Complete

My husband's wardrobe is now complete. He is now the proud owner of his very own belt buckle. He excitedly walked out of The Country Connection (redneck superstore) wearing his new belt buckle on his belt holding up his Wrangler jeans. This southern California boy is now a full-fledged southerner and very proud of it. We will just have to wait and see if he ever wears his buckle along with a Hawaiian print shirt and flip-flops.

For those of you that aren't aware - he has become a die-hard race fan, as in Nascar. He watches the race every week and is proudly teaching his daughters to know drivers' names, car numbers, AND their sponsors.

Note: Just minutes after I posted this, Chuck went to "check the picture". He determined that the picture of his buckle was not good enough. So now this picture is "Chuck approved". Silly boy.

Bunch o' Thoughts

Here's a few random pictures and things that have happened around our house lately.

My mom, sister Christine, and I went to Time out for Women. We had a great time being with each other and friends. I would recommend going if you ever have the chance. Check out next year's schedule here. Thanks go out to our wonderful husbands who took care of the kids so we could go. It was a great opportunity to get the chance to be reminded of the wonderful role that I have to be a wife and mother. I am truly grateful for my Heavenly Father who has blessed me with such a great family.

For a girl who's not super girly, she still has her dreams set on princess.

This was one of my recent projects. I have really wanted to hang some family pictures lately. Luckily, before we moved, we had a very talented friend take some pictures of our family on the W&L campus that we loved living by for the last 2 years. I love looking at the pictures of my beautiful family at a place that I love and the the reminder that families are forever. See all the pictures here. (Just so you know, right when we were about to start our photo session, Leland tackled Lucy on the sidewalk, thus the crying children. Might as well document how life really is, right, not just the smiley times.)

Another project - We hung curtains on a shower rod to close off the crib from the rest of the room. The baby's room has no door on it and it is also the computer room, craft/sewing room, and storage as you can tell from all the boxes (that I'm sure will be in that same spot, unpacked for a long time). I wanted to close off her bed so I could work in the room while she was sleeping. It's worked out pretty well so far.

We have a rule that if you don't stay in your room at night, you don't get to sleep in your bed and you have to sleep in the bathroom. Usually, we will let them go back into their own bed after a little while. But one night, Leland fell asleep right next to the potty seat cuddling up to the bottom of the toilet. It makes me re-think my cleaning habits. We might have to change our rule if we ever have little boys.

Lucy adores Charly and wants to be by her all the time. Today, Charly was napping on our bed, so that's were Lucy wanted to nap as well. I love watching my kids sleep, there's something so peaceful about it. Lucy almost always puts her arms up like this while sleeping. When we are in the car, that's how I can tell she is really tired - she puts her arms up behind her head.

Baptism

Last weekend, we went to MD to celebrate my niece Leah's 8th birthday and baptism. We are so excited for the decision she has made and what a wonderful example she is to our girls.

The girls always love to play with their cousins. These 5 kiddos are within 2 years of each other, it's been so fun watching them grow up together and become such great friends.

At the baptism, all the cousins sang "I am a Child of God," while Afton (the oldest cousin) played the piano.

Bumbo

Charly is 3 months old and I decided to try out the Bumbo for her. She's getting a flat side on her head, so nicely pointed out by my sister this weekend, so she needs something more than the bouncy seat.

At first she did not like it at all. She screamed and arched her back.

She finally got the hang of it and now loves sitting in it.


Lucy wants to sit next to her whenever I put her in the bumbo. It's so cute.

I love how much my girls love each other. They all really enjoy playing with each other. Poor Charly gets "dressed up" probably more than she likes and can do nothing about it.

She's become a smiley baby and will laugh at you too. It's so fun to have a little baby in the house. She's been sleeping through the night, which is great, but it's the older 2 that wake us up in the middle of night.

Lucy at 3 months

Leland at 3 months

I don't think any of them look alike. Do you think so?

Limping

After our nice morning walk, a few hours later was not so nice. Lucy and Leland were playing on the floor, when Lucy went to stand up and she wailed in pain and crumbled to the floor. She refused to stand while bearing weight on her left leg or walk. She crawled around and whimpered in pain for the next few hours.

