Great friends

My good friend Chandy lives out of state and so whenever she comes here, we love to see her as much as we can. So, Em, Meliss, Jamie and I got together with our kids at a park and let them play while we "attempted" to talk and catch up.

What were we thinking? It was so hot and in the middle of the day. My little 3 were happy for about 45 minutes in the shade and then it got way too hot for them. Plus, I made the mistake of not getting them their nap earlier that day (and you know my schedule) since we went and visited some wonderful family friends "(my other little 3)".


Anyway, we did manage to get a pic with all the kids although Jax was not happy about it. Thanks Eli for holding him even though he was crying. And cute little Cash and Boston weren't looking up. Sorry Em and Melissa. But Em did manage to bring her 4 week old baby with her - you're amazing Emma :) Thanks so much for getting together - maybe next time, we'll manage to stay a bit longer and make sure we've got our nap in. Love you guys so much! Your kids are absolutely adorable.

We Love Our Jumper!

For anyone that has recently held our little cuties - so sorry for the bruises on your legs and the tired arms :) We got a jumper a while ago and these 3 LOVE it!

It only took Austin about 2 times in the jumper to figure it out and once he did, he hasn't stopped jumping. He even tries to jump while he eats sometimes - he's so cute and screams happy screams while in it.

Rio was the next one to figure it out but she's so funny too! She just wants to swing around in circles more than jump. Every once in a while, we'll catch her jumping like crazy but mostly she just swirls around and smiles. Such a lady :)

And oh, our little Jax. He has been the funniest to watch with this new toy. He cried the first few times we put him in it so I knew he wasn't quite ready for it just yet. We kept trying though and he finally started to like it and wouldn't jump - but he would gallop. It was so funny! He did that for a few weeks and now he jumps like Austin does - he totally loves it! One day, uncle Funky (or Andrew or Uncle Dew-dew as Ty calls him) was over and I walked him out as he was leaving while holding Rio. Austin went down for his nap so I left Jax to keep jumping for a minute. I came back in seriously about a minute and a half later and here is what I found:

How cute is that? He jumped himself to sleep :)

First Family Trip

So sorry that it has been awhile since I posted last. (and this post is a little long - sorry) We have been having a really fun summer though. I will post some more in the next few days or so to talk about some fun things. But for now...I wanted to talk about our first family trip! We had so much fun but it took a little longer to get there than expected.

We went to Lake Tahoe for the 4th of July with Spence's family. Our bro-in-law Mike's family has a house there and we love it. We've been there a few other times and it is so much fun to be able to go somewhere all together. We did miss grandma and grandpa Morris though :( - they weren't able to come with us. Anyway, we were planning on leaving Thursday morning and then I suddenly thought that we should just leave late Wednesday night and make it to Winemucca and stay overnight and then we could drive the rest of the way the next day and get there sooner. So... we ended up packing up the entire house - literally! I wish I would have taken a pic of the back of our car. But, the babies were never bored and had lots of familiar toys to play with. (at least that is what I kept telling myself as we took trip after trip out to the car to add "just one more thing.")

Well, we went to a gas station here to check tire pressure and it was broken so we decided to drive to Wendover and just check it there. We made it there about midnight and Spence started to check the tires and then it happened...

Two valves off of our tires just snapped as he put on the gauge and LONG story short - we had to take our spare which happened to be a "real tire" not a "doughnut" (thank goodness) and jack up the car and change one tire (the other one wasn't leaking after Macgyver, I mean Spencer, used his magic skills to fix it). So here we are at a Chevron at 12:30am in Wendover with our 3 sleeping babies in the back and then the jack gave! Seriously? I couldn't believe it. Here we are watching our car roll back slowly and all I'm thinking is, "please, please stop rolling!" Fortunately, we hadn't moved the spare and so the car rolled back onto it which stopped the axle from braking. SO... we ended up calling AAA (thanks dad for giving us that gift - love you!) and then came about 1:15am to help us with their monster jack since ours was now totally broken. You know, sometimes you just gotta laugh at what life gives you otherwise, you could end up really angry!

The AAA man was great and fixed it pretty quickly but by this time, Jax had woken up and was ready to get out of his car seat so that was a fun addition to the chaos. Luckily, he was so good though. So... by now it was 1:30am and we still had at least hours to get to Winemucca for our reservation. But, we wised up and figured that we shouldn't drive that far so we drove an hour and a half to Elko and had to call and cancel our reservation and we stayed in Elko instead. We got there about 3am and had to haul in the kids pack and play and their food/diapers, etc for the next day and we got to bed around 4am. Kids woke up at 7am and the day started again.

