Mischief Maker

This little girl, as sweet as she is, discovered that with the baby around the adults are more preoccupied. Meaning she can get into mischief without anyone noticing...for the moment. Some of these things include unrolling a whole roll of toilet paper, getting "fart goo" in her hair all over the floor and Joseph's quilt in the time it took my sister to change Josephs diaper, color on herself and other things she is not supposed to, take off a poopey diaper so she can sit on the potty, etc.

I tried to explain to her while combing the goo out of her hair that even though we don't see her at the moment we do find out and then she gets in trouble. Hopefully our little chat will help.

Visitors

The night Joseph was born Russ' parents and niece and nephew came to see him. I love this picture of everyone gathered around the baby.They brought Gracie a pink baby doll that she immediately named Joseph. And William got an awesome encyclopedia about dinosaurs. I love it when he is excited about books.

It is so nice having loved ones so close to share these times with.

waiting for baby

Before the baby came I felt a urge to have some good family fun time because I knew things would have to slow down once he came. One Saturday morning we got up and went to Ihop because nothing sounded better than their buttermilk pancakes when I am pregnant. I know, I am way classy. I love the below picture because Gracie is cross eyed. I could look at this and laugh for hours. In the picture they are playing Marry Poppins when they take their medicine. This is also one of Gacies favorite things to play.
Then the kids got this special Halloween pancake.


They were both pretty happy about it, as you can see.

Then we took off to a pumpkin patch. I am actually not sure wich one, but it is in Queen Creek and it is not Schnef Farms.

Russ was pretty proud of himself for dinging this bell.

William couldn't quite do that one but luckily they had a kid size one. He couldn't get it at first, but we told him to keep trying and he finally got it. It was great to see him saying, "practice makes perfect" instead of getting frustrated and giving up.

We headed off to see some animals.

The three little pigs. Now Russ wants to get a pig.

Face cutouts are so great.Gracie saw someone else with a popcicle and since it was quite warm we gave in.

They had a bounce house. It doens't matter where we go, if there is a bounce house my kids have a blast.

I could not resist these mini pumpkins. They were too cute.

I made their candy corn clothes. That is what happens when I find fabic for super cheap and look at it and say, "it looks like candy corns". Plus my kids love candy corn. I still need to take a picture of them with Joseph in his candy corn onsie.

It was a very fun family day.

A spoon full of sugar

Once the weather cooled off we could open up some windows. The kitchen window does not have a screen and is right by the table and chairs so it is the perfect set up for playing Mary Poppins. Here is Gracie with a bird on her finger. She would sing the song from that part that starts, "A robin feathering his nest..." and then at the part where it says, "he knows a song will move the job along." She goes out the window and sings with the bird.

William even joins in the fun when he is home.

They watch Marry Poppins a lot and I am 100% okay with that.

Mom of the year

This is my mama holding my new baby. She came out at 3:00 am when I told her I was in labor. She came and cleaned and made food for the whole household while I labored. She watched Gracie and took her out to the car at the end so Gracie could not hear me, and then she cleaned my car out! She slept on a small foam futon on my living room floor for days. I never even had to ask her. She just new I would need help and boy did I need her help. She cooked food cleaned and held the baby when I wasn't nursing him (which seemed like all the time). My mom has always been a good mom and helped me when I needed it, but this year I have needed her a lot and it has made me more grateful than ever for her kindness, love, patience, and hard work. She let us movie in when I was sick with this pregnancy and she took care of mine and the kids every need. She helped us move out of our house into our new one. She helped me clean and organize the new house when I was so big and pregnant and not motivated to do it. She has loaned us money and watched our kids and just helped in any way she could. On top of all she did for me she never stopped helping my other siblings and there were a lot issues going on there this year. She has a lot to worry about, but never let that stress her out too much to help. There is no way to thank someone enough for help like this, but I will say it anyway. Thanks Mom, I love you.

Relax

Don't you just love when babies do this? Sleep with their arms or hands sticking out. It makes me want to tell them to relax.
This something I have had to tell myself a lot. For some reason (maybe it is because I never went to the hospital) i keep feeling like I should be recovered and back to my good old self. But I am not. i still have some recovering and sleeping to do. I have to force myself to lay down and take a nap sometimes because there is so much around me that needs to be done. I try to tell myself to relax, cause it will get done...someday.

I have also had to make myself chill out over nursing. Nursing was something I was determined to do but because extremely painful because he was not latching right and frustrating because no matter how many times I tried I could not get him to latch right. I found myself getting very emotional over the whole thing (like crying for days at a time). I was also getting to be very snappy with my other children and just felt awful about myself. I decided in the long run, nursing just wasn't going to work for me and this baby. And while it is a decision that still makes me sad, it has given me peace. So for now I am pumping and he gets formula every once in awhile. It is very hard for me to buy something that my body can make for free, but I just try not to think about that.

Adored

Isn't he sweet. We all love him.

But I think that there is very little that this boy will do that will go unnoticed by this little girl.

Are their hands the same size?

She just loves and adores him and can not leave him alone.

I sure hope he doesn't mind having two Mama's. Here she is literally offering to feed him. And she was dead serious