The Cassons Visit

Last week we got to spend a morning with the Cassons.  They got here late, and Jess was up doing some work on his laptop, so he let them in to go straight to bed.  The rest of us were already out.  The kids got to play all morning, and Jess brought us a pizza for lunch, before they had to start their drive to Kansas for a wedding.

 Liam seemed to really like Paige.  Here they are watching Curious George together.

 After they left the kids rode bikes and scooters for a while, and then Neely switched to her favorite activity:  Getting wet and filthy on the front porch and in the mud pit she creates next to the faucet.

 

She had to be stripped down out there and carried right to the bath.  She passed out quickly after the bath, because I had used the Cassons being here as an excuse to wake her up at 8-which is apparently unbelievably early for my kids.  

Neely's in such a hard stage.  Our kids honestly need like 3 hours less sleep than other kids at their ages.  They are done napping by between 2 and a half and 3 years old.  If they DO fall asleep and nap at these ages, they will be up until 2 or 3 in the morning, especially if the nap happens later in the day.  Even on days when Neely wakes up at 9 and DOESN'T nap, it's hard to get her to sleep at a decent hour.  She just never starts to seem overtired or grumpy.  8 pm rolls around and she's still happy and ready to play.  So I need to wake her up early, but then leaving the house any time after 4 is dangerous, because she might nap and then be up all night.  So it's either never leave home, or just live in a sleep deprived state, and never spend time with just Jess.  I read a blog recently and the lady's four girls all take 2-3 hour naps until they're about 5.  I can't even imagine that happening.

Anyway, all of us but Paige woke up that night with sore throats and stuffy noses.  We'd gone a couple months without getting sick,  so we thought we'd do it just in time for the Cassons to visit.

The Cassons came back on Sunday, and we mostly hung out at home, although we DID go to La Luna for dinner.  The kids were really good and we stuffed ourselves. 

Monday morning we headed to the zoo.  Jess had taken the day off, and we were happy it wouldn't be crowded because it was a weekday.  Instead there were public school buses everywhere, and tons of classes of kids.  It wasn't that bad once we got in though.  I didn't feel like we saw many animals, we mostly walked around, let the kids play in the water, and in the Children's Zoo.

 

After a while, Jess took Paige and Cason to ride the Leapin' Lizard, so Neely and I went with the Cassons to look for the elephants.  I had a feeling the Leapin' Lizard would be one of those things I would be tempted to stop them from doing because I'm a chicken, and I don't want to ruin all their fun.  So I figured I should just let Jess go.  I was right, because this picture Jess put on Instagram freaked me out later.  She had fun though.

Poor Cason was too light by only a few pounds, so he couldn't do it.  :(  He handled it well, and even let Paige borrow his socks, since you had to have some for her ride, and she was in sandals.  Jess took him to the carousel, after, and at least he got to ride a panda.

 On our walk to find the elephants, Neeliam held hands, for quite a while too.

 We were pretty worn out after the zoo, so thankfully Sarah wanted to make us spaghetti.  She and I went shopping, and she made us salad, spaghetti, and garlic bread, and even cleaned a bunch.  Thanks Sarah!  It was really good, and we brought in the picnic table for the kids.  They were pretty cute.

My only contribution was chocolate chip cookies, which we had with vanilla ice cream.  

 They had to leave the next day.  We hung out, letting the kids play all morning.  

I had to make sure my kids gave Colin some breathing room.  Especially Cason, he loves babies, and Colin is "just too cute" he's been telling me since they left.

He is pretty cute.

We went out front for a bit too, so the kids could play soccer.  The bigger ones did, and Liam for a bit, but then he joined Neely in getting muddy.

When he got another container to fill with water, she told him "Good finking(thinking) Wiam!"

They got filthy, and Sarah gave them a bath while I made us some lunch.  They had to leave a couple of hours later.  We had lots of fun!

A Few Quotes And A Storm Shelter

Since I've been bad about keeping up with the blog, I've been trying to text myself when the kids do or say something cute or funny, so that I will remember it when I DO post.  This time I have one from each of the kids.

Neely was sitting in my lap, leaning against my belly, when my stomach growled loudly.  She laughed, turned around and looked at my belly, and said "Mama!  Someone's poopin' in your belly!"  Haha.  The other two cracked up, so she kept repeating it to make them laugh more.