Spence took the car that morning first thing to get looked at (which is another long story) after we had fed the kids and then the four of us just tried to be entertained in our room for a few hours until he came back with our newly fixed tires. We left Elko around 11am and off we went! Of course we had to stop every 3 1/2 hours to feed the babies so our first stop was in Lovelock and we found a nice little park to stop at and feed them. Yes, they're in their PJ's still, we didn't want to find the suitcase with their clothes that morning - it would have taken another hour to pack everything back up. But here we are. We stopped as a gas station to warm up the water and then we were good to go.

After an hour or so stop in beautiful Lovelock, we were off! The babies we so good in the car!!! I was so happy about that. We ended up having to stop in Reno to pick up Spence's brother Marc at the airport and try to stuff him into our car. I ended up having a nice, cozy seat on the center console for the next hour and a half until we made it to Tahoe. But... we made it!!! My brilliant idea of leaving early didn't do us any good - other than a fun story to tell to the kids one day.

Anyway, we had a great 5 days in Tahoe with the fam. Spence and I went running in the mornings and it is so beautiful! We love it! We went on a lot of walks (it got cold at night for the babies so that is why they are so bundled up)

Others went to the south side to go shopping and on some hikes. We also went to the beach one day - not to swim of course since the water is SO COLD! But the weather was perfectly warm and it was so fun to be there. Aunt Erin and cousin Tyler are here with us.

We spent the 4th on a walk, going to get ice-cream and having a BBQ at the house. They do fireworks out on the lake too which is so fun! What an awesome experience! Kristin and I stayed back with the sleeping babies but next year, we'll maybe attempt the loud sounds and late night. But you know us, we were sticking to that schedule no matter what on this trip :)

We left Monday around 10:30am (Cali time) and drove the whole way back with 2 feeding stops along the way and made it home around 10:30pm. It took over an hour and a half to just get to Tahoe City! (yah, we are real smart leaving the day after the holiday - oops!) The babies did awesome the whole drive except for a slight "falling apart" from Wendover to Tooele. They are such good babies - we are so lucky and blessed!

Thanks Kristin and Mike for letting us go there and Mike for cooking such great meals for us too! And of course thanks to all the aunts and uncles that helped us feed the babes while we were there - we love you guys! What a fun trip - we made it!

Our Little Noise Maker!

Our cute Jax is so fun! When it comes to being noisy - Jax is definitely the loudest! He makes 3 very distinct "Jax" sounds lately. (and many others for certain needs of course) He has completely found his voice and so since then, about a month or so ago, he loves to hear it. It's funny because even when he first came home, he was very loud and grunty and we attributed it to his reflux mostly but now I'm wondering if he really just likes to hear himself. He is so cute! We finally after MANY attempts - got him to preform on cue. Apparently, we are all a little camera shy at our house. Anyway, here you go... this is Jax performing his loudest sound and one he does the most.

Will it be an inny or outy?

When Austin was about 2 months old, we started to notice his belly button poke out a bit and we were thinking it was no big deal since my nephew Zak had had the same thing happen to his belly button and now it is fine. However, it started to get A LOT worse and when we went to their 2 month doctor appnt, his doctor said that sometimes if it doesn't go away by age 5 or so, they eventually need surgery. I was thinking, "no way!" How sad for him to have to go that long with his giant belly button! They are called herniated belly buttons and are apparently pretty common. They don't hurt them at all and they make a really squishy sound when pushed back in which Spence did, not me! It made me nervous and squeamish to do that.

Here is his before pics: (Yah, it really was that big! WOW! - now you know why we were scared)

However, we are pleased to report that Austin's belly button FINALLY went down. It actually has been down for about 6 weeks or so but it looks great - you'd never even know!

We're 5 Months!

The babies turned 5 months on the 30th of May - YEAH!! (adjusted - they are now 3 1/2 months) I say it every month but time flies by so quickly! They are so big and doing so well. Happy 5 months you three - we love you so much :)
Here's a pick of them at 5 months: I took two since some were looking, some were not on the first - you know how pics go. We'll never have a great family photo - I better get used to it hu? :)

Our Daily Routine

I have had a lot of people ask me about my daily schedule and how many times we feed and change the babies so here you go for all that are interested. Our babies are still wanting to nap a little after each feeding so they aren't yet on the 3 nap schedule unfortunately - we tried to push that and they were angry and would fall asleep anyway and then someone would get off schedule so we'll be patient and wait for that day when they are ready for it.
*I always have at least one other helper to feed the babies during the day. My dad comes every Monday and Friday during the day and Spence's dad comes on Friday afternoons. Sundays we have lots of aunts and/or uncles and ward members/neighbors that come help me since Spence is gone pretty much all day. At the babies last feeding at 8pm, Spence and I and either my mom (W), Spence's mom (M,T) Aunt Erin(W) or Uncle Jon (Th) are here to help since at this time, they all need a little extra love before bed.

