Memorial Day

We decided to have a BBQ for Memorial Day, it was a beautiful day!

 Breaking out the lawn games!

 My absolute favorite teacher Mr Perez came to spend the day with us! He and Mom are good friends so we get to see him every now and then. Junior High freaked me out, I was the shyest I've ever been in seventh grade. I don't think I talked to anyone but my very closest friends. Mr Perez (whom I'm now supposed to call Jorge - which is VERY difficult for me :) ) helped bring me out of my shell a little bit. He is the nicest man and now one of Bradley's favorite people!

Garden - Started!!!

Yay, I finally did it this year!! Every year I say I want to do a garden and I never get around to it but I think Bradley's enthusiasm about the garden pushed me over the edge this year and we finally did it! I have been trying to read as much as possible about what to plant and where and how big. I definitely wanted EASY plants for my first time around. I do not have a whole lot of confidence in myself to keep any kind of plants alive, so I definitely needed to start with hardy plants that will take a beating and keep going strong. I heard good ones to start with were tomatoes, peppers, squash, and sunflowers - so that's what we did :) We decided to do a raised garden bed, 4x8 with netting around it to keep the dogs out. I have since found that the netting is actually to keep Gracie out - the dogs couldn't care less but Gracie is messing with it every chance she gets. Bradley LOVED helping set up the garden, he'd grab any random tool he could find in the garage so he could participate - the fireplace set seemed to do the trick just fine!

 The worms were very exciting! It's amazing how many of them there were! I'm not the biggest fan of dirt under my nails and slimy worms, but seeing Bradley's excitement about it all made me jump in on the fun with him.

 The worms even trumped the tools there for a little bit. By the way - I am weak! I mean, I always knew my husband was a big, strong man, but he made the digging look SO easy so I jumped right in to help. It was NOT easy!!! It made me realize just how weak I am! It would have taken me hours longer to dig what Kevin did, so I decided to just take pictures of him instead

 Unloading the dirt from the truck

 Ready to plant!!!

to be continued :)

Sammie's 4 months!

I just can't believe she's 4 months already, and yet - just like I've said with the other two - it feels like she's always been here! She is such a sweet, sweet little girl. She has big beautiful eyes that are always looking around and taking everything in. She'll stare at Kevin for however long it takes for him to look at her and then she'll just smile and smile. At her 4 month appt she was 13 pounds 2 ounces and just as happy as could be. My doctor kept saying how she was an 'unusually happy baby' and how she didn't remember Gracie being that happy all the time :) She LOVES her brother and sister, she watches them so closely and will just laugh and laugh at them when they play, run, jump, dance or do anything in front of her. I still have to tell both of them to back off a little because they are right in her face every chance they get. She has rolled from front to back a couple of times but mostly likes to roll MOST of the way and then changes her mind and goes back to the back. Tummy time is not her favorite but she tolerates it for a while and she's definitely a strong little girl. I am trying to get her to sleep without swaddling her sometimes now, but it still wakes her up more than when she is swaddled. She has found her feet and loves to grab them and play with them, but they have not made it to her mouth just yet :) She LOVES to suck on and chew on her hands though! She has always been a drooly baby and she is even more so now, I feel like she is in the beginning stages of teething. I think she really likes the sound of her own voice. She will scream more than cry really and she sticks her little tongue out when she screams. (If I can get the video to upload, you'll see - it's really cute). She loves laying on her back and batting at toys above her. I swear she just has this 6th sense and can feel when I am not in the house with her. We have softball games every thursday night and no matter how long I have her asleep before we leave and no matter who's watching her - she will wake up within 5 minutes of me leaving... every time. Lately she's been waking up really early and I try and try to get her to go back to sleep, which seldom works.

Fun with Friends!

My how my kids love company! It's such a treat for them when they have friends come over and play. Bradley goes a mile a minute and is such a good host, finding the best toys of his to share. The other morning I watched the Gilmartin kids for a few hours while JK had to run an errand. This was the first time I had all 5 kids on my own and when I was talking to Mom we realized that I was watching a 4, 3, 2, 1, and 0 :) year old. So, I had to line them all up on the couch by age and take a few pictures :) The kids were great, well behaved and had a blast together!

Then the next week we had MORE company! We had our not-quite-monthly-but-as-much-as-possible get together with the high school gang :) Once again, we lined the kids up by age - I even tried to get Lanissa to stick her belly in there on the end so the soon-to-be-born newest Larsen baby wouldn't feel left out :) (For some unknown reason when we were taking pictures of the kids my flash on my camera broke, so now without using the flash my pictures are blurry a lot of the time and it's driving me crazy! So bare with me and my blurry picture quality until I can get that fixed!) I am thankful for my friends. Even if we sometimes go a while without speaking much or hanging out as much as we'd like I feel just as close to them - actually more so - than I did 15 years ago. I love that our kids can play and call each other friends.

Pigtails

Even though there's only about 4 hairs in each - we make it work!!!

I have been itching to be able to do stuff with my little girls hair! I have been patiently, patiently waiting :) I LOVE pigtails, and since most of her hair is right on top :) I figured we could make it work as long as they are right on top of her head :)

She's getting better at leaving them in, it depends on the day, sometimes she asks for them, then other times she takes them out 2 seconds after I put them in, over and over...

She's just so cute, she doesn't need hair - but it sure is fun to play with now that it's here :)

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!