Laurel

Laurel's visit here, as usual, went way too fast.

Matix and Hawken were upset again when she was gone.

And even Sakina moped around the house for a few days too.

We miss you already Laurel, thanks for the great visit.

I'm BACK!

The long awaited return to the blogging world is finally here! :) So, a few weeks ago, Lullaby and I went to Wisconsin for my grandfather's funeral. Stacy got in just a few hours before we left. It was a smooth, but quick transition. Then we got back on St. Patrick's Day, and my computer was completely broken... Sad day. I tried to get it fixed, but no luck. So here I type, quite a few dollars poorer, but happy to get back into the swing of things... There will be MANY posts to come, so try to keep up. :)

I have been loving on my babies a lot lately, and can't seem to get enough of them. They are feisty, and kooky, and funny, and sweet, and wonderful.

hiatus

Well, try as I might, I am still super behind on the blog, and now I am leaving for a few days... Lullaby and I are flying out to Wisconsin tonight. While we are gone, I am *gasp!* leaving my computer here. So no blog posts this week. Although we are sad because of the reason for the reunion, we are so excited to get to see everyone! Lullaby will get to meet 2 out of 3 of her great grandmothers. We also get to see some of my aunts and uncles that I haven't seen since I was in high school. I am already missing my boys though... Cheers to a good week, see you on Sunday.

Lullaby

Lullaby refuses to be a lazy baby. I put her in this chair to recline, relax, and be a baby... She however, crunches up her little tummy muscles and does this:

I am trying to really enjoy every moment of her "baby-ness" and she is trying to catch up with her brothers. :( Where has my little baby gone?!

lawn mower

We finally bought a lawn mower. One of our responsibilities as tenants here is to mow the lawn. Hawken just was excited to be able to play in the front yard (it isn't fenced, so we are rarely out there), and Matix wanted to push the lawn mower all by himself, of course. He looks so BIG!

chocolate covered strawberries

Laurel, Paul, Amanda and I dipped strawberries in chocolate almond bark (YUM!) after dinner one night. It was a lot of fun. All the strawberries were normally shaped with the exception of a few hilarious ones, like this grumpy old man strawberry. I love it!

One of the hardened pieces of chocolate had fallen off the strawberry and made weird imprints on it. This one looked like a monster screaming when you looked up close, but all the pictures turned out too blurry to tell, so I made Laurel take a picture with it instead.

4 month visit - LATE

These pictures are from Lullaby's 4 month visit... Even though she was closer to 5 months than 4 months old, she is now 6 months old and I am super behind! The doc took all her stats and she is again off the charts for height, and 98% for weight. Yikes!! :) When it came to the vaccines, she was a champ at the appointment and took her 4 shots very well. She did cry and stare down the nurse as she was leaving the room, but stopped as soon as I was able to hold her. She is such a good baby. When I put her in her car seat she was making the best faces, so I took a bunch of pictures.

I think I have a weird addiction to picture taking. But I can't help it. Look at this baby!

A few hours later she was hurting, and wanted ONLY to snuggle with her daddy.... Sweetest thing ever. She stopped crying and was smiling and melting into his chest. Adorable. I think he was loving it too. :)

highchair

One of Lullaby's favorite things to do now is sit in her highchair while we eat. I usually feed her first before getting our food ready so she will be content to just sit during the meal. She gets to play and watch her boys, which are both very entertaining things to do.

The boys are so good to share their toys with her, especially their coveted CARS if you can believe it. :)

What a lucky girl.

fancy bowling

Laurel came to visit!! It is always nice to see her and hear her crazy stories... One day, I am going to force her to publish her journals, so everyone can hear. :) One night she decided that she and I and 2 of her other friends who also live here in Georgia, were going to go "fancy bowling"...

Laurel bought me this fun dress and shrug and out we went. It was super fun. We also went to "cosmic bowling" so everything was glowing.

