Happy 3rd Birthday Kali!

Kali is 3! We had a party for her the day after her birthday. It worked out perfect because my mom had come to visit for Bristol's fall break from school and came just the night before. It was a crazy day with the primary program practice in the morning and then getting ready for her party. So her requests were to have balloons, a Dora the Explorer cake (or cupcakes), and presents. I think we fulfilled her desires and I am sure she had a great day.

I put Nate in charge of the games for the kids. He blew up the rest of the balloons and had them do a balloon waddle game. We were so lucky that the weather was absolutely beautiful for her party and the kids were able to play outside.

Kali has seen these cupcakes being made on TV and had wanted them for a while. They actually took less time to make then I thought they would. I was able to make different parts of them ahead of time so I am sure that helped. I just had to assemble last minute touches right before the party.

Mmmmm...cake is so good!

This was a scavenger hunt of sorts. I drew a picture of "Map" and drew a map with directions to the party favors (I used the idea from my sister when she made a treasure map for her son's birthday, thanks Lisa). They had to go to the waterfall, up the mountain (the stairs), through the tunnel (table with a blanket on it), and find the treasure box. It was a pretty big hit and super easy to do.

The waterfall.

Through the tunnel.

The treasure to be enjoyed by all.

Hope you had a happy birthday our little bug. We love you and are so grateful to have you in our family. You have quite a personality and keep us smiling and laughing often. We love you!

Gwyn Update

Can you believe that Gwyn is four months old? I sure can't. Time has flown by and she is growing so fast. She is still loved, almost too much, by her sisters. She is a little petite thing. She is really pretty easy going, but when she has had enough of something or is sick of something she lets you know by screaming. In other words, she doesn't give you much warning, all of sudden she is screaming. She is not a big fan of being in the car and knows that when we are putting her in her seat it is a sign of having to go in the car. She starts crying almost immediately when putting her in her seat. I am afraid part of her dislike for the car is that her sister is within arms reach and pesters her constantly. It is getting better though and I think Bristol is getting more used to her next to her so the constant hand holding and touching is slowly starting to lessen. Gwyn has rolled over now three times, but they are more fluke incidents. She would much rather play with toys sitting rather than laying down. She loves to stand while you hold her and is quite alert and loves people. She is our little joy and we love having her in our family. I can't believe how fast the time flies. These are just a few pictures from the last couple of months.

She doesn't fall asleep in her swing much any more, but whenever she did she always put her little hand on the tray.

We just started having her sit in this little walker. We have to stuff a few things in it to keep her propped up, but she prefers sitting up so this is a way that I don't have to constantly hold her.

Once again a monthly update

So here a few things that we have been up to lately. I accidentally put them in reverse so it goes from most recent to last month. Not that it really matters. One day I will post more regularly. We have been really busy this last month and I keep saying well hopefully after this next Tuesday things will calm down, but no it just keeps being the next Tuesday after that. Between the many doctors appointments we have been going to with the different kids to Bristol starting school to potty training Kali. The list goes on. Then to top it all off I for some reason thought it would be a great idea to start my own business by selling Mary Kay. Luckily there are no quotas or anything to fulfill or anything, but just learning the business and getting everything in order and ready to get out there and sell some stuff to make some money. I am excited for the opportunity to maybe bring in a little extra money because we all know that although Nate works crazy long hours the money it makes is not the greatest. Also it is nice to have some girl time and leave the kids at home for an hour or so. So if anyone is interested in ever getting anything Mary Kay then please visit my website at marykay.com/nicole820. I would love to be your beauty consultant :)

This is at a park by our house. They have a green house called the Butterfly House. It is full of flowers that butterflies like and full of moths and butterflies. The girls love going there and we just happened to go on the last day it was open. They have this little picture up for people to take their picture. Bristol really wanted the other person standing behind to be the wings. Kali didn't really get the idea if you can tell in Bristol's picture.

These are just pictures of the silly girls. They love their picture to be taken lately.

Kali loves sitting in Gwyn's car seat. Plus I love that she is wearing snow boots, underwear, and a sweater. So random. That is not what she started wearing that day, but she decided to go and put her own outfit on later.

The girls love to play in the yard with the hose. They also prefer to wear their clothes while doing so because it must be more fun and a novelty.
We found this little lake with a beach not too far from our house. It is not a beach at the ocean (which Bristol informs us of regularly), but it is nice to have some sort of pseudo beach nearby.

This was a picture my friend took for me because I was taking Bristol to the bathroom at the time. I had forgotten to take Kali's diaper off before she went into the water. Can you see how huge her diaper is?

