Catching Up

Sheesh.  No wonder I haven't blogged!  I get behind on pictures.  So editing pictures + blogging is involved for me b/c I can't do either of those quickly.  Anywho...

November:

Not much happened.  It was pretty non-descript, even Thanksgiving.  But Calvin turned 2 months old.

And I had my first photo shoot of this super cute family.  They were so easy.  I didn't have to direct them at all (which is good b/c I don't know how) and still got some great shots.

After Thanksgiving started the super busy Christmas season, of course.  And Chloe had her first real, honest to goodness concert.  She played at the Dickens Festival here in town.  Doesn't she looke so thrilled?  Haha

December:

Calvin turned 3 months old.

We got some good outside play time as it really started to get chilly and fall-like.  Chloe also had a super fun field trip to see Disney on Ice.  I took all of the kids.  Everett was super excited about it, but a little let down that they only depicted princess movies, and mostly only the classics... no Jake and the Neverland Pirates :(

And of course, baby's 1st Christmas.  But I was busy making his blessing suit.

And we also had him blessed.  What a mess!  I hadn't planned it... well... at all. For some reason, I couldn't wrap my head around it.  As a result, Dad thought he was blessing Calvin.  Chad had to stop him in the middle and say "wait a second, why are you blessing him??"  Then operator error with my iPod, so I didn't get it recorded.  Sheesh.  But he looked good.  That's what counts right?

And there were gifts...

Calvin met his cousin.  Looks like he had fun huh?  Haha.  It was so fun watching them interact.

I was really impressed with Chloe!  She had my sister-in-law show her one note on the piano.  Then she just started plinking out all of her violin songs on the piano!  She's never touched a piano beyond once a year at my mom's house and has only been playing violin for about 8 months!  She doesn't even know all of the notes yet.  Mom helped her with one song though.

Once we got back home, the kids had fun playing with their stocking stuffers.  They had a silly string war.

January:

On New Years' Day we drove about 2 hours to this store and finally pulled the trigger and bought new couches.

Before:

Shrunken pulling apart slipcover, old as crap hand-me-down when we got married 9+ years ago, so NOT comfy.

After:

SO MUCH BETTER!

Chad uses the ottoman as a chaise.

But these pillows will be changed eventually.  I need more red in my life;)

A couple of days later, Calvin turned 4 months.

We finally got our family pictures done, you know, the ones we usually take each Nov. or Dec.  Yeah, this year has been kicking my butt as far as my ever important "to do" list.  And I'm wholly underwhelmed by them.  But I didn't have the fight in me to try for a better one.

I took Chloe on a much needed date.  Her first mani/pedi.  I was going to do it with her, but instead of a $100+ date, I decided to let her decide if she wanted both hands and feet, or if she wanted me to join her, both of us do our hands for example.  She chose both.  The other night (two weeks later) Chad put her to bed while we had company over and she asked to speak to me.  She wouldn't even talk to me with Everett listening, as though she was ashamed.  I was bracing myself for some terrible confession.  She felt terrible that I didn't get to have my nails done.  What a sweet girl!  I just hate that she'd been carrying that with her for the two weeks!

When I came out, I told Chad what was going on.  He said, "oh I'm glad it had to do with your date.  I thought I was already getting shut out."  I honestly don't think she'll ever outgrow her daddy, though Everett has already outgrown me ;)

Anyway, she also got two awards at school:  perfect attendance and "terrific kid."

Calvin has started playing of course.  I now have to keep toys in the diaper bag.  But of course his feet are the most fun, not to mention yummy.

And the kids love playing with him and making him giggle.

And he has started talking, screeching, squealing, and blowing raspberries.  Raspberries are his favorite.  But the other night, Chad was teaching him "mama" and it was fun to watch him copy Chad and mouth the word... 

