Daily Photos

Some pictures from some daily happenings – nothing extraordinary!

The kids helped Jason make pancakes one Saturday morning. They love to help us cook!

We have dance parties a lot in our house. On this day (below), Meredith and baby Charlie wore their matching dresses to dance. (Meredith picked out the fabric for these dresses – not something I would have chosen, but she loves them.)

Russell asked me to take a picture of him with his gas station

Beautiful girl ready for church last Sunday:

They couldn’t look at me – too busy playing pirates!

How sweet are Meredith and Chase?

Those kids sure know how to fill up our days!

4 months old!

Paige is 4 months old!

• Height: 25 in (76th percentile)
• Weight: 13 lbs 13 oz (46th percentile)
• Head: 40 cm (37th percentile)
• Still size 2 diapers and 3-6 mo clothes

Smiling at Russell:

Paige is really not on any schedule. The only thing I can count on is that she goes to bed around 7. She wakes up 1-2 times per night, and is usually up for the day between 6 and 7 am. Nap times are still all over the place, but she always naps in a crib. Sometimes it’s a crib at church and sometimes it’s at a friend’s house, but she will not nap if she’s not in a crib – she just stays up and fusses.

She is nursing about 7 times a day (I just had to count that to figure it out), which includes the nighttime feedings.

Paige is drooling all over the place! I know from experience that teeth are probably still a few months away.

I have not mentioned this on the blog yet (for no real reason), but Paige does have a small hemangioma on the top of her head – you can see it in the first picture. It poses no problems for her. Our doctor said it may get a little bigger during the first year, then start to shrink, and will be gone by the time she is 6 at the latest.

These days, Paige is loving:

• her bouncer
• being carried/held
• being in the Baby Bjorn and Beco carriers
• grabbing and chewing on her toys
• her pink activity mat (she likes it much better than the bigger blue one we have)
• being sung to
• looking at my surprise faces – they make her laugh almost every time

Love our Paigey!

Fall Family Fun

We had my parents and my brother and his fam over on Saturday. It was a gorgeous weekend, so we got to walk in the park, and also just hang out at our house, watch football, drink coffee, etc. That makes it sound a lot more relaxing than a house with 4 kids 4 and under actually is but we had a great time!

Pops and Mimi often come with “surprises,” as my kids call them. Meredith’s surprise was a combination high chair/baby carrier/swing for baby Charlie. Kitty has been in it also, of course.

Some assembly required.

Mimi loves babies. Paige loves to be held. It’s a perfect combo.

Russell’s surprise was roller skates! He LOVES them. My mom got them after seeing a picture of Russell pretending to use two of his ride-on cars as skates. 

He is so easy going; even when he falls, he just laughs.

Baby Charlie came with us in the stroller. Of course, Meredith didn’t last pushing her the whole time.

The skates didn’t last the whole time either, but he did skate a long time (for a 4 year old).

Love this – my mom and my girls! Apparently Bogie really wanted to be in the photo also.

At about noon, Paige actually got dressed! (Hey, it’s hard to get 2 kids dressed – you can pretty much forget it with all 3.) And Grandmother came over for a while.

Pretty girl!

Jon, Meghan, and Ella came over – yay!

Aunt Meghan played cars for a long while – the kids loved it.

We all went to Grandmother’s house for dinner. I didn’t bring my camera but I managed to capture a picture of all the cousins on my phone. (I guess rather than “all the cousins,” I should just say “my kids plus one!”)

Potty Training–the second child :)

After the truly exhausting experience of potty training our first child, and adding a current small infant on top of that, I was really not even planning to potty train Meredith soon. But then she started requesting to go. And then, a couple times, I caught her undressing and taking off her own diaper to sit on the potty.

Okay, fine – I get it. I can take a hint.

This past weekend, I decided to start putting her in underwear as we sit around the house. I just really didn’t have 3 full days to devote to it like I did with Russell, but I liked the 3-day method, so I just thought I’d abbreviate it a little. Underwear in the house, diapers out and about. That way, there wouldn’t be so much stress and pressure. The premise of the method is to put the child in underwear, and when they start to have an accident, rush them to the potty. That way, they associate the “feeling” with getting to the potty fast. Rewards and cheering are for any successful potty attempt.

The first day we put her in underwear was Saturday. We watched her like a hawk. She didn’t do anything for about a half an hour, and then I saw her go in her her room and try to close the door. By the time I got to her, she had had her accident. She had a guilty look on her face. I knew she knew, even when she closed the door, what was happening. That made me think 2 opposite possibilities; either 1) this would be easy since she knows what she’s doing or 2) this will be hard if she knows what she’s doing but refuses to use the potty.

Well, long story made a little shorter, thankfully, it has been really easy! Meredith has only had 3 accidents since Saturday – the first one, one for no apparent reason, and one because I was nursing the baby and Mer was strapped into her booster seat at the kitchen table (oops).

She tells us when she has to go and gets excited when she has gone!

Here she is with her potty chart full of stickers:

And because her chart was full, she got to pick out a toy! She chose this meowing, purring kitty which she has named “Izze the Cat” after Eliza’s cat Izze.

She was doing so well that I left her in underwear today even when we went to the gym (where she was in child care for an hour) and to the Halloween party. No accidents! We are so proud of our big girl, and so ready to only have 1 child in diapers!

Halloween 2013

We had a wonderful Halloween!

A few days before, Jason and Russell carved the pumpkin Russell had picked out at the pumpkin patch. (Yes, it took that long to get around to carving it – we have been very busy!) Meredith was not the least bit interested in carving, so it quickly became a father/son project.

On Halloween night, our shark, tiger, and Princess Sofia the First were very excited to go trick-or-treating! (Well, at least the shark and princess were – the tiger goes along with everything!)

Our first stop was at Grandmother’s house, where the kids scored candy from her and a couple of her neighbors.

It was really too dark to get any other pictures, but we walked around the best trick-or-treating street in our neighborhood (really, they close the street off for it!) The kids got plenty of candy. Russell ran along, chatting and happy, from house to house and probably could have gone all night. Meredith did half of the street and then decided she was too tired and rode in the double stroller the rest of the way. Paige was so sweet, of course; rode in the stroller the whole time, past her bedtime, with no complaints.

The girls and Jason headed home to bed, while Russell and I went to my friend Lisa’s house to eat some candy and sit by the fire pit.

Watching the fire:

Sweet one-year-old Joseph:

My boy!

Tonight – the night after Halloween – was our 5th annual playgroup Halloween party. I can’t even believe that! We ate pizza, talked, the kids played – it was a great time! The kids were all nice to each other and calm and obedient, and our Meredith wore her big girl undies the whole time (actually all day today) with no accidents! Things rarely go this smoothly, so all the parents were looking around at each other in amazement!

Jamie and Callie:

Apparently Lily has wanted to dress as an angel for Halloween since this summer – so sweet!

The big girls asked to hold Paige – they were sweet and gentle with her!

What would I do without these ladies? Love you all!

Almost all the kids – missing 2 T children and the C family hadn’t arrived yet, but we wanted to take our shot at a group photo while we could!

Happy Halloween!