Ten months

Elyse, you are 10 months old! It just cracks me up how much personality you shine with each day. You are the utter joy of your dad, your brother, you sister, your grandparents, and of course ME! I love that you have become quite the momma's girl. Never have I had a child brought to tears when I drop them off at church, but you my darling, cry big crocodile ones. Forget about trying to clean up the table when we go out to eat. I stand up to throw away all the trash and you let the ENTIRE restaurant know that your momma is walking away and you aren't going to have it.

But look at this face.

It's so pretty it hurts my heart. That picture was taken at VBS this year. You were my helper! I volunteered in the kitchen this year so that I could keep you with me.  We had so much fun! Tamara volunteered in the kitchen so she could keep Jace with her too, and had brought this walker up for him. He wanted nothing to do with the walker, but you loved it! You puttered yourself around here and there, and she let us bring it home with us since you have no interest in crawling. Jace is now walking. Kate has been crawling for awhile. But you my dear? You are perfectly content with having everyone come to YOU. If you really want to get some where, you've figured out you can just push yourself around while sitting up. It may take awhile, but you get there eventually.  Eeeeeeevery now and then you'll try to pull up. One of the first places was Target. I'm trying not to over think the significance in that.

What you are good at is EATING. You loooove to eat. You've gotten good with your cup.

Momma's gotten brave at letting you handle bigger pieces of food. 

You've even figured out where half of your meal goes after the tray is clean.

Some other random things: you have the funniest little giggle that you do allll the time. You love your middle finger. It's weird, I know. But anything you do with your fingers, you always lead with the middle one. You are getting closer to sleeping through the night. It's about half and half now on whether you wake up at 2:30 or just wait till 5:30. You don't sleep in the cradle at all any more. In fact, I need to take it down, but that hurts my momma heart to know I don't need it anymore.

Oh Leesee Ann, I love you. With your big blue eyes, quick giggle, and the bashful way you bury your head in my neck when someone talks to you, my heart just goes wild. Thank you, little girl, for being MY little girl.

Nine months

My dearest Elyse, you are 9 months old! This is another one of those odd mile markers…from now on you will have lived outside of my body than you lived inside. Thank goodness I still can claim your dependency on me. While you do eat table food at this point, you are "eating" for practice, for taste, and for texture. NOT for nutrition…that you still get from me! But you do love to eat. You've tried all kinds of fruits and veggies. I have only spoon fed you a couple of times this month because you love to eat my food so much! And whatever it is, it's working! At your nine month well check you were 17 lbs (36%), 27 inches long (42%), and I don't remember what your head circumference was, but I do remember it was the 60%. Sister, you're on the verge of disproportionate there. Thankfully Kim showed me how you have stayed on the exact same growth trajectory since you've been born. That's awesome!

I moved you into your own room this month. Mostly. You usually wake up crying between 3 and 4, I bring you to bed with me and then you wake up again around 5:30 to nurse. I have mixed feelings about you not being in my room anymore.

One thing I'm not thrilled to remember from this past month was your first real boo boo.

You fell in the bathroom and busted your face. You cried and cried. I cried and cried. But in the end you were okay, except for having kind of a difficult time nursing with a busted lip. And it was BUSTED. The inside was split and the outside was scabbed. Thankfully it healed completely!

We've gone to restaurants, and you've loved sitting in high chairs with the rest of the family. We've gone swimming a lot (which is your favorite). You aren't crawling. You hate being on your tummy, so that poses to be a problem for the whole "crawling" thing.

Oh my darling. I love you so much. You are the first child of mine that is actually THRILLED to see me when I come home. You've become quite the momma's girl, and you are the first child of mine that gets really upset when I leave you somewhere or someone else holds you. I secretly love it. Elyse, I love you, I love you, I love you.

Eight Months

 Leesie Ann, you are 8 months old! What a change you've gone through over the last few weeks, mostly in the vocal area (a loud vocal area. Girlfriend. You are LOUD.) You've developed a growl to let people know you are not happy! You lock out your knees and elbows, clench your fists, and screw up you face while you make this screechy growl noise to let me know you are NOT thrilled about something. Could be hunger, could be being set down, could be the sibling mere inches from your face and you JUST. NEED. SPACE. It makes me laugh every time though, you feisty little thing. You also talk non stop. Mostly "bababa" and "dadadada" and "bubububu". We were at Nana and Papa's the other day and you were distinctly saying "baa baa" while waving at us. But I'm NOT counting bye bye as your first words because it's not Momma. Whenever you say maa maa, THEN you will have your first words. Mkay?

