Spring Break Trip

This week the kids have spring break. We're not quite adventurous enough to take our brood on a big trip, so we decided to do some mini spring break trips instead! Today Chris took the day off and we went to the Iowa Children's Museum in Iowa City. We didn't tell the kids where we were going until we got in the car and I'm telling you...it was the best car ride we've ever been on. They were so excited! I took them there last year around this time and I think Max has asked over 100 times since then to go back! The pictures pretty much tell the story here...

Fun in the airplane



Max was able to try out the flight simulator with Chris. It was a little over his head, but he still had fun!



One of Max and Mya's favorite part was the rocket station. They built a rocket and then got to shoot it up in the air by stomping on the pedal. I think they could have easily done it 100 times!





Mya loved going down this slide over and over again:) At one point I thought I had lost her, but she was inside the slide and thought it was so funny that I couldn't find her! I didn't find it as funny...



Max entering his PIN to make a withdrawal out of the ATM:)



I could tell these two have been to the grocery store a time or two...they knew just what to do!




Lego World was a big hit as suspected.....



Ivy just hung out in her car seat most of the day. She did manage to have quite the blow out, which is always fun to deal with while out in public:)



We ended the day with a ride on the carousel and Whitey's Ice Cream! We all had a great time and everyone was exhausted! Not exhausted enough to sleep on the way home though. It was nice to get home to a 70 degree day. The kids hardly stepped foot inside before heading out on their bikes to enjoy the day!

4 months!

Ivy is 4 months old today! She is changing every day and starting to do some really fun things! These days Ivy is frequently seen giggling at her brother and sister, putting her hands, a blanket, her shirt, a bib, a burp cloth, etc. in her mouth, rolling over from tummy to back, getting close to rolling over from back to tummy, yelling when she wants something, waking up 1-2 times per night, getting excited when she sees a familiar face, discovering her voice and all the different pitches it can make, reaching for toys...especially the ones in her bouncy seat, sucking on her paci when her hands aren't in her mouth, smiling at anyone and everyone, wearing Max's pajamas each night (not sure what happened to my 3-6 month girl pj's:), wearing lots of Mya's 3-6 month clothes, enjoying stroller rides, and wrapping her mom and dad right around her little fingers!

Happy 4 months Ivy Anne...can't believe how fast time has gone!





Ivy shares her 4 month birthday with my 32nd birthday! I had a wonderful weekend filled with friends and family. My mom came down today and we went on a much needed shopping trip with no kids! Max and Mya made me the cutest little book with some coupons including 1 hour of peace and quiet..no kids, cleaning up their toys, making me breakfast, and giving me as many hugs and kisses as I wanted:) Chris's Grandma Bev had given me a $50 gift card to Von Maur ever since I've known her and since this is my first birthday since she has passed away, Chris gave me a Von Maur gift card in her honor. It was really really sweet. Now I just need to get to a Von Maur because I didn't have the heart to tell Bev we didn't have one here in Dubuque! Below is a picture of the best 3 presents around...even though I just got home from a run and the picture is from a phone, and you can see my laundry room disaster in the background, I think this is the only one of me with my 3 kiddos that I own! Must change that....:)

Bike!

Max really needed a new bike and we decided March was pretty much the perfect birthday month to get a bike! We made him go into the spare bedroom in the basement while we got it out and here are some pictures of when he came out of the room and saw the bike! They are a little blurry, but I had to post them because they were too darn cute! The pictures remind me of the ones of me when I was 4 years old and came down the steps on Christmas morning and saw my play kitchen:)







Here's Max trying out the new bike outside! Mya was feeling left out so she wanted some pictures on her bike as well:)




We have had to bring Max back down to reality the last couple of days after a spectacular 5th birthday! He asked me before church on Sunday if they were going to celebrate his birthday at church! I had to tell him his birthday was now over and there would be no more celebrations that are solely about him until March 3rd, 2013:)

Max turns 5!!

Dear Maxwell,

Today is your 5th birthday! I can't believe you are 5 years old and that I have been a parent for 5 years! I was just telling your daddy that we have been parents for 1,826 days and have probably only slept through the night 200 of those days! I wouldn't trade it for the world though...you have made me one happy mama. Your birthday this year falls on a Saturday which is the same day you were born. I was home from school the entire week leading up to your birthday because of a huge snow/ice storm. My sub plans were not ready at all because I was expecting to be at school that whole week and you weren't due to arrive until March 13th! The ice/snow had just let up enough for both sets of grandparents to be at the hospital the day you were born. After a long day of labor and then a C-section, I should have been exhausted. However, I couldn't sleep that night because I just kept looking at you with disbelief that you were mine! I will never, ever forget that feeling for as long as I live. Your head was pretty beat up from everything you went through, but you were a perfect little 8lb 14 oz baby!

