Bree at Three!

 I can't believe this little girl is 3!  She is so fun and makes me laugh nearly every day.  She is growing up so quickly and her personality is really coming through.  She is incredibly patient with a mom who, being on her third kid, isn't quite as attentive as she should be and often is doing errands or chores instead of playing as much as Bree would like.  She loves to just be with me, even if that means helping me with laundry or dishes, or shopping for anything.  She has a very goofy side (which probably has been influenced quite a bit by Finn) and enjoys laughing and making others laugh.  She loves to be outside and to do everything her brothers do.  I'm still impressed every night when I tell the boys to go get their jammies, and Bree is the first one to run to me with hers either in her hand or even sometimes put on all by herself.  (I never ask her to do this as I figure I will get it for her, but if she hears me tell the other kids to do it she just does it, too.)  Being a third child, she also has learned many things that the boys did not until much later.  For example, she has many phrases that just makes my jaw drop.  "That's not fair!", "OH.MY.HECK", and general talking to the other cars on the road ("Come on, go!"), etc.  That last one may just be my influence.  :)  She calls her brothers, "My kids" or "My boys" and truly feels that connection to them.

She has excellent fine motor skills and can color and draw quite well.  In fact, that is one of her favorite activities.  She can peddle her tricycle and wants to learn to ride a bicycle (we need to put some training wheels back on one so she can practice).  She is super excited to take swimming lessons (I haven't actually signed her up yet because I'm hoping she can wait until the boys are back in school) and loves to talk about playing with her nursery friends.  Her favorite nursery friends are Xander, Issac (he just moved and she doesn't understand he's not coming back yet), Corey, and Kate.  (That is pretty much everyone except Sammy.  Good girl intuitively knows that I don't like Sammy's family at all!)  Her favorite food is anything that is sugar based and "Mickey" chicken nuggets.  Oh, and she does also like cheese and chocolate milk.  Her favorite animals are elephants and giraffes and her favorite color is purple (or pink depending on the day).  She prefers to be in jammies with her hair undone (just combing her hair is a form of torture in her opinion), but she sure loves to dress up for church.  Her favorite dresses have to be big, poofy, and pink, with preferably a bow to tie on the back.  She is not potty trained, but that's not for a lack of trying on my part.  We took two serious attempts and they completely backfired.  While she is capable of being potty trained, she decided that she no longer wanted to poop at all...anywhere.  She became quite constipated and we had several yucky weekends trying to clear her out anyway we could.  There was a lot of screaming and crying, some throwing up, and finally poop.  After a few weeks of that, I put her back in whatever she wanted (pull-ups) and I'm letting her figure it out herself.  She is quite independent and will take herself to the potty a couple of times every day but ultimately she uses the pull-ups as diapers and I'm not correcting that for the time as I just want her to poop.  She is also a lot of drama.  She threw a tantrum at baseball last week and there were several parents just laughing as she went from sitting on the ground to throwing herself back in the grass with her arms spread eagle.  Yes, I agreed it was pretty funny.

The man installing our tile came back to finish up his portion on her birthday and she was so excited to tell him it was her day!  When he went to lunch he stopped at the store and bought her a jumbo cupcake.  We cut it up and all share it after lunch.  And we repaid him by blowing up several balloons for him to take home to his kids.

She insisted on a pinata for her birthday.

My girl

I wish we could see just how big her smile is here.  Kai has a beanie boo named Pokey and Bree has had her eye on the girl version for at least 6 months.  This pink/purple turtle is named Slowpoke and is super special to her.  Her brothers got it for her for her birthday and she screamed with excitement.

She really wanted a puppy for her birthday.  I figured this would have to do!

Singing with her new Sophia purse boombox, while Finn plays with the puppy and her box full of ponies looks on

Playing with her puppy named JJ

All backed up and feeling pretty miserable to her tummy

She has pretty much dropped naps.  Once or twice a week she will take a nap in her crib (yes, she is still in a crib!) and that works.  But sometimes we will find this.  Poor little girl had been asking to go to bed, but I had been hoping to get her to last a little longer.  So, she pulled up her blankie and went to sleep on the floor.  She LOVES her blankie and cannot sleep without.  I've never had a kid this attached to something for so long before.  It's sweet but at the same time that blanket is getting awfully dirty and icky pretty quick these days.

Yes, I am brainwashing her to be excited to meet all of her friends at Disney World some day

My helpful sioux chef eating the parmesan cheese straight from the bowl

She has been practicing writing her name.  I'm super impressed.  Oh, and she's a righty.  How'd we end up with another one of those?  (Reid and I are both lefties, and Finn is our only left-handed child.)

We love our little peanut!  Yes, that's the nickname that I have given her and she owns it.  She will say, "I not Bree.  I a peanut!"  I'm so glad we have her and I certainly couldn't imagine our family without her.  Happy Birthday sweet girl! Slow down just a little for me, ok?

Fundraising for Finn

I'm not going to lie, fundraising season is rough.  If anyone thinks that I actually enjoy it, they are very mistaken.  Normally, I hit a point each year where I say I'm done and that next year we are skipping it all.  But thankfully, I get a good 7 month break from thinking about it and my kids start asking to go to the walk and so I end up doing it all over again.  

