29/52 + 7 weeks

1 - LM has been proclaiming her independence lately. According to her, she is old enough to start doing certain things on her own now, some more risky than others. I've been letting her stretch her wings and try doing a few jobs all by herself with supervision and rules set in place, like painting her nails or using the sharp knives to help cut vegetables for dinner. She also wants to make her own lunch often. This means she eats an egg salad sandwich almost daily because using an egg slicer is the jam when you're five.

I'll be honest, its a little hard for me to watch her make a big mess in the kitchen or be patient as she takes waaaaay longer to paint her nails than if I just did it for her. But seeing her so proud of her handiwork and watching her gain confidence, that is 100% worth it.

2 - Lark has a new way of reading (read: looking at the pictures and making up stories) books. She never ceases to put a smile on my face with her shenanigans.

3 & 4 - Sweet Tommy's smile very well could bring about world peace. Today LM was upset over something I can't even remember and she started to yell in frustration when Tommy looked directly at her and got the biggest grin on his face. It immediately cut her tirade short. She started laughing instead and basically melted into a gushy puddle at his feet and forgot all about her supposed injustice. His little squishy face is irresistible. Thanks again for that one, Tommy.

 

happy birthday to my man

To the man who makes us all happy, we wish you the happiest of birthdays! Thank you for being such a loving, fun, and attentive father and husband. We sure love you.

Let's go out and celebrate!

28/52 + 6 weeks

1 - Both LM and I cut our hair shorter this week.

2 - Lark can often be found singing in the living room. She makes up songs and right now her favorite lyrics on repeat are, "I like to play all day, today. Is it alright, is it okay? I like to play all day, tonight. Is it okay, is it alright?" It has a cute little tune that is actually quite catchy. 

3 - Tommy is 6 weeks old already, wha? He is smiling more and more every day, and growing way too fast. He wakes me up to eat twice during the night and takes a few nice long naps for me during the day.  

52 week project catch up pt 2.

23/52 + 1 Week:

24/52 + 2 Weeks:

And now you know I wasn't kidding when I said there would be a lot of pictures of us holding Tommy. :) The first two weeks of his life I don't think I left the house. We just laid low as I figured out how to split my attention between three children and give them all what they needed to feel loved. I did have some help from my mom and sister Amy so I could get some rest too, and lucky for me the girls adjusted well and were as helpful to me as I had hoped they would be.

At the end of the second week they went to stay with my oldest sister Jayne for three days and had a blast playing with her six kids whom they absolutely adore. It was so quiet and peaceful with just a baby in the house and I loved getting to focus my attention solely on Tommy. We also had a lot of meals brought over by family, neighbors, and church friends. We are surrounded by some really wonderful and loving people who are quick to serve and good examples to me that I am grateful for - we were well taken care of, thank you!! To top it all off Tommy never had his days and nights mixed up so he would go straight back to sleep after every single one of his nighttime feedings (he still does, don't jinx me internet!), so instead of being completely exhausted I was only very tired. ;)

25/52 + 3 Weeks:

At three weeks I felt like we were getting into the swing of things. I put on make up and got dressed in something that didn't come from the pajama drawer! We actually left the house a few times! I finally thought to pull out my big camera and take some pictures of the kids all together. Tommy was not very happy about it at the time so it was short lived, but I am really happy with the handful of pictures I was able to capture regardless. I want to remember this special time. These girls are constantly by his side, asking if they can hold him and giving him kisses. I jokingly say that he is either going to grow up feeling extra loved or extra smothered, ha. I imagine all of the enthusiastic attention from the girls will die down a bit the longer he is around, but I hope they will always be kind and show him a little bit of extra love.    

26/52 + 4 Weeks:

At four weeks Tommy started giving us those very first rare smiles that make rational human beings speak in ridiculously high voices and pull the cheesiest of faces all for the glory of saying, "He smiled at me!" For the record, I hold the bragging rights that he smiled at me first.

We also spent Fourth of July weekend with family. The girls swam and played with cousins while the adults played volleyball and took turns holding Tommy while he snoozed. 

27/52 + 5 Weeks:

 

We have started taking a family walk in the evenings when it cools down after dinner. The girls scoot or bike off the last of their energy for the day while we push (or race) Tommy in his stroller and it just feels really good. To be at this place in our lives, happy and together. Life is feeling normal again, but an even better normal than it was before.

And now we are officially caught up.

52 week project catch up pt. 1

Yikes, I have fallen so behind on this project since Tommy was born. That's okay though, those first newborn days are meant to be soaked in and enjoyed without worrying about much of anything else but counting tiny fingers and toes and kissing a perfect little mouth. Now that I am actually showering and dressing myself most days I feel like I can get back into the swing of things here. I decided to break protocol and do one big long 'what we've been up to this past month' post to catch back up and then resume the 'portraits of my children' theme afterwards. It was turning out way too long though, so I think it will be broken up into two parts, maybe three. I mean, it really depends on how many pictures of us holding him you want to see because that is pretty much what we've been doing...or at least it's all I deemed necessary to take a picture of it seems. And, now that I've completely spoiled the ending for you, here is the beginning...

(Oh, and I'm just going to go ahead and skip over that pesky week I missed at the very beginning of the year if you don't mind.)

21/52 + 40 weeks:

My due date had passed and I spent this week waiting. And waiting. I took pictures off the walls and rearranged most of the house in an effort to keep my mind from counting down the unknown number of minutes until labor would start, and we finished up some last minute projects like hanging blinds in the nursery. The girls asked everyday when their baby brother was coming and tried to sweet talk him out, their little lips pressed up against my belly telling him that it was okay, he could come now. They were so excited to have him join our family. At the end of the week I went in to have Tommy monitored to make sure he was still doing okay. I watched the lines on the graph paper zig and zag while his steady heartbeat lulled me into drowsiness in the otherwise quiet room, wondering when I would finally get to meet him. Every night I went to bed thinking, maybe tomorrow.

22/52 + 41 weeks and Birth (finally!!):

The good news is he couldn't stay in there forever. Nine days past his due date he arrived in a short 4 1/2 hour induced labor after some possible complications arose during a second monitoring session and it was determined he needed to come out now. Even though an induction was never part of my plan I felt peace about it. All throughout the week I had been feeling tiny whispers in my heart that he would need to come this way. So when we walked into the hospital that afternoon it felt right even though we were a bit nervous, praying he would be okay. After waiting days for something, anything to happen it was almost shocking to have him in my arms so quickly. He was so tiny and beautiful, and after giving us a couple of scares during our hospital stay which resulted in an x-ray and more pokes for him than I would have liked, we were overjoyed to find out that he was perfect too.

And so we went home, a family of five.