Bedtime

The other night I put Parker to bed (or so I thought) then put Mark and Elizabeth to bed. I thought our wandering Annie was somewhere in the house ....turns out Mark was stuck like this:

One sleeping Annie, one awake baby!!!

The Moon

Tonight while we were outside walking and admiring some Christmas lights, Elizabeth said " everything is so bright, even the moon". And then a minute later, "hey the moon is following us, the moon doesn't have legs he can't follow us!"  I can always count on that girl to make me laugh and to get super excited about things. We got out some more decorations tonight and she kept saying, " this is going to be the best Christmas ever"!

Turkey day!

For the first tin in the 8 years we've lived here, we stayed home for thanksgiving!!! We had a relaxing day. Got out some baby toys for Parker:

Made a turkey dinner that only mark and I ate. Mark and Annie did not try one bite of anything! And Elizabeth just had a roll with jam. Owell. They've never tried it so we weren't surprised'

Here's our fail at tummy time! But in his defense he's been backed up for 4-5 days and finally had a blow out tonight! TMI yes...but you have to expect it when there's a newborn. And in other potty news, we forced ourselves to go an entire day of potty training Annie ( we've only ever done half days as she usually has too many accidents or we have to leave the house) but she was 0/10?? We lost count. She has no fear of the bathroom, so either she can't make the connection or doesn't care or is too busy to care. We'll give her another day and see how she does. 

We introduced the kids to charades which they loved. Especially when Mark acted like a train and they all jumped on! 

Matchymatch

It was Annies turn to pick Parkers outfit for today so naturally she chose monkeys to match her pajamas! He is a happy baby, but definitely the happiest in the mornings. I hope he stays a happy morning person!

Another day

Another day has flown by so fast. Elizabeth went for a check up at the eye dr and while she definitely still has eye crossing and can't see well far away, none of it has resulted in a stronger prescription or bifocals. We are very thankful for that and hope she continues to be ok. She was not loving what the drops did to her eyes and kept saying " I can't see well, I don't like my eyes being silly!"

We also did a puzzle together. It was a great team building exercise:) and I love doing puzzles!

This guy ate and slept so much today! I think he's 10 for 10 on outings. Any time I take him somewhere he acts perfectly! 

Babysitting and Elizabeth.

I went out to dinner with some friends this week and left the baby home. I was nervous but apparently Daddy knew to put the kids to work in helping him take care of Parker:

I have to say that Elizabeth is an amazing helper. She loves being trusted to babysit him if I have to go to the bathroom! She's smart and not afraid to correct anyone who is wrong ( usually patiently and specifically!) and she'll randomly look at me and say I love you Mom! It makes me so happy. She's such an awesome child. She also has moments of complete crazy ( like anytime she doesn't get what she really wants, or has to do some things that weren't her idea or the numerous times a day when someone hurts her feelings!) BUT she's so cute when she's mad! She'll say things like "I'm not going to play with you then" or " you're being a bully" or in desperation the other day she said " you're a Popsicle"! Which I automatically turned into a fun game which has helped diffuse many situations. We all pretend to be some flavor of Popsicle and everyone is happy! Go figure. I just love this hard working, funny, clever, caring, smart little girl of mine!

Late napper

Lately Annie has gotten back in the habit of napping late in the day. Poor girl just can't quite make it and almost always falls asleep at the dinner table! Or the hallway, stairs, or one sad time right outside my bedroom door while waiting for me to finish feeding Parker! Then she stays up to party with us while the twins (and sometimes Parker sleeps)! Here are just a few snapshots over the past couple weeks:

Sunday activities.

Today we survived church and in a desperate attempt to clean out our freezer and find something to do...we decorated sugar cookies that we had made to use for Annies birthday party but never did. I think most of them got burnt or something. The kids were in heaven! And Parker has been smiling and cooing at me all day!

Here Annie is denying that she licked the knife, but she did. And it wasn't the last time either!!

Smiles!!

Today was one of my favorites...Parker smiled for real at me several times!! One of the absolute best moments in any parents life is seeing their babies first smiles. And I don't know if it's possible, but it sounded like he laughed tonight too! I'm feeling so exhausted today that if anyone would've asked me how I was doing I think I would've cried, so his sweet, sweet smiles were just what I needed! I feel so blessed to have all my kids. To go from the hopelessness of thinking we could have none to 4 makes me feel happy. And grateful. Very, very grateful. 

3 weeks

Parker at 3 weeks is 10 lbs 8 oz!! His heart murmur seams to have disappeared thankfully. He spits up after every feeding and at times he gets congested with it ( he sneezes and clears it out) but it hasn't turned into painful reflux yet and hopefully it doesn't. We also got a referral to see a occupational therapist for torticolis...we had to do this with Mark too so at least we have some idea of what to expect. Other than that he is a healthy baby!

This week I feel like I'm starting to recognize his faces and cries more. Thiis week he has also started cooing at us and it is the BEST most adorable sound ever!!! He will make eye contact and tries really hard to focus on the kids faces but they usually don't hold still long enough. I can tell he loves them and I think he's enthralled with Elizabeth's curly hair! He loves to lay with each of them at night for story time. I think it's one of his favorites. 

Most nights he wakes up 2-3 times giving us anywhere from 2-4 hours of sleep in between. It's pretty awesome and once again a major bonus of having a bigger baby who knows how to eat! I love that this time around I'm so much smarter. I know what I need to be a successful nursing mama and I can actually eat and sleep since I don't have little little ones and Mark is the greatest help! Some nights especially in the beginning I would pump and have him do a bottle feeding in the night so I could get a longer stretch of sleep ( helping me make more milk) and I didn't feel guilty about it at all! 

We've started moving his stuff into his room and out of ours this week. Mostly because he is such a LOUD sleeper and we usually have at least one older kid on our bed by morning time. The girls are especially light sleepers so he was waking them up. Luckily his room has s bed so i sleep in there with him. We love our baby so much and can't believe how big he has gotten!

Parker's pictures!

Our favorite photographer Tami came over and did Parker's 10 day pictures!! We love her and we are so happy she was free to do them. I had low expectations (not because she isn't great) because she had to photograph 4 kids 4 and under and a half awake, half asleep newborn!! I would've been happy with a few good ones but instead we got tons of great ones! The twins left to go to preschool half way through and Annie stayed to "help" Tami. She wanted in on every picture and when I was off feeding Parker, Tami captured a few of her that are so cute! Parker was so patient and stayed awake way past his nap time! Once again, he is such a great baby!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!! This was the night of the ward party with Kaufusi and Kautai. They have had a fun month celebrating and the twins turned a corner this year with all the scarier parts of Halloween. They are no longer terrified of it all! Just some large spider decorations...Parker is doing well so far at helping me hand out candy. We'll see how the other 3 faired when they return! I'm normally not too grumpy about this holiday, but the older my kids are getting ( and the more candy they accumulate over the month) the more I am annoyed at this made up holiday. I mean, scaring kids and making us all a little unhealthier?! What's the point?!! Note to self for next year, think outside the box. I love the costume part! Ok Halloween rant over. Time to go hand out more glow sticks and chocolate!!

Newborn photo shoot

I was hoping his newborn photos today would include a lot of this;

And some of this;

But it was mostly him awake or half awake squirming!! The photographer had to work a little harder today. But I'm sure there are tons of cute pictures to choose from. 

Half way through the photo shoot he lost his cord too!! Big day around here.