Dinner With My Siblings

Wendy came into town for the weekend for one of her friends wedding.  Her flight came in yesterday morning and she came right over to my house after she landed.
It was Wendy's first time meeting Allie and she got to hold her for a long time.  Allie was being fussy before Wendy came and then she snuggled right into Wendy and took a nice long nap while we sister chatted.

After Tony got home from work Wendy and I headed to my parents house.  Sherri quickly met us there and we all chatted with my parents while we waiting for Julie to meet us.  After Julie got there we four headed out to the Red Iguana for dinner.  Kevin drove down from Logan and met us at the restaurant.
It was a 40 minute wait, but we didn't really mind because we didn't have any kids with us and plenty to talk about.  We all enjoyed our yummy Mexican food and had fun at the restaurant chatting and eating.

After eating dinner we all then went to have some dessert at Leatherby's.  I drove with Kevin and we had a nice chat.  I saw my friend Marissa and her husband at Leatherby's and that was fun.  We all enjoyed our ice cream and enjoyed each others company.  It was so nice just spending time together laughing, talking, and of course eating.  I am lucky to have so many siblings and that we generally get a long pretty well.  We did miss Teagan and will definitely have to do this more often!

Everyday Fun

Sleepy Josh - Birthday Boy (yesterday)

This afternoon I went outside to see what Josh was doing and I found him asleep on the swing.  He hasn't taken a nap for a very long time so I was very surprised to find him asleep.
Josh and Tyler like to stay up way too late goofing off and talking and then they wake up super early.  They really need to learn to sleep in.
I was worried about him getting over heated and sunburned so I tried to move him inside.  He woke up when I tried to move him so he walked inside and laid on the couch.  He fell back to sleep pretty quick, but woke up after I took his picture.
Josh officially turned 5 yesterday.  I can't believe it.  We didn't do much since it was Sunday.  I pretty much just let him play the Wii and hangout more then I normally would.  He got to be highlighted at preschool for his birthday today.  He took fruit snack to share with all his classmates.  We love our Josh very much!

Weight: 43 lbs (67%)

Height: 43 3/4 inches (69%)

Holding Baby Allie

This morning before school the kids wanted to hold Allie.  She was awake and happy, so it was a good time to let them hold her.  Allie was pretty content to be held by her siblings.  She just looked up at Tyler happy as can be.  I am sure she was wishing Tyler would move his arm under her head better.  I fixed that after I took the picture.

Megan begged for it to be her turn while Tyler was holding Allie.  Megan asks to hold Allie multiple times a day.  Generally she asks while I am feeding her or at a time that isn't good for being held by a two year hold.  So she was very happy to get her turn to hold Allie. She likes being a big sister very much.  She just doesn't always like the attention that Allie gets instead of her.

Josh wanted a turn to hold Allie but then after a minute of holding her he said that she was stinky and didn't want to hold her anymore.  This is the best picture I got of him holding Allie.  The other pictures were of Josh with a stink face, silly kid.  Allie wasn't even poopy.  Megan was happy to have another turn holding Allie when Josh was done so fast.  I am really happy that all the kids love Allie so much and they are all so sweet with her.

Right before bedtime:

Megan and Tyler couldn't get enough.  After baths and before bedtime they enjoyed some more snuggles with Allie. 

Josh was just enjoying the show. 

Soccer Starts Again

Josh enjoying his snack while watching Tyler play soccer.

Megan loves having snacks at the soccer games. 

Allie's first trip out (besides to Grandma's house).  She slept through the whole game.  It was great.

Tyler playing soccer.  It wasn't his best game.  He was kind of lazy and then played goalie where he sat in the box messing around the whole second half of the game.  I have talked to him about that so I hope that he does better the next game.  Silly kid.

Allie's Two Weeks Old

Allie had her two week appointment yesterday.  Here are her stats:

Weight: 7 lbs 6 oz (26%)

Height: 20.5 inches (53%)

Head: 35.5 cm (63%)

The pediatrician said that she is looking really good.  She still has a sad rash on her bum, but she said that with time and lots of bum cream it should get better.  She also said that it just takes some babies more time for their system to figure out the whole pooping thing and it should slow down for Allie.  Tony and I sure hope so because she cries so hard when we change her diaper.  Sometimes she even has big tears coming out of her eyes.  It's super sad.

Besides crying with the diaper changes, Allie is an amazing baby.  She is a good sleeper.  She wakes up twice a night to eat and generally goes right back to sleep.  Megan generally wakes up at least that much.  Allie has started to be awake more during the day.  She still sleeps most of the time, but now she has more awake time.  She is generally content to lay on the floor and hangout.  She does get tired of that and likes some snuggle time being held.  

Allie smiles a lot during her sleep.  She even giggles.  It is so cute and fun to see her little smiles.  It gets us excited for when she starts smiling while awake.  I think she has a little dimple, but it's not as pronounced as Megan's dimple.  Tyler, Josh, and Megan still totally love her.  Tony and I love her lots too.  We all love our little Allie bug.

Josh's 5th Birthday Party

We celebrated Josh's birthday a week early because both sets of grandparents are going to be out of town next weekend.  I really wanted Josh to have a great birthday with lots of love and support from the family.  I didn't want the birth of Allie to take away from his special day.  Josh isn't one to really show his emotions about certain things, but either way I wanted him to feel the love.

Luckily most of the family was able to come and support Josh.  Josh loves all of his cousins so much and loved having them all over to our house.  All the kids played really well together and because the weather was so nice they were able to play some outside and the rest of the time down stairs.

Once most people were there we had Josh open his presents.  He loved all the presents and all the attention while he opened them.  He got two Wii games and he has been obsessed with them ever since.  He has really gotten into the Wii lately and loves to have Tony come down stairs and play with him.  I think Tony really likes that him and Josh can play these games together. 

