Hailey Grace catch up

Hailey Grace is staying busy with school, gymnastics and swim team.  I feel so terrible that I made her decide between gymnastics and dance then said lets wait until next season for Girl Scouts. It is amazing how quickly the extra activities take over your evenings.  Thursday and Saturdays are our free days. I would love another after school evening.  I wish I was that mom who could do it all each day after school but it is so incredibly hard.The babies can only hang for so long.   She understands and I think somewhat thankful we didn't take on any extra stuff this first semester into school.  This week we have swim on Sunday, Monday (out of town) , Wednesday and Friday, gymnastics on Tuesday, a school family night where I have to give a speech on Tuesday, field trip on Friday, a surgery on Friday, but hoping for a care fee and fun Saturday.  

School alone is a huge adjustment for us all.  It is one of those things you never really fully understand until you start school.

Sure, preschool and MDO's kept us busy but starting school and continuing in school has been a big adjustment for everyone.   As with all kids, it does take some adjustments getting used to a new year. HG has done pretty good.  She is exhausted by the time her head hits the pillow but luckily for her, we keep a pretty strict bedtime routine.  Depending on evening activities, it varies from 7:30-8:30 lights out.   If in bed by 7:30, she is allowed to read or even watch a little something on her iPad or tablet.  She sleeps like a log and isn't much of a morning person so I let her sleep as long as possible.  With her car sickness, she doesn't eat and rarely has anything to drink anymore before jumping on the bus headed to school. Once at school, she attempts to eat breakfast and has either milk or water.  She still gets nauseated many mornings, in the classroom, not moving around.  I always keep goldfish and a granola bar in her bag for those extreme days where she is about to toss her cookies at her table.  Her teacher will allow her to nibble on something if needed.  Homework tends to come home on Mondays allowing a couple days to work on it.  Books come home on Fridays and Wednesdays.  We read some of these together and others she reads to us.  It is truly amazing watching kids learn to read books.  Any age, kids should always love books.

Did I mention I am the room mom for Hailey's class?  Yes, I was chosen to be the room mom.  HG is incredibly excited that her mom is the room mom.  Me?  A bit of panic.  Sure I was a room mom for a Preschool for 4 years but this is the real deal. A real room mom at a real school. I am kind of nervous about screwing it all up but excited to be included in all their events.  I am looking forward to knowing the other children in her class and their parents.  Her class has a nice mixture of sweet, innocent children to far too advanced, not innocent children.  Hailey is somewhere in between.  I can't believe some of the stuff that can come out of the mouths of these young children.  I am not talking bad words. 

Luckily for us, HG loves her neighborhood, school and life in Indiana.  She misses her friends and family down South but really enjoys living up here.  HG loves her friends and is always so concerned about them, sometimes too much.  She would spend all day trying to please and make others smile around her before she chooses to worry about herself or learn sounds very familiar. She recently got into trouble at school for not listening and worrying about everyone else being happy. She has an amazing heart, she want everyone to be happy, nice and loving.  She cries when people are mean.  She cries even when she is in trouble. She wakes up asking about her friends and if I think they are all okay.

Hudson might have been a little smelly.

Oh hey butterfly

We spent Saturday morning making signs for HG's class and school.
Tuesday, we are working on shirts for the class.

I love all crafts, everything is always so fun except those with my handwriting.

HG never cares, she is always so excited to show stuff off we made.

Exhausted nightly.

Oh be still my heart.

Such a pretty little girl.

Elsa hair for Halloween.

Brrrrr, some morning are cold.

I love this picture.

HG and I always make sure the hummingbirds are fed.
We have so many!

P.E. days.
Between PE, swim, gymnastics and running around, this girl has gotten lean and tall.

She is still such a soft and hippie soul

Gymnastics is going great.
I so wanted her to remain in dance but never expressed my opinion very much.
She is old enough to have an opinion so I left that one up to her.
She is loving all the fun.

A family trip to Lowe's can either be a load of fun or a constant fight.

They need larger buggy carts.

HG and Harper are getting along better and better each week.