I'm going to do my best to describe you as you are right now...

You are doing really well in school although you are resisting writing lower case letters. You just don't understand why you need to learn to write a lower case "e" when you can write an uppercase one just fine! I don't push, because we all know what happens when I push you:) Your teachers always have such nice things to say about you and how you treat others in school. We are so proud of you for that. All day, every day kindergarten in the fall is going to be an adjustment for us both! I think you'll do just fine once you get used to being gone all day. The thing you're most looking forward to is the bus! You are as social as they come. Every time there is a children's sermon at church, we can guarantee that you will raise your hand and participate in some way.

Other things about you...you are incredible at finding Waldo (better than daddy or I), you would eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (sans crust) for every meal and snack if I let you, you hate spicy food and spicy gum, you are amazing with the iPad...lingo and all. You love all sports, but it seems like you're most interested in tennis, swimming, football and volleyball these days. You went skiing several times this winter and even went down the "sun-bowl" a few times. I love our Thursday nights when you come to tennis lessons with me and you actually think it's cool that I'm the teacher. You are an awesome big brother (most of the time) to your little sisters. Ivy was your show-n-tell on Thursday for your birthday celebration at school and you did fabulous telling the kids all about her. You can do an activity longer than anyone else...you will be the kid who always wants to play "one more game" when everyone else is done. You have a super sensitive side, but you also know how to push buttons and you know exactly what those buttons are with Mya. You love legos...both building and destroying, and you are convinced there are monsters in our basement right now.

Your favorite TV show is Arthur followed closely by Wild Kratts. You are better at the Wii than I would like to admit, you are an awesome sleeper, but you wake up at 7AM no matter what time you go to bed, you have started using the inhaler for the croup issues and have taken to it like a champ, your sense of humor is coming along nicely..you know how to get your Aunt Tara all riled up on the facetime by pressing "mute" over and over again:), you think about what you're going to say before you say it and many times your dad and I look at each other like "did you just hear that?" You love to shop as long as we're shopping for you and much to the dismay of your dad, you have no regard for saving. If you get a dollar, you want to spend it IMMEDIATELY. (hmmmm, wonder where you get that??:) Sadly, the slip-ups in the language department are becoming less and less. You do still say "straight-away" instead of "right-away" and I'm not going to be the one to tell you it's wrong:)

Your dad and I are so proud to be your parents and can't imagine what life would be like without you. A part of me is really sad you're growing up, but the other part is so excited for you because there are so many things for you to look forward to and I can't wait to experience all of them with you! Happy Birthday Lovie Bug:)

Love,
Mommy

March 3rd, 2007


March 3rd, 2008


March 3rd, 2009


March 3rd, 2010


March 3rd, 2011


March 3rd, 2012

Bumbos

I love the Bumbo Seat. So much so that I googled who invented it! It was invented by a Grandpa in South Africa in 2001. Now the company makes over 100,000 Bumbo seats per month and ships them all over the world! Anyway...I digress. I mostly love this seat because it gives Ivy a little change of pace from laying on the floor or in her bouncy seat. She sits on the table and watches us eat in her seat every night and it's perfect for lugging up and down the steps 10,000 times per day!

When I pulled the Bumbo out a few weeks ago, Max and Mya were very interested in it. So, I got out the photo albums and showed them that they used to sit in it too! Speaking of photo albums...I haven't printed a picture and put it in an album since Mya was 5 months old. Oops..I think I need to get going on that! Anyway, here are the pictures of my 3 bumbo seat kids!

mid-week update

Thought I'd share a little bit about what has been going on around here! Nothing too exciting, but here goes!

Max discovered the fatbooth app a couple weekends ago thanks to Uncle Jeff. He had a blast with it and thank goodness has forgotten about it because it was getting really annoying! Here are he and Mya. Max has some girl scout cookies on his mouth in the picture which is quite fitting:)



Both Max and Mya finished round 1 of swimming lessons tonight at the Y. It was Mya's first swimming lessons and she passed "Pike" with flying colors. She can blow bubbles, attempt 5 bobs, front/back float with a belt, push off wall and swim w/o help, put face in water while swimming, front/back paddle with belt 5 yards w/o help, and kick with the kick board 5 yards! Max passed the "Ray" level and can front/back float, front/back crawl without help 5 yards, elementary backstroke with help (think farmer, airplane soldier:), jump into the deep end and swim to side, jump in and swim 5 yards and dive (sort of)! Pretty impressive resumes for a 3 and almost 5 year old! I have a few really good videos on my iPhone, but I'm not sure how to get them off of the phone and onto this blog, so stay tuned for those...

Santa brought the kids new desks for Christmas because he saw how frustrated I got with picking up clippings/markers/crayons/paper/tape all over the floor. He thought if they had a desk, they would keep their stuff on the desk and it would make my life easier. He was WRONG.