Paige was asking about where the baby will sleep when we have our movie nights and let them sleep with us.  I said "I think this baby might have to learn to sleep in it's crib.  When everyone is in here it wouldn't be safe while the baby is little."  She goes "Do you want quiet or crying?"  I didn't quite get it, so I kept asking "What?  What do you mean?"  Finally she goes "Do you want to hear quiet, or crying?"  I said "Quiet I guess."  She goes "Then let him sleep with you."  Ha.

Finally, my sweet boy was cuddling me several days ago and he hugged me tight and said "The only picture in my heart, is YOU!" :)

Neely's been extra cheerful in the morning lately.  She usually tries to do "silly faces" to make us laugh.

We had our first tornado warning, and our nice neighbors had already offered their storm shelter if we ever need to come over and get in there with them.  I still wondered if I would feel weird coming over and we'd end up just going to the public one.  Thankfully when it got pretty stormy last week, he came right over and said "Y'all better come on over."  So we did.  We had our first storm shelter experience, which didn't last long.  

 

Paige almost cried when we were first grabbing stuff and hurrying next door.  She calmed down quickly when she saw how calm and cheerful her friends next door were about it.

 We ended up hanging out in their living room watching the news for another hour, and then realized we were in the clear. 

No More Training Wheels

Paige is our cautious child.  None of them are hyper or anything, but Cason and Neely are a bit more fearless, jumping off of things they shouldn't at a young age.  Mostly they were like that between the ages of 1 and 2, and start to calm down a bit after that.  Which is nice, because they both seemed to constantly have bruised up knees and foreheads.  Paige isn't fearful or anything, I would say she has a healthy fear.  She's actually very tough, when she does get hurt she doesn't cry (or even tell us sometimes-she reminds me of an injured animal, sneaking off to be alone somewhere, ha!)  Still, she's careful.  So last year I asked when she wanted to try learning to ride her bike without training wheels and she said "No way."  She said she wouldn't learn until she was 16.  :)  All of a sudden though, she decided she wanted to try last week.  So did Cason.  So Jess took off their training wheels and started.  

Jess spent a few hours over the next 3 days, running alongside them while holding their handlebars, with his back hunched over uncomfortably.  The first day Paige rode for a few seconds on her own, but would get nervous.  Cason did too, but Jess felt like he was going to fall over.  Cason isn't sure yet anyway, and has had Jess put the training wheels back on, then off, then on again, several times over the last week.  

Neely got a new bike helmet too, and mostly scoots around the driveway and sidewalk, putting "fwowaz" in her basket.

 

She also just hangs out with me, making me laugh quite a bit.  She has these pink velcro hair curlers that she likes to use as binoculars at times, or just slide onto her scooter handlebars.  They fit perfectly.  Ha.

 By the third day of practicing, Paige was cruising all over, at a pretty decent speed, turning and stopping by herself.  She's VERY proud.

 Now then, since Neely is the youngest, and is still changing fastest, here are a couple videos of her scooting around and chatting with me, for all the family who would like to hear the kinds of things she likes to say lately.  It was one video, but was too long to post, so I split it into two.  Enjoy.  Sorry they're sideways, don't know how to fix it.

Ultrasound Day

Last week we had an appointment to check on our little one.  Got to hear the heartbeat, which is always wonderful.  They told me I was measuring 6 weeks ahead, so 20 weeks, even though I was supposed to only be 14.  So they had us schedule an ultrasound.  They didn't seem worried about anything, in fact, they seemed to assume maybe we were just further along than we thought.  Of course, I still got a little worried, and looked things up when I got home.  Most didn't seem too bad, although I did come across a few sites that mentioned extra amniotic fluid, which COULD point to some problems, or could be nothing at all.  A lot of places I looked made me wonder if we were going to have twins.  :)  I had been extra sick this time, and had even jokingly told Jess there must be 2 babies in there.

We had to wait almost a week, and finally had our ultrasound today.  The lady was by far the best we've been to, plus her office smelled REALLY good.  Ha.  She was awesome, and so nice, and talked us through everything she was doing.  A lot of times they seem cranky if you want to know anything about it, and you don't get to find out if everything is okay until your next appointment with your doctor.  

Anyway, there was only one baby in there, a very healthy one, AND they only moved our due date up 5 days.  So October 2nd(or 3rd she said, but on all the pictures we got it says the 2nd so I'm going with that).  We got lots of cute shots of the baby, and even a disc with the whole ultrasound on video.  The most video we ever got before was like a 2 second one at Cason's ultrasound.  Even though we're not quite 16 weeks yet, she got a nice clear shot and told us what we're having too.  :)  During the ultrasound Neely said "So cute.  The baby wants to go to school!"  Haha.

