A Test of Patience...

 

Mel has always been the patient one.  The quiet one.  The innocent one that we rarely have to raise our voice at, but lately she has been testing our patients.  For the past few weeks the always obedient, quiet little girl has traded her beloved personality for a back-talking, loud personality.  It all started about three weeks ago when we discovered she had a urinary tract infection.  After complaining for a couple days, she finally told us she needed to go to the doctor.  We knew she wasn't feeling well.  How many 4 year olds ask to go to the doctor?  It was 6:00 in the evening so we headed to the emergency room since the Doctor's office was closed.  They confirmed that she did in fact have a UTI.  After 9 days on an antibiotic, she was still complaining of pain, so I waited a few more days and she was still complaining.  Off to the pediatrician we went only for Doc to tell me that she was completely fine.  Nearly 6 days later she is still complaining of her "tummy hurting" about 25 times a day.  At first I was concerned that something else could be wrong...and that thought is still in the back of my mind because I am a worrier by nature(what mom isn't?), but she goes from complaining to playing in the blink of an eye so that has my mind at ease a little bit.  We usually tell her to take a drink of water and off she goes.  She also has me checking her temperature probably 3 times a day!  It's always normal, but she insists and sometimes it's easier to break out the old thermometer than to argue!

 

Maybe the man upstairs just thinks that I need my patience tested.  As if they aren't tested enough with 3 kids including a newborn!  Or maybe the terrible twos that Mel never seemed to go through are finally reaching the surface.  There are the Terrible Twos, the Trying Threes, but what are the Fours called??  Here's to hoping this phase soon passes!

 

 



Thanksgiving Craft Time:Turkey Plate Craft...

Saturday night I was busy making food in the kitchen for our family's Thanksgiving on Sunday.  B came into the kitchen and asked if she and Mel could make a craft.  Now, normally I love my kids' creative side, but at that moment I wanted to scream.  I was trying to get a Texas Sheet cake in the oven and still had to make two sweet potato casseroles so they would be ready to go in the oven the next morning because I knew I couldn't get it all done on Sunday.  Brad was trying to console Jody, but in the evenings she is fussy and if she hears my voice she seems to only want me, so he was doing the best he could, but she wasn't cooperating.

 

Anyhow, before I could scream, B sweetly said, "No, I have a craft that I want to do by myself with Mel."  Oh that is so much better.

 

So, B came up with this craft idea all by herself.  Gathered all the supplies and cut out all the shapes and helped her little sister assemble hers and didn't get frustrated when Mel threw a little big tantrum.

 

 

I was able to finish my food and Brad was finally able to get Jody to sleep (2.5 hours later.)

 

 

Here is the finished project. 

 

B's turkey...

 

Mel's turkey... 



 

Have a great Thanksgiving everyone!  The next craft will be a Christmas one!!!

Thanksgiving Craft Time:Scarecrows...

Alright, so maybe scarecrows are more of a Halloween craft, I don't know.  Around here we consider them a fall time thing so we made them last week.  I didn't get any pictures of the process...probably because I was bouncing a sleepy baby while helping with craft time, but it's pretty easy to figure out.

 

I used one big Popsicle stick for the body and glued four smaller ones to the big one to form the arms and legs.

 

 

Then I cut a circle out of beige card stock for the face.  Also, I cut hands out of the beige construction paper.

 

A hat out of black construction paper.

 

A shirt out of construction paper (we used blue, but you can used whatever you would like).

 

Pants from brown construction paper.

 

Then yellow for the straw.

 

And brown for the boots.

 

B's scarecrow...



Mel's scarecrow... 

Thanksgiving Craft Time:Turkey

I have three Thanksgiving crafts to share with you and, conveniently enough, Thanksgiving is only three days away.  So that means I will be blogging three days in a row!  Wahoo!  That also probably means that I will once again take a hiatus at the end of those three days, but I know you all understand!

 

This first craft came from Rachel at I Heart Crafty Things. 

 

All you need is:

A clean fruit cup (you can also you a regular plastic cup if you don't have any fruit cups lying around)

Brown acrylic paint

Pipe cleaners

Beads

Googly eyes

Yellow foam (could also use construction paper)

Orange foam

Start by painting your cup brown...

