Summer Vacation Week #2

We have had another fun week this week. We started out the week doing an art class. We found these little ceramic ponies at Wal-Mart. The girls (especially M) is always begging to paint something whenever I am making a painted craft. I thought these would be fun for the girls to do.

They had a great time, and surprisingly didn't get paint all over the place. I made these little grocery bag art smocks for them to wear so they wouldn't get paint on their clothes.

You just cut off the bottom of the bag and it makes the perfect protective covering. Here are the finished ponies.
On Tuesday I took the girls to the dentist. M got sealants on her molars, and A had to have two teeth pulled out. We were lucky it wasn't 4!
Poor little A has the tiniest mouth. Her two bottom permanent teeth were already up behind her baby teeth. That is why it doesn't look like she has lost any in this picture. There is not enough room for them to come in where they belong. We are praying she has a growth spurt before her next set of teeth start coming. Those teeth are also overlapped into where her next teeth are. The dentist told us that once she gets her 6 year old molars we will probably have to take her to the orthodontist to have them spread things out in there so all her teeth will fit. (That is when I will start regretting that I didn't become an orthodontist!). She was super good when they pulled her teeth. She didn't even flinch. I have never seen a person more excited to lose their teeth. I had just finished making a cute tooth fairy pillow (I will blog about that later), and she was so excited to get to use it first. She was super thrilled the next morning when the tooth fairy had left her $2!!!

We also headed off to the park for a picnic after our dentist visit. I told the girls we would go to a different park every week during the summer. They had lots of fun playing.

Little H has some serious arm muscles. She loves to hang on things. (Check out that little girls cute hair next to her! Her mom was sure ambitious that morning.)

Have you seen enough of my girls' bellies yet? Sheesh! I think we need bigger clothes at our house.

We were going to have water day on Wednesday, but it was raining (hey! I guess it really was WATER day!). So we went to the library instead. We happened to go at the same time as storytime. I wasn't too excited about that. I kind of like having the library all to myself. They were doing some fun father's day books and had some cute paper ties for the girls to decorate for their dad. They really enjoyed it.

On Thursday we went to the Children's Museum. The girls had so much fun. We are usually pretty cramped for time when we go, but this time we just wandered around taking our time. We got to play with almost everything. We were there for 4 hours! The girls had a great time though, and I only lost my baby once, and only had the director tell my kid to get off of something once too. He he. I should know better than to let my kid climb on something they shouldn't.

Friday we spent the day playing around the house and getting things ready for Father's Day. That will be the topic of my next blog post though.

Off to enjoy another week of summer. Two down 9 more to go....

Kids love to play with their food.

One day little A decided to turn her breakfast into art. She also loves to take pretzels and spell her name with them. She nibbles off the extra parts to make them look like letters.

A sweet moment...

A and K get to share a bed when we are at Grandma and Grandpa R's house. We found them asleep one night like this. No wonder that when one person get sick in our family we all get sick. I thought this was such a sweet picture.

My santa babies....

My sister took the most adorable picture of her first little boy in a Santa hat when he was a baby. I kind of stole her idea and did the same thing with all my girls. I am so glad I did. They are one of my favorite Christmas decorations. Aren't they cute!

School parades...

Mine are the cute black cat and the cute pink ballerina.

Back to School & Ten Months Old

My girls started school this week. M will be in 2nd grade this year and A will be in Kindergarten. It will be an adjustment having them both gone. I will sure miss them. The younger two won't know what to do with themselves since their big sisters won't be there to boss them around.

A is so excited for Kindergarten. I think she is just getting bored at home. I think she just NEEDS something else, and something just for her. She has watched her older sister go to school for 2 years and bring home fun stuff and I think A has always been a little jealous. Now she gets to go do all of those fun things too. She just had testing this week and will actually start next week.
I am not sure if M was excited to go to school or not. This is her third school in three years and I think it has been a little hard for her. She has one little girl in her class she knows from church. I am glad that she has a friend to play with at recess. The funny thing is that she has a boy in her class that was in her Kindergarten class. We have moved twice since she was in Kindergarten and this boy moved too. It is funny that they ended up in the same class again.
Little H turned 10 months old on the first day of school. (What a big day for everyone!) She is sick this week and a little cranky, but still has the cutest smile. She has been doing better lately at sleeping in her own bed.....and that makes Mom and Dad very happy. I think she was just hungry. Now I give her a snack before bedtime and she sleeps much better. She is still infatuated with our stairs. She even says, "up" when she starts up them. She is learning how to climb down now too, but is still not too stable at it. Her favorite thing to do lately is get in cupboards. She is super determined too, so if you take her away from one, she goes RIGHT back.

A Little Bit of Pixie Dust...

Well the birthday was a complete success!! We had a Tinker Bell party. My little A had a ball.
She got some really fun presents...I know because all the girls have been fighting over them ever since.
After every party, my girls always start planning their next one. I think they have planned out their birthdays until 2014. I don't really think that they will want a My Little Pony party by then though. :)

On the day that A was born....

Today is my little A's birthday. She is turning 5. I can't believe she is that big already. I realized that I had never told her birth story here, so I thought I would share that today.

