Computer-less

I am still computer-less. The building process is taking longer than anticipated, due to a flaky motherboard. It wasn't playing nice with the graphics card or the RAM.

On the plus side, this means I get a new motherboard...and a new processor!! It'll be twice as fast as the one I was going to get :D

The downside, however, is that we had to order those parts, so I have to be computer-less for longer. It's definitely worth the wait, but...I'm more than ready to have a computer of my own again. Especially since I am now craving to scrap and play Sims 2. Why does lack of accessibility cause such cravings? *sigh*

But, life has a way of keeping me busy, whether I have a working computer or not. I've been trying to keep up on cleaning. I started working on our bedroom, but I didn't get as far as I wanted to. At least I got my clothes all hung up and put away. But the clutter? Still got a long way to go.

And, of course, kids definitely keep me busy. Since my last real non-computer post, Hyrum said his first official sentence: "Mommy, I love you." <3 Best first sentence ever! He picks up on more and more words and phrases each day. He totally repeats everything he hears. He also discovered that he can open the fridge...and doors, with or without the plastic knob covers. Good thing we keep the front door locked at all times!

Nathan rolled over since then, too. He's getting soooo big! He's 17.5 lbs and 27.25" long. What a big boy! He's getting close to growing out of his infant car seat. Nathan is such a sweet, cuddly baby. We love our adorable little redhead!

Emma is such a knowledge sponge. She's going to do so great in school! What a smarty. She loves doing at-home preschool each day. It's so fun! She always asks to learn more, and she remembers extremely well. She has an amazing memory. Clearly, she takes after me ;)

Speaking of school, John applied for grad school. Yay! We're still waiting to hear back; we probably won't hear until March since the deadline is March 1st. We're also on a waiting list for an awesome duplex near our grad school of choice. It's exactly what I'm looking for: inexpensive, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, garage, yard, and only sharing walls with one neighbor. Yay!

Graduation is coming up in less than 2 months and we couldn't be more excited! It'll be sooo nice to have that behind us. I can't wait to move to a bigger place. We so desperately need more space. I even have a list of organizational projects to do after we move. It's pointless to do all of it now since I don't know what kind of space I'll have to work with yet.

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[Emma typed that and said, "don't take it off, ok?" So...I'll leave it just for her :)]

So, overall, life is good. Stressful, what with kids and school and everything, but good. I am very excited for my new computer to be done and here. In the meantime, I'm going to work on other non-computer things. The kids are clamoring at me, so this will have to be short. Time to make dinner! The life of a mom. Always busy!

4 Months

Baby Nathan is 4 months old!! I really can't believe how fast it's gone. How could he be 4 months old already?



I have been horribly negligent in posting updates on our sweet little Nathan. He truly is a joy. He brings so much light and happiness into our home. He smiles, giggles, and laughs all the time. He loves patty-cake, peek-a-boo, and Primary songs. He loves to watch his older siblings play. Emma and Hyrum love to hold him, entertain him, and give him hugs and kisses.



Nathan is growing so super fast! At around 3.5 months, he started growing out of his 3-6 sleepers. Seriously. My 4 month old needs 6-9 month sleepers! He still wears 3-6 month onesies and such, but he needs the length of the larger sleepers. He's been in size 3 diapers for a month or so now. He's bigger at this age than his siblings were - even his 9 lb 12 oz birth-weight brother!



Maybe he has the random tall gene? [He comes from an exceptionally short family; I'm 4'11" and John is just under 5'5".] He's already got the random red hair gene, so who knows? And yes, he is still a redhead :D His eyelashes and eyebrows are red/strawberry blonde, so I think it's here to stay. I hope so. We love his red hair!



Nathan loves to eat. He smiles at me mid-feeding. He doesn't usually fuss about being hungry until I'm literally pulling his food out. He now gets distracted during feedings. Having 2 older siblings makes his meals interesting. Thankfully, he remembers that he's more hungry than he is interested in their antics and goes back to eating pretty easily.

He is now interested in our food. He watches us eat and it looks like he wants to try some, too. Ha! Not a chance! In a couple of months we'll let him try baby food...



Nathan rarely spits up. In fact, sometimes when he overeats and starts to spit up, he forces it back down. Funny baby. And he drools a lot.

He's a great sleeper! He typically goes to bed around 11 or 12 and stays asleep until like 7-8 ish, then eats and goes back to sleep until around 10. Awesome. The best thing? He pretty much sleep trained himself. I'm not even kidding. As long as his diaper is clean and his tummy is full, we can put him in his bed and he'll fall asleep all on his own without even fussing. All on his own. We didn't have to do anything. In all honesty, all my babies have been great sleepers. At least at night; Emma and Hyrum had to nurse to sleep for naps. And we had to help them learn to fall asleep in their own beds. But this self-sleep training Nathan does? Best thing ever.

Add to that the fact that the boys take coordinating naps 90% of the time, I am one incredibly blessed mommy!



Like his big siblings, Nathan hates tummy time. Once again, tummy time is referred to as "crying time" in our house. As such, I haven't given him enough tummy time, so he's not quite rolling over yet. Any day now. He has great head and neck control, though. Our kids seem to be born with that. And, believe it or not, he's almost sitting up. He can definitely sit supported. He can also rotate himself around on the floor.



