absentee tooth fairy (aka bad mama, bad, bad mama!)

Keenan FINALLY lost his tooth… two actually! The one had a tooth coming in behind it… the other was coming from above… by the time the upper one came out the tooth was discolored (grayish), longer than the other teeth, and diagonal! He looked like a REAL hick!!

And THEN… he wakes me up this morning… “Mom, she didn’t come. The tooth fairy didn’t come!” (bad mama!!! Bad bad mama!) OH, yes, (think fast think fast… even though Shand was up most of the early morning and I had just finally fallen into a deep sleep…) “We’ll write her a letter tonight. I KNOW she’ll come sweetie. Don’t worry.

I was on my way to bed when I remembered. (thank goodness!)

So I”ve just printed off a letter to Keenan from the tooth fairy and tucked it with some money inside a little box

Six week pictures

I am having a giggle… since someone gave me the “thinking award” a while back, and I’m not sure I have posted anything thought-provoking since… but at least I’ll make you smile with my beautiful girl here… our first good walk post-partum… don’t you LOVE the sunglasses? UV protection and everything… AND my new ERGO carrier… I LOVE IT!!!!

This picture is pretty much cause she has the CUTEST outfit on (thanks Maiia…) – and she knows she is beautiful too…

Baby’s first shower with Daddy

SO, here is Shand’s first shower… Bryan will be VERY happy I cropped some of these!! LOL

I posted the pictures in order… and the progressions of expressions is pretty classic…

wondering what is going on…

I sure like this naked free feeling (just like her brothers!)

the shock of the tingly shower water

Aahh! This is nice!

3-4 week pictures

OK, I know these are already OLD!!  but since they are some of my favorite, I have to share anyway, and quite honestly, we haven’t been taking as many pictures!  oops!

My mom, Nana, has quilted each grandchild a blanket, and each of us girls a quilt when we got married (not to mention the numerous ones growing up)  Here is Shand, cozying up with Nana’s quilt, brought over by my sister Rachel… her pictures will be in the NEXT post!

Next, some beautiful bath pictures… I love wet babies!!  They are beautiful, and always a little stunned by the sensations so you can capture such lovely expressions…

Look at this profile!! AAWWW!!!

And pictures of us… cause we don’t get them very often…

this next one courtesy of my budding photographer, Keenan…

And there you have it… Shand… I think she doesn’t like it when I eat eggs… She moves her mouth all around as if she is talking and only just this week are sounds really coming out! 🙂 It is quite endearing… the little porker is 11 – 12 pounds already!! at only SEVEN weeks!!  I think Keenan was 12 pounds at about 10 months… and Thaddeus… not much earlier than that!

She is a FAST eater… 6- 10 minutes, on one side only.  She just started having a longer stretch at night… 5 – 6 hours, preceded by a few hours of cluster feeding… (read ever 1 1/2 – 2 hours from about 5pm – 11 or 12) – but its worth it for the long stretch, for SURE!!  We are definitely not in any kind of schedule yet, but I’m really REALLY enjoying just feeding her when she is hungry…

Because she is such an efficient nurser, I’ve noticed she is  done eating before she is done sucking… so when she is full up she starts crying while nursing, gulping etc… so out comes the pacifier for those times.  She hasn’t figured out how to “mouth” me without getting milk… kind of funny…

She LOVES getting her diaper changed… we do most of our bonding over diapers :).

OK, I’ll post more tomorrow… Surely you can only handle so many pictures in one day!

Has it really been 7 weeks…

Wow… time has flown, and dragged, and life is chaos, and it is not entirely Shand’s fault, to be quite honest!!

I am ecstatic… we got out the door to go to Thad’s soccer game (4 more weeks of soccer!!) – and remembered the car that we all fit in is in the shop, so we can’t all go… shucks!  I guess I’ll have to stay home and… download pictures and BLOG and have that cup of coffee I have reheated 3 times already.  (Don’t laugh Brad – BIL who can’t appreciate the valid reasons I have for never being able to finish a cup of coffee…) speaking of… I’ll just go get it now, so that I don’t have to reheat it again before I have even had a sip!

Yes life is crazy, as usual, made worse by summer soccer… I knew they couldn’t be on the same team… I RESEARCHED it, to make sure they’d be at the same place, and the same nights, even if at different times… I spoke to the WRONG lady, apparently… we have soccer… FOUR NIGHTS A WEEK!!!

From 6:00pm – 7:00pm

And on the nights that Bryan works… that is me, carting 3 tired kiddos around, getting over-tired, hungry, sweaty (isn’t it the day to wash sheets tomorrow?) kiddos in bed, and dealing with an attention starved dog and a hungry, its-that-time-of-night-for-fussing baby.

Here are a couple pics of the stars… oh they ARE funny and cute, even if I do get weary of watching them run after a ball for 4 hours a week.

Keenan has matured SO much… he has played 2 weeks of games, and 6 weeks of practice, and he hasn’t complained, cried about the other team, whined about being tired… given up… NOTHING… he is a trooper and has improved so much in gross motor skills and determination… it is awesome – we are SO proud of him!

Dad is quite the sideline coach (which – we really need, because his team’s coach is pretty clueless and can’t control the kids… but HEY she volunteered, so we are thankful!!)  Thad was running after everyone – just following them around.  Bryan told him to run out ahead and then cut off the other team coming towards our goal… He pretty much got the run out ahead part…

He just put his head down and ran for all he was worth… over and over… paying NO attention to the ball whatsoever… he just ran down to the other end… even if everyone else had turned around and was heading the other direction!! 🙂

He does manage to wear himself out, that is for sure!! – by the way… what is it with ordering sz 8 clothes for the 4 yr old teams???

pictures of the baby and such are coming next!! 🙂 – Hey I have a whole HOUR by MYSELF!! (and the baby – who is still in the car seat from when we thought we were going somewhere! 🙂

A reminder of what is important…

Thanks to Ann V for this link

I went to the link and watched the movie, though I rarely wait for movie clips to load… it was touching, I think I had heard it before.

But just as the last sentence cleared th screen, my screen saver kicked on, and there was the smiling face of my eldest son…

We are going to ride our bikes AND get out the paints tomorrow… paperwork can wait… its the weekend after all!!