Sickie Update

We have finally emerged from a week and a half long sick house. Annie was sick with a fever, but no other symptoms a couple Sundays back, then Thursday night Rachel had a fever, but nothing on Friday, then Saturday the fever returned with no other symptoms, except feeling yucky when her fever would spike. Sunday the Rachel still had a fever, and had to visit the bathroom much too often all day. Annie woke up puking Monday morning and threw up every 40 minutes from 3am to 5am. Luckily the rest of Monday was easy and everyone was feeling fine and had no fevers. Wednesday afternoon Rachel's fever returned, and that night my tummy didn't feel too good (dealing with bedtime for 3 kids while Jake was at mutual and I'm feeling sick is not my idea of fun). Thursday Rachel still had a fever, but by the end of the day was ok. Jake came home from work feeling sick at the end of the day and ended up staying home Friday, then Saturday through Tuesday was Annie's turn with the diarrhea, making for some really nasty diaper (and sometimes entire outfit) changes. We are all happy to be free from that little virus.

And here are some pictures from the week and a half of fun:

We watched plenty of movies, especially the days Rachel or Annie were feeling dead to the world and didn't want to move. Of course Annie LOVES (the idea of) movies. If the doors to the entertainment center are open she will go search through the movies and bring one to me saying "moo-ee!" When she's sick she'll sit and watch the whole thing, but most of the time she gets up and plays with other things, and occasionally checks back in with the movie when she feels like it.

Rachel's ice cream goatee:

Annie's happy little face, despite some yucky tummy rumblings on Sunday:

The girls got out the doll stroller and Rachel was having fun pushing Annie around.

 I suspect Ryan will be sitting there in a few months once he's sturdy enough to become their live doll (they already think he is their personal toy, but they're mostly good about not moving him--Annie, only because she's not strong enough to).

Both the girls have been really in to painting lately. We made some tambourines out of paper plates the other day as part of the library summer reading program's activities, and here they are decorating them:

 

Tuesday I went outside to see if it was cool enough for a walk since it was getting cloudy and windy as a monsoon storm blew in (though it never rained on us:( ) and I found a doll nursery on our front porch that a neighbor had left there for us, since her daughter was mostly grown out of playing with it.

The girls have LOVED having this new toy. We moved their play kitchen out to the garage to make room for it in their room and they spend hours bathing and feeding their baby dolls and putting them to sleep. A definite winner.

And yesterday the day arrived for haircuts. Rachel and I have been having an almost daily fight for the last year when I tell her it's time to get her hair done. She hates getting her hair done, especially the tangles combed out. I would occasionally tell her when she was screaming/whining particularly loud that we could just cut off her hair if she didn't want to have tangles. She would always promptly refuse saying "But I don't want to look like a boy!" I liked her long hair and felt safe threatening a haircut occasionally because she did, too. Until she saw some pictures Sunday of her last time she got a haircut and realized that she could get a haircut and still look like a cute girl. So all week she's been requesting a haircut, and yesterday I gave in and pulled out the scizzors. 

Before:

After:

I intended to make her hair shoulder length. Oops. Close enough. Good thing I wasn't aiming to cut her hair to chin length, or who knows how short it would be. She has one spot in back that is giving me problems, but since I'm not a hairdresser I have no idea how to fix it, and she doesn't care, so I guess I don't care, either. 

This morning when it was time to get her hair done it was so quick and easy. She brushed her own hair, I parted it and put a barrette in and, viola! Done in 2 minutes flat with no complaints. I guess it was worth it.

Since I had the scizzors out, I also took about an inch off of Annie's hair to try to even things out, but I'm not sure it's more even, since she doesn't sit still very well for haircuts. (By the way, this was cut #4 and she turns 20 months tomorrow.)

The final masterpieces:

 

Our weekend

When Ryan was born we were gifted a picture bundle from Picture People. It was set to expire on the 20th, so we had to hurry and get in there to get our pictures taken, so I set up an appointment for Saturday. While I was at Target last week I walked past the clearance rack in the kids section and noticed some black and grey outfits, so I grabbed them, figuring black shirts for Jake and I would be easy to come by (which was true) and I could find something easy for Ryan (not true, but I finally did find something that worked). Rachel spent the day yesterday with a fever coming and going, kind of feeling a general yuckiness, but no other symptoms, so we got prettied up and headed in to take pictures.

Here are some of the pre-pictures pictures:

 

 

Most of the pictures had Annie with that dazed look on her face, or Ryan all blurry from wiggling, or with his hand in front of his face. But there was one that turned out nice, and one is all we need. Now we're done with pictures for a good while.

