Some Catch Up

Augh!  So I finally sat down to update the blog and I had maxed out my photo limit?!  Whaaaat? After some googling, I figured out that I could create another gmail account, add that account as an author, and then get more storage.  Apparently it's all account based and not blogged based? We'll have see how long this works.  I mean, I have 4 kids, there are many, many, many pictures!

 

So, first up - Thanksgiving!

We did Thanksgiving with Brian's parents and Allison and the kids on Wednesday night.  Pretty good looking group of kids, aren't they?  Dinner was delicious, and while the children were definitely seen and heard, everyone had a great time.  Pretty rowdy bunch (cough, cough - Wyatt).

Here's Miss Finley Quinn enjoying her first Thanksgiving on Daddy's lap.  This girl is all cheeks!

And how cute was Finley's little turkey shirt?  Love it!

On Thanksgiving we (no lie) went out and grabbed breakfast at Wawa, and then came home to watch the parade.  After the kids took naps we went over to my parents' house to have dinner with my family.  The kids had a lot of fun, and dinner was yummy.  And I got to have some of my aunt's pecan pie (my absolute favorite)!

 

Wyatt and Reese have been operating in two phases - either they absolutely LOVE each other and want to be together, or they fight.  A lot.  It's driving me to the brink of insanity.  I've tried about a million things to help them get along.  Here they are one morning playing school.  I thought the magna doodle was a nice touch as a chalkboard!

And um, this is them later that day after they smacked each other.  I saw something like this on Pinterest one day (I'm pretty sure it was a joke), and I figured, what the heck?  As you can imagine, this was not their favorite thing.  It also didn't prevent them from hitting each other again the next day.

I've been trying something new with them over the last couple of days.  When Reese (for example) smacks Wyatt, they both get "punished."  Instead of the typical solution (naughty step for the offender), they must work on some type of chore together. Yesterday they had to work together to pick up some things in Wyatt's room, this morning they had to clean up clothes in off laundry room floor, and after school they had to pick up and stack books.  While neither of them are thrilled about being "punished" when the other does something wrong, they're learning to work together.  And also, as a parent, I'm one hundred percent positive that there is never a situation where the child that gets smacked is blameless in the assault.  Ha!

This little guy is just well, kind of amazing.  Do I gush about him too much?  He is so sweet, and honestly, I haven't encountered anything terrible about his two's yet.  Every one of the kids is in a pretty fun phase (Wyatt is reading, Reese is getting better at her phonics, Finley is hitting baby milestones), but he is just a joy.  It's nice to know that just because I've already "done" two twice, it's still a fun stage!

 

She is wonderful.  She's smiling, she cooing, she's sitting up in the bumbo, and she's staying awake for longer periods of time.  I still love her snuggles, but I am not a fan of her hatred of tummy time!

Last weekend I was getting the big tree up, and I had to pick up some of the mats off the playroom floor.  The boys made "doghouses" with Daddy's help and they were laying down watching football.  They looked so sweet laying down together!

 

In a story unrelated to this picture, the word "boo" is our nickname for a blanket.  When Wyatt was little, he couldn't say "blanket" and instead just started calling it a "boo."  The nickname stuck, and that's the word we all use for blanket.  Brian and I use it when the kids aren't even around! The kids have a ritual in the morning of getting up, getting dressed, making their beds, and then watching TV before school.  The other morning Brian was grabbing them some milk and cheerios, and Wyatt told Reesie, "Hey Reesie, I'm going to go grab us some boo's."  You might have to actually say it out loud to get why it's so funny, but it cracked us up!

Hudson Updates

Hudson's two year check up was a few weeks ago.  He weighed in at 27 pounds, 3 ounces, and he's 34 inches tall.  Our doctor always says that he's not the tallest kid in the group, and he's also not the shortest.  At the appointment the doctor game a guesstimate of 5'8 for his height, and Brian looked shocked.  I'm still not sure what he was expecting when he married someone who is barely 5 feet tall (and I mean BARELY).  Ha!

 

Here's the little guy napping before his appointment (at 9:30?), playing in the office, and being checked out by Dr. Jones!

 

And a few other Hudson tidbits...

 

Eating his birthday cake.  Seriously love this little face!

 

Hudson on the day he was born, and on his second birthday.  They grow soooo fast!

Hudson and I at bedtime.  He loves to read "Goodnight Baby" and "Goodnight Thumper" every night.  He "reads" along in a basic jumble of sounds that sound like the story.  Except the last words of the sentence - he always gets those right!

He really loves books - he always has one in the car.  This is how he keeps occupied while we wait for the kids at carpool every day.

The things this guy does and says just crack me up!  But he is the sweetest!

