3 Little Monkeys

I have the cutest kids in the whole world

I Love Them!

Minivan

Since we are now a family of five (and since we were living with only one car) It was time for us to get a minivan.

Driving a minivan is obviously super cool and stylish. But did you know that it is also convenient? I love having the sliding doors for reaching in and out for carseats. And, drive-thru things (like at the bank, library book drop, etc.) are much easier to reach when you re not down in a compact car, practically at ground level.



4/5 of our family with our new van



Kids playing in the back

While we were switching cars we had the carseats in the living room for about 24 hours. And it turns out that carseats are more fun to play with than toys-- who knew?

 Parker's favorite thing was purposely making the seats fall backwards.

Is it dorky that I'm super excited to have a minivan? Well, then I'm a dork. I was slightly sad that I had to say goodbye to my cute little"Murph-Mobile" (my old corolla) but I'm happy to being driving my new mom car

One Month

Last week Terra turned one month old.

We went to the doctor and things are generally going well.

We had previously gone to the doctor and had Terra's bellybutton cauterized since it was bleeding for over a week after the cord fell off- but that is now healing nicely.
I didn't mention it, but Terra has a heart murmur. I didn't think much of it since Parker had a transitory murmur at birth that was better by the time he was 48 hours old. Terra's has not gone away yet, the doctor could still hear it at her check up and we have a follow-up with a cardiologist in a couple weeks.

Other than that she is doing great!

Her stats:

Height: 22-1/4" 90th%

Weight: 11 lbs even 90th%

Head circumference: 90th%

She has the smallest head of our babies so far.

Baby Pictures

Jason has a friend at church who has a nice camera, and he thought he might want to try doing photography to earn some money on the side.

He decided to do free baby pictures of Terra to give him practice, and see if he actually wanted to do photography.

Terra helped him decide that this is NOT something he wants to do- but we got a few cute pictures from the experience.

Terra is a fussy baby. She cries a whole lot more than Parker or Aria ever did. Some days it's nearly impossible to make her happy.

So most of our pictures looked something like this:

Or this:

We tried to calm her down:

And eventually she got sleepy

Aaaaaaww... precious

 Little feet:

 And Parker couldn't let his sister get all of the attention:

Madonna-Style

The kids love Terra's little toy chain. They make them into a bunch of bracelets.

Cow Appreciation

Chic-fil-A had cow appreciation day- which means if you dress up as a cow you get a free meal.

We took advantage. Twice.

Yes, we went for lunch and dinner- free food and a play place- of course we had a good day!

Look at those faces... dressing like a cow is serious business

And from the back you can kind-of see my favorite part- the little brown cow ears on top of Aria's PigTails

Parker thought it was such a good idea- he has since suggested we dress up as other things (like dragons) and get free food again- I wish, Parker, I wish.

Fathers Day

I know it's late-- but I've been... busy
To start off, Parker and I took advantage of a craft night at Michaels to make a Father's Day gift for Jason.

Parker decided that what Jason would like to have on his mug was a picture of a train.

James specifically:

He helped draw James, then colored by himself and drew the cloud and tracks by himself as well.

We presented Jason his gift along with breakfast in bed. Parker still thinks that breakfast in bed is hilarious.

On Father's Day we went to church with the Tiemans and then had brunch over at their house

And Gary got a buddy to help him with his coins:

Then we finished Father's Day by having dinner with my parents and swimming.

Now speaking of father's day reminds me of something else....

Jason is awesome.
Everyone probably already knew that- but he deserves an extra special shout-out for filling in as the stay-at-home parent while I've been working.
Honestly, I know some guys (some of my friends' husbands) who I would be a little more worried about leaving my kids with all day. Because for some of these guys it would mean that I would go to work and he would play video games all day, then I would come home and clean up the chaos.

But not with Jason. The house is always neat and meals are always prepared.

And best of all he reads and plays with the kids and doesn't just sit them in front of the TV all day long. He takes them to playgroup and storytime at the library. They play play-dough and color pictures.



He blew up balloons and let the kids finger paint them



I will say we were both a bit nervous that he was going to take over most of the cooking, but we've been happy to discover that Jason can do just fine in the kitchen.

Then at mothers day (with a little help from my mom) he had the kids make me an adorable/goofy key chain. And he made me a bracelet. A nice bracelet. I've had several women compliment me on the bracelet and then when I say that my husband made it they flip out a little bit.

Jason. is. amazing.



Parker, making my key chain

And the most amazing part, is that most of the time that I've been working, Jason has been at home without a car.
See- my little corolla needed a new transmission in December so we sold it to Jason's friend who is a mechanic and could make good use of the car. Which means we're a one car family right now. A few times we've been able to borrow a car from my parents while they were out of town, but mostly Jason has been toughing it out by either walking all the way to playgroup or staying home....   all.   day.   long.

So- Thank you Jason for being such and awesome Dad!

She's Here!!

Miss Terra Lynne Tieman entered the world at 2:01pm on Sunday, June 26th.

Her Stats:

Weight: 9lbs 2oz

Length: 21-1/4 inches

Head Circumference: 15 inches

Oh- and she's gorgeous!

We ended up deciding to induce because of some concern that she might be a big baby.

So, I was scheduled to be induced at 5am Sunday morning (39 weeks and 4 days). We got to the hospital about 5:30 (5 am is early)

So by the time paperwork and such was done- they started me on the pitocin at about 6:30.

They broke my water at about 11 am. My doctor was no longer concerned about a big baby. I had lots of amniotic fluid- he was sure that the baby would only end up only being barely 7 pounds- because no way I could fit that much fluid AND a big baby in there.

 Turns out I could fit extra fluid AND a big baby in there.

Everything went pretty well, and we were happy to have this new little girl.

 The kids came by a couple of times to visit and see their new baby sister.

Aria is over the moon about having a baby around. She loves to point to the baby's mouth, and hair, and toes, and nose, etc. Over and over and over.

Parker likes the baby, too.

Can you believe we're a family of five?

So far, Terra is more difficult than my other two babies. I wouldn't call her colicky-

but she's harder to please.

 They made us stay for 48 hours after the birth again- but finally we were released to go home

The Big Reveal

Last night we revealed that we're having a girl. And tomorrow at 5am I'm going to the hospital, and hopefully we'll meet miss Terra Lynne Tieman shortly after.

PARTY!!!!!!!!

So Jason keeps bugging me to put this on the blog.

Some of my friends are throwing a party next week.

It's kind of like a baby shower- but since the babies gender is a secret the only gifts would be something useful like diapers.... or.... diapers.

Anyway- there will be food and such and we're going ot announce the secret- YUP! We're going to tell whether it's a boy or a girl that will join our little family.

All the info can be found HERE.

If you have questions or need directions or something just leave a comment and I'll let you know!