Stroller Envy

We were able to pick up a new stroller via facebook while we were in Michigan. It worked out perfectly. We were starting to DESPISE our joovy caboose sit n stand. Ryan is the one who pushes it most of the time and I didnt realize how bad it was. The weight distrobution made it IMPOSSIBLE to push without hurting your wrists. And, Gavin was very uncomfortable in it all of the time. We use our stroller A LOT. We walk so much here in the city. Gavin is walking most of the time, but when we are out of an entire day, he just can't hack it. Now he can sit in our new stroller and nap if he needs to, or just relax. He loves it.



Gavin likes it so much he was sitting in it watching a show. He feels asleep. It must be comfy!

Hair Cut!

In the last two weeks the whole family got haircuts! I got mine chopped, Ryan and Gavin got theirs cut at home and even our Charlie girl got a little trim. Her hair has been growing rapidly on top, but not so much on the sides and back. It needed a bit of evening out while the rest is filling in! I think Gavin got his first hair cut around the same time too. The top of his was SO long so we actually used the clippers on him. I still have a bit of the hair! Is that gross? I kept Charlottes too.

Before

After
The Damage

Diaper Challenge

Some of you may also know that I have been having major diapering issues with Charlotte. There doesn't seem to be a diaper out there that can contain her massive poops. Well, let me rephrase that - There doesnt seem to be a diaper out there that I am willing to pay for that can . . . well, you know the rest.
I am washing out her clothes in the bath tub at least once a day. It is maddening. So, I decided that since I was doing that anyway, I was going to go the cloth diaper route! I've been wanting to do it for awhile but never had the guts to. It's actually pretty trendy here in Chicago. I was pretty shocked to see how much they can cost, though. I put out some e mails to two of my cloth diapering blogger friends and took the plunge! I even scored some BumGenious 3.0 pocket diapers off of craigslist! I was pumped about that. Anyway, I have LOVED using the cloth diapers. I thought it would be fine, but a little inconvienient. I was wrong. It feels the same to me. It is easy and I am so gald I did it. It just adds another reason to my list titled "How to convince Ryan to have more babies".

Here is a picture of Charlie in her super cute bummis diaper cover!

Advice taken

I just wanted to thank all your moms who gave me some advice about Charlotte and her hectic schedule. Even some of the "non" advice helped. She is back to normal now, thankfully. I think it was a combination of several things. I think she was definitely hungry and had hit a growth spurt. I also think my milk wasn't meeting her demand. I had really slacked off on eating right and enough. I think one day I even skipped breakfast and replaced it with four cups of coffee. So, I started eating like crazy, pumping after each feeding and drowning myself in water. It worked. I started flowing like the river Jordan after two days. Charlotte was loving it! It did take her several days after that to settle back into sleeping through the night again. I am glad I didn't have to let her cry it out. I had to do that with Gavin. I remember laying outside his bedroom and crying right along with him. It is so hard for me to eat what I should and as much as I should. I feel like I am eating every spare minute.
Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks. I knew I could count on my bloggy buds to jump in and help me out! My happy, happy girl is back and we are all getting the sleep we need!

Rollin' rollin' rollin'

In the last week or so Charlotte has learned to roll over! That was startling to me. Gavin didn't roll over until he was seven months. Charlotte is only 5 months (almost)! Now I can't leave her anywhere! She is funny though because every time I put her down, she rolls immediately. Then she gets mad because, oddly enough, she can not roll herself back over. The only time she wont roll over is when she is in her crib. I just remembered that I should probably lower the crib anyway though! Yikes, I can't believe I forgot to do that.

Busy Bees

We have been busy lately! We made a fast trip to Michigan to visit our families. We had a fabulous time! It's always fun to go back to our old stomping grounds. While we were there I took about five pictures. Everyone always has their cameras out, so I just bum pictures off of everyone else! I'll post some when I get some!

This was a picture Gavin took on our way there. He LOVES to take pictures now!

I did manage to snap this super cute picture of Gavin and his cousin Jonas. They are 10 months apart and got along GREAT!



We brought my 15 yr. old neice and 12 yr. old nephew back to Chicago with us for a few days. I forgot what teenagers are like! Yikes! I think these pictures pretty much say it all.

In case you can't tell, they are watching something on the computer while texting several people at once and listening to their ipods!

I am still in recovery mode from all of this, hence my lack of blogging.

Beach Bums!

Our favorite thing to do on Ryan's day off is spend the whole day at the beach. Gavin loves it, we love it and we always have a blast together.

I love this one because she is totally sacked out! She doesn't even mind all the noise around her!