Right after I snapped the above photo, she started painting her hand.  I guess she thought it was going to be part of the turkey as well.

 

While the paint is drying, make the feathers.  Cut five pipe cleaners in half.  Place the beads on the pipe cleaners and space them out a bit.  Mel didn't space them out and it still worked it just called for more hot glue in the end.  Oh and she also didn't want her picture taken.  My girls have been grumps lately.  Anyone elses??  I hope I'm not alone.

Twist the ends of the pipe cleaner together... 

Cut a triangle out of yellow foam for the beak and cut a waddle out of orange foam and glue them to the cup as well as the eyes( the girls used clear craft glue for this step)... 

Next glue on the feathers.  I used hot glue.

 

As I clicked over to Rachel's site so I could include her link, I realized that she made hers a little bit different than we did.  She used a pom pom for the head and glued feet to the bottom of the cup.  I guess that is what I get for making a mental note of this craft idea...but I think ours still turned out pretty cute.  So be sure to check out her site to see how she made hers and for other awesome craft ideas.

 

Mel's turkey...

B's turkey... 

Soccer Girl...

B's third soccer season ended about a month ago.  She loves it and I love that she is getting more competitive!

 

I have coached the last two years and wasn't able to do it this year because I was pregnant.  For some reason since I was due the end of the season, no one would let me.  In hind sight, I could have done it because the games were on Saturday, I had Jo on a Monday and B's last soccer game was the following Saturday.  Jo stayed home with my mom and I went to the game.  Never missed one!

 

 

 

It was definitely an adjustment going from coach to the mom on the sidelines.  I missed coaching and sometimes I got a little into the game, but one of my good friends was the coach so that made it much better!...

 

 

B loved being goalie!... 

 

She had tons of fun... 

 

Did I mention she loved being goalie?... 

Here is my little soccer player... 

So proud of her and I hope I get to watch many more soccer games in the future!!!!

Halloween...

The girls had eagerly patiently waited for 2 weeks to carve their pumpkins.  They finally got to carve them the Saturday before Halloween.  

Parents magazine sent me an email with carving templates.  The girls each picked their design, we printed them off and got to carving.

 

Brad got to handle this project on his own because Jo decided to have a fussy fit much of the time.   In his words, "This is one craft I can handle."

Jo finally settled down once the excitement was over.  I guess she didn't want to miss anything. 

Mel chose the ghost in the window template and the bat for Jo... 

B chose the cat on a fence... 

Brad had to carve one of his own as well.  An IH pumpkin... 

Jo was all smiles for her first Halloween... 

My scarecrow and skeleton... 

The best photo that I could get of all 3... 

Jo was a pumpkin...  The cutest pumpkin ever!! 

One Month...

Well, if you would have asked me 3 weeks ago if I thought we would ever get to the Big One Month mark, I would have said, "No."  We celebrated the milestone last Thursday.  I am going to attempt to take a picture of her every month for the first year.  This is something I slacked on with the other two.  Actually, I didn't do it at all.

 

We are slowly adjusting and I feel like we are finally getting into a groove....until she decides to throw us for a loop and adjust her schedule to her liking again.  She is a pretty good sleeper at night...knock on wood...and usually only wakes up once or twice.  While talking to B and Mel's gymnastics instructor yesterday, I consider ourselves lucky.  Her son is a week and a half younger than Jo and is up every hour!  Sheesh!!

 

She had her one month check up last week and she weighs 81bs. 4 oz. and is 20 7/8 inches long.  She is growing fast.  Everything looked good, but the pediatrician thinks she may have a bit of colic once we explained to her that she gets fussy at night and has several dirty diapers.  She prescribed probiotic drops that we have to give her once a day.  They basically work the same as yogurt.  Probiotics are the good stuff that helps regulate the digestive system.  They work so much better than the gas drops.  I'm sure a lot of people wish they had the probiotic drops when their kids were little.

 

 

She is starting to smile a lot and talk a lot.  I think she knows that to be heard in this house, you have to start talking at an early age.  Here she is smiling...

I took her newborn photos when she was two weeks old.  Some of my faves are below...