Emmett's Birthday and Mother's Day

Emmett turned 4 back in April and we had a quiet little family celebration at home.  He has been SUCH a good boy lately and I think we may finally be over the "troublesome 2s/3s" stage.  He's still a lot like me and can be a real grumpster sometimes, but he's also so funny and very loving.  His teacher told us he was the hugger in class this year and always had to hug everyone everyday. :)  He's a lovey and we LOVE him!

Not too many pictures of this night, but here are a few... First everyone waiting patiently for cake...

Then everyone opening some presents.  Phil's Aunt Judy sends the boys the BEST, nicest hardcover books.  These were really supposed to be for Davis's birthday, but we had the boys all open theirs on Emmett's birthday instead.  

And here are just two pics from Mother's Day.  J and E had a Mother's Day tea at their school, and I was able to find a college student to babysit R and D during the day (and she's really great and I hope she might be willing to help me out for a few hours during the week in the fall).  And it's a good thing that I did get a sitter because the tea was really cute and all but there were about a million people crammed into this room and I would have had nowhere to put a stroller.  It would have been such a sideshow with the other two babies there and I probably would have just gone home.  So I was very thankful to have some alone time with my older two.  :)

And then here's my required "Mom and her boys" picture from the actual day.  I look at this picture and my heart just wants to burst.  I can't believe all of these beautiful boys are mine.  God has truly blessed us and we are so thankful.  And haha... Emmett did not want to sit next to us for some reason.  Pretty standard!  Lol!

And I'll leave you with this chunker and his double dimples in the car seat.  :)  LOVE this baby!

Three Months

Holy Cow... It's almost 11:30 P.M.  I need to go to BED!  Why am I such a night owl?  Ugh!

Anyway.... Davis is three months old!  (Actually, he's almost four months right now, but at least I took these pictures at three months, right?)  Three months looks pretty much like two months did around here... In fact, D really looks mostly the same as he did at two months to me except maybe a little longer.  He's a very sweet, content baby.  He falls asleep well when we're out anywhere... I just have to hold him for a bit with the pacifier in and then I can usually set him down in the car seat or something and he stays asleep.  Makes life MUCH easier and allows us to get out of the house more!  He's still eating about every two hours but he's been stretching it to 2-1/2 or 3 every once in a while lately... Wahoo!!!  He's still up at least twice a night, though, which I can't wait to be done with.  He's almost rolling over onto his tummy from his back but has still not figured out how to suck on his fingers.  He keeps trying, though!  For a few weeks he started to hate the swing, but now he's back to liking it, which I am very thankful for.  Aaaannndd... I won't give too much information about this but we cannot leave him on any raised surfaces anymore for any length of time unattended because he pushes himself backwards with his legs to scoot himself around (and off of things... if you catch my drift).  We've had some close calls.  :)  He's our sweety-pie!  Oh, and he burps and toots like a trucker, but thankfully doesn't spit up as much as Reid did.

Some Forgotten Pics

The boys and I just got back from 10 days at my parents' house (with a few fun days at my sister's too). We had such a great time there!  I love love love being so close to my family now.  Anyway, before I share some pictures of that I have to back up and do a few posts of things that I've missed.  So here we go...

First off, someone sent us these wonderful books after Davis was born.  I really love them, but they came directly from Amazon and I don't know who sent them!  Anyone reading this want to take credit?  I want to thank you properly! Goodness knows the boys will love them, too!!

I wanted to take Emmett's picture one day before school in this adorable shirt Becky got him, but you can see how he felt about that idea.  HA!

 Sweet brothers sharing the computer...

Emmett, our little organizer/sorter extraordinaire, sorted all of these blocks into shape groups.  He was very proud.

When Phil was out of town back in March I was in Davis's room nursing him before bed and I looked up to see this...

HA!  That's Reid peeking around the corner, if you can't tell.  I had to try hard not to laugh out loud.  He was whispering, "Hi, Mom!  Go out!  Go out!  Shhhhhh!" which is what I'm usually saying to him when he comes in Davis's room.  :)

Playing half-naked baseball with Daddy...

Another proud moment with blocks that Emmett wanted a picture of.  :)  This is really the first big thing any of them have ever built out of blocks, so I was pretty impressed!  (Please excuse the room... we are busting at the seams in this house and are trying to stay organized as best we can.  But reality is the bunk beds are usually not made... this will hopefully be remedied in the new house when the big boys have twin beds instead of bunks and we actually start having some sort of chore routine.).

