Balloons+feet+sitting=fun

BALLOONS
The other day G1 brought me a blue balloon and asked me to blow it up and "make it tight"(tie the knot) for him. I did just that. He played with it for a little while and then it popped. I'm not sure what happened. He was within a few feet of me when it happened. I think it was just old and weak. Poor little boy and the saddest look on his face. It made me have tears in my eyes. He just couldn't understand how that could have happened when he didn't mean for it to happen. I hugged him and tried to console him the best I could. Then I remembered that I still had balloons left from G2 and G3's birthday party. I only had to remember where I had put them. So, I looked through the dining room closet and found them.
I blew up 8 or 9 of them suckers. I drew on them and the Gs had a blast playing with them. Sometimes I forget how fun the simple things can be. I get too caught up in everything else and I forget to see things through the eyes of my babies. It was fun to watch them all play and laugh and just have a great time.
I wish I could always have fun with them like that. Some days (most days it seems) I get too stressed out and can't enjoy the Gs like I wish I did. I've been trying to let things just roll off my back and have fun. I hope when my children look back on their childhood they remember the days that I am down on the floor playing with them, instead of the days when I am yelling and stressed.

FEET
G4 has "found" her feet. She is really starting to play with things and people. When she found her feet she seemed to think that was the greatest thing ever. She held onto them so tight and laughed and talked to them. I thought to myself I need to get a picture and/or video of this. I got up to get the camera. As I sat back down to turn the camera on she lost her feet. Poor little girl was devastated. I tried helping her grab hold again but it just wasn't the same. I finally managed to get pictures of her playing with her feet a couple days later.

SITTING
G4 can almost sit on her own. She has sat for a few seconds at a time without me holding on. Sometimes she thinks it's great and gets so excited she falls over because she's laughing; other times it is the worst thing in the world. She is totally female, not being able to make up her mind. :-P
This morning we tried to get a picture of her sitting by herself. We managed to get a few good pictures of all the Gs. The "big" Gs think it is absolutely great that I let them hold G4 sometimes (as you will notice in the pictures).

G2 and G3 are 21 months today. They will be 2-years old in 3 months. It's amazing how fast the time has gone. They are so big and so smart. They are still on the smaller side (but so is G1). Other than that you would never be able to tell they were preemies.
Today they were stink pots though... G1 came downstairs from nap-time and says to me "The girls don't have their diapers on." I head up the stairs and sure enough they have their diapers (which were duct taped by the way) in their hands and are headed down to me. I go into their room to see if they had gone potty anywhere. While in there I could smell poop but could not find it anywhere. I figured it was just my mind playing tricks on me so I go back downstairs. I get the girls and put new diapers on them. Sure enough G3 had pooped. I went back upstairs to look for it and still can't find it. I will have Matt look when he gets home. Pretty gross story huh?? My children pooping in mystery places is my life though. This is just the first time I haven't been able to locate it.

G1 has quite the imagination now. It's fun to watch him. The other morning, must have been Saturday morning, he was picking up "snails" and putting them in a can. He would bring me a can that he was pretending to put stuff in and tell me it's snails. It took me a minute or two to figure out what he was saying. I did not know this boy knew the word snails. So, I pretended to be grossed out and said "Eww icky-slimy-snails." He just thought that was great. I then told him that some people eat snails and actually like them, he thought that was funny. He showed them to Daddy too. Daddy reacted to G1's liking and G1 kept playing. G3 was observing all this and thought this looked like a good game. She went over and somehow ended up with the can. She would put the snails in and bring it over to me. Most of the time she was cracking up before I ever pretended to be grossed out. Then G1 and G3 started "dumping" the snails into their hands to "eat" them, just so Mommy would say "EEEWWWW!" It was a good time.

I had mastitis end of last week/over the weekend. I am feeling pretty good now but man that was not fun. I learned that breastfeeding (especially on that side even though it is EXTREMELY painful) really is the best way to get rid of it.
G4's eye was a little cruddy for a couple days but seems to be fine now. Maybe it was because of the mastitis and she got some of the "germs"??? Matt finished the light/vent in the bathroom upstairs (YAY MATT!!) and managed to slice open his finger at the knuckle. Pretty sure that wasn't fun for him.
G3 keeps conking her head on things.
G2 trips over everything. I joke that she walks like she's drunk.
G1 is G1, not really anything to say about him--he's been pretty normal for him.

