No Excuses...

I'm such a bum!  I wish I had an incredible excuse for not blogging.  Maybe I've been super busy de-cluttering and cleaning my house.  Maybe I've been working out so much I don't have much time for my computer.  Maybe I've been super mom and playing with my kids so much I just haven't even though about it.  Sadly, none of these excuses apply to me (I did start de-cluttering, but that only lasted about 2 days.  I do try to work out, but only get to it 2-3 times a week.  And every time I spend the day focused on my kids, I realize it's impossible to do it full-time).  So yes, I am a slacker.  But I'm doing it now, doesn't that count for something?  So what has happened since I blogged last?  Blakely got her ears pierced, she turned 3 months old (and is about to turn 4 months old), she has started laughing and is growing like a pesky weed!  Kyson just gets cuter every day.  He still refuses to talk, but learns new dancing skills everyday.  He loves playing with cars and any type of sport ball.  Maicee has started (and loves) gymnastics, will start soccer this week (again, but her friend Ava is on her team and I'm hoping this motivates her to do better), and suffered her first heart-ache when her close friend Serenity moved away.  Dan is done with his internal-medicine rotation- Hallelujah!  He did a month with his favorite family medicine doctor, again, and just today started his month long OB-GYN rotation.  After this rotation, his life and schedule will calm down, and he may get to move back home again!  We were super spoiled over spring break because he had almost 2 weeks off with us!  We haven't spent that much time with him since this whole process started almost 3 years ago!  And me, well, I'm as boring as ever.  I try to do new things, but just don't have the energy or motivation to stick with anything.  I have been on a gluten-free diet since the beginning of February, and it slowly seems to be making a difference.  This means I no longer get to eat bread, pasta, or most sweets.  Some days this makes for a really grumpy mom.  But the kids seem to be dealing with it well.
Our spring break didn't start out too well. Dan, Kyson, Blakely and I all had a really bad cold, and Maicee was throwing up and sleeping the whole day away for 4 days.  It took her 2 full days to recover after that.  We did go to an Easter egg hunt here it town.  A helicopter even dropped eggs out of it for the kids to go hunt.  Maicee liked the helicopter, Kyson didn't.  And we had a good Easter.  Oh, and my sister Wende came to visit for a couple of days a few weeks ago.  The kids loved having her here, and it was super nice for me to have another adult to talk to.
Enough with the boring chit chat, here are pictures that are pretty self explanatory.  Enjoy!

Blakely's pierced ears

Oh, I made matching tutu's for the girl's, and Dan thought it would be funny to put Maicee's on Kyson

Blakely really does love her sister!  This is the day she turned 3 months.

Maicee, Aunt Wende, and Kyson

Isn't he so handsome?!

This is one of Kyson's new dance moves- he lifts his legs up really high, and does it really fast.  So fast, sometimes he falls flat on his bum!

Kyson loves his Aunt Wende

Maicee and Serenity

Luke and Kaila "Tebowing"

That's not very lady-like Blakely!

She is so stinkin' cute!

Maicee and Kyson were snuggled up together, but when Dan grabbed the camera Kyson bolted!

Dan thought it was cute Blakely was asleep with her thumb in her mouth

At the Easter egg hunt

Kys kept trying to run away

Yeah, the kids had to climb over a huge pile of snow, but at least it was warm!

Maicee dying eggs, me texting

Deep in thought

And one of the only pictures I took on Easter, I'm so lame!  Next time they wear their Easter outfits, I will take a picture.

Ahh, this is the good life!

Chunky Monkey

We blessed Blakely on Feb. 3.  It was a beautiful blessing.  We had a "bruncheon" at Dan's brother's house afterwards.  I wanted to get cute pictures of all the kids while we were there, but Blakely slept the whole time, so Dan and I took some pictures of just Blakely in our room that afternoon.  They didn't turn out so great.

Please don't stare too hard at my wrinkly bed spread.  I've asked for a new bed set for about 2 years now, I'm just waiting on the go ahead from Dan.

Precious

Dan loves crying pictures, so I had to throw this one in.

 

And these are a couple of pictures I took the day she turned 2 months.



Of course Maicee had to be in the picture with her.

Maicee took this picture.

At her 2 month check up she weighed 11 lbs. 10 oz. (50%) and was 22 1/2 inches long (50%).  She's about average for weight, but I've never had a baby that heavy before.  Kyson and Maicee were always in the 30 percentile and lower.  She is seriously the best baby ever!  We love her so much!

We were alone on Valentine's Day.  Dan is in the middle of a 9 day work schedule, working at least 12 hours a day.  Last night he didn't get out of work until almost 9.  So he called me on his way home from the hospital.  I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but Dan has a place down in Colorado Springs that he stays at during the week, and if he's not on call he gets to come home on weekends.  He's doing an internal medicine rotation right now.  He is enjoying it because he gets to participate in a lot of procedures, but the doctor he is with works all of the time.  She lets Dan go home before she goes home.  And on average she makes $800,000 a year.  So not worth all the time she puts in, but she enjoys it.  I wanted to get a couple of pictures of the kids in their "Valentine's" outfits, but Kyson was not participating.

Maicee's heart hair for school, thank you Pinterest!

This was my first attempt. Oh, and notice the socks on Blakely's hands?  On my way to pick Maicee up from school, Blakely kept crying, which is unusual for her, especially in the car.  When we got home, I noticed at least 8 scratch marks on her face.  Apparently she had a really sharp nail.  She refuses to let me cut her nails, something about her arms not being able to move, so I had to stick socks on her hands until she fell asleep.  Poor thing.

This was about 20 pictures later, when I finally gave Kyson the ipod and he calmed down.  He really does love his picture being taken, as long as big sister is not in it with him.  He's kind of an attention hog.

