September Summary...

From kite flying with friends to baking with Tanner, we find ways to occupy ourselves. The adjustment of 3 kids was kicking in at this point and we did venture here and there and even conquered our big grocery shop but we stayed home quite often too.

The homeschooling plays a big part in my lack of blog time and lack of break time and lack of venturing out as much. (Sadly,) the kiddos all have colds and are surprisingly still asleep and I am benefiting from the much needed sleep for them. 

Cody gave his first hair cut ever. Tanner was on the other end of that one. I think it was harder than he expected....Tanner would be happy to never have it cut again, so that does play a role in the difficulty level. There might have been a tidbit of appreciation for me giving them their haircuts. 

We got applesauce made and canned. Tanner and Baylee both helped peel apples, mostly Tanner. He was quite intrigued by the peeler/slicer/corer and was studying it as he turned the apples. He's going places I tell ya.

Zoey is so much fun to have around. She started smiling in response to us in September and that little smile can light up the world. I had a hard time getting the full effect in a picture. (As if they ever really do justice anyway.)

One of the big highlights were the ones in my hair, haha. I have been waiting for close to a year to get the pink and purple in my hair. I was glad to finally get to have fun with it. Though the ends didn't turn out as vibrant as they should and we have since tried to fix the problem, I still like it. It's fun and different. In retrospect, dang well water has won this battle of the colors. But I'm not giving up yet.  

MaaMaa experiences Illinois

In September, MaaMaa (my mom) got to visit us in Illinois for the first time. I'm just positive she was impressed by the vastness of corn fields and soy bean fields. Right? Ok, probably not, but we were sure glad she ventured out into the wide open spaces to visit. We had a great time hanging out with her. Baylee LOVED having someone willing to play Barbies with her every waking moment of every day. She deserves to never have to play Barbies again, but the likeliness of that does not look very good.

I failed to take pictures on many occasions but I did capture some of our fun. We made our way out to the apple orchard for some fun on a beautiful day. I got to get my apples for making applesauce and we got to play on the playground. We then ventured up to O'Charleys to eat. It was a must.

We had a picnic at the park one day. It was super windy but we still had a good time. MaaMaa pushed Zoey girl around for us and kept her covered from the wind so that I could play with my monkeys. It was very kind to let me do that. We had an enjoyable time and we were all worn out.

From stories in the treehouse, to Barbies, to lots of tickles, and many chats with me, we had a fantastic visit with MaaMaa! And she even got to cut our grass....oh how she misses the hum of a lawn mower?

Rest of August

OH so far behind. Here is the completion of August. Pictures of Baylee dancing; she just loves it still, to pictures of Tanner on the floor.... He was so mad I told him he couldn't wake up Baylee yet, so he laid on the floor and yelled her name at the top of his lungs, under her door. Tanner 1, Me 0.  They are forever keeping me on my toes, and that Zoey girl is getting so big so quickly....how to stop that? Hmmmm.

Grammy and Grampa visit

About a week after lil Z was born, Grammy and Grampa got to come visit and see the new little munchkin. We had a great time hanging out with them. While they were here, they got to experience a true Illinois thunderstorm complete with winds so strong, they broke our swing set and blew it onto the goat fence. They also got to sit through 8 hours of no power(yay for the grill), at least we could eat. 

On a more fun note, we got to go to the zoo one beautiful day. Tanner was terrified of the once loved carousel. Cody ended up having to ride with him on his pick of creatures, which I admit, I found it quite funny and felt very little sympathy for this poor boy. I went out to the car to sit in the air conditioning and feed Zoey and apparently missed a very cool performance by the wolves. Of course. 

I'm not sure Grampa was aware of it as often as it happened, but he had a short shadow that stands about 33 inches tall following him around. Tanner loved to tag along. We enjoyed the visit and definitely think it stinks that we live so far away.

Credit due: Thanks Grammy for some of the pictures!