It reminded me of college days, doing silly things, just to be silly. Fancy bowling was a blast - minus the fact that I am actually terrible at bowling. In fact about half way through the game I started bowling left handed, because I couldn't possibly get any worse. I lost by quite a bit. :)

Lullaby is 6 months old!!!

Lullaby, if you can believe it, is 6 months old today!! She is the world's BEST baby. She hardly ever cries, but when she does, it is easy to fix. She takes 2 or 3 naps each day but one always coincides with the boys' nap. Lullaby does NOT sleep through the night yet though, in fact she is far from it. She goes to sleep at 6, wakes around 10 (sometimes nurses, but always wants to be held for a minute, then back to sleep), nurses around 2, and again around 6am, then she sleeps until the boys wake her up between 7 and 8. Lullaby can sit up by herself, but still tips easily. She is no where near crawling, tummy time is still not her favorite. She can roll to get things, but rarely gets that needy with 2 helpful brothers giving her everything she wants as soon as she gazes in that direction. She smiles and coos and wiggles all day long and LOVES attention. Lately, she chews on everything.

She loves her brothers, even when they are screaming and running in circles around her. She loves her Daddy, and will do anything to get even just eye contact from him. She is still a momma's girl, and loves to be held by me, even if all we are doing is stirring dinner. Lullaby loves taking a bath and her whole bedtime routine, except going to sleep, she hates it when I turn out the lights knowing full well what comes next. Lullaby loves music and wiggles around already when she hears something she likes. She has started eating real food too, so far just sweet potatoes and peas, she LOVED the sweet potatoes and is still deciding whether peas are alright or not...

Lullaby is very ticklish and will giggle like crazy, even when she is too tired to do much of anything else. She sleeps on her side, always. She loves her pacifier and a blankie near her face. She likes the fan on, but not blowing on her at night. She is learning to like car rides, but would probably prefer to do anything else more. Lullaby tops the growth charts, still. She has a million nicknames that we call her on a regular basis: Lullers, Lull, Lulla, Lulla Baloo, Lully, Lali... She has bright blue eyes, more like Hawken's or mine than Matix's or Paul's. She has only a thin layer of baby hair that we can't seem to pin down the color on quite yet. Her eye lashes are already long. She has rolls upon rolls and is cuter than ever. I can't believe 6 months is already here. It happened so fast. Lullaby is a parent's dream. She is perfect and we love her SO much.

flowering tree

The tree in our front yard has been flowering for the past few weeks.

It is SO beautiful. If we weren't already crazy in love with our new house, this made it better.

Now the air outside even smells sweet. We love it here.

normal

This is a very common sight in our house. Matix (and sometimes Hawken) in a cape. Hawken holding Lullaby in some way or another. Sakina near by, always. Paul, in another room studying. Me, taking pictures...

Hawken the big brother

Hawken, turns out, is a great big brother!! I had some worries at how he would be with a new baby in the house. But he has really stepped up and become quite a good brother to Lullaby and helper for me. If Lullaby cries, he runs into the room and announces, "Here I am Lullers! Don't cry, I am here now." He is very hands on too. Which she tolerates and even likes (most of the time).

cute kids

Here are some recent pics of the wee babes. They are growing so fast. Matix is 3 and 1/2 (in 4 days):

Hawken is 2 (and a few months):

Lullaby is 6 months old TODAY!:

perfect timing

My little sister is putting together a slideshow of pictures of my grandpa George for his funeral. My mom found a few good ones, scanned them and sent a few to me to see. This is one of my favorites. This is me when I was little, all snuggled up with my grandpa on his chair. He LOVED this chair. I am pretty sure it's still in his family room. :)

The funeral will be next week and Lullaby and I are making the trip out to Minnesota. Grandma Stacy had already planned to be here for a weeks for a visit, so the timing is perfect. She will stay here with the boys, that way I don't have to bring 2 toddlers with me too. I'm pretty sure there is no such thing as coincidences anymore, this worked out too perfectly.