Baby

We've officially entered into the time of year I hate the most... January through March.  We get a nice little break with Valentine's Day but for the most part we are bored, cold, or/and sick.  I think I've had a month long cold again which I had last January.  Ugh.  None of us are very happy.  MC1 has decided to be completely miserable all the time lately unless he is watching movies or playing on the IPAD which he doesn't get to that often because he's being horrible.  Every other mom has told me its the weather or its turn 8 soon, but its got to end soon or he and I are going to have a falling out.  Here are the things I've been hearing lately: "You treat me like a slave."  (This was because I asked him to do his chores which are practice the piano, read for 20 minutes, and maybe clean his room.) "Why was I even born?!"  Etc.  The jist of it is that I am a horrible mother who never lets him do anything fun.

One night the kids did have a blast with their head lamps.  MC1 read to them and they begged to sleep downstairs.  Since it was a school night I said no.  Mean mom again.  

 My friend made me this dress for the baby when she was born and I've been waiting for her to be big enough for it.  We tried it last Sunday and it was a little big but still cute.

 Poor cross-eyed baby.  We have another eye doctor appointment in two weeks and I'll update you after that.

 GC1 wants to carry the baby everywhere.  Its kind of scary at times but I follow her around to make sure nothing bad happens... like dropping.  So far so good.

 The baby is doing great.  She's mostly happy all the time and super cute.  Her favorite thing to do is stare at me.  Its kind of funny.  After I smile at her she'll look somewhere else, but she loves to cuddle and stare at each other for the most part.  She is getting into toys and books.  She loves being bounced and sung to.  She's a great baby.  Love, love, love her.

 I took pictures of her room for the baby book.  Too bad its a disaster, but oh well.  Its realistic.  Its nice to have a girl room and a boy room now.

MC2 wanted his picture taken too.  He's doing better in Sunbeams and loves his friends there and in his preschool group.

Sweet Ride

I was going to explain the story behind these pictures, but then I realized I need to check with someone who checks this blog before I explain them and ruin a surprise.  So just enjoy the randomness of our family picture.

 We had some sickness in our house last week.  MC1 started puking at school Tuesday and spent the rest of the day throwing up.  You are supposed to wait 24 before you bring your kid back to school after puking so he stayed home again the next day.  That day he acted completely fine, but the next morning when I got him up for school he said his stomach hurt.  I told him to get up and try to get ready but he said it still hurt.  I was pretty sure we got this sickness from a friend who had it for three days so I let him stay home with the agreement that there would be no movies, IPAD, computer, etc.  He was SOOOO faking it.  But we did homework all day.  He requested doing science first so we did this experiment.  You fill a coke bottle with milk...

 We overfilled it.  Oops.

 Then you let it sit and I didn't take a after picture, but if you want to know what it looks like do it yourself.  The phosphoric acid in the pop attaches to the milk and falls to the bottle turning the pop clearish.  Supposedly it works with any brown pop.  We want to try root beer next, but Coke is supposed to work the best.  This was out of my migraine supply so I need to restock.

Last week we realized the baby is now four months.  I made the comment that if she had been either of our first two we would be running to the store to get baby food for her to try but since she is our fourth I just didn't care that much and was going to wait until she's like 6 months old like the doctors tell you to do.  The next day Brent and the girl child came home with a bag of baby food.  So much for waiting.  The Girl Child immediately wanted to feed the baby but I had just fed her so she was mad and had to wait.

She announced to me she did not want me to do anything for the baby anymore.  She wanted to do it and that included feeding her.  "No more mommy milk," she said.  I told her to deal with it.  The baby is not getting formula because her big sister wants to feed her.  Sorry.

 Baby food is a good compromise.  I think this picture looks a little like my niece Sophie (don't you think?).

Despite the disgusted looks she did really well eating the rice cereal.

Frumpy Stage

Its happened.  We are now in the frumpy stage of baby life.  We had the baby acne and now we have the unfortunate spots of baldness.  I don't even know what to call the baby's hair.  Its not a mullet or a Mohawk.  Its its own thing entirely.  