This year was no exception.  I had big plans for the year but hit many brick walls.  There was complete disorganization with one planned fundraiser.  That one resulted in me wasting hours of my time, several dollars, and crying when I got home completely frustrated.  And then our tennis fundraiser was a mess despite attempts to get organized much earlier.  We finally were able to put in on the calendar just weeks before the event and we luckily were able to pull it off....during a snowstorm.  And then there was a new project....selling Krispy Kreme.  This one seemed easy, even fun.  And for the most part it was.  There was a whole lot of drama when one person volunteered to help and then after meeting her and having my spidey senses go up I found out she was a con artist with a history of arrests for fraud and fictitious businesses.  Of course, I had already given her money by this point and so I was stressed out for 48 hours.  But it worked out and we were able to raise a lot of money.  

This year our team raised $2,929.70.  It was our best ever by over $1,000! It took almost two weeks but once all of the money was added up, our team came in 3rd place in all of Colorado Springs. The hard work paid off and now we are enjoying being done with that season again.  

I did 2 Krispy Kreme days.  The first one was  just a small order for our ward friends for General Conference.  It was a bit of a test run.  The kids loved running donuts to their friends' doors and collecting the money.  After coming home from the deliveries I began making plans for a much bigger attempt at Donut day.

Donut day #2 was Friday May 6th and this time I advertised to a local FB group that has over 10,000 members.  I ended up selling about 75 dozen donuts (I ordered some extra) and man did it fill up my car and make it smell delicious.

I had arranged to meet people at several different locations around town at various times so they could pick up there donuts.  We made this sign so people could find our car.  One of my friends help with one of the pickup  locations and got in trouble with the store owner whose parking lot we were meeting in.  I'm wondering if she parked right in front of the store or something.  I just parked in a corner far away from the building as we really just needed the parking lot to meet people.

One person bought a dozen donuts and then asked that we donate them to the childwatch staff at the gym we were meeting at.  So, Finn and I took this box into them after everyone else had picked up.

Extra donuts that I was trying to sell all weekend.

Our last drop off spot was the mall in the evening so we went ahead and had dinner (and dessert!) there.

Another change to this year was that our walk fell on Kai's birthday.  So, instead of presents Kai asked for donations.  We were able to raise about $65 or so from Kai's friends.  

As always, my friend Renee makes the tennis event a lot of fun.  Here was our table of prizes (lots of gift certificates and some Mary Kay, etc.!) and a really nice fruit tray.

Tennis pro Sam is in the green shorts and getting ready to lead some people in drills.

Finn and his friend Tate were playing on the side and stopped frequently to get drinks of water

Left to right:  Ellie (Renee's daughter), Lora (our Primary President), and Kaitlyn (Lora's daughter)  They are being instructed by Robert (one of the pros)

This is Keegan.  He is the tennis and fitness manager and the one who allows us to do this every year and helps us pull it together.

Me, Bree, Tate, and Finn delivering water

They thought this water dispenser was a blast!

The club had these posters everywhere.  This was the door that led to the tennis courts.

Finally it was walk day.  I had purchased bubbles, leis, and ribbon wands to hand out to our team.

It was down right miserable on walk day.  It was the worst weather we ever had which is a shame because we had a great turn out as a team and had worked really hard to raise so much money this year.

Those with CF at the walk got these shirts that said "I Am A Fighter" on the back.  It was a way to help those with CF identify each other.  Finn had a great time walking with his friend James from kindergaarten (he is in the red hoodie).

Bree was miserable the whole entire morning.  I had her layered in a short sleeve shirt, a long sleeve shirt, a sweat, tights and jeans and she was still cold.  So thankfully one of our team members had a snow suit in her car which she loaned to Bree.  Still Bree sat motionless and whimpering the whole time.  In hindsight, her super large wet diaper might have been part of the problem.

Crabby

Finn and his friend James

In the Meantime

At the beginning of April, we had some good weather.

Some play time waiting at the counselor's office

And once the snow had melted I saw a baby bunny run and dive for cover under our porch.  This is apparently where they are living.  

And I finally got the last of the juniper bushes OUT.  Now to get the stumps ground down so we can fix up the rock beds.

And I got the sandbox cleaned up and some new purple sand for Bree.

While our bathroom remodel was going on, the weather was doing it's typical Colorado Spring-thing.  The day demo was scheduled to start was a Monday after a big weekend snow storm.  We were unsure if the contractors would be able to make it in, but they did.  It actually wasn't bad at our house as the roads were clear.  There was, however, a good 18 inches of snow in our yard.  Due to the spreadout nature of our school district, school was closed.

1 to 2 feet--YIKES!

And they were right!

Right before the storm hit we managed to find ourselves a great deal on a barely used, secondhand riding lawn mower. Wahoo!

Mid-month Bree was invited to a nursery friend's birthday party.  It was a dress-up party so Finn was excited to come as well.  There was this tiny bounce house and Bree had a great time bouncing with her friends Adam (in the red in the front) and Isaac (who is Adam's brother and who Bree calls "Eyes-kick" and her best friend).

And the day after the party the kids were doing this.  The weather was beautiful and perfect to play in.

At the CF 3rd Friday clinic in the Springs I manned an information table for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation--Colorado Chapter.  It was a fun experience.

And then the next day Kai raced in his first Pinewood Derby and came in 3rd.  He was elated!

In the process of redoing Bree's room, I organized her closet and moved all of her clothes.  I'm hoping that when she moves out of her crib that I will also be able to get rid of the changing table/dresser and use the closet instead of a dresser to save some room in the bedroom for other things.

And on the 28th Finn lost a tooth while riding in the car.  He was holding his tooth in his hand so that it would make it home and he dropped not long before we got home.  I took out his car seat and saw the tooth but then it disappeared into the cracks of the seat and I couldn't find it again.  So, he wrote this awesome note to the tooth fairy!