Big Sisters and Brother

Paige is funny with Reed.  I thought she'd be so excited to have a baby in the house, now that she's older and can do more to help.  She LOVES Reed, and thinks he's so cute, but she actually pays less attention to him than Cason and Neely do.  I think because she's our most independent child, and likes to have her alone time, and Reed spends so much time asleep.  He's also a pretty quiet guy when he IS awake, so I think she almost forgets he's here sometimes.  Ha.  The more he interacts with us the more she's paying attention to him and telling me "He's SO cute!"  She gets so excited when he shows any interest in trying to accomplish something, like trying to roll over.  A couple of weeks ago she asked to hold him, and he was smiling at her.  I was about to take a cute picture of them smiling at each other, when he cooed at her in the cutest voice, and with the sweetest look on his face.  She whirled around to tell me how cute it was just as I took the picture.  I got so lucky to capture that moment.  So cute.

She usually asks to hold him when she comes home each day.  She'll hold him for several minutes and either decide she is done and goes off to play, or HE decides he's ready for a meal.

Speaking of Paige and babies, they were playing a game with Alex and Faith one day, and Neely was their baby.  She LOOOOVED being held, and babied, and carried around by her oldest cousin.

Alex also did Neely's hair for her, and she was pretty happy with her braid.

 As usual, Cason and Neely obsess over Reed.  If he's in his swing or on the bed or whatever, and gets upset, they rush to console him while I hurry to finish whatever I'm doing.

Cason does most of the consoling, and Neely yells at me that "Reed is SAD!" or "Reed wants you!" or "Reed is hungry!"  She does NOT want him to wait more than a few seconds.  Then again, neither do I.  

He gets what he wants.

1st E.R. Visit

Last Friday, Cason was getting ready to spend the night with Grammy and Grampy.  It was his first time sleeping over somewhere without Paige along too.  Grammy picked him up at around lunch time.  He was nervous at first, but I could tell he got excited as soon as he saw her.  

 He'd been feeling better for a couple of days, and so had Paige.  Neely, Reed, and I were the only ones still a bit sick, but I was just thinking to myself that morning how this one had been really easy.  No fevers, nobody seemed to feel that bad, just coughs, and we even slept well.  Nobody's cough got worse at night or anything.  The only thing was that I had to clear out Reed's nose for him at night so he could breathe easily.  

Then Friday afternoon, a while after Reed woke up from a nap, his cough got a lot worse.  He had this coughing fit that lasted what felt like forever, and he could barely get his breath and was kind of choking.  It freaked me out and we took him to the E.R.  Of course, we sat there for three hours and he coughed maybe 4 or 5 little individual coughs.  No scary fits at all, so I looked like a crazy mom.  Jess didn't come in back with us, because Neely wanted to sit in every germ-ridden chair the E.R. waiting room had to offer, and wouldn't listen when we told her to sit still.  So he and Neely left, and Paige and I took Reed back.  

Paige was not that excited about it, because she was missing seeing Frozen at the movies, like she was supposed to.  Her night got better though, when she saw there was a Jessie Christmas episode on the tv that she wouldn't have been able to see at home.  Ha.

After a few hours they sent us home, and before we even got home he had another one so bad we had to stop the car and take him out of his seat so he could catch his breath and stop coughing.  

I expected a really rough night, but he surprised me and slept perfectly, except for a few coughs when he was up for a meal anyway. 

The next day he still had the cough, but was sweet and smiley as always.

The girls went on a date with daddy to see Frozen, since they'd planned to the night before, but our ER visit ruined their plans.

 

 Then Cason came home and told us all about his fun.  ATV rides, the hot tub, cookies, dominoes.  All kinds of fun stuff that must have been way better than our night.  Ha.

 Since it was clear Reed was fine, that evening I took Neely on a date.  

 

She needed some new shoes and a coat.  On the way I told her "I love to go on a date with my girl."  She goes "I love to go on a date with my girl too!"  First we went for shoes, and she picked a pair that she LOVES and runs way faster in.

 We failed on the coat hunt, but she was obsessing about finding some marbles.  Cason brought some home from his sleepover and Neely had to have some too.  We tried about three stores and never found marbles.  On our drive we saw a bus all decorated, on it's way to the parade.  That pleased my date.

My last attempt for marbles was Walmart, and Neely wanted to be held.  I picked her up, and a minute later realized she was completely limp.  She didn't even seem sleepy a minute before, but now she was OUT.  

I had to look for a few things, once I gave up on the marbles, and she was sleeping SO deeply she felt especially heavy.  I thought I wasn't going to make it out of there.  (Don't mind my bloodshot eyes-rough night the night before, ha!)

