Survival Mode

It's a miracle we all survived in this house this week. I need to write this down for posterity's sake. It'll all be really funny one day and everyone loves to hears funny/crazy stories about themselves as children. So, at the risk of my making myself sound like the world's worst mother, I share my experiences of this week.
I say week, but it was really only 2 days. I hope I can remember it all. 
I decided to start potty training Crew on Monday, which in itself is stressful enough. That was going well enough, I was determined to keep my cool on that front no matter what, and I think I did pretty darn well. Considering I had Macey's experience to compare to, this was a cake walk. We had minimal accidents, and some success, hooray! Anyway- the kids were in the kitchen and I had ran down stairs to use the bathroom, brush my teeth or something. I just know it wasn't to get dressed or put make up on, because I did neither that day. I had every intention too, but things got a little bit crazy. So, I walk in the living room and Macey is holding a pair of scissors and a smug little look on her face and Crew is standing there and I just know she's cut his hair! So I ask her and yes, she had. So I get after her, put the scissors away and then notice she looks a little different too. She cut her own hair as well! Man!!! THANKFULLY she did a pretty decent job. She gave her self side swoop bangs and cut the sides pretty short, but not extreme enough tell she now has a mini mullet. Oh, thank heaven! And Crew's hair is short enough so no damage was really done. Major crisis averted.

A little later that day Macey had asked me to cut up some oranges for her, which I was happy to do, just not that very second. I ran up stairs to change my laundry and up comes Macey asking for a band-aid because she cut her finger on her door. Hmmm, how did you cut your finger on your door?  I dunno, I just did and I need a band-aid. Oh, Crew got out 2 knives and he cut up all my oranges! WHAT???? Just then Crew comes up with an owie and also needs a band-aid. By some miracle there was no blood involved, I'm not sure how because the two knives that "crew" got out- Macey did indeed help out. were mom's super sharp like 8" bread knife and a sharp little paring knife. And sure enough there were 2 oranges manged and all over the floor and island. Lovely. Crisis averted, yet again.

Several times that day Crew had gone out to the garage, opened the big garage doors and dragged lawn mowers, weed eaters, and edges all over the place: front yard, back yard, drive way. All while buck naked. (potty training, remember?) Awesome. The best, though, was when I caught him having pushed the push mower in the garage, taken the gas cap off, carries a gas can over and was attempting to put gasoline in the mower. :-/ Disaster waiting to happen. THANKFULLY, the gas can was empty. Crises averted, other time.

The following morning, I was down in my room feeding Piper, Benton in the shower, Mom comes down to the kitchen and hears all sorts of noises coming from the garage. Sure enough, Crew and Macey had gotten my keys opened the garage, gotten into "Amy Wendy" (the mini-van's given name, we have the same bday), and went to town! Turned on the windshield wipers, popped the hood, turned on all the lights, somehow un-programmed all my radio stations, reset my clock, brought in Benton's giant old RC car and who knows what else. All of this is nothing- most of it's happened before, sadly, but this time Macey STARTED THE CAR!! Holy Crap! I think it scared her because she immediately turned it off and my mom took care of things. Wheww! I could only imagine how badly that could've gone. Yet again, crisis averted.

After that fun morning I went to the gym and everyone cooled down and we went to swim/play/lunch date. It was great, we all had fun. I was thinking we'd have a good rest of the day. Just then I hear something snap on the back of the van. Crew had pulled on and broken the license plate frame. Why? I really don't think we intentionally did it, I think we was trying to lift the hatch for me, but nonetheless, it's broken. It's sad. Poor Amy Wendy.

Today we had a wonderful morning. The kids were in good moods, super helpful, we got a lot of chores done with minimal whining, it was great. I had just done Macey's hair and was finishing up getting myself ready when I turned the corner and found Macey about to cut the power cord to my lap top (which was plugged in) with a pair of heavy duty plyers. Seriously, had I been ONE second later.... Man oh man. Another crisis averted.

I think that's all of them. Unless there's something else I just don't want to remember. Writing all this has made my realize we really must have guardian angels watching over us and our babies. Any of these instances could have ended pretty badly, but somehow they didn't. I am attributing that to the blessing of guardian angels. But I'm not completely mental. The garage door now has a child proof lock on it, the knife drawer and cabinet where we keep the keys have child proof locks on them as well. I'm not taking my chances, they can get into trouble in a manner of minutes, those two.

UPDATE:
Yesterday while I was getting ready for the day, Crew climbed up on the counter to help himself to a snack, and managed to get zbar and granola bar crumbs all over the counter and floor, as well as spill some orange juice on the counter and it dribbled down the drawers and onto the floor. I found this lovely mess and clean it up, wiped up the OJ and moved on to the next thing. A while later we were getting ready to leave and I ask Crew- who is potty training- if he had gone potty today. He replied "Yes! In the kitchen!" Turns out that puddle of orange juice wasn't orange juice after all......

Monday night I told the kids it was time to pick up the family room. So Crew "parked" his ride-on toy in his "garage" aka the fire place. I snapped a picture of that silly boy, parking his car with his naked bum. I posted it on facebook and insta. Aunt Naomi wins for best caption "Gives new meaning to the ole ash hole, eh?" Classic!

First thing this morning he decided his cozy coupes needed a wash. So he got the hose and opened "crew's car wash" by the time he was done they were sparkling clean and the entire porch was soaked.

Macey gave him a make over today with grandma's make up......

