week in pics

Riding the carousel at the mall

First time sitting up!!!

car maze with tape, that entertained for all of five minutes.

sleeping till 10 every day

just like her sisters--hates to hold her own bottle!

I love that my girls root for each other in the bathroom.  Even in the middle of the night.

they collided.  You can't tell on Sage, but poor C had a HUGE bump!

We made GAK the other day and it was a hit.  The girls played with it for two hours and it is mess free and so easy.  Daddy even got in on the action.

they woke up to a swamp and were determined to play in the water...

until they learned that it was muddy and had grass in it.  such girlies.

Ohhhhh.  I love them.

Updates

I used to devote specific posts to each of the girls.  haha.  I don't quite have time for that anymore.  So...

Sage
Is growing.  Physically, yes.  But more than that, intellectually.  She astounds me every day.  She is so very perceptive and picks up on every little detail around her.  Especially in the car.  She asks non stop questions--why is that man working on the side of the road?  why does that car have a sticker on it?  why does that arrow not turn yellow?  why did they make a big lizard sign on the side of the road?  why aren't you turning if the light is green?  and so on and so on.  She keeps me on my toes, and half the time I tell her she will have to wait till daddy gets home so she can ask him cause I just don't know.  She is sensitive.  Like, SENSITIVE.  Overly.  It drives me a little crazy.  She gets it from my side of the family because both my parents and ALL of my sibs are sensitive.  If one cries, we all cry.  She is always letting me know if/when I have hurt her feelings.  She is excited about little things, which I love.  She reminds us that FHE is coming up, or that we forgot to bless the food, or that I forgot to put her bib on her.  She is very routine, and likes things to be the same each day.  First things first each morning, or she gets frustrated.  She likes to be a big girl half the time and a baby the other half.  This infuriates me!  She likes to whine in the mornings that she is cold, and when I say whine, I mean like she does not stop whining until she has a sweater on, slippers on her feet, and is buried beneath blankets.  And it's 110 degrees outside.  After she lays there for a minute or two she is happy again and ready to go.  It kills me.  Some mornings she wakes up happy as a lark and things go so smoothly.  Other mornings we yell at each other (true story) and she ends up in time out while I either call Clint crying or try to cool down in another room.  Going right along with this, half the time she is the BEST big sister and is sharing and being sweet and playing nicely, while the other half she is taunting and teasing and being a stinker.  She is very particular about her hair.  If she had her way, it would be up in a half pony-tail every single day.  This wouldn't be a huge problem, except that I really worry about her OCD habits and am trying to help her live on the wild side a bit and do different things each day.  So.  We alternate each day.  One day, she gets a half ponytail, and the next day I get to pick how we do her hair.  It's always a struggle on the day that I get to choose, because she can't stand not doing it the same way.  I should probably give in, but I don't.   She LOVES me.  She is always asking if she can play with my hair, or put make up on me, or snuggle with me, or whisper secrets in my ears.  Any and all attention she gets from me is just eaten up by her.  She loves it.  And so do I.  


Charlotte
Hm.  Charlotte.  Also known as my "I will get my way no matter what you do or say and no matter how long it takes", child.  She is sooooo sweet.  And sooooo naughty!!!!  She has this look in her eye and seems to get away with so much more than Sage ever did.  I don't think this is because we are any less strict with her though.  I think it's because where Sage is obedient 99.9% of the time, Charlotte is obedient when she is being told to do something she wants to do, or is being bribed with a treat of some sort to do said task.  She is just super stubborn and head strong.  Once she has her mind on something, there is NO other way.  Even with the teeniest, tiniest things.  She has a one-track mind and will repeat her plea for something 1,000 times until it is done.  For example, today I was shredding a rotisserie chicken, so my hands were obviously gross.  She wanted help tying a bow around her dress.  It went like this:
"mom?  un help me tie bow?"
"sure sweetie.  just one second, ok?"
"ok.  un tie bow?"
"just a second."
"tie bow mom?  un tie bow?"
"charlotte.  wait until I'm done and then I'll help you."
"ok mommy.  un tie bow?  un help me tie bow?"