We couldn't figure out what was going on, there were no visual cues of an injury. No bruising or swelling. In manipulating her leg around we narrowed down the pain to her knee. After she woke up for her nap, still in pain, we took her to the emergency room.

They did an x-ray and could not find any fractures, which was great news, but still no reason why she was in so much pain. The only thing the Dr. in ER could come up with was poor fitting shoes and told me to wait it out about 4 days, then call her pediatrician. By the time we left the hospital Lucy was merely limping and would stand on her leg.

Taking toys in Lucy's little backpack to the ER was a big hit. This Mr Potato Head set I got for our last hospital visit kept Lucy entertained for most of our almost 4-hour stay.

She continued to limp around for the next few days. It was very sad to watch and I did not believe that her shoes were causing this much pain, so I called her pediatrician. He was great. (I LOVE our office here and especially this particular doctor). He played a little game with her to get her to walk and run around the exam room. He know right away what it was.

Final diagnosis - Toxic synovitis. It's not a big deal and went away completely the next day. I can't figure out why it is "toxic"!?!?

I'm so grateful that she is fine and it wasn't anything major. I'm grateful for the good friends who so willingly watched Leland for us while we were at the ER. Lucy is going through a major growth spurt right now and clumsily falls over periodically. She is bigger than most 3 year olds that we have been around. She can already share clothes and shoes with Leland.

Trails

On Sunday morning, we went for a walk in our neighborhood trails. It was a beautiful day and the girls loved being outside. There were quite a few trails through the woods. We had fun exploring. The little adventure made me want to go camping; it's been a while. We also found some short cuts to the park and tennis courts.

The girls enjoyed playing in the creek, throwing rocks, and getting dirty. At one point, I looked at Lucy and she was ankle deep in the creek and didn't seem to notice.

Chuck got a Blackberry from his job. I'm always teasing him that he uses it too much and has an addiction. He always claims he has a legitimate reason to be on it.

Just a little proof that Chuck is addicted to his blackberry. Here he was using it to find our GPS location at first for fun, but then we did need it in order to figure out which trails to take home.

Just so you can tease Chuck - last night he woke up screaming in the middle of the night about his phone and how he couldn't find the widgets he wanted. Crazy boy. He may need an intervention.

Sleepover

We had cousins come over for a sleepover while their parents went to the U2 concert. We all had so much fun, but with 6 kids 4 yrs-old and younger it was a bit chaotic at times. The girls love playing with cousins and I love watching them play.

They enjoyed eating dinner outside on the back porch. However, the holes in the table were oh so tempting to drop their peas through. The squirrels in our backyard enjoyed a healthy dinner of peas that night.

Museum Day

Last Saturday was Smithsonian Museum Day. We took advantage and visited 2 local museums for free.

First, was the American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar. It was full of tons of information and interactive displays. It was fun for the girls to run around to the displays and watch the movies. Chuck downloaded the audio tour onto his phone before we went, so it included even more information.

There was a kid's area that talked about children during the war and it just broke my heart to read some of the things they dealt with. They also had dress ups. These are about the cutest Confederate and Union soldiers I've ever seen!

After a picnic lunch, we headed to the Museum of the Confederacy. This museum had tons of amazing artifacts from the Civil War. This was not as great for the girls, so luckily there was a nice garden and fountain outside that I let them play around while Chuck finished the museum. He also downloaded an audio tour for this museum that I think was worth the time.

Entrance to the museum included a guided tour of the White House of the Confederacy where Jefferson Davis lived while he served as President of the Confederacy. I enjoyed the tour and learned a lot. The girls where pretty good, considering it was way past nap time.

Leland said she wanted a picture by this cannon because it was like the ones by VMI. She misses and talks about Lexington more than I thought she would.
Charlotte has discovered her fingers and takes after me by sucking her 2 middle fingers, just as I did as a kid. Seriously, is this genetic or something? Chuck and I both sucked fingers and thumbs as kids and now our children do.