Eggs

Easter morning we dyed eggs.  1:00 p.m. will allow you to do such things. Both kids were in love, and didn't want any help.  This meant that all eggs were one color.  They wouldn't let mom or dad help them make stripes, or multi-colored eggs, or anything.

Easton asks me every day if we can do it again, and I tell him that he has to learn to eat hard-boiled eggs first and then we can. :)

Random Picture Catch-up

Sick girly. Hair everywhere.

 Napping on the couch (gotta have that blankie).

 Daddy's girl (big mouth).

 Silly kids, silly daddy.

 She obviously does all of our home repair.

 Self Portraits.

 King of the mountain.

 I was vacuuming the couch, so Kendree ran to get her play vacuum to help.

 Sweet sleeping baby.

 Cool boy.

 Princess Kendree.

Devynee - 4 months

Oh my!  This little doll is 4 months old!  I feel like Devynee changes her "look" every week.  More so than the other kids, but maybe it is because I am constantly comparing her to see who she looks most like (Easton vs. Kendree).

At 4 months:

• At her 4 month doctor's appointment she weighed in at 12 lbs. 13 oz (40th%) and was 25.25 inches long (75th%).  Her head was in the 50th%.
• Devynee continues to sleep through the night and her mama continues to love her for it!  She goes down around 10p.m. and sleeps until 7a.m.
• She takes about 3 naps a day.  One is super long (3 hours+) while the other two are more in the 1 to 1.5 hour range.
• Devynee "talks" a lot of the time she is awake now and it continues to sound like she is kind of upset, but she smiles through it all.  This does, however, make it hard for me to determine when she really is frustrated sometimes.  Most of the time she just has to out and out cry before I realize she isn't just doing her version of cooing.
• She is in 3-6 month clothes and size 2 diapers.
• She is going 3 hours between feedings during the day, pretty consistently.
• Devynee is infinitely patient with her siblings.  They have to really "love" her before she will get upset.
• Devynee is not a very "laugh-y" baby.  She will give you little giggles here and there, but has yet to really laugh (those darling baby belly laughs, I mean).
• She really started sucking on her thumbs big time this month, which means that mom and dad pulled out their final deterent: socks.  She lived for most of her 4th month with a pair of socks on her hands.
• Due to the taking away of the thumbs, she now sucks on her tongue/lower lip.  Another trait she takes after her mother on.  I still to this day, fold my tongue backwards when I am concentrating (no more tongue sucking for me though).
• She continues to sleep swaddled at night and free during the day.
• Devynee gives smiles like a champ and is always happy for a little attention.  From anyone.
• Devynee looks cross-eyed more than I remember with my other kids, so I asked the doctor about it at her appointment.  He was totally unconcerned.  He said her eye muscles are still developing and that she has a wide nose bridge (is that the word for it) so she looks more cross-eyed than she actually is.  Funny thing is that her mama had the exact same diagnosis when she was a baby.  And I didn't even tell the doc ahead of time to give him any ideas. :)

Miss Devynee on St. Patrick's Day.  (the closest to an official picture we got this month).

 Sleeping baby. Socks on hands, sucking on lip/tongue.

 Another view of the tongue sucking.

 Playing with the fishy toy.

 I have a picture almost exactly like this with Easton.  They both fell asleep while playing under the fish.

Procrastination, or how I decided to make Easter outfits on Friday night

In the back of my head I wanted to make Easter outfits for the kids.  It wasn't really something my family did on a regular basis growing up, but I have a TON of fabric left over from Devynee's bedding set, so I figured it would be a free project and use up some fabric.

Of course I wasn't able to pull anything together until Friday night.  I started drawing pattern pieces at 9:00 p.m. and nearly finished Kendree's dress by midnight.  The next day I finished up her dress, drew, cut out and sewed Devynee's dress and did Easton's tie.

I used this tutorial for both of the girls dresses and this one for Easton's tie.  I only had heavy interfacing (and I was NOT going to the store) so it is very stiff.  :)

Getting three kids to look at the camera, and smile is nearly impossible, but they are pretty cute nonetheless.

 Mr. Poser himself.

 Man she looks so big in this picture!

 And cute Aunt Sarah holding Miss Devynee.  Unfortunately with the late finish to this project, mama made this one a bit too small, so this will probably be the only time she will wear it!

I have great intentions for when I will be starting Easter clothes next year...

Easter Carnival Fun

Grandma Cali moonlights as the Easter Bunny in the spring (she works for an entertainment company--you know, face painting, balloons, characters, etc.).  She was the Easter Bunny at this park the weekend before we came and scored some free tickets for the entire group.   We had a great time at Irvine Park.

We were baby chicks with Aunt Katie:

 Then we were chicks with cousin Norah

 We did an Easter egg hunt...Norah just loved holding onto those eggs!