Little front view:

Profile:

Profile with the cute little fist up by the mouth:

Legs, crossed at the cute little ankles.  Pretty casual.

 One of the feet, with a big toe that kept spreading out to the side, another monkey toed family member. Paige heard me say that and looked nervous.  I realized she thought the baby had actual monkey toes.  Haha!

Finally, the gender shot.  She told us she won't tell people unless she's sure, but that this time was a "definite".  She even said "It's a good thing you're finding out, I don't think I could've hidden it from you with this shot."

A boy!  Everyone was so excited.  Especially the big brother.  So cute.  He smiled so big.  I always kind of thought we'd alternate.  That was whether I was pregnant or not though, so I never really had a feeling about what I was having before.  This time I totally thought it would be a boy.  I think Jess is the only person I told though.  I figured I'd be wrong if I told people, so I just pretended not to have a feeling if anyone asked.  Sorry if I lied to you.  :)  People kept telling me get ready for another girl because I was so sick, and I just went along with it, but I really just felt like it was a boy.  I only ever crave protein too, so that made me think boy also.  I have no actual reason to think that means boy, I just felt that way.  When I was pregnant with Cason I kept leaning toward boyish colors and crib bedding and clothes, but I figured that was just because I'd already gotten to do the girl stuff with Paige.  Not because I had a "feeling" necessarily.  With Neely I bought girl onesies before I was even pregnant, just because I saw them and felt like I was going to need them next time.  But I wasn't even pregnant yet, so obviously not a real feeling.  I think I just had that idea in my head that we'd alternate.  When I was actually pregnant with Neely I didn't think I knew either way at all.  I also bought some boy onesies in Target with Tyra several months ago for the same reason for this baby, again before I was even pregnant, and just because I loved them.  Ha. I also love run-on sentences apparently. 

We're so blessed, another sweet, healthy angel baby, and 2 of each!

Easter Weekend

On our way home from our trip downtown on Saturday, we had planned to go somewhere so Jess or I could run into a store and secretly buy stuff for Easter baskets for the kids, but we were so tired we decided we'd go back out later.  Then I took a long nap, and went to Walmart for stuff to dye eggs.  Then we were going to go to Target for the stuff for Easter baskets, but we realized it was almost 9 pm, and we still had to hardboil eggs and make the dye and everything.  So obviously we decided we'd have to wait and get their Easter surprises in the morning.  Thankfully Paige happened to mention that the Easter Bunny doesn't come at night, he comes "in the morning while you're out somewhere".  Ha.  Don't know why she thinks that, but it helped us out. 

So we went home and dyed eggs.  First we were boiling our eggs, and also a bunch of veggies and fruits to make our dye.  Jess told me "I hope you realize I love you.  I'm participating in making NATURAL EGG DYE."  Ha.  It's true.  Some of the dye turned out great, but some of it was totally ineffective.  We ended up cheating and using the dye tablets for yellow and green, because our natural versions just weren't doing it.
 
 
Some of the natural dyes turned out more faint and pastel, but the ones that turned out darker were kind of mottled, but I thought they were cool looking.  Here are Paige's eggs:

 Cason's eggs:

 (he wasn't super careful handling his, which is why he only has 7 left)

My favorite is this one of Cason's, which he did with the grape juice dye-supposed to be purple but turned out kind of purply grey and kind of marbled with black and white.

 Neely's eggs:

So in the morning we headed for Target, to sneak in for their surprises.  Unfortunately Target turned out to be closed, so we searched for a Walmart.  Then the kids wanted to come in, which complicated things.  Jess took them to look at toys, while I ran around collecting little treats and toys and baskets for them.  Then I stashed it in a certain aisle, traded places with Jess, while he went to pay and hide it in the car, and THEN he came back and got us to leave.  Somehow we managed to do it without getting caught.  :)

We did just as poor a job planning the rest of our Easter too.  We planned to take them to a big Easter Hunt, but realized on Saturday night that they had all happened on Saturday.  :(  The only one on Sunday was at the zoo, and was only for ages 2-5.  :(  We had also done NO shopping for a nice meal.  We decided to just take the kids to a pizza place for lunch, which was fine and we knew the kids would love it.  But then we stepped inside, and it was totally empty except for us, and I was struck by the fact that we were in a pizza place on Easter, AND had no plan for our dinner either.  You bet, I started crying right in our booth.  Haha.  I think I might really be pregnant.  Poor Jess.  He took us right to a grocery store, where he did the best he could finding the stuff to make us as nice an Easter dinner as possible on short notice. 

