Welcome to my crazy life! As a mommy to 3 adorable boys my days are full of adventure and fun. I am realizing that time goes by so quickly and I don't want to forget all the cute things that the boys say and do. I hope that this blog will serve as a journal to record all those precious moments...

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Evan's Thanksgiving Performance, Logan's Conference, and Leah's 1 Year Well Visit

This morning Evan had his school Thanksgiving program.  Dennis had planned on working from home and coming with me, but Colin was picked up from school early yesterday due to a fever.  So, Dennis had to stay home with him and Logan, while I went with Leah to the show.



Evan did a great job!  I got there super early so I could get a front row seat, because Evan had said he would be standing near the bottom of the stands and I wanted to be able to see him and video tape.

Last night, I had Logan's parent teacher conference.  It went very well.  She said, "I have no concerns with Logan".  He plays well with other kids, is helpful, is doing everything he should be doing and is really interested in learning.  She was especially impressed with his fine motor skills, which I attribute to being the third child and wanting to do everything, "by myself".   Just the last few months he has really started to enjoy drawing and also learning his letters and numbers.  The other day after Evan read to me he said, "Now can you teach me to read?"  I love his enthusiasm, but I explained to him he has to start with learning what sounds the letters make!


Leah's 1 year appointment went well.  She is very small still and not even on the charts for height and weight.  She is 16 lbs even and 27 inches tall.  Her head is 30% though :-).  Her doctor says we will have a better idea at 2 years old if she is going to always be small or not.  She is meeting all her milestones though, so we couldn't be happier.  The doctor suggested we try and give her her milk after meals instead of right when she wakes up, so that she will eat more at meals.  However, I tried it one day and she not only ate the same amount of food, but was also not interested in the milk, so I made the decision to stick to what we were doing before.




Sunday, November 17, 2013

Leah's 1st Birthday Party.



Leah is the first baby we have had that we were away from family for her first birthday.  So, we knew that we still wanted to make it special for her.  We invited 5 family's from our neighborhood to our house for her party.  I did a lady bug theme.  We had a pasta dinner and some cake.  The kids mostly hung out in the basement.  I also made a banner of a picture of her from her whole first year and I think it turned out pretty great.  I couldn't get a good picture of it though.  Dennis wanted to take a break from making cakes, so we got a bakery to make her a cake and a matching smash cake.





I thought Leah would be overwhelmed by all the people, but she was great.  She was even calm when we were all surrounding her watching her eat cake.  She loved it!







She got lots of nice gifts from our neighbors, they were very generous!  She is enjoying all of it, but I have to admit her favorite toy is still just holding a Lego piece or especially the Lego people.

Today, the first graders at church had their retreat.  I volunteered to help and ended up the leader for Evan's group.  I got to lead them to each of their stations.  They were putting together snack bags for kids at a shelter and made a few crafts to go in it.  Evan really enjoyed the retreat.



Friday, November 15, 2013

Leah is One Years Old!!!!


Boo hoo hoo.....My baby is One Years Old today!!!  I am so sad.  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the baby stage.  I have said it before that if I lived in a different time, I would be pregnant 10 times!  I just love everything about pregnancy and babies.  I wish I could have more, but am too practical of a person to have more than 4 in the time we live in.  4 kids is a stretch for sure,  It is hard to be there emotionally and physically for all of them, and to travel, and to afford college and activities.  So, four kids it is for us.  And therefore, I have a feeling that each time Leah reaches a milestone it will be bitter sweet!


At one years old Leah is still a very easy baby, but some of the typical separation anxiety/stranger anxieties are setting in.  Leah loves her Mommy and her brothers.  But, she is really starting to show a love for her Daddy.  For the first time in almost 9 years I have a baby that actually wanted to jump out of my arms to go to Daddy and didn't want to come back to me once she was in his arms.  She ignored me and turned away!  Dennis loves it!  She has him wrapped around her finger.


Leah is pretty much doing everything she was doing at 11 Months.  She is pulling up and cruising around now.  She is waving "bye bye" and says "Dada" and sometimes what sounds like "Daddy".  She is chatting a lot.



Leah is not as cuddly as the older two boys were, but she does like us to lay on the floor while she plays.  She mostly likes to grab small objects like Logan's duplos.  She ignores most her baby toys.  She  does like toys that play music and she dances along with it.  I am secretly hoping that is a sign she will be a dancer.





Leah is still nursing 4x a day, but I will start whole milk in the next few days.  She is eating 3 meals and pretty much feeds herself with her hands.  Ideally she takes 2 naps around 9am and 1:30pm, but many days we are out and about and she only gets one nap after lunch or just the morning nap.  She sleeps about 11 hours at night.  Usually 7:30-7:45pm to 6:45-7am.

She is so sweet and easy and we just love her so much!









Tonight we opened up her gifts from us (a pair of earrings), Grandma and Robert Bridgers, Grammy and Grandpa Pritchard and Aunt Carols family who had sent theirs in the mail.  Grandpa McLaughlin also sent her a card and check in the mail.  It was so nice for her to have gifts to open from everyone.







Sunday, November 10, 2013

Evan's first NFL game!


Today, Evan got to go to his first NFL game with Dennis.  They saw the Indianapolis Colts play St. Louis.  Unfortunately, the Colts lost by a lot, but Evan still had a lot of fun!  Evan is obsessed with football these days so the timing was great.  Evan has us dvr games all the time so he can watch them later.  He then gets hyped up and goes outside, often by himself and runs around with the football.  Sometimes, Colin joins him.









Evan also has a crazy memory.  We were all sitting around the kitchen table and Evan says "Florida State is really good this year.  They won a game 63-0."  I asked Dennis if that was true and he didn't know.  He asked Evan who they played and Evan says, "It was a M team, oh yeah Maryland".  So, Dennis looks it up and sure enough they won Oct. 5th 63-0 against Maryland!  Evan shrugs and says, "What?  I saw the score on the bottom of the TV."  Dennis says, "yeah a month ago!"

Yesterday, Evan had his TKD Championships.  He signed up to do "Form" in the Championship because he is really good at it and picks it up really quickly.  Unfortunately, they put him in the wrong group (he just became a green belt so was supposed to test with the previous belt instead).  Well, that completely confused him and he got so upset that he didn't do well.  He got his 3rd place metal, but was a mess.  I told the owner they messed up so she got him in on the next competition which was board breaking and he was able to get 1st place in that.  It was a shame because he knew is yellow belt form really well, so if he hadn't gotten so upset he would have done awesome!  The highlight of the day was watching the demo team and masters perform.  It was pretty amazing.









Colin, Logan and Dennis left early to take Colin to a birthday party at an indoor trampoline place.  I'm glad Colin is still getting invited to birthday parties for his buddies, since at school he is pretty separated from them now that he is in the GT class.

Other random pics from this week...

Haircut!
Cheering on the Hokies!
Fondue was a big hit!
Logan wanted to play in the first snow of the season.
We sold Leah's highchair because she kept standing up in it, so we just use a booster now.