Zoo Visits

You know what's great about the zoo? When you can finally take kids along that know what the animals are and can get excited about it!

Cute little pony tails the girls let me do :)

We haven't been to the zoo since Gwen was 6 months old and that's just so sad to me! I love going to the zoo, I don't care how much it costs, its' so much fun! I had been looking into getting a membership before quarantine began last year (so glad I didn't do that!), I was sad we couldn't go (I mean you could go, but not without reservations, masks, and the whole 6 foot distancing thing...hard to do with kids who like to run around). Granted, I can't say for sure we would've gone with a new baby, but I would've liked the option at least haha. 

Going this time, was well worth the wait. I had plans to ride the train and carousel (in fact, I had promised Cara we'd come back at the end of our visit to ride the carousel because she was going crazy wanting to go on it), but we ended up getting so tired and hungry and it was getting close to dinner time so we decided to skip that. I was also sad the bird part was closed and almost none of the cats were out (except the lions), so that was a bit of a bummer. However, the weather was great and we did see so many animals and had so much fun asking the girls what each animal said and if they could see it in each "home" and the sloth was VERY interactive and that was a new thing so it was entertaining.

Unfortunately, after we left we decided to hit up Red Robin for dinner, but we didn't make reservations and the wait was AWFUL so we just decided to order pizza to be delivered for when we'd get home and just did that instead. We ended up having a bit later of a night than normal, but it's the weekend and practically summer so might as well live a little. 

I'm so happy and excited for a fun summer to come, I hope we can do as much as I plan to do! I can't wait for the pool and splash pads to open, that'll be the most fun part.

Why I'm Glad Our Kids Are Born So Close Together

I'm sure if you are reading this you have noticed how close our kids are born. I know I mentioned before we had discussed our family planning when we got engaged and how we wanted to wait till a certain time and then try to be pregnant by the time the youngest is a year old for the next round of newborn days. But this time around I'd like to talk about why we're happy our kids are born this close together:

• We can get through the newborn days quicker: the newborn days are definitely the hardest days. I hate the idea of getting through them, then spending years with blissful sleep and then starting ALL over again. It's much easier to just have a few months of nice sleep before starting over with. Plus, I can keep track of things that helped and I (usually) don't forget them by the time I can use the tips I learned again.
  
  
• Our kids will go to school together. This is a big one. Larry and I both had our siblings in our schools with us and it helped us help them. We were able to help them make friends, figure out the school floor plan, and learn from our mistakes and lessons. While they might end up going to prom together (which could get expensive) or other big events, I do like the idea of them all going as a group when possible.
  
  
• We can hold onto our hand me downs and reuse as much as possible. I've loved that we haven't had to buy a newborn car seat since Cara was born, the one we got has been in good condition and hasn't expired yet. We've just upgraded them to a convertible seat once they outgrew the newborn one (usually around 9 months). Plus having all girls (so far) we've been able to hand down ALL the clothes, pajamas, cribs, blankets, burp rags, walkers, play mats, teether toys, bath towels...all of it!
  
  
• They'll be best friends and be able to share a room easier. This might just be wishful thinking, but so far all the girls love each other. Yes, they have moments of fighting and not wanting to share, but for the most part, they love being around each other. If one is missing the other one is asking where she is. And they LOVE playing with Lucy and getting her to smile. Cara and Gwen do great with sharing a room, they love to jump around and play and teach each other (it might not be the things I LOVE they are learning, like making a mess with clothes and taking night time diapers off in the middle of the night). I really feel it's helping them become closer and be friends that look after and protect each other.
  
  
• We can pause our life to have the kids. We can go through all the sleep training, nap times (which means being confined to the house), potty training, all those early stage thing and then pick it right back up once we're out of those days. I look forward to having family vacations, birthday parties, fun road trips, holiday events, and make all the memories. However, I do NOT want to be stressed out about a newborn while doing those. We do still make memories and do fun things, but I can't wait till the kids are old enough to go to Disneyland (we have a BIG Disney World trip planned once the youngest is around 5 so they remember it and it's worth it). I'm okay with pausing for a bit. We had many years before kids to do fun things, we slow down for a few years, and then start right back up. It's nice to slow down and enjoy the moments when you can.
  

It still might seem crazy to most or others, but we absolutely love having our family the way it is. It has worked out JUST the way we wanted and hoped. It's really helped me realize I've gotten everything I've wanted in life and watching them grow has made me one of the happiest people out there. It's not for everyone and that's totally fine.