 Devynee once again hung out in the car seat for the majority of the time.

 After a little face painting, we had Spiderman join our group:

 Two of them in fact:

 Then we got a pretty princess.  (doesn't that look on her face just slay you?)

 We rode the train:

 And decorated cookies (Kendree was obviously instructing Easton on how to do it).

 We also enjoyed a hayride...

 And waited patiently to ride...

 PONIES!

 Kendree's pony was named Corky and she kept on reaching down to pet the mane and saying "good girl, Corky!"  Too cute.

 We were all a little worn out by the early afternoon, but it was fun!

The Beach!

We took a little two hour excursion to the beach while we were in Cali.   That's the beauty of being so close to the beach.  One 15 minute drive and there you are!  You can stay for just as long as your kids are enjoying it and not feel bad about it. So, the only thing to feel a little bad about was the fact that this is the first time any of the kids had been to the beach. :)

Just as expected, Kendree loved every minute.  The sandbox is her favorite place to be in our yard and she asks to play in it daily.  A sandbox as far as the eye could see was perfect for her. 

 Easton and I accidentally got a little wet [read: mama didn't know that big of a wave was coming] so he was cold and needed a little towel wrap.

This sweet babe spent the entire trip in her car seat.  It was quite windy which equals chilly at the beach and it wasn't worth getting her out.

 Cheesers!

 Obligatory half smile.

Shortly after this, we packed up and headed home.  We'll definitely be going back each time we go to Cali!
Added benefit: Mama forgot to apply sunscreen to anyone and due to the fact we were at sea level instead of 6500 feet, no one got burned!

Why hello there!

Whew!

That was a nice little break, wasn't it?

What? You didn't even notice I was gone?

HMMPH.

Anyway, our little family just got back from a "family trip."*

Let's just say we won't be subjecting ourselves or our kids to any 20-hour road trips anytime soon. (Not that we didn't LOVE sunny California).

Before we get into those picture heavy trip re-caps, let's remember a few of our favorite quotes from the trip.

Quote #1
Scene: We are all in the car leaving our neighborhood to begin our journey.  Ronnie and I are prepping the kids on how this is a LONG trip, but we will get to see lots of family and it will be really fun.  Easton nods his head in understanding, we say a prayer and are on our way. When we reach Harriman Road (literally a 15 minute drive from our house on the interstate) Easton says with a heavy sigh, "This sure is a long trip!"

If only he knew what he was in for.  Actually scratch that, it is a good thing he didn't know. :)

Quote #2
Scene: We tried to do some of the driving after the kids were asleep for the night to minimize the time they felt like they were in the car. This plan worked like a dream for Easton and Devynee, who are great and heavy sleepers.  Kendree?  Well, she is a lighter sleeper by nature, and a primarily stomach sleeper, so the car seat was not her favorite.  The kids would fall asleep around 8:30 p.m. and then around 11:30 p.m. Kendree would wake up crying.  We would try to soothe her with her blankie, our voices, and rubbing her legs, but the bottom line was that she just didn't want to be strapped into that darn car seat anymore.  She would cry for 2-3 minutes, settle down for 45 minutes and then repeat. We didn't have much choice both times, since we didn't arrive at either destination until 2:00 a.m. so there were 3 hours of soothing from the front seat.  Luckily, the other two kids slept through all of it.

So anyway.

On the return trip, we really were only 40 minutes from our destination for the evening (Grandma-Great and Grand Dad's house), Kendree woke up crying again and Ronnie reached back to rub her leg and tell her "We're almost there. Just a little while longer."  Apparently, she felt like she had heard that too many times, because she responded very forcefully with, "NO SAY THAT!" And so we stopped with the soothing and just willed the miles to go faster.

Quote #3
Scene: Ronnie's family lives 20 minutes from Disneyland. We have never gone in the time I have been a member of the family. I am aware this is a crime in the eyes of many. We decided that we would go for the first time this trip. It helped that a relative works there and was going to sign three of us in for free.  Fast forward to the night before this was supposed to happen. We get a text telling us that the signing in isn't going to happen.  We pat ourselves on the back for not actually telling the kids what we are doing (no disappointment that we decided not to shell out the money) and take them to Chuck E. Cheese instead.  They are thrilled.  Or so we think. Not a word about Disneyland is uttered for the rest of the trip.

We get back to Wyoming and Grandma Wyo asks the kids what they did in California. Easton responds, "We did NOT go to Disneyland and we did NOT go to Legoland." That was pretty much all he had to say about the trip. Sigh. [Thus far he seems unscathed.  He knows we will indeed take him to Disneyland when he is older].

*We called this little adventure a "vacation" when we were relaying some of it to my parents, after which Ronnie stated that he didn't know if you could call it a vacation.  My parents then informed us that trips with kids are rightfully classified as "family trips" and it is the kid-free ones that you can call "vacation." :)