You still love baths, you still love playing,  and you LOVE other babies. You get all squeely and engaged when you see another baby around. You still aren't crawling, but you've kinda figured out that you can scoot around some while sitting up by doing this bouncing thing (moves you forward) or pushing out your legs to go backwards. You HATE laying on your tummy, so I'm not sure if you will ever crawl. Food is hit or miss, sometimes you love to eat and sometimes you just that aren't into it. I've still made all of your food. Nursing you is like nursing a wild cat. You are constantly stopping to look around, flexing your nails into my skin, and flailing about. It's......pleasant. But I'm not ready to stop yet!

Sleep is hit or miss. Sometimes you sleep semi well- don't cry that much at night and only wake up once during the night, while other times it's pretty bad. I'm talking crying for a couple of hours in the evening and then waking up twice or so during the night. I was doing good at just giving you a paci at 3 am, but lately I've been tired that I forget and just bring you to bed and feed you. We'll get back on track one of these days! You can't sleep in that cradle forever!

Elyse, I love you so much. Squishing my cheek into your cheek is one of my favorite things to do. (even when you are pushing me away because I'm smothering you. Ha!) Making you laugh and rocking you are probably among my other top favorites. I'm so so so very glad you are my baby.

Three Years Old

Sunday, my biggest little girl, you turned THREE. YEARS. OLD. Oh my goodness. You have been talking about your birthday for months on end, so I knew it had to be everything that you wanted it to be. Your specific requests? "I want my bufday to be pink wif fowers on it." I'm not sure what "pink with flowers on it" meant exactly, but let me tell you I rolled out as much pink as I could.

The cupcakes had flowers on them...hope that's what you had in mind!

We had your family party with my side of the family Saturday night, since Sunday morning was church, and by the time we got home from lunch and you up from a nap, and you would be picked up by your dad for the evening. I asked you what you wanted your special birthday dinner to be, that we could go wherever you wanted, and you said you wanted chicken nuggets and pizza and to watch a movie. So doll face, that's what we did.

watching Frozen in your castle with pizza and chicken nuggets

First we opened presents, because I knew you were getting Frozen and would want to watch it. Then we had pizza and chicken nuggets while we watched the first part, paused it for cupcakes and a bike ride, then came back to finish it. You had the best time.

kicking off birthday weekend with frozen yogurt

What have you been up to this last year? Lord have mercy, I swear you have been up to EVERYTHING. You are my loves-life-exuberantly child. I can not recall a day you woke up on the wrong side of the bed. While the whining and crying are a bit excessive at times, your general disposition is happy innocence. I love it.  I wish I could bottle it up (because I know in about 10 years I'm going to want to force feed it back to you).

I love your kindness. I love your curiosity. I love listening to the way your mind works. I even kind of love watching you figure out how to pester your brother. It's such a right-of-passage for being the little sister. You love your brother dearly and 60% of the time the two of you are best friends. Lets not discuss the other 40% at this moment.

You love your sister and have thoroughly enjoyed being able to begin to really interact with her. I can just see how you are going to lead that sister of yours into all kinds of mischief.

You love all things pink and you can not get enough of dress up. Skirts are by far your favorite thing to wear (next to your birthday suit), and I've seen you be the best little momma to your babies. You have more personality than you know what to do with and you've never met a stranger.
  

I potty trained you this year, and that did NOT go over very well. I was seriously afraid that our relationship would be forever damaged. Thankfully you and I are okay and we haven't looked back since.  You are wearing size 5T clothes, size 4/5 undies, and a size 9 1/2 shoe. At approximately 45 lbs, you aren't a slight little thing. You LOVE to eat and very rarely refuse to eat something on your own accord (now if you see your brother refusing it, that's a different story). Every now and then you refuse to eat the funniest things. You LOVE edameame, but when I brought home chocolate croissants one day, you would have nothing to do with it. Chocolate! Croissants! Come on, man!

Evan, I hope you know how much I love you. I can't believe you are already three years old (although, you've been telling people you are three for months now. And on Sunday when I asked you how old you were, excited that you could finally say three and it be true, you said you were FOUR. Stinker!) but it breaks my heart that my baby is getting so big. While most of the time I have not a clue what to do with you, I'm certain I don't have a clue what do to without you. 

