I seriously can't get enough of this smile!

I hid the diaper rash cream really well today, so he resorted to the butter!

Again!

This kid has a freaking 6th sense when it comes to that dang diaper rash cream! I put it in a different place each time and he still seems to find it! At least he smells fresh and clean!

Oh Gage!

Gage has sure given me a run for my money this week!

While I was in the shower one morning, he helped himself to the gallon of milk from the fridge and spilled it all over the couch and carpet. Like, there was a milk puddle between the cushions. I didn't get a picture of it because I was shocked and just started cleaning up as fast as I could. I really didn't want my couch smelling like sour milk.

He is still doing an awesome job going potty. One day he got a little curious and put his hand through the stream of pee and then licked it. I spared you all a picture of this as well.

But, don't you worry, I got pictures of the rest of this week's antics!

 He discovered the diaper rash cream. 

Yep, that's on my couch, and all over his leg and hands. I put him straight in the bath and got him all scrubbed up. When I took him out, he still had cream in his finger crevices! And, it's pretty dang hard to get diaper rash cream of the couch because it's made to repel liquid.

And, he did it again. This time he spread it all over his already white dressers (thank goodness) and his face. Maybe he was pretending it was shaving cream?

 He is in the "I do it myself" stage, which makes potty training F-U-N (and messy)! He won't let me help him with his undies and shorts, so this is how he plays around the house, with the button undone in the back. Then when he runs around his shorts fall down.

 And he likes to feed Max!

We took all of the knobs off of his dressers to keep this from happening. Apparently he found a way to dump all of his drawers out anyway. (He also likes to jump from his dressers onto his bed when he is supposed to be going to sleep.)

Notice how in those last several pictures he is wearing the same clothes? Yeah, that's because they are all from the same day! 

He is definitely my crazy man!

Miley: 1 Month

I'm a little over a week late getting this up, but I wanted to document how she is at 1 month old. 

* Loves to be held, but is starting to tolerate her swing and bouncy better.

* Eats about every 3-4 hours, but sometimes in the evenings can only make it 2 hours.

* Most nights we put her to bed around 10 pm and she wakes up around 5:00 am to eat then sleeps again until her older siblings wake her up! We've had a few rough nights, where she's woken up more than once, or hasn't wanted to go back to sleep, but we have also had a few nights where she's slept until 7:00 am! This is what saves my sanity!

* She takes about an hour nap in the morning, then a good 2-3 hour nap in the afternoon, and a few little cat naps in the evening. 

 *She doesn't like her car seat. She pretty much screams as soon as we put her in it until the minute we take her out. Every once in a while, she'll fall asleep in it, but that's not very often. She likes the front pack, so when we have to go somewhere I take her our of her seat and put her in it.

 

 See. . .  Here's proof!

* Her siblings have discovered that they can pick her up. Maisey LOVES to pick her up and bring her to me, which involves her standing up to hold her. She thinks she's so big when she does this.

* She is a great eater, but still spits up ALOT! I've resorted to blankets instead of burp clothes to manage it, and I often have to change my shirt so I don't smell like barf! She is very patient when she is eating and I have to put her down to help Gage go potty or something else pressing. She rarely protests!

* She had a really fussy week at about 4-5 weeks, but now she is mostly back to a good little baby!

 Here's my cute little girl at 1 month old!

Love, love, love, love her!

Life is Good!

So, I'm behind again in my blogging efforts! What's new? I have a list of posts to work on, but I've been busy working in my yard the last two days! But I have 2 pieces of awesome news to share:

1) All three kids slept through the night last night!!!!!!!!!! Miley has been off and on for the last two weeks, but the older kids have been sick, so they've been keeping me up. They are finally starting to feel better, which led to a solid eight hours of sleep for me! It was marvelous!

2) I am super excited for next weekend! Not only will all of my family be in town for Miley's blessing, but Aunt Janel is coming for the big day too! And to add the icing to the cake, our super awesome friends from BYU just called me and they are coming to visit us that same weekend! I can't wait! And, they are going to stay a night with us so we can put 5 kids!!! (the last time we saw each other there was only 1 kid between both of us!) to bed and play games ALL NIGHT! It's going to be such a fun weekend.

It's supposed to start raining again tomorrow, so I may be able to get to posting then!

Swim Lessons

As if life weren't already busy enough with a newborn and a potty training child, we decided to sign up for swim lessons. Our community pool was offering a special during the first week of summer: $5 swim lessons! They are normally $40/kid. I decided to try out the $5 session to see if Gage would even get in the pool without Shaun or I and if he would even listen to the teachers before I paid $40 for a full two week session. I think I learned my lesson from t-ball. I put him and Maisey in the same class, and to my surprise they are both doing AWESOME! 

Gage cried for like 5 seconds when he realized he wasn't swimming in the baby pool and mom wasn't getting in with him, but Maisey was super nice to him and helped him out. Now he totally loves it and waves to me or gives me a double thumbs up every two seconds. All the other parents totally laugh at him.

Maisey is doing great! She's been doing bobs, and going under water to get the rings that the teachers drop for her. Her floats are looking really good. I'm also really proud of her because both of the teachers for their class are boys. She's not super comfortable around boys she doesn't know so she was a little hesitant at first. I wasn't sure if she would even let them help her swim in the water, but she did.