The big Debut of Zoey

August 8 was our big day. I was induced(yet again after my due date). When I showed up to the hospital, I was already having contractions and was to a 5 and didn't even know it. I tried to convince them to add some pitocin to my IV. They fought this notion and let my contractions die before adding the liquid gold after time of no progress. After that, it took only an hour and a half until we had a baby. And obviously, it was a girl. I will toot my horn as I said it was a girl all along.

Zoey Harper was born at 2:24 pm and weighed a whopping 9 lbs 4 oz and was 22 inches long. After seeing the size, it all made sense why I didn't gain weight like they wanted. She gained it all. Then again, if you know me, I was bitter about overcooking and I partially blame that even though it was only a few days. I guess we just saw it as more baby to love. She stole our hearts immediately as her tough little(big) self tried to hold her head up on her own while still in the hospital. 

We had to wait our 24 hours after delivery and got to leave. I really dislike staying in the hospital and was shocked they "offered" for us to stay another day, if we like. No thanks, my own bed and cooking are much better, not to mention I get more uninterrupted sleep at home. Do people actually take them up on it? Does someone actually find it peaceful or enjoyable?  Thanks I'd rather stick a screwdriver in my eye or hear relentless nail scratching on a car over a loud speaker. (Am I the only one that hates the nails on the car sound? I can't be the only one that has actually done this as the odds of this versus down the chalkboard are much higher for the average citizen)

Tanner and Baylee got to go spend the day with Ms. Hannah and Izzy and could not have been more pleased by this arrangement. They were spoiled and had a fantastic time. They were pretty intrigued by meeting the new arrival. They didn't stay too long and were pretty quiet but both got to hold her and Tanner could not stop "honking" her nose. Sadly for her, there has been and will be much more of that to come. 

All in all I would say, I'm glad to be done with the big belly for a while and we are so so so very blessed to have the Miss Zoey join our family!

The big #5

We celebrated Baylee's 5th birthday in August. Unfortunately, being due right around her birthday, the festivities were kept very low key as we didn't know if we would be available or not. I was still hopeful at that point that I would have a baby by then.

We just celebrated by going to her choice of restaurants for lunch then taking her to Walmart to pick out her cake. Her cake was a Hello Kitty cake with cupcakes that had rings on top because "that's a lot of rings for me" she said. I was dreading that being the cake, because in my head all I could think was that's a lot of rings for me....to step on and then have to sneak into the trash when  she wasn't noticing, but I let her get the cake she wanted. It was the least I could do after I was unable to make her a cool one due to the horrible state of my numb hand and carpal tunnel. 

We had homemade pizza for dinner as she requested. I had let her open presents randomly all day. It started one an hour then we increased it. She got lots of cool prizes and had a blast. To her credit, she's such a nice big sister. She let Tanner help her open about half of her presents. They had fun together tearing paper. 

Even though it was not a big fancy celebration like last year's Tangled party (how were we going to top that with it so fresh in her mind anyway?) she had a great birthday.

We are so blessed to be her parents and it's hard to believe she's already 5. She has a HUGE spot in our hearts and we love her so much. Happy birthday to the Baylee!

Rest of July

We ended up stopping by Shedd Aquarium in Chicago after dropping off Lilli at the airport. We had a great time, though not the best aquarium I've been to but  by far the most expensive. The best part was the 4D Dora movie. While I'm not a fan of Dora, it was the first movie like that I've been to and was a blast. Turns out pregnant ladies get your whole family in the fast lane in the air conditioning instead of waiting to enter with the rest of hundreds of people. Of course we waited in line for about 15 minutes before someone came over and told me we were to go inside and not wait in the heat. Bless her heart for that. It was almost 100 that day.

Baylee is still loving her dance classes. There was a night (yes I said a) where most of the girls didn't show up and they were actually listening. Baylee is unfortunate in there her parents expect a lot of her and she doesn't goof off, but normally all of the other girls are, we got a video when they were all participating of the little dance they do at the end of each class. Tanner loves to watch and loves to try and dance with her when she's showing off her moves at home.

We attended the Bagelfest parade and the kiddos had a great time between the "pretty princesses" and the Shriners on scooters, there was entertainment for both.