He's finally proficient at rolling.  We don't put him on the floor often b/c of the dog.  But he likes to roll given the chance.  And our anti-snuggler seems to have learned to give a rare, fleeting and treasured hug every now and then.  But he's only ever done it with me and Chloe, and it. is. rare.  He usually only puts his head down to slime or chew.  But his colic seems to be improving over the past week.

Everett, over the past week has been trying to spell phonetically.  I'm so impressed and excited about that!  He still won't try to read, but I guess that'll come.

And today:

He turned 5 months old... sheesh life is moving too fast! 

October

October has been eventful!  Chad's been doing a workout video.  He hadn't been able to exercise in years b/c it seems to make his condition worse.  The kids enjoyed doing it with him.  But he's since had to quit again.

 Calvin's sad face...

 and his stretching face.

 He's gotten more responsive.  

So the kids are starting to be a bit more involved with him.

They tell me all the time how much they love him and how glad they are to have him.

He has started to smile and giggle some.  Chloe's good at getting him to smile.

I don't usually subscribe to the silly hat baby pictures.  But someone made this (and some booties) for Everett.  I don't use them, but figured I should get some pics before getting rid of them.  They turned out kinda cute.  He was grouchy though when I took them.

 Colic symptoms continue.  So he's been spending lots of time like this.  

And like this.  But...

Thankfully he likes the moby wrap now... even if he does spend most of his time like this, pushing his head away.  Just like his daddy, he hates feeling trapped.  Like he doesn't often hold my hand like most babies do.  And when I change his diaper, he's always trying to get his feet free of my hands.  So only after he falls asleep can I put his head in the wrap and go hands-free and try to get something else done.  And even in his sleep he manages to get his head free a lot of times.  Silly boy.

Also, this was my month to teach pre-k in our co-op.  I was nervous about it.  But I was blessed in SO many ways!  First, colic symptoms "happened" to subside during my 3 weeks.  After the diagnosis, I read a bit about it, just a wikipedia article.  It said that there's some reason to believe that probiotics might help.  I'd thought about that even before reading it.  So I started doing that with him.  Thankfully: 

I "happened" to read the article at this time or I might not have followed through with it;  

I "happened" to start his life trying to pump (not something I've been able to do in the past, certainly not after the milk regulated.)  I mix his probiotic into it.

Pacifiers make him mad (still), but he "happens" to not mind a bottle, just so long as he's getting fed.

And a friend "happened" to tell us about "colic ease," an herbal remedy that has also done wonders for him.  And further proof that I was being blessed to be able to survive the month is that this week (now that I'm not teaching) he's been much more grouchy again, despite these remedies that seemed to help so much.

So the Lord blessed me that he was pretty easy to manage while teaching.  I only had one day where I thought I might run away.  And that was mostly Everett's fault.  He has since improved his behavior ;)  I was glad to be done, but by the end, I actually found a few things:

the ability to plan and prep our day in about an hour,

joy in each kid's personality and love for them, 

and a bit more confidence.

Though I do still feel like I should have a degree in child development to really have a good feel for what concepts and worksheets they can handle.  But I got a bit better at that too.

 On my last day, we made spiders and decorated cookies.  It was so fun listening to them chat during snack time.

 Last weekend we had a good Saturday.  We worked outside a bit and carved pumpkins.  I got the smallest two I could.  They were all huge!  Everett really enjoyed all of the crafts we did during school.  And, trying to be like Chloe, he wanted his pumpkin to turn out really well.

 He chose a difficult pattern, helped clean it out just a little, and then traced the pattern.  I started carving the small details and gave him the big ones...

but he quickly gave up, and I carved the whole thing.

This is what he chose for me to carve. 

This is what Chloe chose.  It's supposed to be a grim reaper (which lead to an interesting discussion about Satan and hell and such, but she just made one little wrong cut, which cut off his scythe.  It still looked good, but I didn't get pictures until a few days later, after Halloween.

 And on the other side, she made a face and put some arms and a hat on him.

