Family Spring Pictures!

A few weeks ago we met up with Lindsay to have a mini session out at East End Park.

{Now comes the hard part of figuring out which ones I need to print and in what sizes and where I’m going to put them on the wall!}

Mr. James:

Sweet Natalie:

Lovely Joanna:

All the brood:

(Joanna is holding Thomas.)

Michael, Thomas.

Thomas, Michael. :)

Thomas – up high!

Michael looks a little less thrilled than Thomas.  :)

All of us!!

And again!

And one last shot of Joanna running through the grass.  That is SO HER!

It was a very fun session with way too many great pics to show from it.  :)  Don’t tell Matt, but I’m going to need to go to Michael’s and pick up some big ol’ frames for these beauties.

Mother’s Day 2014

This was my EIGHTH mother’s day!

The babies needed naps at church time yesterday, so Matt stayed home with them.  The bigs and I went to the 11:00 service and discovered it was the Confirmation service.  It was nice to get to see so many youth confirmed, but it meant we had to sneak out during the sermon since the service ran long and the babies needed me!

I made Matt take a picture of me with my brood after church.  Full arms and a very full heart!!

After the babies napped we headed over to Aunt Mindy’s to celebrate with family.

Mindy and Steve got the kids these bubble blowers and they were a HUGE hit!

I love spending time with family and having lots of arms for baby holding!

Joanna took this one of Thomas and me – she’s getting pretty good at composition!

I’m pretty sure I have a picture like this of Uncle Mark with most of the babies.  Michael just settled right down in his arms.

Thomas being entertained by Aunt Mindy’s funny faces. :)

I took this one this morning – my beautiful flowers from Mindy!  I loooooove them!

It was a lovely, laid back mother’s day, which is how I like ‘em!  Today I treated myself to a (extremely overdue, much needed) pedicure while my mother watched aaaallllllll the children.

I really should do something very nice for her.

:)

A Day in the Life in May

Can you believe it?  Here I am writing about the 8th… on the 9th!  So here’s May’s day in the life – it was a Thursday.

7:00am: woke up to nurse babies.  (This means that they slept until 7 – wahoo!)

8:10: Topped off babies so I could be gone a couple of hours.

About 8:45 my mom came over to watch everyone except Natalie.

9:00am: dropped Natalie off at school (and realized it was the 8th so I took a random picture of her backpack hung up).

Then I dropped off our (very last for the foreseeable future) tuition check and stopped to use the internet to get directions to a friend’s house.

Then I drove to said friend’s house to take some pictures.  Then of course, because we are women, we chatted for awhile.  It was lovely and I totally needed it.

I stopped for a Sonic drink on the way home and relieved my mom about 10:30. Only Mr. Michael was up, so she hadn’t had to deal with too much grumpy.  :)

My Js were eating a snack and watching The Incredibles on the iPad. (Extremely fabulous picture taken over my shoulder while I was nursing on the couch.)

11:00: I nursed the babies.  Somewhere around then my sister and her friend (who were in town most of the week!!!) stopped by and snuggled nieces and nephews for a little while.  They left for lunch, taking some things I needed to return in Humble with them.  Yay!!

11:40: The Js watched Kathryn and Tawna leave and then stayed at the window to watch for Lisa, who was due shortly.

My very cute helpers and I decided to fold some diapers.

Joanna took this one of us – she did well!

Pretty diapers all folded up and ready to wear!

A little before noon Lisa came and picked up Joanna because it was early release for her girls.  They went to play.  I put the babies down for a nap and set James up with his favorite movie – Cars.

At 12:25 I sat down to do a little work in Photoshop Elements for the online class I’m taking.

At 1:16 I heard our first waker, Mr. Thomas.  I think I got him up and held him for a few minutes while Michael slept a bit more.

By 1:30 I was sitting and nursing the babies.

This was at 2:25 – playtime!

You can see the ever so slight difference in quality from my iPod touch camera to my big girl camera:

At about 2:40 Kathryn and Tawna delivered Natalie to me; they’d picked her up from school.  About that time I laid the babies down for another nap.

Then over the next couple of hours I did laundry and took care of little people.

At 4:20 I nursed the babies.

Matt got home about 5:00 and at 5:20 we headed to Grandma’s house for enchilada night.  (Usually they’re on Fridays, but this one was early so K and T could be there!)

See all the baby holding people?!!!!

James crashed in the car and stayed asleep when we brought him inside.

It was musical people for the babies.  Yay for lotsa arms!