Seven months

My sweet sweet Elyse. I love you.

That is all.

Just kidding. Like I'd be able to use that few of words. Elyse Ann, you are seven months old! You are 14 1/2 lbs, still wearing size two diapers, size 6 months clothes (although sometimes I put you in 9 months things and unfortunately they don't look as giant on you as I would like). 

What's the biggest achievement you've had this month? Cutting not one, but TWO teeth! You have your bottom two middle ones and I love peeking at them when you are laughing. You are also so much more steady when you sit up, enough that I can put you down on the tile with a toy and walk away from you, and you LOVE LOVE LOVE sitting up and splashing in the bath. You lock out your legs (which makes for some delightful knee fat creases) and wave your arms wildly splashing water every where. Once you managed to splash it up in your face, which took your breath away. You looked up at me with shock and confusion and I just laughed and laughed. 

So pretty much you are the best, most beautiful baby on the whole planet ever (well, since my last baby at least. ;) I love you a million times over.

I first tried to get your picture outside because it was beautiful and warm. Even though it was slightly overcast and you were under the eve of the house, apparently it was still too bright because this was the best I could get out there!

For Mom's with boys

 Moms. If you have a son, you need to get him this bible immediately.

My sister bought this for Luke for his birthday last year (on the recommendation from her close friend who has 4 boys. Yes. FOUR. I believe qualifies her to know what she is talking about), and he cannot get enough of it. We read it every night and are almost all the way through the Old Testament. He LOVES it and has started trying to read along with me. I frequently find him flipping through the pictures. It's written in "comic book" format which helps to engage his imagination.

 And can I just tell you something? I've loved it too. Sometimes even as a 30 year old I need pictures to help bring the story home. To see emotion. To see reverence. To see fear. When you hear the same stories for decades it's easy to forget how special they are. But Elijah was swept up to heaven. And Elisha saw it. Bones grew flesh. Enemies were real and were fierce. I'm so guilty of skipping over the Old Testament because it's "boring". There are names you can't pronounce, long lists of rules that are veeeeeery specific, and mundane details of building plans. I forget that there is true action in there. True heroes. I forgot how much I love Daniel. He's probably my favorite character in the bible. (besides Jesus, of course.)

So there's my PSA for the decade! I just wanted to share something that my family has loved and I hope your family can love too!

Bad pictures and a haircut

I have an Easter post started, but I haven't uploaded any of the pictures off of my big camera onto the computer yet. So I'll just tease you with this back-of-the-camera shot:

 Unfortunately that picture just about sums up our picture taking experience these days. Elyse is all over the place. Evan has decided that folded hands by her face is her new "pose". Luke says outside is too bright and he can't smile. If you need further proof that a picture of all three looking decent is impossible, let me leave you with this gem.

That was from the Saturday before Easter. Mom and Dad and I tried to get the kids to take a nice, classic bluebonnets picture. It's amazing I didn't pop an artie and die right on the spot. But looking at this picture makes me laugh every time. Oh lordie, those kids.

A much better way to get all three kids in a picture? Let one be asleep, one be on his bike, and one running behind the bike rider.

Hope you weren't expecting to see any bright eyes and sweet smiles!  Just kidding. One evening Luke begged me to let us go on another walk. My first instinct was to say no. My feet hurt from wearing heels to work that day, I needed to get dinner started, and I just plain didn't wanna. But then the unselfish part of me remembered that in a few weeks it will be way too hot to go for a walk, in a few years they won't wanna go for a walk, and then I will die a lonely old woman. So for a walk we went. And I'm so glad we did. Life has been good lately! Evan got her first hair cut yesterday! I met Mom after work and Evan was so excited she made up songs about getting haircuts and being beautiful for 45 minutes.

I figured almost three years was a really good run. Her little haircut is so cute. It's not super noticeable, but the girl trimmed at least an inch off, evening it all up, and gave her some long layers. It will help balance out the crazy when we go out in public like this:
 

 Yep. I actually went to the store like this. Pink leggings, fuzzy boots, long sweat shirt. And I let Evan go in her dress up dress, flip flops, and sunglasses. And how in the world can life be anything BUT good when this little face is around.

She's started waking up before me on Saturday mornings. Normally my back is to her, so suddenly I'll feel little fingers on my spin and wrapped up in my hair. Once I get myself untangled from her firm grip, I roll over and this is what I see:

Perfect start to my day. Every time.