This morning Rachel still had a fever when she woke up, so we decided Jake would stay with her for sacrament meeting so I could go, since I'd stayed home with Annie last week when she had her fever with no other symptoms. Jake had to teach in the 3rd hour, however, so I was going to just go to some Sunday School, then duck out early to head home so he could go teach. I changed my mind when my paranoid mind thought Annie felt hot, so instead of sending her to nursery we just went straight home after sacrament meeting. It turns out that was a good idea, because when we came home I put Annie in her high chair to eat lunch before a nap, and after her second helping she asked for more, which I gave her, and two minutes later turned around to find this:

Annie always has been the easiest sleeper out of the 3 kids, but this is a new one. When I picked her up from her seat she stuck the handful of food she still had right in her mouth, with her eyes still closed. Sleep eating. She's got skillz.

Oh, and Happy Father's Day to my wonderful hubby and my dad and my father-in-law. I'm thankful for good men in my life blessing me and my family every day!

Happy Little Guy

Ryan likes to squeal and coo when he's in a good mood and usually he's in a good mood if he's not tired and/or hungry.  Here's a video of him talking to Colette.

Preschool

Yesterday Rachel had her last day of preschool for the year. She had a great time this year and loved her class and her teacher, Mrs. Caffrey (who also I also happen to visit teach, and she's the primary president). 

 They had a party for the last day and sang a couple of songs to us, including Yankee Doodle, complete with hats with a feather stuck in it. 

They got to wear cute graduation hats and were presented with a class photo and a packet of some of the work they've done throughout the year.

 

Comparing Rachel's work from the beginning of the year (ABC) and the end of the year (XYZ) you an tell she did improve and got apparently got faster, since she had time to doodle or color rainbows or whatever when she finished the letter practice.

 

Her end of the year evaluation (I'm not good at keeping things, or scrapbooking or anything, and I figure our blog book is the only documentation we'll probably have of Rachel's preschool accomplishments in the long term):

Her teacher wrote "Rachel did so great this year! It's fun to see her reading! She is a great friend to others, and is always very kind and good at sharing. She is a hard worker, and tries hard to do her best. I have loved teaching Rachel!"

And I'm glad we farmed her out to a teacher rather than doing a co-op preschool with other moms around here because Rachel takes direction and correction much better from other people than from me and tries to do her best for her teacher, whereas with me it's more of a power struggle. We're proud of Rachel and glad she loved preschool!

"Hats" and haircuts

I got the girls new buckets to play with, since their last one broke. But they promptly put them to good use as hats rather than buckets. Annie's head is small enough that it fits completely over her head, and she loves walking around not being able to see anything. No injuries to report quite yet....

 

In the spirit of head coverings, Rachel made a mask out of the paper bag that held our Thai take-out.

Sunday Rachel was sitting next to me talking, and Ryan was sitting on my lap facing outward, but once he saw Rachel was there he did his best to twist his whole body around to get a good look at her and her silly faces that he loves to look at.

This up-closer picture is probably the best picture of the little guy's new haircut:

Last Saturday I decided to finally do what I'd been contemplating for a couple of weeks and give Ryan a haircut. Two months old seems ridiculously young for a haircut, but it was getting shaggy around the ears (as shaggy as newborn hair can be). Of course when I think of doing these kinds of things I don't use common sense and wait until I have help. Jake was gone on a campout with the scouts and Annie was sick that morning (though sleeping at the time), so I pulled out the clippers and did it mostly one handed, holding him in one arm and the clippers in the other hand. I meant to only trim his little mohawk a tiny bit, but lacked some control being one-handed and all, so he ended up getting it cut down to one inch, since the #8 guard was on (the biggest one we had). He looks like a handsome little man, and his cowlicks in the back still create a mini mohawk, but not quite as pronounced as it used to be.

As Jake was packing to abandon us go on a business trip for the week, Ryan was in a very happy mood, laying on our bed cooing at me and making some fun faces.

I love how wide his eyes are in this next one. I think it was blowing raspberries, or maybe just sticking my tongue out at him that was the cause of such amazement.

 

He's such a happy kid. :)

 

And we are (kind of) surviving Jacob being gone. I've decided that working hours have evolved to what they are because the most critical hours of the day to have help with the kids is from 5pm to bedtime. Something I didn't really appreciate until I've had to juggle (sometimes literally, it feels like) a baby who needs help falling asleep, or won't stay asleep anywhere but my arms, a toddler who needs a diaper change, or help getting into or out of her highchair, and a 4-year-old who needs a bedtime snack or some milk poured to have with dinner, or whatever the situation may be. 