Some days we think they might kill each other but days like Saturday, they were best of friends.

Harper worships HG and thinks anything she says or does is the greatest.

HG is always incredibly loving to Hudson and typically will to help out.

I think it is the 5 1/2 year age difference that helps out so much. 

Ears and noses

As I am sitting here on the computer, eating a brownie my 4th large one since 6 tonight, I can hear Harper talking away in her bed where she has been since before 8.  She ended up needing a nap today and slept almost 2 1/2 hours.  We all know that naps equal late nights for Harper unless she is up by 2 from her nap. As I left to pick HG up at 3:50, she was still snoozing away. It was one of those things were you know it will bite you in the butt but you just can't waking her.  It was a rough morning, extremely rough. The husband and I threw our hands in the air by lunch. I am loving that he is getting to experience and help with the good times and the bad. He has been a trooper helping around working during the day, even doing the dishes nightly.  Something as simple as him doing the dishes or drying a kid off after bath time makes such a difference to me.  With all the traveling he has done and is still doing, these are things he hasn't really been able to do. 

Monday morning, this little man had to go to the doctor.  Sunday into Monday, I was up every 30-45 minutes with him.  Saturday into Sunday, it was every 1-2 hours.  As you can imagine, I was exhausted and he was incredibly cranky Monday morning.  We knew it was the ears.  Sure enough, he had to have his ears cleaned out and double infections.

Happy to say that he is finally starting to feel a little better.  Yesterday, he was still pulling on that ear pretty bad but only woke at 2:15 and 5:15 during the night.  

The husband pulled these horrible rose bushes out of the front yard.
Harper has fallen in them and Hudson has grabbed them.
I love tall rose bushes but these have so many thorns on them and were in bad shape.

We replaced with very simple and low profile things.
Really wishing for azelas or hydrangeas but not knowing how rough our winter will be, we opted for less expensive.
Purple of course, it was the very first thing HG noticed.



When I picked Harper up from school on Wednesday, green snot was flowing,
Besides the green snot, her ear hurt and poor thing had a fever.
With Harper's history and underdeveloped sinus cavities, we always have to go to the doctor.
Thankfully we saw the same sweet lady we saw on Monday with Hudson and they had all of Harper's records from her previous Pediatrician already. Sure enough, she is on two weeks of antibiotics and has a clogged tube with and ear ache.  She felt miserable.

Oh this baby can cuddle with me any day. He slept just like this for nearly 2 hours today.
I didn't move.

Watching the world.

Harper was teaching him to dance.

Oh bear.

He is so cute.

HG had arrived home with massive stains the last two days.
This cute legging and tunic outfit came home with ketchup covering the tunic and pen on the leggings.
Yesterday, she came home with her denim dress covered in pizza sauce.
I am good at stain removal but having a hard time.
Both were brand new, first time to wear to school outfits.
She bounces when she eats and doesn't pay attention to where she puts her food.
Kids and their messes!

Harper gave us quite the scare last night.  I was on one side of the island and she was on the other coloring with markers on the floor and  the kitchen table.  She has huge issues with climbing and is often gets into trouble for this. I heard her fall and said Harper get up, you have to quit this climbing or you will really hurt yourself.  She didn't respond.  My initial thought was she knew she was in trouble because she seriously climbs all day long. So I repeat myself as I am walking around the island.  I realize the high chair fell on top of her and she is unresponsive. My heart stopped. I grabbed her with her arms and legs totally limp.  I kept calling her name and her eyes were rolling in the back of her head. I kept calling her name for what felt like forever.  She was screaming by now but still not moving anything so I laid her flat on the ground until I could get her calmed. She was coming around and then could move her legs, toes, arms and hands fine.  I grabbed her, put her in her carseat then did the same to Hudson and we were off.  Chris had just left with Hailey for swimming and thankfully it was a night it was in our town.  By the time we arrived to Chris, Harper was almost back to normal.  She could walk, talk, follow a light, you know the same things they would do at the hospital.  I still wanted to take her in but the husband assured me that we would watch her and any change, I could take her directly in.  He reminded me that she falls all the time that this one just got her good.  She stayed up way past her bedtime, slept with her baby brother's breathing monitor and I fully woke her a few times during the night.  We had a long talk about climbing and she was really scared last night. Tonight I walk in the living from the bathroom and she is sitting on the TV console table with the TV and falls off.  She landed on a rocking chair and a TV speaker came down with her.  The TV somehow managed to stay up there and I was in the bathroom for less than 2 minutes. She was in trouble, big trouble and she knew it. The husband caught her climbing up the same high chair that fell on top of her tonight.  This sweet, loving, super smiley little girl is going to give me a heart attack by the time she is 5.