Gavin Talk

Gavin is just getting more and more comical. The things that come out of that boys mouth just CRACK ME UP!

1. He was doing something and he said, "HOLY MOLEY!" then he quickly looked at me and said, "That just means 'Whoa', mom!"

2. Gav was getting a bit of discipline the other day. This is how our conversations usually go when this occurs:
Me: Do you know why are you getting disciplined (not the word i actually use)?
Gav: Because I __________
Me: that's right. And what does the Bible call that?
Gav: 'Disobaying'
and so on and so forth
Well the other day our conversation went like this:
Me: Do you know why are you getting disciplined?
Gav: Because I __________
Me: that's right. And what does the Bible call that?
Gavin says: "um, littering!"
HE was a little overly tired, but I couldn't help but laugh!

3. The hubbs and Gavin were playing together the other day and just being incredibly cute. I looked at them and said, "You guys are so cute." Gavin said, "No, daddy's not cute, just I am!"
Ryan did not appreciate that.

4. Some quotable
"Mom, you are weird!" followed very quickly with, "That was just a joke."
"When I grow up, I will always help you!"
"Your buns are soft!" (while patting them) - I did tell him that was not appropriate

5. We were at the beach and I told Gavin that next time we'll have to bring a buddy of his. He responded with, "I like my buddy daddy."

6. Ryan asked Gav what he wanted to do when he grows up. "I just want to live at your house." Ryan said, "I DON'T THINK SO!"

Help! I'm losing my mind!

Don't let this picture fool you!

So, my once perfect baby has turned into an unpredictable, always hungry, screaming her guts out girl! I feel like I can't keep this girl happy any more. I am sure I am making it worse than it sounds. She used to eat (very predictably with little variation) every four hours at the same time every day. She would take three naps, go to bed at 7:30 and sleep until 7a.m. She was the baby wise dream baby! NOT ANY MORE. Our schedule has gone haywire these last few days. She is wanting to eat as soon as every two hours sometimes and she is waking up after 45 min. to an hour at every nap! AND, this is the worst part, she is sometimes waking up TWICE in the middle of the night to eat! It is infuriating! I just wish I knew what was wrong. Yesterday I started giving her my milk in bottles to see how much she was eating. I would feed her, then pump to see what the difference was. She was eating anywhere from 7-9 oz. per feeding but she was back to eating every four hours. However, I was only pumping about 5 1/2 oz. I would like to start her on some cereal, but her peds. dr. wants me to wait until six months for a couple of reasons. She has a allergy concern with our girl b/c of some blood in her stool once. I don't think she has an allergy, but I'm no doctor! I also think that maybe my nutrition has played a part in this. I have slacked off in my caloric intake (it's hard to eat that much!) and I haven't been drinking as much water as I should be. So, anyway, yesterday she ended up eating somewhere around 30 oz. or so and she STILL woke up once in the night. Okay moms (I may regret this later), what's your advice?

Hours of Fun

Gavin loves to push these dried peas around with his John Deere tractors. I really despise stepping on them for days and days after he plays with them, but occupying him for long periods of time is definitely worth it!

The Bald Spot

Here is Charlotte's hilarious bald spot. It just cracks me up. Now you know the inspiration for all of my hats!

Gavin's can of sticks

When Charlotte was born, I knew it was going to be an adjustment for Gavin. He was going to need some things to look forward to, some things to do on his own and also some special time with mamma. He's had me all to himself for four years! Well, he made the adjustment a lot better than I ever could have imagined. I think this is one of the things that helped. I made this can with different colored sticks. Written at the bottom of each stick is something different.

The red sticks have activities that Gavin can do on his own while I am busy with Charlotte.

The blue sticks are special activities that Gavin and I can do while Charlotte is napping.

The green sticks are rewards for extraordinary behavior.

Gavin loves getting to pick a stick and see what is at the other end, especially if it is a green stick!

4 1/2 months and 4 1/2 years

This post is more for me than for any of you , so feel free to skip this post!

Charlotte Mae 4 1/2 months old:
She is pretty much the easiest baby ever! She is so different from her big brother.

At her last dr.'s appointment she weighed in at 13 lbs. 9 oz.

She is sleeping 9-10 hours at night and wakes up chatting and cooing in her crib. She also takes 2 two hour naps and 1 one hour nap during the day. Her brother was NOT a great sleeper, so it's nice to have a baby that does sleep (she takes after her mamma)!

She rolled over, from yummy to back, two times just the other day, but hasn't done it since. I am pretty sure it was a fluke, but I thought I'd document it just in case!

