S'mores!!

The girls enjoyed their first s'mores of the year over the weekend.  They had a blast roasting their own marshmallows over the makeshift fire in the backyard.  We had a couple issues with sticky white goo ending up in hair that wasn't tied back (mommy's fault for not planning ahead), but it wasn't anything that a bath couldn't fix!!  Nevermind the pumpkin shirts.  Daddy was alone with them all day while I was at work.  Apparently he sees nothing wrong with wearing Halloween shirts in April.

Bedtime battles

Wow.  So sometimes I wish I had the stamina of a 3 year old.  We've been somewhat struggling with bedtime for probably two weeks or more now.  There've been a couple nights where one or both of the girls didn't fall asleep until 11:15-11:30pm!!  We put them in their room anywhere between 8-8:30 usually.  That means they're up playing for three hours at times!

There was one night not long ago when I went to check on them and usher them back into their beds.  Livi was already fast asleep and Addi was playing all by herself with the light on.  So I put Miss Adalyn back to bed, turned the light off, told her that Livi was tired and it was time to go night-night.  Well, she didn't care.  Light was back on just a few minutes later.  At one point, it finally got really quiet so I went to cover everybody up.  Here she had left the light on, climbed back into bed and zonked out!

We just recently took all of the toys out of their room.  They have a shelf of toys that moves very easily, so we just take it out at bedtime and put it right back in in the morning.  Not only had the toys become a distraction (even though they had been in there since the girls were put into big girl beds), but the mess they created was insane!!  Every single bin would get dumped out most nights.  So now we remove them.

Things have gotten significantly better, but we're far from what it was like not that long ago when we could put them in bed, meet a few demands (usually something to drink, the desire for slippers or an extra hug) and they'd settle right in.  We still have to go in several times to get them back in bed and turn off the light, but it's not lasting for hours on end like last week.  So it's progress.  Hopefully we'll keep moving in the right direction!!

Updates

I had my 22 week OB appointment on Monday and all is well.  Dr L confirmed that the baby looks perfect.  All of the ultrasound images and measurements from two weeks ago were great.  I'm measuring right on track.  And overall, I'm doing well...still in that 2nd trimester honeymoon where the non-pleasant things of early pregnancy are gone but I'm not yet big enough to be achey and waddling!  So things are good!

I had to take the girls with me to the appointment.  Dr L hasn't seen them in ages.  And I think it was mostly by luck of the draw, but she was able to guess who was who!  The girls received a sucker and a sticker to occupy them during the visit and when it came time to listen to the baby's heartbeat, they had to tell Dr L all about the babies in their own bellies.  Addi has a baby brother and Livi has a baby sister.  And mommy?  She has a baby girl.

It's amazing how they refer to the babies the same way every single time.  Addi always has a brother in her belly, not a boy.  Livi always has a sister in hers, not a girl.  But mommy always has a girl in her belly, not a sister.  Anyway, after sharing the genders of the gestating babies (real or fake) with Dr L, they got to listen to the heartbeat.  It was sitting in the 140s.  And if you ask the girls, the baby was saying "thump, thump, thump."  So yes, mommy and baby are doing great thus far.

The last update is about the camping excursion.  Well...someone neglected to look at the weather forefast before setting up the tent.  After everyone went outside, I got myself ready for bed.  After that, I turned the computer on to check the weather.  HUGE storm moving our way.  There was no chance it was going to miss us.  I took the computer outside to show to Nate.  His response?  "Holy crap, that's a BIG one!  Oops."

So we brought everything back inside.  The girls were going to camp out in the living room with Nate on the air mattress, but even that didn't last.  I guess we'll try the whole camping thing again some other time.  But maybe I'll be the one to take control of checking the weather *before* the whole setup occurs!!

This should be interesting

Nate is currently preparing the backyard for a "camping" expedition with the girls.  The tent is set up.  He's filling up the air mattress and getting plenty of blankets outside.  They went around the neighborhood with the wagon asking the neighbors if anyone had any firewood to spare.  Hmmm.  There's no fire pit.  Oh well.

Can you guess where *this* lady will be spending the night?  Tucked warmly away in my own soft bed.  My pregnant bladder doesn't want to be hiking it into the house every two hours.  Plus, I'm assuming the girls won't make it through the night.  I'm actually doubting that they'll even fall asleep out there...but maybe they'll prove me wrong.  They just might be tired enough....

....because they didn't exactly sleep well last night.  We put them to bed at their normal time, right around 8:15pm and they didn't go to sleep until 10:30pm.  For over two hours, they played and played and played.  We went in their room every 20-30 minutes to usher them back into their beds and they would give hugs and kisses pretending to be all settled in.  The minute we would leave the room, whispering would ensue, followed shortly thereafter by the light being flipped on.

At one point, they had opened their closet and pulled out their baptismal gowns.  Both of them were trying to wiggle their way into them!  Now keep in mind that they were baptized when they were two months old!  Yeah, not fitting.  But holy meltdown for us taking them away!  So in the end, they slept with their Easter dresses on.  It was late at night and I wasn't in the mood to fight...they wanted to wear a dress (specifically their baptism gowns), so we compromised with their Easter dresses.  Hey, sometimes you just do what you gotta do.  And finally, they fell asleep at 10:30.

So they just *may* be tired enough to sleep outside with daddy in the tent.  I'll let you know!!

Easter weekend

We spent the weekend at my parents' house.  My brother, sister-in-law and baby niece were there to celebrate as well.  The girls really enjoyed getting to play with their baby cousin who is just shy of five months old.  And they enjoyed making uncle Jason play hide and seek with them over and over and over!!

The girls running through grandma and grandpa's yard after a nice bike ride.  Livi is checking to make sure that daddy is still coming!!

Whew!  That was quite the run!

Aunt Chelsea let the girls help her make a cake.  Livi wasn't too sure about her first lick of lemon jello!

Addi swooped in after bath to help put the green jello on the cake.

It was a rat race getting everyone ready and out the door on time for church.  Unfortunately, that meant that we didn't get any pictures taken.  And immediately after church, we went out for Easter brunch.  Still no time for pictures.  So after a long day and after our long drive home, we attempted to get just a couple.  Prior to church, their hair was combed, they had pretty little butterfly barrettes in, etc.  But they had just woken up from 25 minute cat naps in the car...poor things.  So this is about the best we could do!  We bribed them to smile by telling them that they had one more Easter basket to open!

You can tell they're tired based on the lack of excitement for their Easter baskets!

Here is Baby #4

We had our fetal anatomy scan today. The baby looks perfect. She was an active little thing...which I can definitely vouch for, so the heartbeat was sitting at 165. She weighed in at 12oz and she kept spinning from facing the left to facing the right. We saw her a couple of times try to get her thumb in her mouth which was really cute. And we could clearly see her umbilical cord float up by her face. Each time it brushed past her hands, she tried to grab it.

This baby has much poutier lips than I remember any of the girls having, at least from the ultrasound views we saw.  And she has pretty small feet, which is pretty similar to Addi's.  Livi and Elli had really long toes.  However, this baby's head shape is more like Livi and Elli's.  So I really don't know who she's going to look like!

Anyway, here are some pictures of the baby we'll be welcoming sometime in August!  Paula gave us some pretty cool video clips on a disc, but it would take forever to include them here.  So several pictures will have to do!

Baby's perfect spine.

Arm and fist with the umbilical cord above it.

Right foot.

Baby's profile.

Lastly, the face and body.