Lucy is ELEVEN Months Old!

   I am ELEVEN months old!

 I like: Still eating real food over her baby food, watching her sisters run around (I'm sure she can't wait to run with them), going up the stairs on her own, being outside (especially if Gwen and Cara are outside), and seeing herself in mirrors and cameras haha.

I dislike: when we walk away from her when she wants to climb up our legs or put her down and walk away, not getting food fast enough. As usual.

I am now: in 9 months clothes and size 3 diapers still. Not sure on weight, but she can sure put away food and doesn't hate snacking all day long

A Typical Day looks like: 

We usually wake her up around 7:40 ish

 

7:40-10 I give her some cereal to feed herself and then a half to full jar of baby food with her probiotic. I then lay her down with a 6 oz bottle and change her bum. After she finishes that she'll crawl around and play with whatever is near her or wait for Cara to come visit her. Dad will lotion her up and put clothes on at some point after I head up to work (around 8:15)

10 -11  nap time in her crib

11-12 diaper change and the next 6 oz bottle. Around 11:30 we'll do lunch and give her some finger foods like puffs or veggie straws. We'll also give her bites of our lunches.

12 - 12:30 play time (sitting, crawling, playing, etc.)

12:30-2:30 nap time.

2:30-4:50 - next 6 oz bottle and diaper change then play time. Dad takes her downstairs around 4:15 to workout and mom will rescue her at 4:30 (when I'm done with work) and play with her for a bit. Or have her help me make dinner.

4:50-5:30 nap time (sometimes she'll skip this one...I'm always surprised when she needs it. 3 naps at 11 months old is SO strange)

5:30 - 6 we do dinner. She gets baby food and tastes of our food haha.

6-7 doing whatever for the night (aka free/play time)

7-7:45 we start our show for the night. At 7:05 she gets her last 6 oz bottle of the night and just relax at this point. If it's bath night (Sunday and Thursday for her), that starts at 7:30 ish

7:45 get ready for bed. We change her diaper, put cream (lotion/vaseline/etc.) on her dry spots, put on pajamas, take her upstairs, read a book, lay her down and give her the binky.

This Month: Lucy learned to climb stairs this month and now if she sees them she HAS to climb up them herself and has become miss independent with that.

The weather has been warming up and it's felt SO nice to be outside so we've also been spending a lot more time outside and Lucy seems to LOVE it. We went to a Baby Animal Festival and she loved being there, particularly the bouncy parts. She seems to love being on a trampoline with other bouncing lightly around her (she giggles SO hard). Speaking of that, we are finding a lot more things that make her laugh and she's become one of the happiest babies (when she's not fussy because we aren't holding her haha).

This girl is also becoming a walking machine, with the help of our Sit to Stand toy or the baby activity table. She loves pushing things around and hates when she runs into a wall or table.

She's talking a lot more, not real words, but getting a lot more sounds out, moving her mouth around more too. She also started mimicking us blowing so I hope that means she'll be ready for candles for her first birthday!

Update on last month's goals:

• Work on walking or standing on her own (she's already starting this on her own so I think she's ready to practice more)
  
  
• Get outside more and more
  
  
• Celebrate my first mother's day with her
  
  
• More foods to try
  
  
• Work on using utensils

Goals for next month:

• Get ready for her FIRST birthday (luckily most of it is booked)
  
  
• More walking practice
  
  
• Enjoy the summer and get in the water more
  

Mother's Day as a mom of 3

So apparently I only post about Mother's Day when a new addition is added because I can't find any previous mother's day notes other than those ones. 

My highlight last year was the Mrs. Field's treat box from Larry. I might have to tell him I'd like this every year. It was a gift that kept on giving, for one it showed how well he knew me (the way to my heart is through my sweet tooth for sure!). Secondly, the treats lasted for weeks and everything was so delicious! This year was different for a few different reasons. 

Our deal has always been my first mother's day after a new kid I'd like a necklace with their birthstone. Now with Cara's I had the necklace picked out months in advance. With Gwen it was probably months as well (I didn't LOVE the color of her stone so finding a setting I liked with it took a while). With Lucy, well Larry ended up doing the searching. He looked up the stone and found a few necklaces and I'd tell him yay or nay. So this year I had no idea which one he ended up getting and it blew me away. He picked a perfect one (I believe it's an alexandrite stone and it changes color based on what sort of lighting it's in). Larry made us a big breakfast of buttermilk waffles that turned out amazing. I would've liked to sleep in, but he wanted to surprise me.