 Its short in the front but super long in the back.

 See here.  She could have a pony tale, but it would look terrible because it would be at the far back of her head and the rest of her hair is either not there, super thin, or short.

 Here's her lovely bald spot in the back.

 I think she is adorable, but her hair is just sad right now.

My friend gave me some head bands for her which make it better, but they leave marks and dents in her head.  I'm not exaggerating.  It was sad.  I need some non-head squishing head bands.  In the meantime she's just kind of frumpy.

She is such a great baby though.  So sweet.  She has a really funny sense of humor.  The weirdest things set her off.

 Just love her.

We tried to do Girl Child #1's hair like Elsa from Frozen.  She loves it and is super careful to not mess it up which is abnormal for her.

I'm still working on my french braiding skills.

In other news MC2 had a speech screening.  We have been worried about his speech for a while so I talked to his doctor about it and she recommended we talk to a speech therapist.  So I took him thinking he wouldn't even talk to the lady because he usually doesn't talk to strangers, but he was great.  She was too.  She played with him and had him identify things in a book.  He talked so well!  I have never heard him talk so well in fact and I was kind of embarrassed to be there.  She told me he talked exceptionally well for a three year old and pronounces words really well.  She documented while talking to him any sounds he doesn't say and the only one is F which she said would come in time.  I told him about how he talks super fast sometimes and we can't understand him and she said that was normal and fine.

I went home and Brent decided MC2 hangs out with kids that are too smart so we compare his speech to them and get worried.  He thinks he needs to hang out with stupid kids so we feel better about him.  I'm just glad he doesn't have a speech problem.  Now we just need to focus on fixing the baby's eyes.

Christmas Break

We had a really great Christmas break.  I love that my kids play so well together.  It makes cold winter days more fun.  They also love the baby and help so much with her.  Its almost enough to make me home school... but not quite.  

Here are the kids in their Christmas jammies.  MC2 won't wear his because he doesn't like change.  He's annoying that way.

 Santa got the kids a sled for Christmas so we took the kids sledding one day to use it.  This is how MC2 sleds.  Scary huh?  He only did it twice and then he was done and we couldn't convince him to sit up or at least have his face up or not head first.

 After just a few times down the hill they completely broke their new sled.  I guess we need to spend more than $10 on their next sled.

 Here is my attempt to take pictures of the baby.  She is in her four month awkward stage.  Her hair is thinning on the sides and its just unfortunate.  Oh well.  I still think she's cute.

 Especially when she smiles, crossed eyes and all.

 The girl child and I got our hair cut together.  She loved it.

 We had a major cold snap which you would think we wouldn't mind since we did live in Alaska for three years but this house is not well insulated so it could not catch up a few days.  We ended up borrowing a space heater from friends in the ward.  I am scared what our power bill will be next month but its worth it to keep the baby warm.  This is after we got the space heater.  The kids were thrilled.  I spent five minutes lecturing them on what not to do around the space heater and everything.  Then I went to do the dishes and two minutes later I caught them sticking pencils in between the grills!  Then we had another five minute lecture.  With me threatening to turn off the space heater.  They shaped up after that.

 I decided my kids need to learn to be functioning members of society the other day so I made MC1 and GC1 do the dishes.  I taught them how and let them go at it.  They thought it was great, but they made a little lake at their feet.  I told them it was their first time and next time we'd do better.

 We also saw Frozen during Christmas break.  We had some Christmas money and it was well worth it.  EVERYONE loved it.  Even the baby.  After we watched it we had to buy the soundtrack with more of our Christmas money.  As a result we have listened to it non stop.  We are even listening to it right now.  They each have a favorite song we have to play over and over.  I thought it was one of the best Disney movies ever.  The snowman was great instead of being annoying like most of the comedic sidekicks are.  MC1 loves the Snowman song. We had to explain to the kids why its so funny though.  They just don't get how he could not know what summer is like.

We had a day off of school because of the cold and then a late start today so we are finally going back to school.  I think everyone is ready now.