My Best Laugh of the Month

Reid's sister and two of her boys arrived at our house on Saturday June 1st (that's another post).  In the process of getting ready for their visit we were doing some pretty deep cleaning.  In doing so, Reid came across these two old wigs that he has had in the closet for years.  He brought them out to show the boys and they were not at all interested.  In fact, Reid offered to let them try them on and they flat out refused.  As Reid walked out of the room he mentioned that he was going to throw them away.  All of a sudden, Finn responded with a "Noooo, don't throw them away!"  The conversation that ensued boiled down to the promise that if Finn would put them on, and keep them on for the count of 10, then Reid would keep them.  So, we have the following hilarious pictures!

This one makes me laugh!  He did not like the wigs on his head AT ALL.  We still don't understand why he didn't want his dad to throw them out, but he posed for the pictures so the wigs are still here.  If you need to borrow one.......:)

According to Reid, this picture is a preview of what Bree will look like in about 3.5 years.

Getting the hair out of his face

I LOVE this kid!  He sure gives me a lot of grief, but he can make me laugh like no one else!

One Month Old

Bree at 1 Month Old

*She likes to look out the window--a LOT!
*She likes to stick out her tongue, like a lizard
*She is getting pretty good head control and can hold her head steady for several seconds at a time
*She eats, every 2 to 3 hours (sometimes more frequently during the day).
*Her tummy seems to get upset in response to milk or chocolate.  I'm trying to figure it out.
*She doesn't have a schedule yet.
*She is a pretty calm baby.  I read that normal babies can cry up to 2 1/2 hours a day.  In my opinion, Bree cries much less than that.
*She weighed 8 pounds 1 ounce at her one-month well check and was 20 1/4 inches long.
*She has the rash that causes cradle cap all over her face--poor baby.
*She started smiling in the last week before her one-month day.
*She sleeps--a LOT--and likes to be held for most of it.  However, at night she's pretty good about sleeping in her bed for most of it.
*When she starts fussing for a nap, I just have to wrap her up in a swaddle blanket and then carry her around/bounce her a bit and she'll fall asleep on my shoulder.  It's amazing how that swaddle blanket calms her right down.
*She has us all wrapped around her teeny tiny finger--and we LOVE it!

She had a bit of a rough day on her one-month day, so I took these pictures that night before bed time.  It was the best we could do that day!

First Bath

Bree took her first full bath on Sunday the 26th.  I had given her several sponge baths before that (thanks to actually seeing how they do it at the hospital, it was a breeze!) as she definitely needed it.  I have never waited this long to give one of my babies a bath before but like I said, we were doing sponge baths and then we had some belly button issues.  About 3 days after her cord fell off, her belly button started to bleed.  What I think happened was that when one of her explosive dirty diapers ended with "dirty" in her button, I wiped it to get it clean.  In the process of that I must have actually wiped off some of the moist part that is left behind after the cord (that you're told not to mess with) and that irritated it and caused it to bleed.  Icck!  Anyway, she didn't really like her first bath, probably because she was tired and didn't want to be doing anything but sleeping.  But since then we've had a relatively decent bath experience (as long as she's not tired or hungry).

Her poor bleeding belly button from earlier in the month

Bucket List

On the nearly last day of Kindergarten, Kai's class had a beach day.  At one of their stations for beach day, they made a "bucket list" for the summer (on a cute, large cut-out of a beach bucket).  Kai's list was quite simple--play with his friend Avery, play with his family, take classes at School Crossing, and "do a present".  That last one left me confused, but he explained it quickly as building a race car that he received from a friend for his birthday.  He had asked several times to do it, but I had told him it would make a good summer project.  Well, school had been out a whole two days before he finally swayed me to do it.  So, Saturday morning the boys built race cars.  Kai's car ended up taking all day and lots of help from daddy.  But it was done and it looks awesome.  Now, what do we do with the rest of the summer?!

With Kai's dragging out all day, I apparently have no pictures of Kai actually doing his car.  I'll have to get a picture of him and his car and then add it here.  :)

Smiling?

Sometime in the early morning hours of May 23rd I fell asleep while holding Bree (I was sitting up) after nursing her.  I snapped awake quickly only to look down and see her smiling this huge beautiful smile at me.  I have yet to capture it on camera, but on the 25th I tried.  While I didn't get the smile, I got some pictures of my pretty girl.

A milky mini-smile :)

Last Day of Kindergarten

Kai's last day of Kindergarten fell on May 23rd.  On the 20th (yes in the midst of Reid's birthday craziness) there was a small awards ceremony for the students.  Every child got an award to recognize them for one of the school values that they most demonstrated.  I didn't know that they were also handing out one other award--perfect attendance.  Kai did not earn perfect attendance, but he is extremely competitive.  When he realized that others were getting an award that he was not, he broke down and had a tantrum.  And to top that off, they started the awards for everyone and he was one of the first ones up.  Good grief!  He barely went up to get his certificate before running and crying back to the arms of his teacher's aide.  I was so embarrassed!  Thankfully everyone thought he was just nervous to be in front of people, but that also didn't help me with him as his teacher and the aide coddled him and let him be the special helper for the rest of the day.  What am I going to do with this kid?!

Before the awards

Getting the award for "caring".  He sure did care--that he didn't get the other award.  Geez!

The last day of school one of the parents brought autograph dogs for everyone.  They signed them all in class.  And of course, many brought presents for the teacher.  Kai's teacher, Ms. Korte, collects beads from Brighton, so we that morning we went to the store in the Springs and Kai picked out a pretty bead for her collection.  Everyone thought it was a great gift!  (The autograph dog has become it's own drama.  Kai says he doesn't like having everyone's name on it and he wants to color over it.  Reid and I won't let him.  He's refused to allow the dog in his room since.)

I can't believe he's going to be in first grade in just a few months.  And then he'll be gone all day long!  Yikes!  I'm not sure I'm ready for that.  And at the same time, there is something about that that can be nice.  I'm hoping Finn won't start climbing the walls, though.  This last day of kindergarten Finn was crying that he missed his brother while he was at school.  He was so happy to find out that it was the last day!

Spring is springing

I didn't realize how long this winter was going until I noticed that my white lilac bush that I LOVE still had no flowers on it.  I LOVE the smell of those flowers (and so do the bees) and I was missing them this year.  On May 21st we went outside to find buds on our trees and bushes.  Hooray!

Bree woke up from her nap while we were looking at the flowers, so I found her a safe place to hang out in the car.  Finn thought it was great and wanted to join her.  Unfortunately all of our outside time wiped him out and he ended up cuddling up next to me on the couch and crashing right before I had to go pick up Kai from school.  Somehow I managed to get both him and a sleeping Bree into their car seats in the car without waking them up and picking Kai up from the bus stop.  Bree woke up before Finn and had a great time hanging out with her brother.  Kai just adores her and is making an excellent big brother.  Finn is great with her, too, just struggling with what it means to be gentle!

And this is what happens when dad gets home (sometimes).  See that forgotten dinner there??