Little Lila Boo

Little Lila is finally getting much bigger! I'll write a more detailed post when I haven't just written five others and it's not midnight.  Let's just summarize with things are finally much much better.  I'll write a detailed post on the ups and downs of the last two months and her little hospital stay and month with a yucky tube in her nose.  She is a much happier baby now who is sleeping in her own bassinet, eating a little summer squash, sitting up by herself, and almost crawling.  She has two teeth now and hit sixteen pounds this week!! Hard to believe she was still ten something seven weeks ago!

First day home from the hospital.

Favorite toy.

                                    

Tried to get a pic of the two bottom teeth with no luck, but check our her long eyelashes.

This is what happens the last week when I actually broke eye contact and she could see that I was there but not interacting with her.

This is why I hide in the kitchen when she is in the living room not daring to make eye contact.  She looks like the pictures above until she sees me and realizes she is not being held.  Then, instantly crying and kicking.  Apparently six straight months of being held has it's consequences.  Who knew?

Dance Recital

Anna had her first dance recital on June 9th.  There were a lot of rules and drama surrounding the preperations for the dance recital and I was starting to regret having her do it until the day of the program.  She rocked it up there on stage and completed the whole dance.  When she came running back stage she looked up at me and could hardly contain her excitement.  She said, " Mom, that was so awesome!" She couldn't wait to get back out there for her tumbling number.  Totally worth the money and prep  :) I do think we'll try the more low key gymnastics route this next year and see how that goes.  Her routine was done to the splish splash I was taking a bath music.... I did take some illegal video of the performance but I have no idea how to post that

Seven Years old

Jackson turned seven last month and I feel like he aged about a year in the last two months.  He seems SO seven years old all of the sudden and let me tell you seven feels a lot older than six.  I also feel by the way that it significantly ages me instantly to say that I have a seven year old. We did a split shift family day with Kurt taking the kids up to Monkey Joe's in the morning and I took them out to Panera for dinner and then shopping with Jackson's birthday money.

I just wrote a post last month about Jackson so not a whole lot has changed.  He is an incredibly sweet and sensitive little guy who would do anything for his sisters and loves to make everyone happy.  He loves to read and is zipping through third grade chapter books. I'm so proud of this little guy and happy he is the leader of our little troop.

July Fourth

 For the fourth we got to do something that we have never been able to do since we moved here, which was all spend the day together! It happened to fall on Wednesday which is Kurt's day off and Dustin was able to take the day off.  We all went the the Pinehurst parade where the kids caught candy and ate ice cream. We came home for naps and then went to the Donahue's for a bar-b-que and firework show on their street.

Love that big boy missing a tooth smile.

 I've discovered that I have a over the top ridiculous fear of children and sparklers, I finally had to stop watching because I was annoying even myself with all my comments of reminding everyone to be careful and still.

The ever important cherries while watching fireworks.

It was a great family day and I'm very grateful for all the freedoms that our family enjoys in this beautiful country.  I know we take much for granted every day, and it was good to reflect on the blessings we have.

Rainbow Party Bonanza

 Happy Birthday Anna-Banana!! Anna has been in love with Rainbows for close to a year now so I started planning her party at least six months ago hoping to keep her interested in rainbows since I had already pinned at least 20 items relating to this awesome party theme. I didn't have to work at it though because her love of rainbows is still going strong and she loved all the rainbow hoopla making sure I had everything in the correct ROYGBIV order.  The party went great even though the temperature that day topped 105 degrees.  The activities were scratch off rainbow art, making rainbow bead necklaces, painting outside, and using markers and then spraying it with water, and eating way way too much sugar before lunch time.

The rainbow candy bar

Cupcakes to go with the gigantic cake because I cannot seem to plan appropriate sized food for a party without having leftovers for two weeks.

Individual dunked ice creams on a stick.  

Rainbow cake!

This was from the morning of her birthday the next day.  I can't believe my little girl is four!

Some things that I love about my big little girl are:

That she has made the phrase "I love you in my heart" a regular saying in our house, followed closely by " I love you in my... foot, hair, nose, belly button, and ever popular bum-bum"

What a good listener she has been lately and that she constantly uses the phrases "Yes, Ma'am or Yes Sir" or "Sure (Shoo-were) I would love to!"

She has started using the phrase, "Everybody knows that."

Anna and Daddy have a thing going where they silently say I love you in my heart by pointing to her eyes, crossing her arms over her heart, pointing to each other and then their heart.

For a while she had one doll which had to be wrapped in a weird washcloth secured by a large paper clip thingy in a very specific way which had to be redone ten times a day.

Anna has begun to really get into pretend play and has fallen in love with my little ponies, her dollies, and some play animals specifically a mommy and baby cow.  She makes cute voices for them and I am sometimes slightly worried by how stern and sometimes mean the mommy seems to be in most of the scenerios.

Her long beautiful hair that I may never be able to bring myself to cut.

She only talks to Lila in a high pitched sing songy voice and gets super excited if she gets a smile or a laugh.

She wants to ride on Kurt's shoulders everywhere she goes and he lets her a very high percentage of the time including when mowing the grass, going to brush her teeth, going to bed, etc...

And some not as loved... she lets the cat out every time she opens the door.