Natalie was soooooooo sweet holding baby Drew.

At some point Joanna disappeared with Grandpa David, and he texted me this picture:

The babies got grouchy so I nursed them and Thomas took me up on my offer of a little nursing nap:

It was a WONDERFUL evening with family!! We left about 7:40.  Everyone was turning into pumpkins.

At home we got everyone ready and sent to bed by 8:30 or so.

This was the last picture I took, at 9:05:

I was settled on the couch with the last of my shortbread cookies, some Nutella, and my husband for a little television.

I think I went to bed about 10:30.

That’s a wrap! (It only took me 24 hours to write this.)  :)

Michael and Thomas are SIX MONTHS old!!

Here are some bullets about the babies at six months:

• They can both roll both ways, but sometimes Michael forgets he can roll front to back.
• They love being smiled at.
• Thomas is a chew-a-maniac.  He chews on everything.  His favorite thing is still someone else’s thumb.
• They can often be distracted by toys or singing and dancing.
• Neither can sit up or scootch yet.
• I weighed them (in a diaper and onesie) a couple of days ago and came up with something like 14lbs 6oz for Michael and 15lbs 4oz for Thomas.
• They nurse 5-6 times each day.
• They can go 10-12 hours at night without feeding.  One night over the weekend they went 13 hours.  It was… uncomfortable.  :)
• Most of the time Michael is the first to wake from naps and in the morning.  That is not the case today.  Something’s up with Thomas.  :(
• They both loooooove to be held.
• They are each pretty happy being worn in the Ergo or sling as well.  I’ve really only worn them separately.
• They don’t mind riding in the car but have to be very tired to fall asleep.  (This is mostly a very good thing.)
• They are sort of predictable in needing three naps per day.  Each is less than an hour.  :( (But I might have mentioned the loooong nights? Yay that!)
• They wear size 6-9 months clothes very well.  Michael can still wear 3-6 months, but it’s kind of a stretch for Thomas.
• I think they would still wear size 1 disposable diapers.  We haven’t put any on recently.  :) Their cloth dipes are on the middle rise with two rows of snaps showing in the middle.
• Thomas has recently discovered he can put his toes in his mouth.
• Thomas must always be wearing a bib.  He drools constantly.
• Both babies love to laugh.  Typically, Thomas likes to be tickled, and Michael likes laughing at funny jokes.
• They haven’t started solid food and I don’t have any plans to start immediately.  They’re not really showing any signs of readiness, aside from the date on the calendar.
• Neither has teeth yet.
• They are super spoiled by their three older siblings.
• They are so very loved by their momma and daddy.

I can’t believe half a YEAR has passed since they were born!

And now for some pics!

I typed all that up there on Tuesday (I think), and now it’s Friday.  I’m just going to publish a few pictures I took of the boys SOOC (straight out of the camera), even though I want to play with editing them soon.  I’d rather go ahead and get these cuties up though, instead of waiting!

I managed to do TWO mini photo shoots with the babes on Tuesday; the first was inside on the couch.  Mr. Sock Monkey made a quick appearance.  Thomas is very into his feet lately.

I love this one!!

Michael looks so concerned here.  That’s probably because he knows Thomas is going to try and chew on his hand.

Still trying…

I like this one as well, but it’s a little blurry.  I love their smiles though!

And then the domino effect began to kick in…

And they’re down!

Then I got one with my photo shoot helper.  The middles were at preschool.

Then that evening, we went outside to try and get a few more.  I like this one a lot, but of course I cropped off Michael’s knee. That’s what happens when you must engage in wild shenanigans to get them to smile. :)

Then I tried for some individual ones.  I guess they don’t have to be a unit all the time.  :)

Michael:

It appears Thomas wanted to be first.  He wasn’t super happy when Matt put him back down on the blanket.

But then he did a little self-soothing with his two fingers.

Then rolled over to play with his feet for a bit.

Then Matt went over at some point to fix the blanket and cheer him up.

Then he wasn’t so sad!

Now for some silly faces:

And PLENTY of drool and raspberries.  He loves to spit these days!

The boys were pretty done by that point, but my bigs wanted to lay on the blanket for a picture.  I sure do love them.  :)

So there we have it – I can’t believe the babies have made it half way through their first year!! Today I ventured to the Mudpie with them to start working on their foot print plates.  They just got to come for the actual foot printing.  Now I get to go back and decorate them ALL BY MYSELF.  :)

I will update when they’re all done and I’m sure I’ll post info about their 6 month check up next week!