Someone commented to me recently that it would be so nice if every time we gave birth, we also grew another arm. So true!! But I suppose Heavenly Father's solution to the need for extra arms was a husband. And a good solution it was. I so appreciate Jacob and all his help in the daddy department. And with his absence I am realizing more and more how much I rely on him to keep me sane and functioning. I'm grateful for friends and my parents helping out to make it manageable, but still, I am glad it's only a 4 day trip, and then I'll have my extra hands back to help juggle the children.

2 months old

Today is Ryan's 2 month birthday. It seems like he's been a part of our family for so much longer than just 2 months, but the time has also flown by. I love that he is a smiley baby. As long as he's fed and not too sleepy he'll smile and talk to whoever pays him a little attention.

He puts up with his sisters' antics pretty good naturedly so far. Annie is anything but gentle with her favorite baby, but he rarely cries when she sits on his legs, or pats (with a lot of force) his head or tummy. He even puts up with her stealing his binky if it's in his mouth, or trying to force it into his mouth if it's not already there. Rachel gets in on the fun, too, though in general she is much more gentle than Annie. She loves talking to him and showing off to him to make him smile, and LOVES dressing him up, even with a kleenex hat and blanket robe:

Rachel insists that she can't wear her big sister shirt unless Annie is wearing hers, and Ryan has on his little brother shirt, so today they were all decked out, and we snapped a few pictures of the happy siblings.

 

I think this picture captures how Ryan really looks most of the time (babies faces change so fast, and it seems to me that pictures rarely seem to capture the real look).

Here's a smiley picture I managed to capture:

And one last Ryan picture. This one totally reminds me of Justin's baby pictures. Just when I was thinking that Ryan was starting to look like Jake's baby pictures. Hmmm.

He's a cutie and we love having him in our family. For his 2 month stats, he has almost caught up to his cousin that is a week older than him. At least where she was when she was born. :) He's 10 lbs 9 oz. (she was 10 lbs 10 oz.) which is 30th percentile, and 23 inches long (60th percentile). He's running about a pound lighter than his sisters were at this point, but I'm not complaining. Percentile-wise, he's right on par with where Annie is and has been since she was about 6 months old (and Rachel, too, I think, though I don't have her last doctor printout handy at the moment). Annie had her 18 month checkup at the same appointment as Ryan's 2 month, and she is 33 in. (82%), and 23 lbs (31%). So we've got tallish, skinny babies. 

As for one quick update for Annie, since she turned 18 months a couple of weeks ago, she gets to go to NURSERY!!!! Woohoo! The last 6 months or so have been killer, trying to keep her from disrupting church for everyone in the room during Sunday School and Relief Society (trying to contain her to one area would have resulted in a much louder disruption than her general disruption resulting from wandering around, visiting people and finding hymn books to look through). She's gone to nursery twice without even noticing that we were gone. She sees the puzzles on the table, and walks away from us without a care in the world. And I actually listened to a Sunday School lesson last week! The whole thing! (Except what we missed at the beginning because we were watching Rachel give a talk in primary.) Yay for nursery!

And now that reminds me, Rachel got to give her very first talk in primary last week. It was about how we can follow Jesus Christ's example and be baptized. It was kind of a struggle to get her to practice it, but we tricked her into practicing several times, showing Dad, then Grandpa Knight, and Grandma Campbell over the phone. She really surprised me with how well she could read it. There were some words she struggled with, but for the most part, after I helped her with those words once she got them (though there were some words she got stuck on every time). So on Saturday I said something about how well she was going to do since she could read it all by herself, and she got all upset and said, "But I want you to whisper it in my ear! That's what everyone does!" I tried to explain to her that she didn't need me to whisper it because she could read it just fine on her own, but she wouldn't have any of it. I didn't argue much with her and hoped she'd forget about it. On Sunday she got up and just read it all with me holding the pictures for her, and helping her on the few words she stumbled on. She did such a great job! It was a nice mother's day moment, getting to see my oldest growing up and reading all on her own and stuff. I'm a proud mama. :)

Cooing baby

Ryan has started cooing and it is so cute. When he's in a good mood he'll talk for a good long while. Combine that with Rachel's love of the camera, and you get this video. I asked her to bring the camera over for me, and of course she wanted to be the one to run it. I especially like her surprise appearance in the middle of it all. :)