After breakfast and cleaning we were originally going to go for a hike, but I decided staying in my pajamas all day sounded better. I've never been SO exhausted in the morning (after the kids are sleep trained that is), so by the time Lucy went down for her morning nap I agreed to let Cara play Mario and Gwen to play on the tablet and I decided to take a little nap myself. It was VERY nice. When I woke up I saw Wendy's was giving away free frosty's with the purchase of a food item and I LOVE Wendy's burgers so I decided that was my lunch that day. I was going to go get it myself in a peaceful/quite car ride, but Cara and Gwen decided they just HAD to go with me so it ended up being a chaotic drive (I didn't even think about switching with Larry until we were already on the road). After lunch and the girls went down for a nap I decided to watch "Before I Fall" on Netflix (it was okay). 

After nap time we had to meet up with my brother and Rachel for a late lunch/early dinner thing at Applebee's. While it was fun to visit with everyone (Rachel's sister's family was also there), the girls constantly needed to go to the bathroom and Lucy's need to grab everything and make a mess was sure a distraction (although a super nice look into what parenthood with 3 is really like). 

After that we came home, hung out in the living room, and just let the girls play around until bath time. Luckily I had Lucy (who is the easier one at bedtime) and then I got to watch another movie and just relax the rest of the night.

I was so happy to not have to do laundry or grocery shopping (shopping was done yesterday and laundry will be moved to next week), I was happy to have a nap and a day with my girls. I wish I had been motivated to do more, but having a day where I didn't have to plan and could just make choices as the day went on was nice. If I had had my way, I would've not gone out to lunch to be able to stay in my pajamas, but it's probably good that I socialized a bit haha.

Larry did try and get the girls to point out reasons they loved me, but they were both so confused they just had weird answers that made no sense. Here's to hoping next year they know how to answer that question haha.

Jurassic Quest

So when I heard of this thing called Jurassic Quest that's a drive thru dinosaur exhibit and you have a daughter that LOVES dinosaurs I knew it was something we HAD to do. I also just happened to drive past it when I went to my cousin's bridal shower in April and saw how huge the dinosaurs were and knew even more we had to do it. I bought tickets to go today and kept telling the girls about how exciting it was going to be to go.

We drove through it today and the girls had so much fun. Granted, a bigger part of that might have had to do with the fact that they didn't have to be seat belted in and could walk around the van while looking at the dinosaurs. We played the little guided tour thing on my phone to hear what each dinosaur was and listen to the roars. And bonus, we got a "family picture" at the end. It's not the greatest, but it was free so you can't ask for much. 

Poor Lucy was pretty DONE being in my lap quickly and she couldn't go wherever she wanted since she wanted to push a lot of buttons so she got fussy AND then we realized she had a poopy diaper and we had NO wipes (and the "bathrooms" didn't have any toilet paper or paper towels or anything so that didn't help). Luckily I found a car with young babies and asked them if I could take a few wipes from them and they happily helped (it takes a village!). 

Anyways, this was the last weekend of this exciting event, so hopefully if you like dinosaurs you heard about it and got to check it out. I'm glad we did.

Cara's Birthday Celebration

 So now that Cara is 4 and had a fun weekend of celebrating I thought I'd post about how we rang in her 4th year:

Saturday we had her birthday party booked at Luv 2 Play in South Town Mall. While I'll say the party "host" people (i.e. high school kids who are annoyed they have to work on a Saturday) weren't the best, the kids had so much fun playing in the playground area and little arcade they have and that's the important part. The food was good and the decorations were awesome! My girl got SPOILED with gifts and all the fun attention. I didn't end up taking many pictures because I was so wrapped up entertaining everyone, keeping an eye on the kids, and keeping Lucy happy (she was having a VERY hard time with all the noise and people).