Between 5:45-6am - first pumping begins and takes about 35 min
6:30am - babies start to talk with each other in their shared crib still
6:50am- start changing diapers and warm up bottles
7:00-7:20am - babies eat breakfast
7:20-8:00am - play, sing, read books or tummy time
8:00am- start the first nap for the babies
8:00-8:30am - I pump and eat breakfast
8:30-10:00am - make bottles for the day and try to sneak in some house chores while I'm trying to play with the babies too since most days...

*9:00am - Rio is up at this time usually so we play or she helps me clean :)
*9:00 or 9:30am - Jax wakes up - he joins in
*10:00am - we usually have to wake up Austin

10:00am - now everyone's awake so we start changing diapers again, get dressed for the day and warm up bottles and get their daily vitamins ready
10:15-10:30am - babies eat again
10:30-11:30am - play time with the babies - such as work on holding rattles, rolling and sitting in our bumbos
11:30am-1:15pm - all babies nap during this time
*sometimes Rio and/or Jax wakes up though during this time
11:30am-12:00pm-pump again
12:00-1:15pm - I try to get myself ready for the day - yes sadly, most days I don't get myself ready until this time unless I have to go somewhere earlier. Pretty pathetic, I know. I also finish my housework and/or yard work for the day during this time (yes, I assign myself specific chores for each day during the week - it makes it easier to feel like I'm accomplishing things). I also eat some lunch.

1:15pm - start to change diapers and warm up bottles
1:30-1:45pm - babies eat lunch
1:45-3:00pm - babies awake and playing in bouncers or swings or any of the above play things
*I watch Family Feud while we feed them :) - I'm seriously going to be on that show one day - I totally love it!
3:00-4:30pm - babies nap
3:00-4:30pm - I usually try to work on my http://www.teenesteemcouncil.com/ blog, check emails or run errands if needed depending on the day
4:30pm - all usually are awake now and we play for a bit before we get ready to eat
Sometime between 4:30 and 4:45pm - change diapers, warm bottles
4:45 or 5:00pm - babies eat
5:00-6:00pm - some babies nap :) - I know I must sound very strict with the schedule but Jax does not want to nap during this time and Rio and Austin do and if they don't we are in for a world of hurt for the next 2 hours so we let them nap and Jax and I play.
*I also have to pump during this time and get dinner ready or Spence does for me - dinner, not pump that is :)
6:00-6:30pm - pump again
6:30 - 7:00pm - Jax still awake so he plays with Spence usually while I pump and then he watches us eat and we watch a little Seinfield and Friends or Office depending on what is on.
7:00pm-8:00pm- all babies are awake and playing now - we try and go for a walk or do more tummy time or get the babies to talk with us
8:00pm- warm bottles, get Jax and Rio's Prevacid ready, change diapers and change babies into their PJ's
8:10pm-8:35 or 8:45pm - babies eat and get burped
Between 8:30 and 8:45pm - babies are usually in bed for the night :)
9:30-10:00pm - pump for the last time during the day
10:00pm-12:00am - Spence and I watch a movie or our "shows" for the day but now everything is over mostly for the season so we'll have to start watching "Harry" again. But who are we kidding? I usually fall asleep pumping or sometime between this time anyway and miss out watching our "shows" anyway.
12:00am-12:30am - sometimes I pump again depending on if I need to - I'm getting a lot of lumps these days if I wait too long in between although I hardly get anything out of it. I'm almost ready to be done. I'm not producing as much lately so I don't think it's really a benefit to them now. They're only getting 1/4 breast milk and 3/4 formula. Plus, now that the babies are awake a lot more during the day and I hate to take the time to pump instead of play with them so they have to sit in their swings. I don't like that so I'm thinking at the end of June, I'll be done. I can't imagine how much more time I'll have to do other things with the babies and I'm looking forward to it. And then, I can also have the time to start exercising better and work on losing this excess skin and bump on my stomach that still exists! Or.... maybe I'll just make an appointment with the nearest plastic surgeon :)