Getting In The Spirit

I'm not one to "skip over" Thanksgiving, but I really like Christmas.  Like, a lot.  So I'm kind of pumped to start decorating.  I took down all of the Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations yesterday, and then dusted and started deep cleaning to get the Christmas decorations up.  Of course, I'm also currently debating getting the kitchen painted and repainting the living room/dining room/foyer area (it was painted last year but the color is basically...white.  Which isn't what I wanted at all), so I need to wait for Brian to talk to our painter to make a decision!

So instead of breaking out the Christmas decorations right now, I figured I would just get a bit nostalgic with Christmas cards.  I just ordered ours the other night (Shutterfly has a 40% off deal, plus free shipping right now), and while I'm not sharing this year's card just yet, I can't believe how big these kids have gotten since last year!

2011
Wyatt-4 (and a half), Reese-3, Hudson-1

And the year before - oh my goodness!

2010

Wyatt-3 (and a half), Reese-2, Hudson-1 month!

 

This year I had to make the font for our names much smaller - HA!

Finley's Newborn Photos

Back in September I shared the link to Sarah's blog with our newborn session for Finley, and I shared her birth announcement, but I just realized that I never shared more of our favorite pictures!

 

I first saw Sarah's work when she took pictures of Hunter for Tiffany.  She was amazing to work with and she actually came here, which was a huge plus in my book.  She had also taken pictures of our friends Chris and Ashley with their sweet baby Charlotte, and I knew I wanted her to take pictures of Finley, too!  We hadn't done anything like this with the other three, but I soooo wish we had.  These pictures are just so precious to me now, and I think it would be amazing to have shots like this of Wyatt, Reese, and Hudson.  And you know Ms. Noelle would have made a few appearances in pictures of the first two kids!

 

Anyway, here are some of my favorite pictures from our afternoon (with a bit of narration by me, of course)!

 

This is actually a baby doll cradle that I've had since I was a  little girl. We used Reese's room for some of the pictures, and I knew I wanted to incorporate this in!  Finley looks so sweet in it.

Does this one need an explanation?  Love it!

These kids were a bit rambunctious...

There was lots of jumping on  the bed!

But they did settle down for a few.  And Sarah was incredibly patient with our chaos!

 

Side note - the outtakes of this will need to be shared at a later date.  Reese was seriously mad that we let Wyatt hold Finley for a minute, and the attitude was absolutely captured on camera.  All drama, all the time!

I love, love, love this picture of my girls!

And this little guy is so rough and tumble, but he is just so sweet to his <baby> sister.

 

And this guy.. he just makes my heart happy.  Hudson is genuinely just so kind.  And gentle (you know, with the baby.  Not in "real life.") And sweet.  And cuddly.  He loves his baby sister, and he is a great big brother to her.  I know it's a weird thing to say about a two year old, but he looks after her and always wants to hold her! 

And Finley. 

She is just amazing.

I cherish every single picture of her when she was so teeny tiny.  We've She's almost doubled her weight since then (I am so taking credit for that).  She's getting bigger and she's not my sleepy newborn anymore.  And these pictures are just so precious.  I love the little outline of her face.  And that little nose!  And her eyelashes are insane!  People always say that boys get the good eyelashes (and they totally do!), but this little girl lucked out!

And here's a picture of me and my girl.  Look at her little feet.  So sweet!

I am seriously, so, so glad that we had these taken!  It's only been two months and I already love looking back at my sweet girl - I can't imagine how I'll feel about them in 20 years. 

 

Of course, we loved Sarah's work so much that we jumped at the chance to have her take our Christmas pictures last weekend, too.  I'll try to share those promptly :)

Hudson's Birthday Party

We had Hudson's second birthday party last weekend.  The 3rd was a crazy, crazy day for us!  We woke up and took the kids to their last day of soccer, rushed home to get changed for pictures with Sarah at 12:30, and then had to pick up food trays and such for Hudson's party at 3!

 

This little guy is so in love Elmo, so we really had no other choice for his party theme!

This little fellow got spoiled :).  He loved opening his presents, but I think all of the big kids liked helping him more!

His yummy birthday cake!  I forgot to buy his candle.  Fortunately Katie surprised us all by coming home from college for the weekend, and she and Stevie ran up to the grocery store for me!

"Give me my cake!"

Waiting patiently for his piece of cake (and playing with his cake topper).

Enjoying some milk with his cake!

After his party I asked him if he had fun at his party and he said, "Yes! Yes!"  Seriously, this little guy is just the sweetest, cuddliest boy!

Two Months Old!

Finley is two months old!  Seriously.  Time needs to slow down!