Sunday we did our 1:1 dates (we decided she's old enough for this fun new tradition) with her. I got lunch and an activity and Larry got dinner and an activity. After asking her many questions I decided we'd go on a hike and have a picnic so while Larry stayed home with the other girls (and they napped) I took Cara to the gas station to get some lunch food, chips, and a brownie. We ate at the playground right by the trailhead (where she got sad she stepped on a spider...it was still alive, but she kept telling me she was sorry. It wasn't hear fault though, the spider literally ran under her shoe as she jumped up and down) and then started on our hike. We hiked the mountain right behind our house and I figured we'd make it as far as she could make it and turn around. Well little 4 year olds have unlimited energy and she ended up making it ALL the way to the top without stopping (she did keep swaying her arms back and forth while breathing heavily, but she never admitted to being tired). She did say she'd need juice every once in a while to "help me go fast" haha. Once we got to the top she wanted to keep going down the other side of the mountain, but I had to tell her no to that since our car was on the other side. After looking at the neighborhoods and taking a breath we started to go back down. She handled the slippery slopes really well (she thought it would be like going down a slide haha). I offered my hand several times, but she hardly ever took it and said she could handle it on her own. She even jumped off bigger rocks onto slopes without sliding and never hurt herself too bad. She's SUCH a brave girl! It always surprises me how fearless she is. Even though she didn't want to go down and go back home, she did end up getting excited about playing at the playground at the bottom of the trail. We lasted about 10 minutes there before she had to go to the bathroom and since there weren't any near us I told her we'd have to go home. I thought she'd want to go back out to our playgrounds after going potty, but she got distracted by her toys and decided to stay in.

Around 5 Larry took her out for bowling and dinner. I figured he'd be back by 7, but when I texted him at that point to see if he was almost home he said they were just getting to dinner because she had so much fun bowling and then they played in the arcade for a bit. I was DOG tired so I ended up putting on PBS for the younger girls and just relaxing (we did play outside quite a bit before this so it wasn't ALL in front of the TV). Lucy was SO fussy because we're trying to shake off her 3rd nap so it was an exhausting night. I was happy to put her down for bed, but I let Gwen stay up until Cara got home. Cara had so much fun she kept saying she didn't need to go to bed because she wasn't "yawning yet". Haha.

This morning I asked her if she wanted to go bowling again and she said "yeah, and bring Gwen-Gwen, Lucy, Mommy, Me, and Daddy". When I asked her if she wanted to go hiking again she said "yeah....but bowling too!" haha. She clearly had a very fun day. We let her eat donuts for breakfast, I let her have the brownie before she finished her lunchable, and she got tablet/Mario time when she wanted it. I'm so happy we got to celebrate like I always wanted and I can't wait to see what this next year brings. I hope to expose her to many different things so she can really figure out what she likes and wants to pursue in life. I just love her to pieces and get so excited for more 1:1 dates!

Cara is 4

As of this moment my first baby is 4 years old!! I can't believe it. It's our last year of her being my baby. Although, as the book says as long as I'm living, my baby she'll be. There's just something about turning 5 that makes me think the foundation has been set on her and it's just building on what we've set and I'm SO not ready to be done with the foundation haha. I'm planning on soaking up as much as I can this next year.

Now that my mushy part is over, here is our annual update on this awesome girl:

• She LOVES Mario, Legos, Dinosaurs, Monsters, Pokemon, and everything like those.
• She is still our little daredevil! She's not afraid of much and loves adventures!
• She loves playing games like Hide and Seek, Pancake Pileup, and Don't Break the Ice. She's learning so quickly how to play games, take turns, and sharing.
• We do Brain Quest flash cards Monday-Thursday with the girls and she's caught on so well and it blows me away how much she knows!
• She's literally the best big sister ever! She loves playing with Gwen and loves giving Lucy hugs and kisses and making her laugh. She'll literally do anything to get her to smile and laugh. She's also great and playing imaginary games with Gwen and will play along with whatever Gwen wants to play or will include Gwen in her games she's started.
• She's going to be big on spreading happiness! She loves saying hi to everyone she meets. If they say hi back, they are automatically her new best friend. On Easter she'd show off her dress and if someone said it was cute she'd say "my new friend loves my new dress!" haha. She makes me proud of her every day!
  
• If she's not the class daredevil she'll be the class clown. Either way, I hope NOTHING destroys her confidence. She's got SO much of it and deserves it...she's an amazing person!

Now that she's 4 we've decided she's old enough (and mature enough) to start having 1:1 dates with mom and dad. So for her birthday she'll have a lunch/activity date with just me and then a dinner/activity date with her dad. We'll do these twice a year with all our kids and I'm SO excited to start them. I hope we're able to keep these going until they are grown and move out on their own!