Bristol's First Day of School

So now that Bristol has been going to school now for a few weeks I finally got her pictures loaded onto the computer and finally posted. She has been enjoying school, but also says it is boring. Especially the first week she said they just kept talking about the rules. I guess if she thinks it is boring now it is a good thing we put her in this year. She is enjoying it more and more each day as she gets used to the new routine. She told me yesterday how during music class she got to play the bongo drums which was very exciting. It was nice because Nate was able to be home to see her off to school the first day.

She looks so little in this picture. I tried to convince her to get a smaller backpack that would still fit her folders, but she insisted on the Tinkerbell backpack. It goes halfway down her legs I

Drought on Pictures

Sorry for the drought of pictures and posts on our blog. The computer that I mainly use got a major virus and we are trying to reboot it and just erase everything. Needless to say it is near impossible to work on the computer during the day and at night Nate is using his computer. So I have somewhat limited time. For instance why am I not going to bed now. It is past midnight Nate is on call which means he will not be home tonight, but still I should just go to bed.

Well, a quick update on what has been going on. Bristol has been tested and proven to be more than ready for kindergarten. She had to go through a two hour test to see if she could go early since she just misses the cut off date. They gave her an I.Q. test and other math and reading tests. She had to score at least in the 95th% but she blew through it and scored 99.8%. So needless to say she may be small but her brain is big. She is officially starting kindergarten on Tuesday next week. She is so excited as well as I. She often gets bored during the day now and then causes trouble.

Kali has decided to finally potty train. She is doing a marvelous job. I have known that she is pretty much ready for the last couple of months. She has shown interest a few days here and there but would just find it easier to wear a diaper. Well on Friday when she told me she didn't want to wear a diaper that day I decided we just needed to take the plunge and fully transition over and stop confusing her with switching back and forth. It was a little rough the first day or so because she had a hard time remembering that she didn't have a diaper on and would just pee unless she was naked and then she would be perfect and go on the toilet every time. So the first couple days she had a few accidents but the last three days she has been perfect with no mistakes. It did take her a few days to let her body take a #2 because she was scared it would hurt. So hopefully it really has been that easy for her to potty train and I wont have some crazy regression or something. If this was all it took then it has been a breeze compared to Bristol. I guess Bristol is just a real hard head and would just fight me with control over it.

Gwyn, is doing great. We had a rough spot there two weeks or so ago with her crying for hours in the evening. I then finally realized that the poor child was just over tired and I needed to start taking her up to her room to fall asleep and try to get her more on a schedule. I just paid more attention to the amount of time she was awake and tried to be more attentive with everything and she got way better. She is still super burpy which makes it frustrating sometimes when trying to put her to bed. I will burp her for what seems like forever, put her down only for her to wake up in a few minutes. When I go in to get her back to sleep I pick her up and pat her back to be greeted with yet a burp that would not come up in the last twenty minutes prior that I burped her. I have tried the gas drops, which help, but I swear those burps still get trapped in her. Bristol and Kali still adore her and almost love her too much sometimes.

Well now that I have written a novel I will say goodnight and get the rest I really need. I hope to post some pictures soon.

Single Mother

So I went from having Nate at home for a week, to having my mom here for a week and a half, to having Nate's mom here for a week. I have been super thankful for all their help and the fun we had together. However, I dropped Nate's mom off at the airport on Friday and Nate went to work Saturday morning about 4 in the morning and we haven't really seen him since. He did make it home last night at about 1 in the morning when we were all sleeping and then left at about 4:30 this morning. I am not sure if he will be home tonight at all and then he works all day tomorrow. So my expectations are not to see him until tomorrow night, that way I don't get my hopes smashed. It is just crazy how I went from having all of this help, to being all by myself. Needless to say I still braved church today with the three rug-rats by myself. Luckily I could sit by my friend so when Gwyn decided to scream bloody murder during the sacrament I was able to ditch the other two to get her to sleep outside of the chapel. Phew, one day down and now another year to go of him working weekends and another four of him working over 80 hours a week. One step at a time right.

Ok so sorry for the rant, but you know sometimes you just have to.Thought I would still add a picture. This is from last week when we blessed Gwyn.

Pictures of Baby Gwyn

A friend of mine from church came and took pictures of Gwyn the other day. They turned out really cute and she didn't even charge us. If you want to check them out then click here to check out her blog.

So far Gwyn is a great little baby and very patient with her sisters always loving on her and poking her. We couldn't be more blessed to have her in our family.