Tres Meses

I think I blinked and Piper has somehow turned 3 months old. I honestly feel like she was born just a couple weeks ago. It's so sad how time goes by faster with every child.  Watch, the next one is probably gonna be born a pre-schooler.
Here are a few little tid bits and info on Piper's life
I'm not really sure how much she weighs, but at 2 months she was 11 lbs 7 oz, and that is just so crazy to me, so I'm guessing she's 12 lbs something. I'll be a little more specific next month. :)

She has the Chubbiest little thighs!! Neither Macey or Crew had rolly polly chunky baby thighs. They are adorable and delicious and I am loving that chub!

She is constantly eating either her blanket, shirt (if she can manage to get it in her mouth), or hand. Constantly

She is still super alert and smiles constantly. She is so happy and loves to squawk and laugh. She'll smile for most anyone, most of the time, but she ALWAYS has lots of smiles for me. What can I say, I'm her favorite.

She sure is spitting up more lately. Don't know why. Still not a lot though, and I'm grateful for that.

She's still addicted to her swing and she still kicks and kicks her little legs when she's tired and wants to be in her swing. Come 7 pm, she is snoozing away in that thing.

She snores

She still is super content and happy and doesn't really cry much. She's an angel baby.

She definitely likes me holding her more than daddy holding her. Sometimes she doesn't like him much, we're working on that.

She's just really cute.

Welcome to the fam, Piper Jane

Two weeks ago our lives changed for the better. We have been enjoying the sweetest, cutest, most content, happy little baby ever since. Piper has been such a joy and has brought so much love into our home and family. I can't get over her. Neither can her two siblings. Macey and Crew want to see her first thing in the morning and smother her with kisses and loves, and gifts (Crew) all day everyday. Crew is so proud whenever he finds her baby book or new little beanie baby to lay next to her. It's so cute. I'm just really glad they both absolutely and completely adore her and are really good and gentle with her. Except for one instance, when Macey decided Piper needed to be moved to protect her from Crew, they have been great. So, here's all the d's on the labor and delivery. Yeah, nothing too exciting here, unless you count having the EASIEST, low key, pain free labor/delivery exciting. I guess having a baby is always exciting and I'm not complaining for one mili-second for the lack of drama. When my doc informed me he was going out of town the day before my due date, I was even more determined to have this baby a little early. So, I took matters in to my own hands- to an extent. There may have been a couple mini doses of castor oil taken among other methods to try to get things going. Nothing crazy. So, about 2 am I woke up with consistent contractions- every 5 minutes, though they weren't super strong or painful. They kept up, so about 3:30 we headed to the hospital. We got in triage and they sent us to walk the halls to make sure things were progressing. And I moved from 3cm to 4cm after a little walk so into L&D we went. My contractions got a little stronger while walking, but never to the point that I needed to stop walking or talking or lean on the wall and breath. Once in L&D they seemed to get less intense- if they could ever be described as intense in the first place- but we were there and we were gonna have a baby. The nurse put my IV in after 2 tries and left me with a good bruise on my arm. The nurse brought up the epidural and I asked if by chance Uncle Dan was there and it just so happened he was on call!! Woohoo!! His shift was almost over, and even though he was so nice and offered to come back whenever I wanted him to, we decided to have him place it then and do the test dose and then decide if I wanted to hook up the real stuff then or later. Since my contractions weren't painful getting placing the epidural was a breeze, we just chatted through the whole procedure. The test dose kicked in and I didn't feel a thing the rest of the labor. I was crazy numb. Best epidural I've ever had. My new nurse, Megan, came during all of this. I got lucky with her. She was super cute and sweet and pretty much awesome. I also had a nursing student in there as well, kinda cool I guess. My doc came in around 8:30 to check on things and I was still at a 4!!! Good golly, we were sure we were going to be there all day! He even expected he'd come on his lunch break, 1-2 ish, to deliver me. He broke my water and left us to get some sleep- Ha. I never sleep during labor, Benton, thankfully, got a good nap in. The worst part of it all, hands down, was the penicillin I had to get being strep B postitive. Oh my goodness that stuff kills the veins! No fun! Around 10 or so I was feeling a little pressure and sure enough I'd moved to a 7. Yay! Progress! But we were still thinking we'd be there for a good while longer. I sent a text to the fam letting them know where we were at, and that things we slow going, and hopefully we'd have a baby around lunch. About 10-15 min later I felt a little more pressure and sure enough I was at a 10 and ready to go! What?!? So I sent another text saying we were just waiting for Dr. B to get there. He got there pretty quick and about 5 minutes later miss Piper was born! So I sent another text, hahaha it was a lot of texting in a little amount of time. She was born at 10:30 and weighed in at 7lbs 11 oz and was 20 in long, with BLONDE hair. Not much of it, but super blonde. We hadn't officially decided on Piper, but all the nurses made it official for us. -Oh weird- when the baby nurse came in right before delivery, she and a student with her too, a MALE student. That was awkward.- They made her little name tag for her crib and that was it. Dr. B was a fan too, because there was a Piper on "the best tv show ever" - Charmed. Dr B was cracking jokes left and right, it was so funny, it's even more funny if you know him and know that's not super characteristic of him. We were dying. We were instantly in love with our new perfect, healthy baby girl. I love watching Benton love on her and talk in the silliest little baby voice to her. Quite endearing if I don't say so. We had lots of visitors and lost of See's candies :-) while we were at the hospital, the most entertaining being my three nieces, Rachel, Bethany and Brooke. Oh my goodness I don't think I ever stopped laughing!
 I love my hospital stays and having my meals and every need met by other people, but I was anxious to come home and start our new life with our sweet Piper Jane. We have been so blessed by her already. It's crazy how even after just a few days you can't imagine life without this little person.