height-24 1/4 in(30%)

head-15 3/4 in(25%)

This past week she has started trying to sit up when you hold her one your lap so we decided to try the bumbo. She really liked it. We only did it for about 10 minutes until she was tired and for the rest of the day she spent most of her time cuddled on my shoulder. I assume because her neck muscles were so tired. 

Gracie loves to cuddle her first thing in the morning and watch a couple shows. 

We are so grateful for Emery and the joy she is in our home. I can't wait to see her personality grow as she gets bigger. We are all smitten by her. And I think she kinda likes us as well.

Adjusting to New Schedules is HARD!

This new schedule to put it nicely...sucks! I really am hating life right now. This is a run down of our days. Matt and I get up between 7:15 & 7:30 and then wake Hallie up. Matt leaves for work and I get Hallie fed and ready for school. About 8-8:10 we load up in the car to take Hallie to the bus stop. Which means I have to wake Gracie up and I try to transfer Emery to her car seat in hopes she will stay asleep. Gracie usually cries about how she is so tired which kills me. It is against about everything I am as a mom to wake my kids up. After dropping Hallie off at the bus we come home and get the rest of us ready for the day. Most days Emery goes back to sleep while Gracie and I get ready and do some cleaning up or start the to do list for the day. We usually run errands during this time if needed. By about 11-12 Gracie starts to get whiny and tired so we eat lunch and get her down for a nap by 1. Both girls have been so tired lately that they sleep until we need to pick Hallie up at the bus at 4.  A couple times a week I find myself crawling into bed for a nap with them. This schedule is exhausting to me. By that time its time to get dinner ready and settle in for the night to do homework, piano, or gymnastics. But most days we usually load up and head to the lot to take Matt dinner and help out as much as we can before we have to be home to get the kids to bed at a decent time so they can get some sleep before starting all over again. I hate it and I feel so trapped in the fact that I can't do anything about it. Hallie and Gracie have both said how much they miss just getting to play with their toys and each other. It really breaks my heart..this new schedule. I hope we can find a way for it to work better for our little family soon. If Hallie didn't like school so dang much I would pull her out of school and look into other options! I have even considered homeschooling them but lets be honest I probably really couldn't handle that. The picture below is of one of our nap time last week. I miss the simplicity of our lives and I hope that one day soon we can find it again or Im not sure I will be sane. I miss morning cuddles on the couch and messy hair until lunch. I miss hours of stories or all day shopping trips with my girls. I just want to turn back time and enjoy every moment just a little more.

Happy Un-Birthday Hallie

We decided to do Hallie's birthday party a couple weeks early since she had requested to do a swim party in our condos pool. Since they close it after Labor day it was a must. So the girls and I put a beach themed party together. We went to the party store and bought a few things to bring the theme together but I think the girl had more fun playing dress up.

The party was Saturday afternoon Hallie had picked out these cupcakes on Pinterest and we did our best to recreate them...they turned out great

We had the party at the club house and pool. Here are some of the decor before the party. We decided to go pretty simple with the party. Hallie wanted to have pizza and swim so that is exactly what we did. 

We decided to keep the party little to just close friends and family. I was really glad we did that since the pool can be scary with a lot of little kids.

Gracie insisted on wearing my sunglasses since she didn't have any. She was pretty cute eating her pizza in them

Chris & Katie

Kerry, Joy, Nick, & Brit

The birthday girl

Dave & Hilary

She was really excited about present time and got some really great gifts.

Then it was time to sing, blow out the candle, and eat cake and ice cream

I was glad for an excuse to have this guy home for a couple hours. I have missed him so much and can't wait until he is home more

Jon & Steph

Here is the kid table and as it turns out you can see most of our guests in the background

Emery was so good during the party and spent most of her time being held by family. I think she really enjoyed it

And then grandpa even got not only smiles but also some giggles....which are my favorite

I love this little famiyl of mine and every minute we get to spend together

The pool temperature was perfect although the air could have been much warmer. When we got out of the pool there was plenty of chattering teeth. I was wondering if I should have made some hot chocolate but that didn't stop anyone from having a great time

My pool boy fishing rocks out of the bottom of the pool

Towards the end of the party Em and William crashed and took a nap on the clubhouse couch. Look at those sweet sleeping burritos

We are so grateful for great friends that we have made here and hope we stay in contact with. Hallie had a great birthday party and I can hardly believe she is almost 6!! Happy birthday beach babe!!

Week 7-Finalizing Framing, Plumbing, HVAC, and Electrical Aug 31st-Sept 5th

I feel like the theme with the house this week is wires and tubes. Although the house isn't looking much different from the outside the inside is taking shape more all the time. This week the electricians have made great strides in completing the electrical. Ben has also completed most of the plumbing although they installed the wrong tub(oval instead of rectangular) so they will be back next week to finish and change out the tubs.

Girls upstairs bedrooms

On Monday they installed all the basement windows and Matt and Cameron(from work) were able to put in a couple of the upstairs windows as well

All the doors were delivered and will be put in the first part of next week

The timber trusses are both in and are just awaiting sheeting. We decided to hire out some of the basement framing, the remainder of the roof sheeting, and all of the blocking in an effort to get done and take some stress off of Matt's shoulders.

Each week things seem to get more stressful. I think its because Matt is working crazy hours and I am alone a lot. Im ready for this stage to be done. I love that we are getting to the point that we will start picking "fun" stuff. The smell of fall is in the air so we better get this house dried in and ready for the snow.

Hallie & Gracie's 1st Day of Gymnastics

The girls both started gymnastics this week and can't wait to go back. Hallie is in level 1 and Gracie is in the tot class. They were both really excited to go. We let them both decide what they wanted to do for extracurricular activities since I don't want to have to run them somewhere everyday. They both chose gymnastics so they go at the same time each week so I think we will continue to go once we move since I would only have to come down once a week.

Em was so good and just went to sleep while we waited for the girls to be done.

Im excited for the girls to try something new. They are both so great at everything they do and I think its so cute how they always want to try things together. I hope they stay this close their whole lives.