But tummy time to help him roll over? Not so much. I try, but his cry is so sad when he's on his tummy that I just can't stand it for long. He's so sweet and sensitive. The tummy time cry is a "you're abandoning me! Please hold me!" cry. How could I resist that?

Overall, though, he hardly cries at all. He's generally content with life. He's more of a squirmer when he needs something. He squirms like crazy when he needs a diaper change - especially if it's poopy. But once it's changed, he's all smiles.



Nathan has no qualms about hanging out in his swing or on his playmat. Most of the time, anyway. Sometimes he really just wants to be held and snuggled - especially after his 2 favorite entertainers go to bed. He's such a sweet little boy. He loves being a part of everything with the whole family. He likes to look around at everything. I love when he looks right into my eyes and smiles.



Nathan loves to suck his thumb and fist. Looks like we've got a little thumb sucker! He hasn't used a pacifier in like 2 months; he prefers his thumb. We haven't offered a pacifier in awhile because he's just so content that he doesn't need it. He self-soothes with his thumb or fist instead. He's almost gagged himself a few times when sucking on his fingers, though.



Speaking of baby hands...Nathan likes to grab things. He'll grab toys, but mostly he loves to grab hair. I usually have mine pulled back during the day, so Emma is his primary hair-pulling victim. He loves to hold my hand while nursing. So sweet!

Nathan loves bathtime! He really enjoys being in the water. He's so smiley during baths. Sometimes he gets upset when we take him out, but it's mostly because of the temperature change.

Nathan now looks more and more like Emma did at this age. Except, of course, bigger, male, and with red hair. Check out the 3-kid comparisons:




[Poor Hyrum had really bad eczema at 4 months.]

Here's some fun size comparisons: at 4 months, Emma was 9 lbs 5 oz (yes, she was teeny tiny - and still is for her age). Nathan was 9 lbs 6 oz at 2 weeks...and Hyrum was 9 lbs 12 oz at birth. My boys are definitely much bigger than their sister!

And what baby update post is complete without lots of pics? Most are scattered throughout the post, but here are a few more for your cuteness-admiring pleasure.







We love our sweet little Nathan! We are so grateful he came into our lives when he did. Such a sweet, adorable, loving, happy baby!

Tangled Up in Birthday Fun

When I asked Emma what theme she wanted for her birthday party this year, she consistently told me she wanted a Tangled party. And I started asking like in May. What can I say, I like to start mentally planning early. Since her birthday is so close to (and sometimes on) Thanksgiving, and John's birthday is a week after hers, we usually have her party about 10 days early.

I wanted her party to be special for her, so to the web I went! I spent lots of time brainstorming and stalking the blogosphere for fun Tangled theme ideas. Some ideas I came up with myself, others I found in my research. All in all, it was an awesome Tangled party. See for yourself!

The invite:

Kit: Sweet's Tea Party, geniaBeana Scraps

I did lots of pre-party prep, like make yarn braids for Pin the Hair on Rapunzel, cute themed signs for the food table, and a tower pinata.
















I strung up yellow streamers ("hair") and hung yellow balloons from the ceiling ("floating lanterns").


We served the food in frying pans. A special thank you goes out to John for prepping the food while I decorated. Didn't he do a great job? Apparently he has a not-so-hidden talent for presentation.




I hung up a bunting banner around the table. I found a free PDF on Paging Supermom.




We started out with a coloring activity as kids arrived. I printed off coloring sheets from Disney Family's website.



Emma's picture. She's great at coloring for a 4 year old.

Then we released floating lanterns, aka yellow balloons.


We played Pin the Hair on Rapunzel:

Emma went first...




Not bad for having her eyes closed!


I think it's safe to say Emma won that one.

Then we tackled the pinata - with my smallest, lightest, cheapest frying pan.






Present time! We let her choose one of the presents from us to unwrap at the party. She got a lot of great gifts; thanks to everyone who came!






Time for cake!!

I am not a cake decorator. I can bake a delicious cake, but decorating it prettily...not so much. So I let a local bakery do it for me instead ;)







And that was her Tangled party! It was such a blast. Now I get to plan a Cars party for Hyrum in January ;)

Emma's actual birthday landed on a Sunday, so we spent a good chunk of the day doing church stuff. I did snap a picture of her exactly 4 years from the moment of her birth. Since she was born at 12:59 AM, she was asleep when I took it.


All dressed up for church:








We had a small family party with Tori and Adam. We had pizza for dinner, opened presents, and ate cheesecake for dessert.

Surrounded by presents:









She was super excited about the Rapunzel doll and dress she got from my mom!

Emma requested lemon cheesecake for her birthday cake. She saw a picture of one when I was looking for Thanksgiving dessert ideas and decided she had to have it for her birthday cake. Good choice! It was delicious.




Emma had a fabulous birthday!! I can't believe she's 4! She had her 4 year check up today and she's still very tiny; 29 lbs and 37" tall. 6th percentile for weight and 5th for height. But developmentally she's right on track or ahead. She's such a wonderful little girl. I love her so much.