Life Happens!

So, it’s been a LONG time since I actually made a “for real” blog post.  But I have a good excuse…life happened.  I’ve been insanely busy.  Usually that would be a lie and it would need to read “insanely lazy” but that hasn’t been the case the last few months.  I never really thought having 3 kids would really make life that much busier, but I was wrong!  Especially 3 little kids!  So – here’s the update on all of us.

Caroline is such a big girl.  She is my all the time helper.  She starts 4K in August and I don’t know what I will do without her.  We spent many nights praying and talking trying to decide whether or not to do 4K…but we ultimately decided she would absolutely LOVE it.  This will make her the youngest in her class (which we originally said we wouldn’t do) but we figure she can always repeat it and never know the difference if she lags behind.  She does well with her glasses and at her check up a couple of months ago, she was told she had to wear a patch for 2hrs/day for the next 8 months.  We were a little bummed at first, but it could be MUCH worse.  After a month or so she really adapted to it – and sometimes even ASKS for it!  She wrote her own name and Amelia’s name the other night.  She did hers without any spelling assistance, but needed help spelling Amelia’s.  But after we helped her spell it, she wrote it!  I was so proud!  She’s doing so well.  She also starts gymnastics in a week and she is BEYOND excited.  She’ll be in a class with her friend, Addie Jane so she can’t wait!  She had her first sleepover a few weekends ago with Addie Jane and it was so fun!  We ate pizza, played outside, then popped popcorn in our pjs and watched Rapunzel.  Then they slept in the top bunk together.  So cute.  We got a puppy a couple of months ago, Minnie, a miniature dachshund and Caroline is totally in love.  That about sums up Caroline.

First sleepover!

Amelia changes mentally every day.  She knows things that I didn’t think she knew.  When we were working with Caroline on writing names, I started writing random letters on the board and Amelia was calling them out AND telling me what sound they each made.  She didn’t miss a single one!  I was truly impressed because I didn’t know she knew all of that!  She still has some social issues, but they do seem better than they were 6 months ago.  She’s a lot better around family and kids that she sees often.  She’ll occasionally talk to strangers and say “Hi!” to them which she certainly wouldn’t have done 6 months ago.  She really just seems painfully shy.  But I was told that many moons ago, I was shy too.  She’ll grow out of it eventually.  She is somewhat of a diva princess.  She wants things done for her.  She wants you to hand her the cup that’s 2 inches in front of her, you to drive her around in the power wheels gator, you to push her on the swing, etc. She is so funny!  I’ve never seen a child eat ketchup with a spoon until Amelia came along.  GROSS.  But she absolutely loves it.

 

Amelia was NOT happy about the sprinkler being underneath the trampoline.  Caroline, on the other hand, was thrilled. 

Walker is nearly 9 months old!!!!  How did that happen?  He’s pulling up and crawling EVERYWHERE.  He eats a massive amount of food.  He’s cutting his first two teeth on the bottom.  One is punching through and the other is trying.  He’s taking it fairly well and really doesn’t complain with it much.  He is literally the happiest baby you’ll ever meet.  Nothing upsets him.  He is so chill.  He smiles if you meet eyes with him.  He loves to bounce up and down to music, his wubanubs, sleeping, eating, and his MAMA.  He is SUCH  a mama’s boy…and I’m totally fine with that.  I love it, actually.    He still takes 2 naps a day and goes to bed around 7:30-8p and sleeps until about 6:30-7:30am usually.  That would seem like I get a lot of sleep, but I’m usually dumb and stay up until around 1am and then kick myself all day the next day.

 

Pulling up for the first time!

I am BUSY with sewing!  I took a dress order recently and I got SO many orders.  I’ve been working hard to get them all completed!  Between occasionally taking care of my house (ha!), my kids, my business, and sometimes sleeping, there’s not much time for anything else…like, blogging, for example.  But I’m trying to catch up because I do *love* to go back and read my old blog posts to remind myself of what my days were like back when…

My whole world sitting on that couch!!

Judd is busy planting!  We’ve had weird spurts of rain all Spring, and that has made planting stretch out a little longer than usual – but it’s going!  Just about every time it gets dry enough to plant, it rains again.  But they’ve gotten a lot done in the last week or so and that has made everyone breathe a big sigh of relief.  He’s been getting home after the kids go to bed (and he leaves long before they get up) so they are missing him a lot right now!  Just a few minutes ago, Caroline said, “Mommy…I miss Daddy,” and just kept on coloring.  I’m thinking they may need a trip to ride on a tractor with him. 

Don’t let him fool you.  He’s a softie at heart…

Everybody staring at one tiny phone screen…

I hope you all have a blessed week! 

My Girls!

I haven’t posted much about my sweet girls lately.  Since you got a Walker-Picture-Overload the other day, here’s a few of my sweet first and second babies.  (They’ll always be my babies!)

I’ve really been trying to get better with my camera using the manual settings and my 50mm lens.  I love it.  I’m also really new to editing so go easy on this amateur. 

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She posed all by herself!

I thought this one was so funny.  Running full speed!

This wasn’t what I was going for with this shot.  I was wanting it focused on her eyes, but she moved and it got her mouth instead.  After I looked at it a few times, I decided that might be the cutest button nose and sweet mouth ever created.  So I kinda like it. 

And just for fun – a shot of the world’s worst dog.  She’s so terrible – and covered in mud!

I love my girls!!!

