February 2015 = The best MONTH of my life!

I've had great days or weeks, but never had a favorite month until now. I'm trying not to think about it being over because it will make me sad, but I do want to focus on how AMAZING it was to have my sweetheart home for an entire 5 weeks after Lucy was born. Just another reason we love working for Costco...who else gives paternity leave at all let alone five weeks paid off? I felt like a spoiled person to have another parent around for the majority of the time, it's so foreign to me. Tyler was able to help with his parent's barn and his brother's projects which he loves to do. He is constantly serving others and I love that about him. But mostly he was here at home helping do the daily things that I do, giving me breaks and naps and making our lives easier and more fun. It was wonderful.

This week's photo recap starts with Luke loving Superman, which he calls SuperWhy and I'm not sure what started that. He had 2 Superman t-shirts that are his total favorites, it's a good long battle with tears to get him into anything else (he can be persuaded into 2 other t-shirts, green monkey or red race car, but that's it) and it's really the only strong opinion he has about anything so it's just not worth it to me. So I went and bought him another Superman shirt! And he was SO excited! He was wearing our Superman cape this day with his "xray glasses", flying around the house with his sidekick Kate fluffing out his cape. 

Lucy has officially grown out of newborn size and is into 3 months, or a few 0-3 still fit. She is on a great 3-4 hr eating schedule and nights she gets up to eat once and goes right back to sleep. Such an angel! We love our Lucy-girl.

Kate's been into style and matching lately and came up with this colorful number a couple days ago. She's so much fun and is like a burst of sunshine to our days :) 

Just wanted to remember how we decorated for Vday this year - it was fun to have our family love dinner with the hearts above the dining table.

I can't believe those beautiful flowers bloomed under my care. I have a knack for killing indoor (okay, sometimes outdoor too) plants and somehow these were survivors!

Cole and I got into it one night before bed and of course I felt really guilty for losing my patience. So I checked him out of school the next day and we did a mommy date at his favorite lunch place, McDonalds. I told him how sorry I was that we had argued and how I hoped we could work it out in a more loving way next time. I think it's important that we apologize to our kids when we mess up, not every time (cause for me that's daily) but enough that they see that we all mistakes and its ok and we also need to make it right. It was awesome to have some one on one time too. This kid is really special to me and I love him so much!

Tyler power washing the sidewalk, can you find the word Hi? I couldn't believe how much dirt he blasted off!

Everyone loves to hold a baby!

 Haha, Luke lasts for about 30 seconds (and Lucy too when he's holding her)

This is the sweetest relationship ever. Kate ADORES this babe!

Got all dressed up for stake conference!

 5 weeks old

Tyler DJed a family friend's wedding in Washington and took Kate and Luke with him, Rod and Lisa drove up too. Kate danced her little heart out at the reception then proceeded to throw up all the way home, through the night and half of the next day. Luke had the same tummy bug a couple days later. Glad that's out of everyone's system now!

One day I was doing laundry and walked into the laundry room to find water all over the floor. The hose had jiggled loose from the drain and was draining the water onto the floor. It went under the wall and into the kid's room, staining the white carpet with the stain from the bunk beds. Here we are scrubbing it out with one of our favorite things of all time, OxiClean!

Two thumbs up.

A recent shot of how the barn is looking. They just finished up the roof on the side. It's going to be so big and beautiful!

Tyler took this one tonight, just liked her look :) 

So this week we shall see what I'm really made of, running a home and family of 6 mostly by myself for the first time. I anticipate a messier house and needier kids, but I'm going to work on staying loving and patient no matter what! Wish me luck. 

Try, try again

I know, can you believe it! I am so excited to post tonight. I am constantly urged (inspired) to record our little family's history, and after some thought and heart prayers I have decided that for now, this is the best way to do that. I still have my own personal journal, as well as my children's personal journals that I record major or special moments in, but I really have a strong desire to be more consistent with getting our lives recorded. And I have started and stopped before, but I am not letting that get me down! Because although I am not perfect, I want to be perfect in trying because that's really what it's all about. So I will try! To weekly post about our family happenings. Sometimes just saying it and telling someone you're going to do it is motivation enough, right?!!

