How to Entertain a Baby!

I guess the most effective way to entertain a baby to a 5 year old and 3 year old is to give him a shoe :)

Preschool Graduation

My kids graduated from preschool, congrats!! Here are some pictures from the program we went to. Timmy is now ready for Kindergarten and I'm not sure if I'll put Allie in next fall or wait another year. If she goes this fall and next, she will have preschool for 2 1/2 years, a little long! Thanks to Mrs. Parke, she was a fun teacher and neighbor!

Fantastic Weekend!

So, this weekend was one of the best I have had in a long time. I woke up Friday morning with a seriously hurt neck. I quickly showered and took Allie to the dentist to have 2 cavities filled and she did awesome. Then I went to my chiropractor's office to see if he could squeeze me in and he did thankfully and I was able to have a gentle adjustment and electric stimulation to help heal my neck. Then I headed home and luckily my baby napped for 4 hours in the afternoon and I was able to nap for 3 of those hours, yay! Justin came home with some beautiful flowers and picked up a pizza for dinner and then we just chilled and watched TV, it was a nice evening.

On Saturday morning I was still really hurting so Justin let me take a nap. He tried to get out the door on time to Tim's soccer game but was running late so when he brought me lunch in bed I took the baby off his hands and sent him out the door. The baby napped and I cleaned up a bit and then he watched the kids in the afternoon while I went grocery shopping for some food for Mother's Day and more pain meds. Then we got a babysitter and went to dinner with my siblings in SLC at Red Robin for Liz's graduation and we had a great time talking and laughing.

Then on Sunday morning at 2 AM Justin got up with the baby and fed him and got him back to bed so I could sleep all night, thanks honey! I woke up at 7 AM to start getting ready for church and opened my Mother's Day gift from my kids that they made at preschool and it was hilarious. It was a Mom's cookbook and basically the kids told Mrs. Parke what they would make for their moms and she wrote it down exactly how they said. I will post below what they both wrote in the cookbook, so funny! Then Justin made me scrambled eggs with cheese (he doesn't even like eggs!) and bacon with hot chocolate for breakfast, yum! While I showered Justin wrapped my kids up in 5 beach towels to give me for Mother's Day, which I wanted and asked for :) Then at church the baby slept the whole time and I was given some yummy Dove chocolate which I ate during church, yum again! Then we came home and Justin made me a tasty lunch and didn't play video games at all on Sunday and got some organization projects done which I liked. We watched the Emma Smith movie and hung out with the kids and headed to my in-laws for dinner. We had a yummy dinner and the guys all cleaned up while the girls talked and enjoyed each other's company. We headed home and got our kids to bed and then went to bed early ourselves, it was so nice.

What a great weekend, truly! Also, what made it really nice was I still had some Percocet left from having a baby and it truly made the pain in my neck bearable and it makes me relaxed and happy which definitely helped. Gotta love great pain meds!

Here are my kids cookbook entries:

Allison McMurray -

Princesses:
3 cups milk
5 chicken pieces

Mix milk and chicken together. Then put dresses on them and make some eyes on them. Ariel needs a pink head. Then we need some fingers on their hands. Then add some feet.

Timmy McMurray

Peanut butter and Jelly sandwiches:
2 pieces of bread
Jelly
Peanut butter

Spread some peanut butter around on the bread and then add the jelly. Then we close them up and then cut them into 4 triangles. Then we eat them.

Timmy's was exactly right and Allie's was just funny!!

Baby Blessing and First Smile

We had Michael's baby blessing on Sunday and it was such a nice day! Both of our families came and many stayed for a few hours after the blessing to just visit. Then I drove my brother back home to Logan and we had a fun time talking and then I jammed to some old CD's on the way home. Really, truly, it was a great day!!

Michael has started to smile, yippee!!

Rough Day!

So yesterday was a rough day for my little guy. We had a normal morning and he was awake for a few hours and then went down around 10:45 AM and slept until 1ish. Then he was awake until 3 and I thought for sure he would go down for a long nap in the afternoon like normal and I would have to try and wake him up at 6 so he would be awake for a few hours before bed at 8 PM. Boy was I wrong! He woke up at 3:45 and proceeded to be fussy from then until he was finally in bed at about 9 PM. I kept trying to get him to take a nap and finally at 6:30 I decided to just get him ready for bed. I got his jammies on, put on his nighttime lotion, swaddled him and fed him to put him down around 7 and he didn't go down til 9. Every time he was asleep, I would put him in his bed and he would just wake up crying a few minutes later.

The only thing I can think is that he is going through his 6 week growth spurt and thrown off a little, yikes! Justin and I were both so tired last night after such a rough fussy evening that we both fell asleep at 10:30 watching our nightly show. Then our monitor started making funny noises and woke me up in the night so I turned it off and just opened my door so I could hear the baby. Then I was up with the baby at 1:30 for a feeding and again at 5 AM. Good grief.

Happy Easter!

Well, we had a nice Easter Sunday. My Dad came over the night before with his girlfriend Laurie and we had dinner at Arctic Circle. Then we watched the Wedding Planner and Laurie left to go home and my Dad spent the night. We woke up early, had fun with the kids as they played with their Easter baskets and then went to church. After church we cooked all afternoon and had a nice Easter dinner here with Sherri and Liz. It was a nice and long day.

Happy Birthday Tim!

Well, Tim is now 5, I can't believe I've been a mom for 5 years, woo hoo! He is so excited to start school this fall and so am I. Finally, one kid in school :) For his birthday we opened presents in the morning and had his birthday cereal, Fruit Loops. Then Justin went to work and I made his cake, a racecar cake of course :) For his birthday his big present was legos and he got a preschool workbook, an airplane, chalk, an easy catch ball game, frisbee and more that I can't think of right now.

Then we met Justin at McDonald's for lunch to play on the playland because it was bad weather but it was soooo crowded because 1) it's just been redone 2) bad weather and 3) spring break! We only stayed for 20ish minutes because it was so crowded and Timmy couldn't even make it through the playland without getting picked on and also because there were so many kids to go through. We came home and Steve and Lorna came over for cake and ice cream and then we went to Peter and Amber's baby shower for the evening, fun day! Justin took a half day, I loved it!

Happy Birthday to my sweet, helpful, car loving, learning to read, questioning, tumbling, soccer playing boy. I love you!!!

Legos

Soccer ball

Chalk

Frisbee from Allie

Airplane

I think I'm getting better at making cakes :)

Picture time!

Here are some new pictures of my kids, so fun!

Tim with Mikey

Allie loves her brother!

Mikey kept staring up this morning.

I just love this little boy!

Tim with little brother

Wish Me Luck!

So, today Justin is going out of town leaving around 3 PM and getting back on Tuesday evening, probably after the kids are in bed. He had the choice of going although it was highly recommended that he go to California for a meeting on Monday. Since our baby was so easy going a week ago, I told him he could go. Well, these past few days the crazy sleep patterns have really gotten to me and I'm tired, just plain tired. I finally feel like a newborn, sleep-deprived mom. And now he's leaving for 2 nights. Well, I know I'll survive, it will just be tough.

Feeling Blessed

Right now I feel so blessed. I don't know what I did to deserve such an easy baby. He is very sleepy during the day still, maybe awake 4 hours or so, hardly ever cries and is already in a good nighttime routine. He goes to bed around 8 or 9, sleeps til 1 or 2, and then wakes up again at 4 or 5. Then he sleeps in until 8 or 9 AM. Truly, I am not that tired and feeling so blessed. Two nights ago he went to sleep at 9 PM and slept until 4:15 AM, wow!

He is such a mild tempered baby, I just love it!