Life is Good?

(Expressed hesitantly, with deep fear that I will jinx things and this week will take a turn for the horrible...)


Week one back in the REAL world was a success! The girls got back a week ago, and boy did they have a blast with Sarah and Eleanor (and Andrew, too, I'm sure). Grace didn't even want to come home, evidenced by a phone call home asking if they could stay longer than one week. However, that was not going to be a possibility seeing as to how Grace's first day of Preschool was this week, she and Ethan had a dentist appointment on Monday, and we just plain missed those crazy girlie bugs.

Apparently, Grace and Sophie got hooked on Mary Poppins while they were at Sarah's, and here are my favorite pictures of the creativity that flowed from that:

"Grace Poppins" modeling her movie-inspired hat.

Working the camera. I think this is her Blue Steel look.

Alright, now for a quick run-down on our busy week. Grace started Preschool on Monday, and of course, I was not prepared for that. So, after getting Ethan dropped off at the bus stop, I loaded the 3 girls up and off we went to Target to get school supplies, a backpack, and some "playground shoes" (Crocs are not allowed) followed by a mad dash home to feed the baby, get Grace and Sophie their lunch, and then run Grace over to her school.

She was SUPER excited to go, and even more excited to wear her new school outfit with the dogs on it. The dog on the sweater vest was the cause of a major melt-down, however, when Grace put on her name tag and saw that it was covering up "Lulu." Eventually she calmed down and reassured me that she would be good and listen to her teacher.

Notice the way she's trying to showcase the dog on her vest?

So, as I was taking one last picture of Grace in front of her school, another parent was walking by and offered to take a picture with me in it. My first thought was of how nice that was, and of course I would love to be in the picture with her. It wasn't until I was actually in front of the camera that I remembered what I looked like that day. Oh well. Showering, wearing contacts, and getting dressed for the day are overrated anyway.

Ethan and Grace had their dental check-ups after school and fortunately for me Scott was able to come home a little early from work so that I wouldn't have to take all 4 kids with me. As for the check-up itself, in what has become a recurring theme in our family, Ethan got a clean bill of health, and Grace has 3 new cavities to be filled.

Grace and Sophie finalized their Halloween costume decisions on Wednesday -- Grace wants to be Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, and Sophie wants a ball dress like Felicity's (you know, as in Felicity from the American Girl Doll Collection, of course). The patterns have been purchased along with the material for Grace's costume, and I'm sure they'd love for me to get right to work on them, but I don't think that's gonna happen just yet.

Thursday Scott went out of town for a quick (and I mean QUICK) recruiting trip to BYU. He arrived in SLC at 1:30Pm and left the next morning on the 8:30 flight. While he was there he spent the night at Freddie's, which prompted major water works from Grace who says she wants us to move back to Provo because she just misses Uncle Dodo too much. And while there's no way we'll be able to oblige her in that request, I do have to say that at this time of year especially, I have to sympathize with her in missing Provo.

Friday was the Fall Festival at Ethan's school. Scott opted out of going and so graciously volunteered to stay home with Jane while I took the 3 clowns to the festivities. We stayed for a little over an hour -- 35 minutes of which were spent waiting in line to jump in a Space Walk (or Bounce House or Jumping Castle or whatever you may call it) for a mere 3 minutes because Grace REALLY, REALLY wanted to jump. Fun. Fortunately, the line for the obstacle course was not nearly as long and Ethan was able to get that out of his system once we were done jumping, and Sophie found happiness with a parachute. After a quick romp on the playground we were done and on our way home for bed.

"Look, mom, I'm a monkey!" she kept saying.

Saturday was the icing on the cake for the kids. Ethan has been waiting a whole year for this weekend -- P&G Dividend Day at King's Island. Scott took Ethan, Grace -- and this year, Sophie -- to the amusement park and they spent the day in paradise. Paradise for the kids that is. I don't think it was quite as fun for Scott, but that's what makes him such a great dad, right? Not surprisingly, Sophie was not tall enough for most of the rides, so perhaps it wasn't quite as fun for her either.











Also happening this week was Jane's very first real bath! She LOVED it and didn't cry at all which was very surprising to me. I think all the other kids screamed the whole entire time during their first bath.

I was trying to get a close up of how curly her hair gets when its wet.

She is now 3 weeks old, and according to our home scale is weighing in at a hefty 9 1/2 pounds. As for eating, sleeping, fussing, etc. I would say she is a typical newborn. She's a good eater -- although, I did discover that she has a "bubble palate" after going to a lactation consultant during her second week of life. I had never heard of this before but it's essentially a bubble-like arch in the hard palate of the mouth. Basically, it contributes to painful nursing. Fortunately for me the painful part has started to subside now that the baby is getting bigger and more efficient at nursing. And while Jane is the first of my babies that I've heard this "diagnosis" with, I'd be willing to bet money that all my children have bubble palates based on the initial nursing issues I had with each of them!

As for sleeping -- she spends most of her day naps in the swing or carseat, but she has started to sleep better in her bassinet at night. She still wakes up 2 or 3 times to eat during the night, but I can count on her falling right back asleep for at least the first feeding and sometimes the second as well. So really, I can't complain. Fortunately she's not a super fussy baby and, all in all, things are good!

Jane makes really funny faces, and Scott was able to snap a picture of this one.

And just because I think she's so cute.

The transition to four kids has not been nearly as painful as I was expecting it to be. Then again, when you expect the worst, it's easy to be pleasantly surprised when things are not as bad as you feared. With Ethan in school, there are only 3 kids at home to take care of -- a number which I'm used to anyway -- and once Grace is at preschool and Sophie is taking a nap, I'm down to just one child that needs my attention and help. And then when Jane sleeps while Sophie is taking a nap and I get to take a nap, too -- well, that's just a little lagniappe for me.

So there you go. My first week with 4 kids in a nutshell. Life is good. Hopefully this week will not make me have to eat my words.

And now as promised -- here are comparison pictures of all 4 kids:

Here is a shot of all 4 of their hospital pictures.

I couldn't decide which baby pictures to use, so I picked three from each of them to showcase their hair and skin color to compare to Jane's. Since Ethan and Grace were both born in the pre-digital camera age, I had to take pictures of their pictures which I figured was easier and less time-consuming than scanning them would be. Here we go...

Ethan

(Thankfully Amy has always been willing to help me with my babies.)








Grace









Sophie

And there you have it. Jane is certainly the darkest of them all prompting Ethan to ask me on several occasions why her skin is brown. I, however, have no answer for that one.

If you are still reading this, you win a prize. Hahaha. Happy early birthday, Freddie! Grace really misses you.

The End.