Caroline’s Glasses

Those of you that know us or are friends with me on FB know that Caroline got glasses last week. 

I’ve had a lot of people ask how we knew she needed glasses at such a young age.  We only took her to the doctor because her left eye would turn in to the middle randomly.  You kind of had to “catch it” doing it.  It happened in pictures a lot, especially when the flash was used…not sure why. 

We took her to a pediatric ophthalmologist in Southaven.  We used Dr. Pandya-Lipman.  I highly recommend her.  Caroline was not very cooperative – and Dr. Lipman still was able to get what she needed.  They dilated her eyes and when they did, her eye crossed worse than I’ve ever seen it before.  My mommy heart broke a little bit.  I cried sitting in the waiting room – my hormones had something to do with that, I’m sure. 

Honestly, I expected her to tell me that we would do a little surgery on the muscles in her eye that were most likely “too tight” and be done with the whole thing.  I had never noticed Caroline acting like she was having trouble seeing anything.  I knew for SURE that the girl could spot things far away, so I really wasn’t thinking she would have vision problems.  Well – it turns out, she’s got some definite vision problems.  She is far-sighted.  She can see things far away but not up close.  Her prescription was +3.50 in one eye and +4.25 in the other eye.  It’s a pretty strong prescription – especially for a 3 year old.

(We originally thought she had a really weak prescription but I figured out later that we weren’t reading the prescription correctly.  I was quite shocked at how thick her lenses were and how blurry everything looked to us for it to be such a weak strength so I went to the place where we got her glasses and asked them to help me understand her script.)

So – we took her to try on glasses and she was really excited.  She picked out her glasses and we waited for them to come in.  I was SO nervous about how she would do wearing them.  I was prepared that it would be a major battle every day.  I was wrong!  So far, she has done fantastically.  She’s had them for 5 days and wears them most of the day without a problem.  I’m proud of her. 

She has a 50-50 chance of being able to come out of glasses.  The fact that we caught her vision problems this early has a definite advantage because her brain is still developing.  We might can train her brain that this is what she should be seeing. 

I know most of you don’t care anything about this – but I know some of my family members have been wondering how she was doing with her glasses.  The answer is GREAT!  She has really done much better than I anticipated.  I’m so thankful. 

 

The best part is that we have noticed a huge difference in her eye.  It isn’t crossing at all with the glasses.  When we take them off, we instantly notice it again…but she wears her glasses full time so we know they’re working.  We go back on August 27th for a followup and I’m hoping they can tell the glasses are working. 

Caroline & Amelia’s Room

So I am finally getting around to taking pictures of their room.  I really am happy with it!  I have a few teeny things that I’d like to change over time but nothing major at all.

The amazing staircase bunk bed!  We LOVE it.  It has awesome storage space and is extremely sturdy and space efficient!

I want a small lamp to go here because the one she had on her nightstand is just too big.  I’ve seen them at Hobby Lobby before – I just have to find time to go there!  I also want to order Amelia a bow holder since we already have too many bows and it’s her room too, now.  I’m thinking of having my friend Morgan paint me another canvas with Amelia’s name but I’m not sure where on the wall it will go!

The bookshelf!  Seriously, she looked like she had mounds and mounds of books until we put them on the shelves.  Now it looks like we deprive her.  Ha!  The Fan will eventually sit on the bookshelf and I’m hoping to get a second little lamp to go on there somewhere.  I need Judd to cut a small hole in the back to reach the outlet without cords going everywhere.  The bird canvases were also painted by my friend Morgan and they match Caroline’s bedding!

The top bunk!  I LOVE the bedding.  It’s Pottery Barn Darcie Quilt Bedding.  They discontinued it a long time ago and we’ve had the full size for Caroline’s room for a long time.  I’ve scoured eBay waiting on a twin size to be posted.  The day the woman posted this, I used the “Buy It Now” feature and scooped it up!  I was so happy to find it!

Caroline’s massive pile of stuffed animals.  She wants them all to sleep with her.  Ha! 

My sweet girl who said, “I need you to take my picture!  CHEESE!” Her eyes are almost closed, but you get the idea.

Here’s where everything is from:

• Bunk bed – Simplybunkbeds.com – it’s the Columbia Twin over Full Staircase Bunk Bed.  We are REALLY happy with it.  It’s sturdy, solid hardwood with great storage and safer than a ladder. 

Bedding – Pottery Barn Kids Darcie.  It’s been discontinued!

Curtains – The Company Store Kids

Bookshelf – Target “Carson” 5 Shelf Bookshelf.  The white one can only be purchased in stores. 

Bow Holder – Etsy shop (I can’t remember what shop and our internet is SO SLOW today…I’ll try to come back and fill that in!)

Just Pictures!

So instead of rambling in this post for 15 paragraphs, I’m putting pictures!  Most of these are on Facebook, but as Deda lovingly reminded me, not everyone has Facebook.    These are for you, Deda!  I love you!

(She was determined she was going to blow the pool up by herself.)

The many faces of Amelia.

“Hm.  This part isn’t so bad…”

“AHHH!!!!”

Most of these were taken Easter weekend.    I was burned (click link to see a picture of my crispy legs) to a complete crisp from this day and we took ZERO pictures on Sunday morning because if I remember correctly, I cried from my dress rubbing my legs.  That day was miserable.  So all we have are pictures from the Easter Bunny coming a day early.  Because our Easter Bunny is cool like that…and my kids don’t know the difference yet.    Have a good weekend!