 Somehow I checked out and made it to the car and got her door open JUST as my arms went numb.  Guess we'll be buying marbles online.

Here's a picture I'd like to finish with, because it makes me happy.

Cold Days and the Leaf Monster

A week or so ago it suddenly got pretty cold.  We've spent lots of time inside.  There was one outdoor game, the traditional Leaf Monster game they play with Jess the first night there are enough leaves.  Our leaves were still green as could be, but then it got really cold one night and they all fell at once.  Jess came home at lunch, and he and the middle two worked on getting the leaves ready for the game that night.  They even raked some in from the street.

They tried to get him to play it right then, but he made them wait for after work when Paige would be home too.

Reed and I watched from the living room window, and took awful pictures.  They had lots of fun.

Other than that we've mostly stayed inside.

They make up games that I can only watch long enough to get a picture, because I'm scared someone will knock heads together or something.  This one is some sort of bucking monster ride.  They love it and I hate it.

One night Gia was Rudolph, and they had a laundry basket sleigh.  They were so disappointed she couldn't pull them.

She didn't try very hard.

The whole family, except Jess, caught a cold.  Paige was first, and got over it quickly.  Then me and the other kids got it.  None of us felt too bad, (not at first anyway) just slightly sore throats and the kids had coughs.  No fevers or anything.

It was cold and windy out, so I drove around the corner to pick Paige up at the bus stop, instead of walking in the cold each day.  They still wanted to dress warm for it.

All this indoor time means lots of crafts.  Since I had a sick baby who didn't want to be put down, Cason and Neely were coming up with their own crafty projects.  

I liked this one Cason did, "Power Eagles fighting".  One is a fire eagle and the other is a water eagle.  Reminded me of Captain Planet.

One afternoon it was all about snowflakes.  Paige made two and then looked at them and said "They were WRONG.  Two snowflakes CAN look alike."

I was in Reed's room one day and out of the corner of my eye saw a tshirt on the ground.  I went to pick it up, when I realized Cason had made a paper version of himself wearing the shirt.  So funny.  I went and asked him about it.  He said he was going to cut out all the limbs too, but he got tired.  Ha.  Make sure you click on the picture to enlarge it and see how cute the hands and feet are.

When we can, Cason and I have been doing the worksheets from the Kindergarten curriculum I used with Paige last year.  He really likes it.  This was one of my favorites he did, especially how he spelled "knock."  He was so proud to tell me he figured it out all by himself.  Such a good job, and I didn't tell him.  Paige came up and saw it and started to explain.  I blurted out "NOO!" so he could have his moment. 

Speaking of this girl and spelling, she wants to be in a spelling bee one day.  She is well on her way, gets 100% on every spelling test and almost always gets all the bonus words too.  I know I wasn't spelling words like those in 1st grade.  

She still loves to learn, but isn't quite as excited about going to school as last year.  She doesn't beg to stay home or anything, but she isn't leaping out of bed with a grin this year either.  She has "too much homework" this year.  Ha.  It takes her all of 45 seconds to do each day.

Then after complaining about "all" her homework, she's asking to do math lessons and chinese lessons with Jess before bedtime each night.  Cason is doing reading lessons with Jess right after Paige does her math.  Cason is doing really well, he'll be reading his own books soon too.  

Christmas Prep Day

I keep getting ready to blog, but once all the pictures are ready I end up needing to save it and go feed Reed or whatever else.  So now I have all these pictures saved in one post, that really were meant to go in like 5 different posts, from weeks ago. 

So these are already a couple weeks old, but here they are.

The day after Thanksgiving we went out for a Christmas tree.  It was so early, we figured only Home Depot would have them yet, so that's where we went.  

They always set up the gingerbread men so the kids are squinting in the sun.  Ha.

Neely just wanted to say hi to them.

We went home to decorate while watching Rudolph like always.  The kids did most of the decorating this year, other than a few times when I had to talk them into spreading the ornaments out a bit.  :)

The big two argued about who could put the star on top.  Finally Jess held them both up so they could do it, and they took sooooooooooooo long.  He was straining and about to start laughing.  

 I love the look of happiness and relief on his face here, right after they finished.  Haha.

Cason (with a little help from Paige, but she got bored quickly) decorated the mantle by himself.  I just let him have at it, except when we had to tell him to quit moving reindeer stocking holders, hours later, before one fell on someone's head.  He takes his jobs seriously.

Then we had a nice night, with some cuddling..

...peppermint hot cocoa...

 

...and tree lights while having a living room campout and watching It's a Wonderful Life.