I came into the living room one morning and saw Reid using Davis as a pillow.  :)  D didn't seem to mind.  

We've been loving dressing up like construction workers around here... They all take turns wearing this get-up.  Apparently we need some more dress-up clothes!

And they are all obsessed lately with this record player.  Although they don't really understand what it is, which is kind of funny.  They just call it a radio.

And last, but not least, here's a shot of Mommy's happy hour... wine and Mad Men.  :)

Random Bits of Life

Last time Phil was in OR he flew a jet home and couldn't put his bag in the back so he had it shipped home in a big box.  The boys thought it was amazing and immediately wanted to take a picture sitting on top of it.  

Someone said he didn't need a nap one afternoon, and then when we got in the car that evening to drive to the beach this happened within about 3 minutes...

Jackson and Emmett wanted us all to take a nap together one day... so we did... sort of.  They slept, but me - not really.  :)  I've been pretty successful at getting everyone down at the same time every day.  Mostly because Davis has been very good about me trying to stretch out his feedings or waketimes to make it happen.

For some reason after that Emmett has wanted to nap in our bed every day, which J used to do (when he would nap).  E actually naps really well in there so we've been sticking with it.  Here he was about to snuggle in and wanted me to take a picture of him and George.

We just cannot stay away from our new neighborhood on the weekends.  We want to live in there so badly!  We go visit our lot every single weekend.  And a few weekends ago it was super nice outside, so we got some Publix chicken and some snacks and had a picnic at the park there.

Davis did not want to pose... he wanted to eat.  :)

Here is Reid with a pretty flower for Mommy and a desperate need for a face wipe!

Ohhhhhh... we love it there.  And there's a farmer's market right across the street every Saturday.  Can't wait!!

Reid is kind of obsessed with "bait-ball"(as he calls it) ever since J started t-ball.  He loves to wear J's cleats and glove and throw the ball around.

J and E started swim lessons a few weeks ago and uuuuggggghhhhh the first lesson was another nightmare with J.  He refused to get in the water (even though it was 87 degrees... literally) and would not even speak to the instructor.  He just sat on the edge of the pool like that the whole time.  It was so hard for me to watch because I was torn between being so super frustrated with him and embarrassed and feeling so sad and sorry for him that he has this awful fear of new situations.  And then halfway through the lesson the instructor kind of pulled him in and he screamed and kicked and then Emmett started to cry and got out and sat on the edge with J until the end.  AAGGGGHH!  But we stayed for the whole lesson and then had a good talk about it when we got home and things have been great ever since.  The second lesson he was a totally different kid... happy and loved it (like we KNEW he would)!  Phil and I are finally realizing that we need to be patient with J and give him at least one time to get used to a new situation and get over his nerves.  *sigh* Parenting is SO HARD!!

On a brighter note, this swim teacher is AMAZING and I cannot believe how much the boys have learned in 5 (well, 4 really... lol) lessons.  It's so exciting because we plan to be in the water a lot this summer and I really want them to know how to swim!

Reid with a headlamp...

And a super happy almost-three-month-old!  With a crazy double chin!

This picture cracks me up... it looks like he's trying to punch me.  "Put up your dukes, Mom!"

Another beach day... J and E were having a blast playing in the waves, but we had to put life jackets on  because it dropped off to several feet deep right offshore.

And, thankfully, Reid was content to just watch for once.  The water was too cold for him, I think.  That red blanket cracks me up because we laid it out for the boys to sit on and all they did was walk all over it and never sat on it once!

AAAANNNNNDDD... the most exciting news of the month... OUR LOT IS CLEARED!!!  We closed on our loan a few weeks ago and a few days after that the bulldozing began!  We are SO EXCITED!!! (So get ready for some boring pictures of trees and a bulldozer).

Standing where our new house will be!  Yay!  Turns out it was pretty dumb of us to walk in here because the land-clearing guys have seen at least two water moccasins since they've been clearing there, so we won't be walking around in the dirt and brush again... at least for a while until the poor snakes that we made homeless find a new place to live.  

This is standing at the back of the lot looking toward the street...

They've already dug out a bunch more and are bringing in fill dirt this week and our builder says he plans on having the framers there in 3-4 weeks!!  SO EXCITING!!!  (Can you tell we're excited and ready to finally be settled again??)  :)