We came home, played with bubbles,

had OUR Easter egg hunt,


 
and had our dinner, and our Easter turned out great.  We WILL be better planners next year though.

Board Breaker

Paige broke her first boards in Tae Kwon Do last week.  One with a kick, and one with a punch.  She was very proud. 

Cason got sad listening to her tell us about it, because he didn't break one.  He felt better when he remembered that he was the only one in class who was able to punch Master Cho's hand fast enough that he couldn't catch his hands.  So he's the fastest puncher around I guess.  :)

We've had some nice days, so we played out back some.  I still didn't feel good, so I sat in a chair on the porch and watched.  Which is why this picture isn't very good, I had to zoom WAY in.  I texted it to Jess and he said it captures their personalities.

They also found a ladybug one of the days we spent out there. 

I'm afraid to type this and jinx myself, but I think my morning sickness might be starting to ease a bit.  I've been able to get up and be a little more productive for a few days.  I definitely wouldn't say I feel GOOD yet, but there's finally a difference, so I'm hopeful.  We even had a pretty active Saturday.  We went downtown and took the kids to Pinkitzel.  Can't remember if I spelled that right, but it's a really cute candy shop that also sells other things-toys, backpacks, and cupcakes.  The cupcakes were good-especially the frosting-but still didn't compare to Nomelie in Parker, CO, in my opinion.  But this place had the best saltwater taffy.  Then we walked down by the canal.  I was pretty winded, fast, I think partly because I still feel a little off, and partly because I'm just horribly out of shape from my previous 7 weeks of morning sickness.  It was embarrassing.  Thankfully we hopped on a water taxi before too long.  It was fun and I think we probably got the most "lively" of tour guides.  He was pretty funny.  We realized we both left our phones in the car so we have no pictures of our adventure downtown.  :(  After that we walked to the Spaghetti Factory for lunch.  The kids loved it because a guy came to our table to make balloon hats and animals for each of them.  I want to go back and take a water taxi ride at night some time. 

Funny Stuff and Other Stuff

Weeks of no posts, and now two in one day.

Neely says lots of funny things lately.  One she said constantly for a couple of weeks was "Sooooo....you don' know how take care of a baby this year?"  None of us really knew what she was talking about or where it came from, but it made us laugh and she'd smile proudly.

She's also newly into Diego and Dora, and since starting to love them, she's almost always a cat, meowing at us to communicate half the time.  She also tells me she's "scared of swiper".  She's totally faking, but it reminded me of how Cason really was scared of him around that age.  He wouldn't go down the hall alone because he thought Swiper the fox was down there.  Ha.

Neely likes to do me favors, like bring me things and when I thank her she says "NOOOOO pwobwem mama!"  So cute. 

When she's mad she tells us to go to our rooms.  One day recently I changed her diaper and asked her "Don't you want to try going on the big girl potty?"  She frowned at me and said "Go to your room."  Haha.  Paige was already potty trained by now, and I thought Neely would be easy because she hates to be dirty.  She brings me a diaper and asks me to change her the second she goes.  But she seems nervous about using the toilet, so far.  We'll see.

Paige has had a rough time lately.  It makes sense, she's oldest and understands more about the move.  She's always been VERY stubborn and strong willed.  I don't like to use the term "strong willed" because I started reading that book once and stopped early on.  I didn't like it for a lot of reasons, and one of the main ones was I realized they weren't necessarily talking about a strong willed child, they were talking about a child who wants to fight their parents on everything.  That isn't Paige at all.  She's sweet and loving and joyful, and likes to please actually.  But when she DOES disagree, look out.  She will NOT give in.  Lately, it was extra rough.  I can tell it's all the changes, which makes me want to try to be sympathetic and encouraging, but the way she was acting out made that VERY hard.  She was basically having tantrums again, like she was 3, but also 14.  Ha.  She told me one day that she's having a terrible childhood.  I had to laugh at that one.  The last week has been better though.  Maybe having family visit rejuvenated her or something.

Thankfully Cason and Neely have been easy during all this.  Except that Cason always wants to protect Paige from any discipline.  If she's not allowed to have something because of how she's acted, he'll tell us he won't have it unless Paige can too.  Little nerd. 

He made us laugh the other night.  It was Sunday, and we were on the couch.  I told Jess "I don't want you to work tomorrow."  He goes "I know, I'm so mad about it."  Cason was on his lap playing with his phone, and without even looking up he goes "I'm not mad about anything.  I'm just mad about mosquitoes.  I think they eat rolly pollies."  Ha.  We were cracking up.  Little weirdo.