Well I decided to start this one on January 22, 2015 with little Lucy Michelle being born into our family. This sweet babe came straight from heaven and has graced our home for a month now. My dear mother came to help out for a week, true to tradition. She also made her famous chicken salad for me (she made it when I had Cole and it's one of those tastes-so-good-now-cause-it-sure-did-then dishes), cleaned, played, loved, and just made life more comfortable and easy while she was here. I hope to be as amazing as she is when I'm her age. I love her.

Isn't she so beautiful?!! And a great dresser.

 

Here I am resting (momma's orders) the day before Lucy was born. 

 I knew our traditional 23rd pie wouldn't happen if I actually tried to make it on the 23rd so I made it a little early this month. Chocolate cream with an Oreo crust! It was very tasty.

 Night before - last belly shot. 

 Morning of - getting all situated.

 First picture of little Lucy. 7 lb 1 oz, 19.5 in

First family of six photo :)

Leaving the hospital

 Taking this sweetie home with us! In the truck, traditionally.

 This girl loves her sister. And all things baby. But she is so happy that we have a real live baby she just can't stand it.

 Morning hangout in our bed, it's prime real estate by the babe. Everyone fighting for a spot next to her.

 Admiring 

 Beautiful! 

 We cuddled and she fell asleep on me, just a couple days old.

Kate's face here is priceless, it's that "Awwwwwww" as if she's just so cute I can't stand it face.

She does whatever I do, she's been my little shadow and I have her eyes on me about 90% of the day. You can tell she's watching and learning so closely! She set up her own changing station and bathtub for her baby in the living room corner.

Lucy's first stroller outing to the park! 

Oak Meadows Park - we love this place! We usually have it to ourselves, it's super close to our house, and there are cool bushes and a big open grass space right by it. Lots of room to play.

We (Mom) took everyone to Get Air for a night of fun. I was so glad Tyler got to go. He had as much fun as the kids.

How many grandmas does it take to change a one week old baby? Two apparently :) What a lucky girl to have such great grandmas in her life.

So when Lucy was one week old we took off to drive to Utah to show her off to family there. With Tyler having 5 weeks off for paternity leave, we knew we wanted to take advantage of the time and get over there. She traveled so well and slept in the car literally the whole time except waking up to eat every 3 hours. We thought we were going to go play in the snow but instead we got beautiful weather! It was fun to play outside and especially be with cousins and family.

We had a great time bowling!

It's amazing all the things you can get done while you're on the potty. All three are pros at multitasking while going to the bathroom!

Pretty babe

Lucy at 2 weeks old

We went out for Valentine's weekend with our friends Matt and Candace, had a great time playing games at Power Up.

Getting bigger! We love her little fuzzy baby chick hair.

For President's Day we went to the coast in the afternoon. Kids played in the water, built sand towers, played on the dunes, and flew kites. It was amazing weather and such a memorable day.

Lucy's first trip to the ocean!

My strong pack horse

One perk of being there late in the day was seeing the beautiful sunset over the water.

We had sick kids around our place the last few days, first Cole then Luke then Kate. So sad!

Nothing so cute as baby toes

Tyler made breakfast for dinner one night and was experimenting with the bacon grease. He tried fried french toast and Oreos. The kids loved both!

Cole made the part of a monkey in the Missoula Children's Theater production of "The Jungle Book". It was a great experience for him to get to practice and perform, I was really proud of how he overcame his nervousness (it's amazing what a little positive reinforcement - Dollar Store- can do) and played his part so well. Still can't get "Monkey See Monkey Do" song out of my head...

One month old! 

This week now is the last week Tyler has off before heading back to work. I feel like we've been living in this ideal bubble of a life, having two parents at home and I've been super spoiled. Tyler works lots of hours so this has been such a blessing to our family! I'm anticipating a sad week for all of us but more than that I'm just so grateful for such an amazing month with our daddy :)