this will go on and on until I either give in and help her before finishing my task, or until I yell at her and she goes off sulking.  She is a spit-fire, that's for sure.  She is super smart.  She says things sometimes that just floor me and make me think she is for sure her daddy's child.  She LOVES breakfast.  She will eat 3 big bowls of cereal and then a few pancakes before Sage even finishes one pancake.  She will declare all throughout her meal that it's "super yummy" and "so delicious".  After that big meal, though, that's it.  It lasts her all day long apparently, because she hardly eats for the rest of the day.  She loves to play dress up and pretty much lives in the same dress up outfit every day.  She has a VERY strange habit that I guess I'll call "hoarding"??  She likes to collect things and put them on her bed, then leave them there all day and all night.  And if you remove one tiny bead from her pile, she knows.  She knows exactly what she has in there and exactly where each thing is.  She will find backpacks and purses, then fill them to the brim with tiny toys and trinkets and then shut the door to her room.  It's so bizarre.  If Sage is ever missing a bracelet or necklace, I will ask Charly where it is and she will get this devilish look on her face and run to her room.  She will find the exact purse and dig around to the bottom and pull out whatever we are looking for.  She knows just what she is doing and is such a stinker about it.  And I'm not talking about a toy or two.  I'm talking a bed full.  Strollers, dolls, books, brushes, hair bows, Emery's toys, forks, spoons, shoes, etc.  It is outta control!!!  I've been really trying to work with her on limiting her stash to just one backpack full of toys and her Dora doll.  We've got a long ways to go though.  While she has her crazy habits and attitudes, she is also so so sweet.  She will snuggle up to me and say "my mommy" while holding on to me so tight.  She loves to say prayers and is getting so good at it.  She loves to sing and dance and talk on the phone.  She is a little Lenny-ish when it comes to Emery.  She loves her so much that she gets excited and ends up laying on her or tickling her too hard or poking at her too roughly.  It's kind of funny.  She is a drama queen to the max and we love her way too much.

Emery
Ohhhhh my baby.  I love my baby.  LOVE her.  She is happy all day long.  Smiles all day long.  Laughs if you look at her.  When I'm working in the kitchen or on the computer I can feel her staring at me, and the second I turn to look at her she just BEAMS.  Smiles so big her gums are all over the place and it just kills me.  She loves her bottle and only likes to nurse a little.  ha.  I've been working so hard to try to keep my milk up but I'm pretty sure it's coming to an abrupt end because girlfriend would just rather take a bottle.  She is loving baby food and shoves EVERYTHING into her mouth, so we have to be careful.  The past five days she has gone to bed at 7:30 and slept till 10-10:30 the next day. It's kind of bizarre.  I've had to wake her up because we have to get out the door and when I go in there, she is sound asleep.  When I wake her up she immediately smiles at me and starts banging her fists and waving her arms for food.  It's so sweet.  She takes two 2-3 hour naps during the day and we've finally cut out the third short evening nap.  She is tired by 7 but can usually last till bedtime.  It's amazing to me how much she sleeps.  It's great, but also makes getting the girls out of the house and doing things with them hard.  With Em always needing naps, we are kind of confined.  I realize it won't always be this way--where I can let her nap instead of just taking her with me--but I'm doing it while I can.  She doesn't do well when she doesn't get her sleep, so I'd rather just get less done and let her get her beauty rest in than try to run errands with a fussy baby.  She loves her sisters and loves Clint and I.  She really lights up the room with her smile and we love her so much.

Clint
That's right!  He deserves a little something, too.  Right now he is buried under my kitchen sink installing an R.O. system for me.  I'm a bit of a water snob and the faucet water is soooo not cutting it for me.  He likes it fine and would rather pocket the $200 it took to buy the RO, but he's doing it for me and I'm lucky he is.  It's so nice having a handy husband around.  Clint and I don't work well together.  I see couples who actually have jobs together or are with each other all day and get along and think--man!  We'd kill each other!  We just go about things very differently and think differently.  When he has a plan for something, he isn't too interested in what my ideas are or how I would like to do things.  And I've learned not to offer my help or try to talk to him while he's working, because he gets SUPER short with me and would rather be left alone.   I understand this, because I'm the same way.  When I'm busy doing something, I just want to plow through and get it done.  Clint is still working horribly long hours.  He is out the door by 3:45 in the morning and usually comes home between 6-8 at night.  It kills me.  I love that he is a hard worker and is devoted to his job, but I would also love it if he would draw the line some days and just put work on hold.  He comes home and all four of us ladies are pretty much fighting for his time and attention, which usually ends up with one of us feeling left out and sulking.  :)  That person is usually me, because I want the girls to have daddy time.  This just means that we go all week without saying two words to each other, and by the time the weekend comes he is trying to catch up on chores at home and I'm frustrated that we don't talk!  It's a vicious cycle.  I realize that I only get frustrated because I miss him and want to spend time with him, but I also realize that the more kiddos we have the busier life will get, so we need to get better at communicating every day.  Communication has always been our struggle.  He talks all day at work so when he comes home he just wants quiet.  I'm home with kiddos all day, so when he gets home I'm full of things to say but get annoyed that he doesn't talk back.  We are going on a cruise together in September and I am beyond excited to get 7 full days and 7 full nights of just us time.  No cell phones.  No work.  No kids.  Just us.  (and bj/kat, kris/brenna, audrie/craig--but you know what I mean!)  I'm excited to spend time with my best friend.  He is so good to me and I don't know how I got so lucky.