 And then we threw on costumes and went to the trunk or treat at church.  It was quick but fun.  They had a costume contest.  Chad dressed up as Michealangelo.  This picture is from work.  He and his assistant are the two on the right, Chad's orange.  So he wore it to the trunk or treat too.

And he won an award.  "Creepiest," apparently because it was creepy how much he knew about the Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles.  Ok, it's a reach, but fun.  Our primary president made these.  She did a great job!  Prettiest princess had a little tiara, coolest super hero had a cape, etc.  So creative!

Life in the Past Month

Ok, so the kids started school.

 Everett is in a co-op with 3 other friends 3 days a week, for 3 hours a day.  He LOVEs it!

 Calvin has colic.  Chad has convinced himself that he likes for daddy to play video games.  Honestly, whatever works.  I get frustrated at times, but mostly, I find myself counting my blessings.  Of all of my kids, I'm more equipped to deal with colic this go around than any other; and it usually doesn't set in until Chad's home to help comfort him.  Also, Calvin lets me sleep at night.  I've never had to get up with him more than three times, but mostly only two.  I've never known a newborn to skip the every-two-hours phase altogether.  And only a couple of times have I had to stay up with him.  So that's a huge blessing.

 Chad's also really stepped up in keeping the other kids fed and entertained.  This is one little project he had Everett help with.  It's just a little stand to raise one of our TVs up a little higher.

 Also Everett had his birthday.  He got $30 for his birthday!  He was so excited.  He also got walkie talkies.  They're great fun.  I think Chad was almost as excited as the kids were about that one.

He wanted strawberry shortcake.  Since I don't have a good recipe for it, I just bought these little pound cakes - score.

 That weekend, we took both kids to Toys-R-Us to spend their birthday money.  They made out like bandits.  They were having a big sale.  And Everett got a bunch of toys that had been clearanced from about $15 down to $2.

Side note: ever since he turned 5, Everett is certain he's a big kid.  He keeps saying things like, "yeah, I used to not be able to do that when I was 4.  But now that I'm 5, I can."  All the time it comes back to, "back when I was 4..."  It's so cute.

 The kids and I also enjoyed a beautiful morning recently by blowing bubbles for Curly to chase and pop.  Calvin was happy; we giggled together; it was awesome!

 And Papa and Gigi couldn't wait to come see Calvin.  So they came up for a quick weekend.

And another baby picture just for good measure.  Tummy time pretty much from day 1 has resulted in him rolling over.  This little booger is growing up too fast!!  He outgrew NB stuff weeks ago and is quickly working on outgrowing 0-3 months.  He's 5 weeks old for Pete's sake

As for me:  I'm doing well.  I'm 5 weeks post-partum and pretty much look and almost feel pre-baby.  It took about 3 weeks for my belly to go away.  Isn't that insane?!  I had a big, long recovery time when I had Everett.  So there again, I'm counting my blessings.  I'm excited to really start exercising again in a week.  Like I said, I get frustrated some times when I can't get things done.  We all know how nazi I am about my to-do list, seeing things accomplished.  But mostly I know how quickly this phase ends.  So I'm soaking up as much of it as I can.  I'm so in love with my baby.  

Speaking of my to-do list, this month is a scary one.  I'm teaching Everett's pre-k class this month.  I get terribly nervous about teaching kids.  But now that it's pretty much planned out, I'm feeling much better.  Now I'm just nervous about how much time it will take to do and to add running back into my life.  Thankfully my calling is able to take a back seat (I LOVE my leader for that!)  but I still have a campout to attend next weekend.  I knew back in the spring how crazy October would be.  But I prayerfully entered each of these obligations and am certain that the Lord will help me accomplish them, just as He did in the spring, and just as He has so far.

BTW folks, we have some videos of the kids up on YouTube.  Just search for "nakeworks" if you're interested in seeing them.  There's one of Calvin making his loud sleeping sounds, one of Chloe at violin practice and some older ones.