Tonight after swimming, Max and Mya were in the tub and I was getting Ivy ready for bed. It sounded like they were having fun, but I had no idea how much fun they were having until I went to check on them and they had dumped an almost full bottle of aveeno baby wash in the tub because they wanted bubbles. I was mad at first and told them I was going to take the money out of their piggy banks to pay for a new one, but then I got the camera out and took some pictures:)





Since the camera was already in the bathroom, I couldn't resist snapping a shot of my little Ivy while she was in the bathtub:)


One more cute thing....yesterday one of our babysitters Morgan was over at our house and Mya went up to her and said, "Do you know my cousin Jake?" (first off, Jake is our neighbor, not our cousin) Morgan said "No." Mya then replied, "Cause you gots the same teeth as him." (both have braces:)

Baptism

Last Sunday we had Ivy baptized! We drove up to the twin cities to have our good friend John do the baptism. We have a church here in Dubuque, but really wanted to have John involved somehow in the service and since his wife Jen just had their 3rd baby 6 weeks ago, we decided it would be easiest for us to do the driving! I was dreading the drive, but it actually went really well. On the way up there we stopped for 10 minutes twice to feed Ivy and then we stopped in Bloomington to see Grandpa Bill. Ivy had a tough time between Bloomington and Maple Grove, but other than that she was a rock star.





Aunt Tara was the Godmother and Uncle Jeff was the Godfather. Tara was able to fly in from San Diego for the weekend so it was great to see her and spend a little time together.





After Baptism, we all went down the street to a Mexican restaurant for some lunch. It was great to spend more time with family and friends and enjoy some delicious food! The drive back to Dubuque was also WAY better than I expected. All 3 kids were asleep at one point and we had to wake Ivy up to feed her because it had been 5 1/2 hours since she had eaten last! I definitely felt the difference between 2 and 3 kids on this trip. It's a lot of work, but it was definitely worth it!





Special thanks goes out to Tara and Jeff for being godparents to Ivy Anne, to Pastor John for all of his work and to everyone else who celebrated with us. We know weekends are really busy for everyone, so we appreciate you taking some time to be with our family for this special event!

Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Valentines Day from Max, Mya and Ivy!



We had a great day here...Max woke up extra early at 6:57 instead of the usual 7:00 because he said he was so excited to go to school! (They usually wait until their moon nightlight changes over to the sun nightlight in their room at 7:00 to get up.) I made them heart shaped pancakes for breakfast and they were excited to wear their red outfits! Ivy even had a "My First Valentines Day" outfit from her cousins Olivia and Gracie:)



They had a fun day at school exchanging Valentines and were so excited to show me everything they got from their friends when they got home! I was particularly impressed with Mya because over 1/2 of her class did not sign their own names on their valentines and she insisted on signing her own name and it was completely legible. She also knew who most of the Valentines were from because they work on names so much.

Tonight the kids had swimming lessons and Chris had skiing, so we had a late night candle light dinner with no children awake and it was really nice! Hope everyone else had a great day!

Also...Marie watched Ivy for a couple hours tonight and then she surprised me with this:)

3 months!

This 3 month old little girl is melting our hearts these days. Not that I dislike the newborn stage, but I really love this stage we're entering. She smiles at me when I go to get her from her crib, she is starting to coo a lot, she sits up in the bumbo seat (which is adorable btw), she can be entertained pretty easily, loves to look at toys, tolerates being taken out of the bath and not wrapped up for .2 seconds now! She goes to bed around 9:00 which is so wonderful because I get an hour or so of free time to myself. She wakes around 2-3 and then wakes again around 5:30-6. After that, she sleeps until 9:00 if we don't have to wake her to go to preschool! Not too bad...I have it down to a science and I can be back in bed in 12 minutes! Naps are going really well. She still needs to be swaddled as tight as possible and needs her pacifier, but then she is a dream napper!

Ivy eats every 2 1/2-4 hours, wears size 2 diapers, averaging a complete blow out twice per week, doesn't really fit into 3 month clothes or 6 month clothes at this time, has really cold, clammy feet and hands, loves stroller rides on warm winter days, would prefer to be held rather than put down, startles easily, has sharp, fast growing fingernails, spits up often, has her hands in her mouth constantly, blows bubbles, sticks her tongue out when being talked to, has gorgeous long, curly eyelashes, has shown no preference for her mom (yet:), and loves to look around at Max and Mya whenever she's awake!

I feel like things have mellowed out with me as well. For awhile there I felt like I was living in someone else's body! Max and Mya are understanding that their needs may not get met the very instant they want something, and Chloe is starting dog training school next Tuesday! Things are definitely looking up:)

my 3 on the 3rd