We had just found out two weeks before that my hubby had cancer and needed major surgery. We wanted to get that taken care of before the cancer had any more chance to spread. I talked to my doctor about being induced. So 8 days before my due date we were scheduled for induction.

The night before, we got a call from the hospital saying that they were full and didn't know if we could come in the next day. They told us to call back in the morning and see if we could come in. We called the next morning and they said that we couldn't come. We were majorly bummed because we wanted to have the baby as soon as possible since my hubby was scheduled for surgery on the 26th. We wanted to have a few days with the baby before he had to go. Awhile later the hospital called back and said that my doctor insisted that they let me come (thank you!). When I got there they put me in a recovery room with another mom that they were going to induce. They started me on pitocin. I was already dilated to a 3.

My DH and I sat and played battleship and talked. He gave me a wonderful blessing. Every half hour they kept coming in and upping my dosage of pitocin. They had upped my dosage to a 13 by the time they moved me to my own room. My nurse was so great. She kept telling me I was wonderwoman. She said most women were crying at a 5. (My roommate was!) I really wasn't having any pain yet. I have since realized that I don't feel any pain until my water brakes. They put me in room #219. I was so glad to finally be in my own room, but I was even more grateful for what number it was. Do you know what hymn number 219 is? Because I have been given much. It seemed so appropriate for this time in our lives.

I had been on pitocin for almost 4 hours, and I had only dilated to a 4. I was so dissappointed. I thought this was going to be a long labor. My doctor came in to check on me and decided to brake my water. I quite impressed the nurse when he did because he totally got sprayed. I have always had a lot of amniotic fluid. he he

Let me just tell you right now that you should never have pitocin with a natural delivery. The next hour was the worst hour of my life. After my water was broken, I had a few contractions that I was able to handle and breathe through, but then they didn't stop. It was horrible. The contractions were right on top of each other, and so hard. It felt like one l....o....n....g contraction. I had my first daughter natural as well, but this was nothing like it. I try to maintain as much dignity as I can when I am in labor, but I lost all decorum. I screamed my head off. (My room mate later asked my nurse if I was alright...I don't know where her room was, but apparently it wasn't far enough away to escape from the noise I was making.....Sorry everyone that was in the hospital that day!!!)

I started feeling the urge to push, but they said I couldn't until I was checked and until the doctor came. WELL TOO BAD!!! My body was pushing whether they said I could or not. That is the thing with natural birth. You know completely that it is time to push and there is no stopping it. Luckily the doctor came right then and after two pushes she was out. I said, "Thank Goodness!!!!" My hour of torture was over and I finally had my beautiful little girl. I was so shell shocked for awhile that I don't remember much right after she was born. I do remember asking if it was for sure a girl. Oh, and my doctor said to me, "I can see why you go natural, it looks like a lot of fun." I didn't really appreciate his sarcasm.

It is amazing that while you are in labor you think you are going to die and that you can't keep going, but as soon as that little baby is born you think it was totally worth it. Our little A was finally here and we were so happy to have her.

She has been a little joy her whole life. She was such a great baby, which is just what we needed at the time as my hubby struggled through chemotherapy. She is a lot like my husband, so I haven't always understood her as well as I would like, but the older she gets the more we connect. She is quiet and doesn't always let you know what she is thinking, but she often comes up to me and wraps her little arms around me and tells me, "I love Mom." She is sweet like that. She is so fun and helpful. She is the best to help with her baby sister even though she is not the oldest. She is calm and talks to the baby so sweetly. And she is absolutely gorgeous. A couple years ago for Halloween she was a fairy, and I put make-up on her for the first time. She was a knock-out even at three!!! We are so in trouble when she is a teenager! I will miss her when she goes to school next year. This past year she has been so close to me. She has helped me through some hard days. I love her like crazy.

Happy Birthday A!!!

A new do....

My little K will be 3 in April. I figured it was about time for her first haircut. So yesterday I broke out the scissors and cut her hair, and just for fun, I cut A's hair too. Here are some pics....

Rippin' Fun...

It has always surprised me when my kids pick up a new phrase because they always pick it up so quickly. It surprises me even more when they come up with a phrase that neither myself nor my husband have ever said. Today I was in for a bit of a shocker when my 5 year old and my 3 year old were playing. They had lined up all the dining room chairs (because I was mopping the floor) along the side of the couch and were jumping from the chairs to the couch. As they jumped, they kept exclaiming, "That's rippin' fun!" Now where they got this I have no idea. It sounds pretty funny coming from a 3 year old flying through the air though.

Back to school

Yesterday my 5 year old started Kindergarten. She was so excited! She loved school and is looking forward to going again today. I did get a little choked up and teary-eyed when she went into the school with her teacher. I know she is going to have a wonderful time in school this year.

Today I will start teaching my 3 year old pre-school. She is so excited to get to be like her big sister and use her new backpack too. I am excited to see how this experience will help her. She has been surpressed by her big sister her whole life. It will be fun to see how she shines when she is not being bossed around and told what to do and say by her big sister all day.

I love to watch my children learn and grow. Nothing compares to that light in their eyes. This will definately be a fun year for our family.