Lila four months

Sadly, Lila has had a rough month and I have taken next to no pictures of her this last month.  I really could just post one from two months old and it would be accurate because she is back down to the weight she was at nine weeks old.  For some reason little Lila doesn't want to grow.  We have been up to UNC seeing specialists in GI, feeding, and a dietician.  She is on increased calorie feedings during the day which means I get to pump and bottle feed all day and nurse all night which is a little more than exhausting.  We go back in two days from now to see if it is working and if she is finally gaining.  If she hasn't than she will have to be admitted and a NG tube placed to help her gain some weight.  She has managed to hit some milestones this week and is grabbing at toys and holding on and bringing them to her mouth.  She always has something in her mouth, her hand, a toy or a fist full of my hair.  Here is the only pictures I snapped of her from a few days ago at four months and one week old.

Easter 2012

It's next to impossible to get a good picture with three kids and no one crying or drooling or bugging the person next to them.  Here are the best ones with the kids almost all smiling and nearly looking in the same direction.

"Jacksonator"

I haven't written a post about my favorite little guy in a while.  He's almost not even in the category of a little guy any more.  He's looking more and more like a grown up kid which makes me proud and sad all at the same time.  He is still as sweet natured, cuddly, and mild tempered as he has ever been.  Jackson can still play with any kid from one to ten and have a great time.  He is fine running the show or doing what everyone else wants to do.  He is learning the joy of sarcasm (thanks in no small part to his father) and makes me want to laugh and scold with much of what he says.  Here are some things about Jackson I've noted over the last two months:

• He loved the March Madness basketball tournament almost as much as I did and would watch all of the games with me.  I let him stay up until almost midnight watching one of the KU games with me and it was one of the coolest Mom/son experiences I've had yet.  Here are some of the comments he made within the first ten minutes of that game: "good hustle", "Nice rebound, do something with it", "let's rock and roll", "what are you waiting for shoot it", and the one I'm least proud of... "Oh freakin..." He completely understands the games and it is awesome to watch with him. At one point during the game he said "nice" when the other team did something good and I tried to explain to him that it wasn't good for us.  He looked at me like I was an idiot and said, " I know, I didn't mean nice, nice; I meant the bad kind of nice." I said, "Oh you mean sarcastic nice?" and he said "Yes, that kind."
• Jackson asked me if I was a teenager.  I told him no that I was thirty and you were only a teenager from 13-19.  He replied that he knew that but that I looked like a teenager still.  I asked him if he thought Dad looked like a teenager and he said no.  He got extra hugs that night :)
• The night I had him stay up with me and watch the game he looked at me and said, "Thanks for letting me stay up with you mom, this is the best night ever". I nearly cried and said to him, "Thank you for liking basketball and wanting to watch with me." He replied, "That's not something you thank someone for."
• Jackson is an awesome reader and has developed a real love for reading.  Recently in the car after getting a new book he told me he didn't want to watch a movie in the car, he just wanted to read.  That's a proud moment for a parent.  The next day he had another new chapter book from the book fair and I watched him get off the bus while reading and walk off the bus and down the driveway while never looking up from his book.  He had already read fifty pages since getting the book.  He looked so old reading and walking at the same time so absorbed in his book. I only later realized it was Captain Underpants and pretty inappropriate for a six year old.  I learned this after he told me an inappropriate joke about "Weenie the Poo" while pointing to a certain area to make sure I understood the pun and why it was so funny.
• Jackson is still super sensitive to others feelings and lately he has been trying to comfort Anna when she gets hurt which only leads to her not allowing him to comfort her or even worse, yelling at him because she is mad she is hurt which then leads to Jackson crying because Anna is crying and won't let him comfort her.
• Jackson is super polite and has taken to saying "Yes, Ma'am." all of the time.  I find it incredibly southern and charming.
• About a month ago Jackson started crying, I mean screaming and crying hysterically when Kurt would leave his room at night so that he could go to bed.  I finally came in one night and told him he had to calm down and then I would talk to him.  After he calmed down I went in and explained to him that daddy was never going to come back in and stay longer when he acted like that and that it would never work so he should stop.  He calmly looked at me and said, "Yes it does sometimes, it worked once. Once I cried and he came back in and cuddle with me some more" The power of intermittent reinforcement.  I explained that it wouldn't again for sure.  
• A few weeks ago when we were eating ice cream at the ice cream shop downtown Jackson looked out the window and started laughing.  I asked him what he was laughing at and he told me he was "Imaginating something..." When I asked what he said he didn't want to tell me but it was funny.
• Jackson has finally started to play pretend play on his own, thanks to Anna teaching him how and how fun it could be.  She usually takes the lead but I have seen him create some of his own play schemes lately.
• Jackson and I started a journal to each other to be passed back and forth and write things to each other.  He is really excited about it and made me pinkie promise him that I wouldn't forget to write him tonight.
• Jackson finally lost his two bottom teeth and was so excited about the tooth fairy coming the first night he didn't go to sleep until after midnight.

 Jackson played on a basketball team from Nov-Feb.  He really got the hang of the games by the end of the season and scored four points in their last win in the tournament in a nail-biter which went into overtime.

Overall, my sweet little boy is growing up into a big sweet kid way to quickly.  I love that guy and think he was born to be a big brother.  I hope he loves us the way he does now ten years from now and still wants to cuddle and talk at night before bed.