Potty Time!

It's no secret that Charlotte is a skinny little thing.  She has zero fat on her little bod.  Her little legs are so skinny, in fact, that no diaper on the face of the Earth will stay on or hold anything in.  No matter how tight I wrap it around her waist, the leg holes of the diaper just do nothing.  Her pee, and lately, her poop-just seeps right out.  I'm done!  I am done buying diapers that do no good.  So.  We (I) began potty training her as of last Saturday.  She's doing so great!  She has had two accidents during the day, one while she was napping and one at the gym.  (oops)   I think that's pretty dang good for almost a full week.  She's gone two nights with no accidents, but night time is what we are really working on right now.  I've washed sheets more than I care for.  She got to pick out a toy--a Dora Mermaid-- at WalMart the day we started, and when she has it all figured out and is going through the night without accidents, she gets to open it.  Each time she goes successfully, she gets three chocolate chips.  She thinks this is the most amazing thing in the world, and it's working like a charm.  Sage is so cute with her, too.  She will sit on their little stool and talk to her while she goes, tickle her arms for her, and then congratulate her on a job well done after she goes.  I love the way she talks to her the same way I do...."good job, sweetheart!" "I'm so proud of you!"  "You are getting to be such a big girl!"  So funny.  

The first few times, she'd say she needed to go and then we'd sit.  And sit.  And siiiiiit.  Sage would occupy herself by styling my hair for me.  She's got the hang of it now though.  Oh man.  I sure love my little stinkers that drive me insane.

Grateful Two

My heart is super full of these ladies right now.  Possibly because they are all sleeping peacefully and I finally have a few moments of quiet to myself.  Possibly.  Our days are pretty full of whining and bickering over toys and who is playing with the Cinderella doll even though it's "MY DOLL", and things like that.  Today they would not stop arguing about who's mom I was.  "my mom!" "no, my mom!". Gah. The girls are either BFF's, or beating each other up.  It wears on me.  But the moments like this make it all worth it.

I walked in and caught them snuggling while watching a movie.  And yes, they LIVE in princess clothes. Melt my heart.

Mornings are amazing.  (most of the time)  Emery BEAMS at her sisters when she sees them, and the girls just eat her up.  I think they all look so beautiful in their jammies and messy hair.  I love how happy they look.

This baby never ceases to amaze me.  She smiles all day long.  Like big, toothy, so-big-her-face-has-to-hurt smiles.  I LOVE her.

My little bathing beauty

Grateful

Today I'm grateful my sweet husband is still alive and kickin.  It was a year ago today that I had the biggest scare of my life.  Aside from the occasional limp, a few scars and a lot of ibprofen, you'd never know we almost lost him last year.  I'm grateful he had angels watching over and protecting him that day.

I sent him a text this morning that said, "One year ago today.  I'm glad you're still here.  Love you long time."  Shortly after that, he called and I  knew something was wrong.  Apparently their mechanic at work, who has been with the company for a very long time, had a fatal accident repairing a tractor.  Clint was there and with the help of the police on the phone guiding him, was able to perform CPR. He says that after the first compression he felt bones breaking.  His rib cage had caved in and punctured his heart and his spine was severed.  Clint is, very understandable, quite shook up.  My heart hurts for the family of that man.  Accidents like this remind me that anything can happen to the ones we love.  Anytime.  Any day.  Anywhere.  I'll be holding my man and my babies a little tighter tonight.