Sammie's 3 month update

Trying to catch up again, I am about a month behind and now that Sammie is 4 months I guess I should go back and post about her 3 month update :) She is one smiley, happy baby! She laughs a lot, and at the funniest things. I'll just be talking to her and out of no where she'll laugh. She likes to be scared (most of the time), and drools like CRAZY! We have those outfits that come with bibs that I had never used before with the other 2 kids, but I need to get them out of storage because now I see how handy those bibs would be. Sometimes I have to change her outfit multiple times a day so she's not in soaked clothing. And she LOVES to suck on her hands now, they are almost always in her mouth! She's still a great eater and a pretty good sleeper. She'll usually take one long nap a day and then the other one is pretty broken up and sometimes it takes me getting her back to bed 4 times before she actually stays asleep. She's starting to loose her hair, which makes me sad, but she still has way more than her siblings did :) She sure concentrates on stuff, she will just sit there and stare at us for so long just watching and she has the biggest, prettiest eyes. She's starting to reach up and grab at the toys that are hanging around her and she is getting stronger and stronger! I'm hoping she doesn't need to be swaddled that much longer because she gets out of it multiple times a night no matter how tight I make it. She is sure one sweet, sweet baby!

Full Time Mommy!!!

As of April 19th I am officially a stay-at-home-mommy! It's really weird because I had been working at my job ever since I graduated high school - 13 years ago! I really did enjoy my job for the most part, and had always said if I needed to have a job it was definitely the job to have. BUT I've always talked about how I'd stay home with the kids in a heartbeat if we could swing it. With the beautiful, wonderful addition to the family, Samantha, we decided to finally take the leap we've been talking about for years. And I'm SO happy! I LOVE being able to be home with them all day long. I LOVE them calling for me when the wake up, and having breakfast with them, and having all day to do whatever we want to do together.
Also, I'm the first to admit that I am not a neat freak, and have not always been the most helpful around the house. Now all the sudden, I look at it differently. One thing I liked about my job was how most of my projects were on a strict monthly schedule, and I liked how structured that was. It made me feel organized and productive. Now I feel like I need to do that with housework - since that's part of my new job. I've been trying to figure out what I want my little weekly schedule to be - when I want to do laundry, what time of day is best to do dishes - little things like that which I realize with 3 small children will never be as 'structured' and planned out as I would like, but as long as I have a tentative plan in place and know that things might get mixed around sometimes I think I will feel more in control, organized, and productive. That doesn't mean that my house is spotless now - not even close, but I'm working on getting in a groove with everything. Also, I'm working REALLY hard on getting the kids to help me pick up their toys which they seem to do once in a blue moon. The definition of insanity keeps running through my head every time I'm picking up their toys for the 5th time in one day, and it makes me think - why am I even doing this? But, I know they're little and they're learning, and we'll get it - hopefully sooner rather than later.

Here's a picture from one of our morning walks to the park - one of the many perks that we get to do together now that I'm home in the mornings :)
I don't know if I've mentioned this ever - but I LOVE MY KIDS!!! They bring me so much joy and I thank God every day that I am so blessed, and now I thank God every day for allowing me to be home with them and spend all day, every day with them. They are growing WAY too fast and I am cherishing every day!

Easter in the Mountains

After our morning hunt at home we headed up the mountains to Dad's house for the big event! Dad and Jan have about 6 acres of land. With blue ribbon on landmarks Dad marked off a section for the hunt.

There were rocks, trees, hills, and meadow to look through. The kids had brightly colored eggs to look for, and the adults had much MUCH harder eggs to find!

This is us after HOURS of searching. The hunt had turned into a search with a guided map. After everyone had found what they could find we turned to the drawn out map of where each numbered egg was. Even with the map as a guide, I think we STILL left about 6 or 7 out there at the end of the day, which KILLED me because I was determined, but we just ran out of time!

Kevin found an egg with a special note in it with instructions on how to get the all important GOLDEN EGG! He had to memorize and rehearse a phrase to the Chief Rabbit (Bill) to get the golden egg which was generously filled with $20!

Here's my loot. There was a CURSE on some of the eggs which we were warned about in the beginning. I went to grab an egg out of a bush and felt something on it, looked down and there's a big spider on it! Sure made me jump! Then not too much longer I pulled one out of the grass and a snake seemed to come out after me. I was NOT a fan of these special eggs until we opened them inside - they were worth a lot more money than the normal eggs :) And I seemed to find 3 of them - the big black spider would have really scared me if I didn't see it before I grabbed the egg because it was in a tree and it really would have fallen right on me.

Katie got a war wound in the process of hunting, Mom was very sympathetic.

Sammie was such a sweetheart - she got to spend all afternoon with Mammy while we searched for eggs. She barely got any sleep at all the whole day and she barely complained. Sweet sweet baby!

Jan made a wonderful Easter meal that just hit the spot after a long afternoon of searching every nook and cranny of over an acre of mountainside. It was a great day. I appreciate all the effort that went into it, my Dad sure knows how to host an egg hunt, that's for sure!!! I'm so blessed to have my family. I thank God everyday for them and I'm so happy I was able to spend Easter with all of them.

Easter Sunday Morning

The kids were very excited to wake up to their baskets Easter Morning.

My 3 little bunnies :)

We had a hunt in our backyard which was a lot of fun. Mom brought over some eggs and I filled some eggs and we ended up with 90 for them to find. Gracie was SO into it! She was on a mission!!!

Bradley was so funny, his basket was full so he gave Gracie some of his. Then he started helping Gracie find some. He would pick one up, shake it and if it sounded like money he'd keep it and find her a different one that was just candy - pretty smart :) At least he was sharing and helping her out :)

Day before Easter

We tried a couple different Egg Hunts this year. The first one we went to was ridiculous, just like last year - WAY too many people! If I didn't already tell the kids we were going to hunt for eggs we would have turned around and went back home. I had to drop them off then drive down the street to the next neighborhood and walk quite a ways back to the park. Then the area was TINY for the amount of people that were there. 0-2 year olds went first and we were not right at the front so by the time we shuffled in all the eggs were gone. I was getting really worried because Gracie was SO into it and was really searching and searching. I'm guessing someone must have accidentally dropped one of their many eggs because out of no where she picked one up and was SO excited! Thank goodness she found her one, and she was happy. The other one we went to was the opposite, not a lot of people and no rules. We just grabbed a couple of eggs each and went home. I have very mixed feelings about public Easter Egg Hunts. They can be a lot of fun, but then people can get so pushy and mean too. Also, I think they'd be a lot better if there was a limit on the number of people, otherwise it's just too chaotic!

This was Gracie's first year dying Easter Eggs and she loved it! 

The stickers are always a nice addition :)

Sadly the eggs didn't last very long. Gracie would hold 2 in her hands and smash them together so a few of them were broken. Then the next morning we came downstairs and Bradley said "The Easter Bunny took all of the eggs and hid them except for these 3" Out of our 10 eggs that we dyed and decorated, Nestle had eaten 7 of them that night. I guess I wasn't thinking she would go after the eggs, but I was wrong. At least we had fun dying them :)

Sisters!!!

Tough Cookie

Doesn't Gracie look tough with her black eye and tattoos? :) Right before we were leaving for our softball game last week Bradley and Gracie went outside and Bradley found a piece of fence on the ground and of course picked it up and swung it like a bat and Gracie was standing too close :( Thank God it didn't get her eye, it was about 1/2 an inch away from being VERY bad.