Yesterday, we got home from swimming and Maisey said to us, "Our teachers think Gage's name is Dentist. Isn't that silly? I told them his name is Gage, but they still keep calling him Dentist." I thought that was kind of strange, and I wasn't sure if the teachers were just joking around with him or something. But then today at swimming I heard one of the teachers say to Gage, "Hey Dennis, are you ready to swim?" and Gage actually responded to him. I'm not sure why they think his name is Dennis, or why Gage responds to that name, but I think it's funny that Maisey thought they were calling him Dentist!

This was the first few minutes of lessons when Gage was still unsure about it all!

But like I said, five minutes into it, and this is what you get!

They are going to be little fish in no time!

Maisey's First Ballet Recital

Maisey performed in her first ballet recital last weekend. She was so excited for it! She did such a great job and she loved having Grandma, Madi, Jenn, and Jeanne come to watch. 

These first few pictures are from the dress rehearsal. No pictures were allowed during the actual performance.

During the actual performance the whole class messed up a little bit. They were all supposed to be in a line behind their teacher and they were all standing in a line beside their teacher. When Maisey realized they were in the wrong place, she made a really funny face, and the whole audience started laughing. She is super sensitive about people laughing at her, so I thought she would be really upset and scared about every performing again. But she must not have realized that everyone was laughing the face she made because she didn't say anything about it afterward. I'm so glad! 

Madi and Maisey, post show!

This is Maisey's little ballet friend, Joy.

What a cute flower fairy!

We sure love our little ballerina!

June Thus Far

The kids had a sleepover at my mom's house and Shaun and I (and Miley) went on a date! It was really nice to have a night to not have to worry about putting the older kids to bed. My mom definitely didn't have it easy though. This was Gage's first sleepover and he was pretty wild. He didn't go to sleep until midnight and was up the next morning by 6! I, on the other hand, got to sleep in until 10 thanks to my wonderful husband. I fed Miley once at 3 and again at 7 and slept the rest of the time. It was very much needed! The next afternoon we met my mom and the kids at EZ Orchard's strawberry shortcake stand! That was also very much needed! YUM!

Excited for his first sleepover!

 

 Showin his muscles!

Maisey's friend learned how to ride his bike with out training wheels a few weeks ago, so Maisey wanted to give it a try. It didn't go super well, but there weren't any crashes. I don't think Shaun ever let go of the back of her seat though! Lucky him. . . he got to run around the neighborhood hunched over all evening! I think she would have actually done ok if she wasn't so worried about honking the horn on the handle bars. She was pretty funny though. She was way excited about it, but then when he actually started taking the training wheels off, she got pretty nervous. She even put on her elbow and knee pads from her roller skates! Haha!

Hopefully she'll get the hang of it by the end of summer!

We're still potty training around here! He is doing really well. He pretty much stays dry all day and I've even let him sleep in undies for his naps the last two days and he's stayed all dry! Our big problem right now is learning to not poop in the undies! He went once on the toilet a few days ago, but he's gone in his undies every day since then. :( Oh well, I'm sure we'll get there.

This is one of my favorite pictures from the past week! When I took this picture he told me he was "laying eggs"!!!!! What a silly boy!

This is why we started potty training in the first place, but he still does it. He told me tonight he didn't want to sleep in a pull-up, he wanted to sleep in undies! Sorry bud! Not sure we are quite ready for that yet.

These kids sure keep me busy! Maisey has a very inquisitive mind right now and asks a billion questions a day, actually an hour! Miley has hit a very fussy stage and doesn't like to be put down. And Gage, well as if potty training isn't enough, he climbs, he bugs Maisey, and most recently he attempts to pick Miley up! Eeeek! Like I said, these three make life crazy!

Miley was crying in her swing one day while I was trying to make lunch. The kids thought she needed their blankies, so they piled them on her and she ended up calming down and going to sleep!

Don't let Gage's sweetness fool you. Seconds after this picture you could find him shoving a toy in her mouth, trying to pick her up, and dragging her around the family room on her blanket!

I wonder what the second half of June will bring!

Pics from Grandma's Phone

My mom took a bunch of pictures on her phone those first few days after Miley was born. I wanted to document some of them!

When Gage first came to visit me at the hospital, he wasn't too sure about the whole situation, so he found comfort in drinking Aunt Janel's Jamba Juice and sitting far away from all of the action.

My mom took a couple of days off of work after Miley was born to help out. She is incredible! She made us dinner both nights and took the kids down to her house one morning. She took them to a little lake by her house and let them feed the ducks and then took them to lunch. They were in heaven and it was nice that there was someone to show them lots of love and attention at a time when my focus definitely was not on them. I don't know what I would do with out my mom!

The End of Preschool

We have a preschool graduate on our hands! At the end of May, Maisey finished up her 2nd year of preschool and she is so excited to be starting kindergarten in the fall! During her last week of school, there was a family picnic and a presentation. The kids acted out "The Very Lazy Lady Bug" and Maisey was the lady bug. She kept trying to hitch a ride on all of the other animals. It was pretty cute! Maisey's super creative teacher made lady bug cupcakes to go along with it! Her teacher also made little memory books for the kids with pictures from the last two years of school! Maisey is sure going to miss going to Teacher Angela's for school. . . but lucky for us, Gage gets to go next year! Let the fun and learning continue!

Maisey shared her lady bug and lady bug hat with her little bro!

Maisey with Teacher Angela on her last day of preschool!

Flashback:

This was Maisey on her first day of preschool two years ago! Haha!

She has grown up so much, but she has learned even more!