After Josh opened his presents we had cake and ice cream.  Tony decided to get a better cake then we normally do, so he went and ordered one from Reams.  It was chocolate with whipped cream frosting.  It was pricey, but tasted really good.  I knew I didn't want to stress about making a cake or cupcakes.  Also Sherri brought lots of cheese sticks from a pizza place by her that I really like so we were able to have some of those as well. 

We chatted with the family and had a great time.  I think Josh really liked his party.  He did tell me he wanted a surprise party.  It was a little too late to make it a surprise party since he already knew about the party, silly guy.

Josh's actual birthday is on the 14th.  I can't believe he is almost 5 years old.  In so many ways he has grown up so much.  He is becoming a little person and not just a little kid.  We love him so much and feel so lucky to have him in our family.

Josh blew out the candle before the song was over, he was too excited to wait. 

Josh picked out his cake from Reams.  It was blue with a cool Batman on it.

The grandpa's taking their turn with baby Allie. 

So Cute!

 I gave Allie a bath this morning.  She seems to like the water.  She has had really bad diaper rash so I wanted to try a new ointment/treatment that my friend told me about.
I asked my friends on Facebook for advice about diaper rash and I got a lot of different ideas.  So I decided to take the most common suggestions and try that.  I had three or four people tell me to use Maalox - which I thought was so weird.  I had never heard that before.  Also a bunch of people said to use Aquaphor.  I had a friend tell me to mix Maalox and Aquaphor and put it on the rash after a bath.  She also told me to just use baby shampoo to wash the baby.  So I did that I am hoping that it will help her bum.  I figured it couldn't make it worse.  It didn't seem to hurt her when I put on the paste that I made, so I was glad about that.
After I got her dressed and fed she was happy as a clam.  So I put out this fun giraffe blanket that my friend, Kim, gave Allie and we had a photo shoot.  Megan wanted to take a picture with Allie and she really wanted to be facing her, so that is what we did.  Megan loves Allie so much.  She tells her she loves her all the time and tells her she's cute as a button.
Tyler and Josh still really love her too.  As soon as they come home from school they ask where baby Allie is.
She is a great baby.  She wakes up twice at night to eat.  Megan has been waking up more then that.  Allie is great.  We all love her so much.

Josh's First Day of Preschool

 Josh is officially back to school.  Tony took him this morning and said Josh had no problem walking right in and acting like he owned the joint.  It does help that he went to that preschool last year.
Josh didn't say much about school when he got back.  He did a cute art paper with his hand print.  He did tell me he had fishy crackers for a snack.  He must have had a lot of them because he wasn't hungry for lunch.  It is so nice that he can go to preschool and get the help he needs for his speech and learn what he needs to for Kindergarten.  We love our Josh and can't believe he is almost 5 years old.

It was kind of nice just having the girls in the morning.  We had to take Allie into see the pediatrician about her jaundice.  After taking her weight and checking her out, Dr. Eyre wasn't worried about the jaundice so we didn't even have to get her blood drawn.  She did recommend changing to sensitive formula to see if that helps Allie poop a little more regular.  I hope it works and we don't have to put her on soy formula.  We had to do that with Megan and it was a pain in the bum.  Sam's Club and Costco don't sell soy, so it costs a lot more money.  I am staying positive that she wont need soy.  We got some more sample of formula from the doctor, so that was good.  Gotta love free formula!

Allie's First Bath

We were going to give Allie her bath yesterday, but it just didn't happen.  It was kind of a crazy day.  Allie didn't sleep very good the night before and messed up our schedule.  She had to get her blood drown because her biliruben level was too high when we left the hospital.  We found out that it's still high, so we will take her in tomorrow to get her blood drawn again.  We had to do it with the other three, so why not her too. 

So we ended up giving Allie her first home bath this morning.  Her umbilical cord came off yesterday so it was nice to be able to give her a real bath and not just a sponge bath.
When we first put her in the bath, she didn't like it.  She cried for a minute and then figured out it felt nice to sit in the nice warm water.  She was a happy baby until Tony started to wash her.  She didn't like having to come out of the water.  She also has a bit of a red bum, so the soap might of hurt her bum a bit.
Once she was all dried (and had her binky) she was pretty happy to just laid on the towel.  We wanted her bum to have some time to air out before we put a diaper back on.  While she was airing out she pooped, twice.  She has been pooping a lot, but it's been just small amounts of kind of wet poop - hence the red bum.

I got the after bath picture with Tony and Allie together.  I love the smell of a freshly bathed baby.  Baby shampoo smells the best on a babies head.  She was definitely ready for a bottle and a nap after all that bath tub action.  She snuggled right in and fell asleep after her feeding.  I was tempted to just sit there with her, but I knew I needed to put her down.  We don't want her getting used to us holding her all the time because then she wont want to sleep on her own at night time.
Speaking of night time.  Yesterday she did pretty good the first half of the night and then decided that at about 1:45 am she wanted to be wide awake for over an hour.  She wasn't crying or fussy, just wide awake.  So Allie and I hung out in the rocking chair waiting to see what she was going to do.  I finally got her to go back asleep, but she didn't want to sleep by herself.  So I ended up sleeping with her in the rocking chair.  Bad idea, my back hurts really bad today.  Well my back has been hurting since I delivered, so sleeping in the chair just made it worse.  But now Allie is sleeping in her crib.  Tony took Josh to Grandma Margie's.  He wanted to go to her house and play.  Apparently Josh didn't miss me from being gone from home for the past five nights.  Megan wanted to stay home with us.  Lucky us.