 

Maicee was getting a diaper for me, and Blakely was just smiling at her.  She smiles so much!  I love it!

And I found this super cute outfit the other day and had to throw in one picture of it.

I love this chunky monkey and can't imagine life without her!

 

6 years...

I hate this day every year.  It never gets easier.  I have just learned to deal with it better.  I'm so grateful for the gospel and can't wait until I can see her again.

One month and then some

Blakely turned one month at the beginning of this month.  I'm a little behind.  She weighed 9 lbs. 15.5 oz. (70%) and is 21 inches long (75%).  I think both of my girls are going to be taller than their brother.  She is such a good baby, when I remember to give her her acid reflux medicine.  She wakes up once a night, between 4 and 6.  The other day I had to wake her up at 6:40 to eat (she last ate at 9 the night before), because I had a dr.'s appointment and I was afraid she wouldn't wake up until it was time to go.  She is starting to smile, which I love!  Maicee loves her to pieces, and Kyson adores her.  Kyson is doing better eating, he gained a whole pound in one month, which is more than he gained the previous 7 months!  His appetite is getting better, as long as he doesn't have any milk products.  Poor kid.  And Maicee is enjoying school and learning so much everyday!  She is so smart!  She is going to be really bummed when she realizes she can't start school with all her friends in the fall.  Dan is in an internal medicine rotation right now.  It demands a lot of his time, especially when he is on call.  But he's not interested in it.  He just got accepted for a 6 week rotation this summer in Hawaii.  I'm super jealous that he gets to go to Hawaii for free, and get paid while he is there.  I'm tempted to find someone to watch my 2 older kids and go join him for a week or two.  But that probably won't happen.

 



I got one good picture of her at one month.  I love this outfit Aunt Tracie bought her.

She is so stinking cute!

And I had to throw in one of Kyson on his roller coaster he got for Christmas.

Maicee and Kyson cheering for the Broncos.

Last weekend Dan was on call and didn't get to come home, so we went down to Colorado Springs and spent the day with him.  There is this fun little place called "Focus on the Family Welcome Center".  The kids had a blast there.

Maicee cried when we had to leave.

Daddy all dressed up waiting for a call to go into the hospital.  Luckily he didn't get called while we were there!

Kyson loves his baby sister!

Maicee really likes putting this little crown on Blakely's head.

She is so cute!

Here is the start of her smile.  She smiles with her whole face, mouth wide open.

Here it is!

Stuck in a rut...

It's true, I have been such a slacker lately.  I feel like our lives are terribly boring, and no one wants to hear about that.  And I'm still having issues loading pictures.  Thanks for the suggestions (Beth, I swear you are the only one that reads my blog) but I don't have a slot for a memory card on my computer.  Lame, right?  And I seriously don't take enough pictures of my cute little baby.  Poor thing.  Maicee has hundreds of pictures, Kyson has about half that, and Blakely I fear is just not going to have as many.  I should get over the anger I have for my mom because I only have 1 baby picture- I was her 4th child.  Now I get it.  Maybe when the weather gets nicer, we won't be as boring.  Maybe.  But we are all still alive and well.  Oh, and an update on Blakely.  In the hospital, the pediatrician was doing her normal routine, and she asked me if Blakely was ever breech.  She was for like a month or two.  She informed me she could possibly have hip dysplasia, which is congenital dislocation of the hips.  If caught early enough, it can be treated with a simple brace.  I take her into her first dr.'s appointment with our pediatrician, and one of the first things he says is "hmmm, she may have hip dysplasia."  He then wrote a prescription for an ultrasound on her hips.  We didn't have her insurance card yet, so we had to wait on that.  At each appointment, he would test her and she kept getting better.  So when I took her in for her ultrasound, I was pretty sure she didn't have it.  And the ultrasound came back normal!  Well, that's all that's going on with us.

An update

I'm sorry I'm such a slacker in the blogging department.  But I do have a good excuse.  I don't like to blog without pictures, and since Dan wiped my computer clean, I'm having a hard time getting pictures from my camera onto the computer.  Like it doesn't happen at all.  Before, when I would plug my camera in, a little screen would come up and ask if I wanted to download all the new pictures.  I would say yes, and ten seconds later I would have pictures on my computer.  Well, that little screen doesn't come up anymore, and the only way to get pictures is to transfer them from the camera to the computer, so they are not on the camera anymore.  So annoying.  If any of you have any ideas how to fix this, please let me know.  
Blakely is just growing like a weed.  She loves to eat!  I had to take her in last week, and she gained about a pound and a half in one week.  She weighed in at 9 pounds.  I'm pretty sure Maicee and Kyson didn't hit 9 pounds until their 2nd months.  She is such a good little sleeper as well.  I think I would die if she wasn't.  She wakes up around 2:30- 3:00 to eat, then goes back to bed until 6:30- 7:00.  And her siblings sure do love her.  Kyson is always very interested in whatever she is doing.  He likes to help me burp her, too.  Maicee is always loving on her, giving her kisses, hugging her.  One of the first days we were home from the hospital, Maicee came upstairs with me to feed her.  She was sleeping in her little bassinet, and Maicee was sitting on my night stand trying to wake her up.  I walked into the bathroom for 10 seconds to finish brushing my teeth, came back out, and Maicee was sitting on the night stand with Blakely in her lap.  I about had a heart attack.  Maicee had the biggest smile on her face.  I calmly explained to her that she can't pick sister up without help from mom or dad, or she might hurt sister's neck.  She could seriously hold her all day long. 
Blakely goes back to the dr. next week, and we find out whether or not she has to wear a brace on her hips.  The dr. says it's no big deal, but I would rather not have to deal with it.

I love this little purple outfit.  It used to be Maicee's.

Maicee is always in her face like this.

This is her favorite sleep position.