He is on the go constantly.

Harper shared her injury popsicle with Hudson.
He got one bite and yelled for more.
Harper was walking and fell face first into a steel bar at gymnastics.
I think everyone in the gym hurt with her.
The falls are all day long every day right now.
Someone said I needed to make her slow down and always tell her to slow down. If I would just tell her to slow down. I just needed to tell her.
We all say this 100 times a day, every day.
She was walking, slowly walking and fell into a steel bar.
Chris and I have our house Harper proofed and are constantly doing everything we can to stop the climbing and falls.
My day revolves around making sure Harper doesn't get hurt.
I check on her at least twice a night to make sure she is okay.
Every day. Every single day. All day long.
I appreciate the sweet texts and calls checking on her, we are working on it daily.

HG switched gymnastics classes and is doing fun things.
Our free nights are Thursday and Sunday between summing and gymnastics.

He was entertaining the on lookers

Crazy driver.
She gets her four wheeler back tomorrow after loosing it on Monday for driving up steps and flipping it then flipping over the handle bars doing a front roll.

Tuesday, she told me to step away from the brownies or my hiney would get big.

But she helps me bathe Hudson every single day and he totally loves it.

So sweet.

he has now had fruit loops an yogurt thanks to red headed sisters

Sunday our air messed up.
Today they replaced the coils.
It still didn't fix it.
Thank goodness it isn't hot outside.

Her head hurt, I had advil waiting when she woke up.  We have been switching tylenol and advil off every 3 hours.

Loves fresh corn on the cob.

He spotted the Ritz cracker.
He loves getting a Ritz.

I've been giving him a bit of water at dinner, maybe an ounce or two.
He loves it but I know his isn't really supposed to have much water, just a few ounces if needed.
I need to wash down my food, I think he needs to as well.

Boy vs dog, one will go through the screen soon.

They will be the best of friends soon.

Swim team

Hailey Grace began her swim team practices this week. This is a first year swim team she is on to prepare her incase she continues swimming in middle and high school. She will have a couple of events through out the year but mainly this will just be a year of learning more skills and working on endurance. I think 3 laps for a Kindergartener is pretty good for endurance already.

Not only do they swim, they also have fun and make lots of friends. Last night I was ever so thankful for the little boy who danced and shook his hiney that entertained the babies. We laughed and laughed. And for the lady behind us that kept Hudson laughing and smiling. And that the husband was in town to lend a hand, help with kids and routines.  We felt that we belonged and everyone greeted us with open arms. 

Flavor of the day bathing suit.

Swimming will keep us busy.

3-4 weekly practices, one being 30 minutes away and many Friday nights.  Thankful the younger and beginners have practice first allowing to get home earlier. 

Hailey Grace loved it and asked it she could do it every day. We are working on a swim cap but 2 French braids worked last night. HG isn't much into swim caps. 

Monday nights will be late for us. Typically, they are all in bed by 7:30 and even the downstairs tv is off 8-8:30 (even on a volume of 8, it shakes Hudson's room).  But we still weren't home by 7:30 last night. Then ran into friends outside. By 8, I hadn't even started dinner. That is incredibly late for the girls. I managed to whip up a fresh Mexican dinner fairly quickly but we still needed a bath, teeth brushed, story, prayers, kitchen cleaned/mopped, school stuff ready, etc. We didn't plan well but really enjoyed the day and seeing HG so happy.

We are looking forward to more practices and the kick off party next week.