**To all of you out there reading: PLEASE LEAVE ME A COMMENT. I love to hear from everyone that reads about our lives. It doesn't have to be much of a comment. Anything is greatly appreciated.

Toddler Beds

We decided to change the big girls from their cribs to toddler beds. Since they are climbing out of the cribs anyway we figured this is going to be safer. So, Tuesday evening Matt and I got their toddler beds set up. When I talked to them about what we were going to do they seemed really excited. But once we moved the one crib for G4 out of the way and started turning the other crib into a toddler bed they didn't seem to happy. At first G1 was not happy that we were giving "his big boy bed" to his sisters, but he got over it quickly (the white bed is the one we got for his 1st birthday).

After we got the toddler beds all ready G1, G2 and G3 jumped around on the beds for awhile. Once it was time for bed G2 was not happy at all. She screamed for quite a while. G3 did like she always does at bed time and just laid there looking around, chewing on her "Happy" thing.

This is what I found when I went up to check on them before going to bed myself (G2 fell out of bed right after I took this picture):
This is what I found when I went up to check on the girls tonight. I couldn't even get the door open wide enough to get through. (This is G3 by the way.)
After G1 and I's eye doctor appointment Thursday we went into the optical part of the office to order my new glasses and pick out Matt's safety glasses. G1 helped try some on.
G1 and I both got our eyes dilated. G2 and G3 enjoyed playing with the sunglasses things that I got to protect my eyes from the sun.
Oh, yeah. Aunt Marcia came up for the day to watch the girls so Matt could drive G1 and I to the eye doctor. We had a lot of fun with her.




This is what Matt found when he got home from work last night. Normally the kids are in bed no later than 8 but last night I needed to get Marcia to the train station and when I got home and got the kids in G1 wanted to cuddle on the couch. I was okay with that so he went and got all of their blankets and "Happys" (yes I know that isn't spelled correctly but "Happy" is the name) and we all laid on the couch and fell asleep. (The above picture ^^ was taken after Matt picked up G2 and then decided she needed a diaper change. Her legs are filthy because they had suckers and got all sticky and I just didn't get them cleaned up.)
Matt decided that was a perfect opportunity to take a family picture. He's a silly guy. :-)

One Month Old

G4 is one month old today. She seems so big now. Every once in a while she will smile for me (still pretty rare). Today she was really smiling for Matt--it was cute. We have her one month check-up on Monday. I'm anxious to see how big she is now. The 3 older Gs still love her to pieces. None of them have hurt her yet *on purpose*. So that's good.
She is awake a lot throughout the day. I've never seen a newborn awake as much as she is. She is still sleeping pretty well at night--as long as it is with me (which to be perfectly honest, it does not bother me as much as I expected; in fact it makes life easier and I love having her there). She still is nursing practically all day long.
That's the update on her.

This weekend is Railroad Days here in town. So, we walked to downtown (that's where it's going on) to enjoy the festivities. It was a nice walk and we had fun.

We got a sling from Target to get us through until I find material I like enough to have one made for me. G4 is starting to like it:

Me and the 3 girls:


The boys:


The Children's Museum was doing free face painting. G2 got a purple flower, G3 got a pink flower, and G1 got a train.





G1 got to ride on a train ride. He absolutely loved it:



Daddy got to ride too:



We got to check out what the inside of the train was like. Here are the pictures of us waiting in line:



G3:

G2:

G2 loves her Aunt Ginny:

The first of these 2 pictures everyone but me looks good. The second one I still don't look good but you can kind of see G4:


This is a video of G1 on the train ride. He is the front car. For this ride you had to pedal with your hands. I wasn't sure how well he would do with that, but he did pretty good. You can see him pedaling a little at the end of the video.



Okay, so onto updates about everyone else.

Matt is still working as much as he can (or as much as I will let him). There isn't anything exciting going on with him.