Here's is what Miss Finley Quinn is up to this month:

• Finley is 21 inches long (6th percentile) and weighs 12 pounds (77th percentile).  I can't believe she was 6 pounds, 7 ounces when we got discharged from the hospital.  She was soooo tiny!
• If she's in a disposable diaper, she wears a 1.  She has made the cloth "switch", and she's wearing BumGenius diapers in their smallest size.  We only have 6 in her size, but they're definitely nice to have!  Hudson is in FuzziBunz, and I definitely prefer those.
• She is still a good eater - obviously!  Look at those cheeks!  She still spits up from time to time, but the projectile spit up seems to have subsided.  Thank goodness!
• We are still working through her discomfort in the car seat.  She really doesn't like it!  The teachers at Wyatt and Reese's school have now started giving me sad faces every day at car pool.
• She was on a pretty set routine before the time change, and I'm trying to get her back to it.  She was sleeping from about 10 until 7, and it's been a bit off the last few days.  She was sleeping through the night and waking up at 6, but I kind of prefer the middle of the night wake up with her sleeping until 7:30.  It makes it a  bit easier to get the big kids ready for school.  Trust me though, I'm not bummed about her sleeping through the night!  Ha!
• She doesn't really like being left alone.  I can lay her down on her play mat for a bit, or put her in the bouncy seat for a few minutes, but that's about it.  She likes to be held.  And I love to hold her.  Her head control is good though, and she'll tolerate tummy time for a little bit.
• This is probably bad, but she still sleeps in her swing.  Like, all the time.  I'm going to break her of it.  I even brought her bassinet down, but it's broken.  The big kids leaned on it and split the wood frame and it's unstable.  So it's kind of a good thing I never returned the Rock-n-Play to Target.  And I've heard good things about it, so here's to a content, sleeping baby and saving money by not buying batteries all the time! (Although being well rested is totally worth it for me.)
• She got three shots at her two month appointment yesterday, and she did well.  She was a little fussy last night, but she's been fine today!
• She still loves when I wear her in the Moby wrap. 
• She is smiling, and she is cooing up a storm.  After our nursing sessions she makes the cutest "ooh's" and "ah's."  We have little conversations.  It's the best!

She's not always sleeping or happy, though!  Here is an "outtake" from this morning.

Sleeping in her Moby wrap at Wyatt's baseball game.

 

 She LOVES her personalized pacifiers. Thanks goodness!  I thought she was going to demand my pinky forever!

 She passed out in her bouncy seat the other day. 

She went with me to vote after parent-teacher conferences for the big kids on Tuesday.  How sweet is this little smile?!

Halloween!

I sometimes think that the hardest part of having 4 kids isn't giving them each enough attention in "real life," it's giving them each enough attention in "blog life!"  I find it so hard sometimes just to sit down and do it - to go through and narrow down pictures, find a way to make sure I document special things like Halloween equally - it can sometimes be overwhelming!

 

We had dinner with our neighbors and the grandparents on Halloween.  I ordered pizzas and we had 5 very excited big kids ready to go Trick or Treating!  We very wisely waited until after dinner to change them into their costumes.

 

These two were ready to walk out the door at 6PM!

 

Finley had no idea what was going on!  But how cute does she look in the pumpkin costume?

Watching Hudson Trick or Treat was probably one of the best parts of the night.  Watching the big kids was fun, but they ran from house to house eager to get their candy.  It was exciting to watch this little guy figure out the running to the door-getting candy-saying thank you-process.  He just had so.much.fun.  It was awesome!

And Brian had a little fun, too.  Wyatt's mask was not so easy to see out of!

 

He was so polite!  He did his best to say "Trick or Treat!," and always followed it up with "Thank you!" 

We walked around our neighborhood for about an hour and then these two, well, they got like this...

So we came home :).  An hour of Trick or Treating and our candy supply on the front porch was gone!  It was nice to be back home in the heat, though - it was cold!  Finley stayed nice and cozy in the Moby wrap, though.  Her costume also kept her extra warm :)

Us with our little bean on her first Halloween!  I love that she's actually looking at the camera.   And her chubby cheeks make my heart happy.  Okay, and I'm a little proud that they got that way from the milk I give her :).

Halloween really was a lot of fun for us this year!  Everyone was well behaved (until they got tired), and they even listened very well when we told them not to eat any candy until we checked it.  They also did really well when we only let them have one piece each.  Thank goodness we didn't have to deal with them shoveling down candy!  Ha!

Wyatt's Pumpkin Patch Parade

Wyatt's parade was originally supposed to be on Tuesday, but they had to move a lot of things around to accommodate the schedule changes.  His was actually moved to the day after Halloween!

 

He did a great job singing his Halloween songs!

My favorite was about three pumpkins, and the final one was becoming pumpkin pie!

He is so stinking cute, mixed with a dash of troublemaker, and a little bit of silly! 

The storm trooper marching in his parade!

I can't believe that this was his final pumpkin patch parade, but I feel like I'm going to say that about his Christmas program and his Spring Program, too.  The fact that he is growing up is getting a little difficult for me to cope with.

We went back to his classroom to hang out for a bit.  It was nice because I was able to put faces to names in terms of who he plays with.  Right now I know that his two buddies in class are Jacob and Alex, and I was finally able to see them.  Of course, there are only 4 boys in his class, so he had to make friends with somebody!  Ha!  Fortunately they get all get along well!