She doesn't seem to mind tummy time at all, which is also very unlike her brother was at that age.

She is starting to grab at everything, which is pretty annoying but fun at the same time.

She has found her voice and is often SCREAMING for no apparent reason. She has just figured out how to be heard over her brother. Those sweet coos just weren't doing it, I guess!

We are attempting to correct her flat-on-one-side head to avoid the whole helmet thing. Apparently she prefers one side over the other. She has a hard time getting comfortable on the other side, but she is doing pretty well. At first you couldn't even get her to turn her head in that direction, but now she will do it with a little bit of effort.

She loves her brother as long as he is a few inches away. He can frequently be found right in her face giving her kiss upon kiss. She's picked up a new defense tactic with the screaming, though.

Gavin Mack 4 1/2 years old:
His current favorite color is green, because that is Uncle Jason's favorite color.

He is crazy about reading lately. This is something that I have been waiting and waiting for. I never wanted to force it but I've always suggested we do it. Now, I don't have to suggest it. Gavin brings me books several times a day to read. He even says he's ready to learn how to read! Yeah!

As far as toys go, he is also crazy for Lego's and crazy for all things pirates. He really can play with anything. This kids imagination astounds me. He can be occupied by a bag of cotton balls and some plain old paper for hours. Some days he doesn't even play with his toys, he just finds other things to play with.

He LOVES t.v. and movies. This is always a battle at our house. When he does get to watch movies, he doesn't just watch them. He gets out lots of toys and acts out the movie while it plays. It's pretty cute.

He enjoys doing his chores. Most of the time, He does them without a protest.

He is phasing out of taking naps. He still needs them occasionally, but for the most part, he has stopped taking them. If I let him take too long of a nap, he will be up playing in his bed until 10:00!

He is a busy boy, always wanting a different activity. His favorite things, above all else, is going to the park and to the beach. He LOVES being outside!

Budget Cuts and Preschool

Well, we've decided to send Gavin to preschool in the fall. It was a surprisingly hard decision. I never thought I would send him.But now I think it would be so good for him. What we didn't know is that if you want to get your child into preschool through the Chicago Public School System, you apparently have to apply the day they are born. It is EXTREMELY hard to get them into a decent school. So, since I was unaware of that, we are searching for a private preschool. They are NOT cheap. I am pretty appalled at how much they can cost. I've found them anywhere between $2,000 to $7,000 a year! For PRESCHOOL!!! We haven't picked one, yet, but I can tell you it will not be the $7,000 one!

We are doing some budget cuts to find the money to send him somewhere. We thought our budget was as tight as it could be. We were wrong. It is so fun to save money and do it in places you never thought you could. Ryan even just called our internet provider and they lowered our bill without even changing our service. In about two days we found an extra $200! Preschool here we come! Now we just have to pick one! Any suggestion from experienced moms will be greatly appreciated!

I can't believe . . .

I can't believe I neglected to put sunscreen on my son and he now has a sad sunburn on his back.

I can't believe I let my four year old play the Wii and now have a Mario Kart Monster on my hands!

I can't believe my sweet baby girl, who had pooped all up her back, pooped again on her diaper bag and all over the floor of our meticulously cleaned (by my husband) van during the diaper change. I also think poop may have gotten on my sister in law as well. She was holding babies naked bum up in the air.

I can't believe my son LOVES the muffins I made with cauliflower puree in them! I love getting veggies into my boy!

I can't believe this conversation took place between my hubby and me:
Me: wow, I am just like my dad, aren't I?
Ryan: I can't believe it took you this long to figure that out!

I can't believe I ate six tacos the other night and still have the nerve to complain about my weight. SIX TACOS!!! Seriously, what's wrong with me? They were delish, though!

I can't believe my four year old has stared talking back like a teenager. LOTS of "correction" going on in our house lately.

I can't believe my husband wants to get a certain car that I don't care for and is bribing me with talk of another baby. I have a slight case of "baby fever". He does not.

I can't believe while we were at the beach my husband looked over to see our son with his shorts at his ankles peeing in the water.

And lastly,

I can't believe I'm so lazy I told Gavin to pee in the water!

Bye Bye Training Wheels!

Gavin is learning to ride his bike without training wheels. Ryan and his grandpa made this handle for the the back of the bike. It is nice because you don't have to bend over to hold on to the bike. It's a real back saver! Gavin was doing very well. The only problem was when he started to fall, he LOVED it. So he was purposely crashing. If we can get him to try a bit more, I think he will definitely be riding well by the middle of the summer. It's hard to believe he's already here!