Life with sweet little girls

I had so much fun with my Life with a toddler post that I wanted to do one with

 my girls as the subjects. Life with them is so entertaining and full of surprises.

 

If only I could write a post in my sleep

I write some great stuff. Some deep stuff. All in the middle of the night when I wake to nurse the baby. All stuck in my head and gone by morning.

I am still deciding how I want this blog thing to go. What I want to share. I had another blog before and I shared a ton. Maybe too much. I deleted it and am now sad as I remember some of the cute stuff I wrote about!

Back to this middle of the night business. 

I just cannot bring myself to wake up and put these great thoughts onto paper/computer.  My Dax is not a good sleeper. At All. Ever. He wakes every 1-3 hours to nurse all night long.  He nurses a lot during the day as well. Except when there is cool stuff going on and then he can go an actual entire day without nursing. Silly baby.

I am exhausted but I am letting him guide me on his needs for now. I am blessed to be able to nap with him during the day to help with my lack of sleep.  One day I will get to sleep through the night!

Did I mention he is almost 18 months now? Where has the time gone? Kids just seem to grow and change so fast.

Chaz is now taller and weighs more than me. He is way into jokes and learning his Spanish. He totally blows me away with his intelligence and humor.

Brijet is trying to be more mature, choosing 'teen' style clothing, and has become an excellent big sister sitter for Dax.

Ainzley is all into colorful, polk-a-dotted and striped, fashionista clothing. She is so into reading and tries so hard to keep up.

Dax is busy, so busy. He drags chairs around the house all day to climb up to whatever he wants, which is usually the sink/water, food, and the hot stove/pots.  He is in love with being outside since the weather has warmed up.

I am soaking them up. These babies of mine bring me such joy!

Family love {red and green}

Every one who knows me knows I am passionate about photography and family. I love snapping pics of everything! I love to try to snap a pic of my mom with all her grandbabies together as often as possible. I don't have many pics at all of me with my grandparents and it makes me sad. I have 3 grandmothers and 2 died when I was pretty young. I try to snap pics of my one living grandmother (grammy) with my kids whenever possible too.  I love that my loved ones let me get away with carrying the camera everywhere and snapping away. I even warn them that they better wear something they want in pics if they ever come visit me!

 

 

My mom turned 50 recently! We threw her a lovely surprise party and her soul totally needed a day of loving!! She had a blast. My mom's favorite color now is red. {Seriously, everything in her house is red and she wears red clothes all the time} I hand sewed NANA and a heart onto my younger two's shirts.  It was my first attempt at sewing like that and I was thrilled with the results. I love that my twin sis and I are so close with my mom!

 

 

 

St. Patrick's Day came around and we saw a picture opportunity for a different color. Most of our together photos are in red! LOL We loved spending the day at my house, running around, playing outside (in the cold), and enjoying some family meals.  The kids all love on their Nana.  Dax actually decided Aunt Jenn was a fun person so he played with her a ton!

 

My grammy and papa are such sports. They let us come invade them at the nursing home (grammy is there but papa still has to go home at night) and they just deal with our super loud noise! I don't know how they handle us. I love snapping pics of my kids with them. Grammy gets so worn out but she sure loves the cuddles and kisses. 

 

 

I cannot imagine going home to an empty bed after 50+ years of marriage.

 

I just love looking through all my pics later and revisiting memories of those events.

 

Scariest Day of My Life

IThis sweet baby boy have me quite the scare Sunday morning. He was in the middle of nursing when his little body went into a full blown seizure. His lips turned blue. His whole body tensed, shook, jerked, and scared the crap out of me!! 

We spent 5 hours in the ER, got a CT scan, blood drawn, urine and nasal samples taken. It was a wild crazy day. My little guy nursed pretty much the whole ER stay and slept a ton. Seizures can wear a tiny baby out. 

The doctors were pretty sure it was a febrile seizure but we are seeing neurology soon to sort it all out for sure. I am still counting his breaths, not letting him out of my sight, and holding him tight. 

Grammy

 

Grammy

 

 

My sister and her son, Micah. My Grammy and Papa. My 3 littles and myself.

 

We took a trip out to see Grammy at the nursing home. It is a bit over an hour away! Dax (thankfully) was happily chatting most of the way and the girls did okay in the car. (My kids truly dislike car rides and usually have no problem letting me know.)

 

We met my sister there and enjoyed a nice visit. It was so neat to hear more stories about her life. Life was just so different back when she was younger. The way they lived, spoke, everything. Hearing her stories just makes me smile.

 

I had to chase Dax a ton. He wanted to explore and was really loud! Thankfully no one fussed at us and most just smiled and waved at him.

 

I had surprised Grammy by showing up and her face was priceless as I walked in.  Grammy and Papa have been together about 53 years and still love to hold hands. They are pretty funny together.  I am very happy I have a chance to visit her!

 

Everyone hugged and kissed on Grammy (I think it is her favorite part) and we got a few pics. I love this top one. Grammy is so excited for Dax to come kiss her. He has never let her kiss him before but he is in a copycat {copies everything everyone ever does all the time} mood and decided to follow Micah's lead.  She was thrilled to kiss on him and he happily hugged and kissed her back!

Sleepover Fun

My girls love having friends over and playing at friend's houses! We are severely limited on where they can actually go play due to so many people having cats and Brijet's severe cat allergy. :(

 

I invited a neighbor girl over to play with the girls and it ended in a sleepover. The girls were thrilled. It was our first sleepover for the new house.  I had to work for part of it but I still got to hear the giggles pouring out of these little girls.

 

 

The pillow fight caused so many giggles and much joy!

 

The tea party was a huge hit. Honestly, the girls came up with the ideas they wanted to play and I just helped them create what they needed to make it happen. It was so fun watching them play!

 

Later, sleepover girl went home and another neighbor girl came over to play. I am so glad we have a couple weeks off from school to play and have fun! This time they focused on slinky fun and playing in tents! It was so neat to watch them play together and make up games.

 

 

This big puzzle is still a blast many years later.

 

 

This picture cannot be saved and is horrible quality but I so love it! They had a blast building the tents and playing inside and trying to keep Dax away. Mean mommy made them allow Dax in as they were in the room he mostly plays in.

 

 

I so look forward to planning more play dates for the girls and realize I need to get some friends over for Dax to play with! He was so sad when the girls would go hide in their room to play!

Persistence Pays Off

Of all four of my kids, Ainzley is my sweet girl who had a lot of things to work through. Separation, writing, talking, doctor and dentist trips, and even visits with family were all so hard for Ainzley.  Chaz and Brijet never really had to work hard at any of those things.  Most things just came so easily for them.

It was hard to watch Ainzley struggle with so many things others found easy but it was so nice to watch her work through it all. She had to work hard at everything and it was so fun to watch her persistence. She used to hold the pen with a fisted hand. She said holding the pen any other way hurt her hand. She practiced holding it a lot. We talked to doctors about it to see if there was an underlying problem. She had little rubber pen holder helpers. Finally, she just got it one day. She still struggles to hold the pen sometimes but it gets easier for her.  She just keeps trying.

I am blessed to be able to watch her work so hard and then 'get' it.