I am finally able to pick up the older three. Mom has still been coming to help me out, but I am gradually "learning" how to take care of all my children. I am feeling pretty good. I would feel better if I could just lose the rest of all this weight. Nothing exciting with me either.

G1 will be 3 in a week and a half. He is getting to be more and more of a monster everyday. I love him to pieces and when he is being nice he is the best little boy. But when he isn't wanting to listen or be nice he is a terror (at least to me anyway). He is getting to be so smart though. It amazes me all the time all the different things he knows.

G2 is a biter. She can be the meanest little girl (with the sweetest voice). She does like to cuddle and give kisses though (is that supposed to make up for the bitting??). She is becoming more and more vocal (with words we can understand even). Her newest things she says all the time are "Stop" "No" and "Don't."

G3 is a sweetheart. But she is taking to bitting now too. I guess she finally got sick of G2 bitting her all the time and thought it is time for payback. She is getting pretty vocal too. The things she says the most right now are "Happy" (name of all of the Gs lovies) "Poppy" and "Bubby."

All in all there really isn't anything exciting going on right now. I promise to let you all know when something "real" happens. :-)

Update on us

Things are going really well. The older Gs seem to be getting used to G4 being here. They are always concerned about her. If I don't have the Boppy (nursing pillow) they either point to it or bring it to me. I guess I'm supposed to be nursing G4 24/7. Of course she seems to think so too. :-) G4 seems really comfortable. She is so content all the time (unless hungry--which who can blame her there???).

We went for our first walk Sunday morning (just Matt, me and G4--the rest were at church). We then went for another walk Sunday evening (Matt, me, GMFx4 and Marcia). Yesterday we ran our first errands--all 6 of us. All 3 times went really well. I was amazed.

Sunday evening when Matt went to take Marcia back to the train station G1 tagged along. Matt then stopped by work to talk to them about when he was going to be back to work. G1 just thought that was wonderful. He was given a light thing and a bottle of water and he slept with them that night. It was cute. The girls were in bed so I didn't have to worry about anyone but me and G4.

The big girls are still climbing over the rails of the cribs (mainly G2), even with both rails up. I guess they just aren't ready to be separated yet. As long as they don't hurt each other I am totally cool with that.

These are just a couple cute pictures Matt took of him and G2 today. (Her face is filthy!!)

G2, G3 update

The girls are now in separate beds. This change happened Tuesday night. This is because G2 likes to sit on G3 when she is sleeping. Also G2 has taken to bitting G3.
At first we had them side by side and had the side rails (on the sides that were together) down. Well they kept climbing over; which I wouldn't have minded except G3 ended up with a couple more bites. So now they have the side rails up. The cribs are still side by side but they *hopefully* can't climb back and forth anymore.
I am very sad about this change but I guess it was bound to happen sometime. It's amazing that they were able to share a crib for 17 months (actually just under because they are 17.5 months old and didn't start sharing until they were home at 3 weeks old).
We got this second crib from a nurse at my OB's office.
Marcia has a video(s) of the girls climbing back and forth that she will post later. They are hilarious!

38 week appointment

Today is my 38 week mark. We had our final regular OB appointment. Everything looked good. Blood pressure was the highest it's been and it was still really good (118/78). We are all set for next Wednesday, provided I really do make it to then. If I go into labor before then I think I will still try for a VBAC.
I am so ready to have this baby but I really want to savor the last few days I have with GMFx3 before she arrives.
Monday (provided I'm not in the hospital) we will be walking in the Memorial Day parade. My OB asked if we would like to join them--they are representing growing families. I thought it would be fun for the kids and Matt agreed so we're going to do it. Of course that will probably put me into labor--at least my OB and his nurses will be right there. :-)

Appointment today

Everything looked perfect today. G4 didn't cooperate with getting a good picture of her face but that's okay we got one foot and her hands. I'm not convinced we will make it the next 9 days though. I have been contracting/cramping a lot more these last couple days. I have to at least make it to my 38 weeks appointment on Wednesday though.
Once again these pictures aren't the best because I had to use the digital camera to take pictures of the pictures. But it's good enough (at least for now). In the second picture she is definitely hiding her face (you can spot her lips).