April Insta Update

I'm slowly but surely working on the Hawaii blogs... yes I realize we've been home for a month now and I haven't posted anything.  I haven't even posted the pictures to Facebook.  I keep waiting to get pictures from my sis in laws to do so and all three of us have just been crazy busy I really haven't seen them much.  But they WILL get done!!  I'm going to attempt to get this April insta update done on time though.
**side note, a few pictures from Instagram (if you follow me there and notice the difference) are going to be in my business update blog post... I've been super busy with Thirty-One and having a blast!

Sometimes this kiddo likes me.  Ha ha.  He's usually pretty snuggly right after his nap

Finally decided it was time to take down the baby gates.  We put them in the week we moved into this house, so we never really got used to the house without them... and now that they are down it seems SO weird!  The stair way seems wider, and even though it was a couple of weeks ago that we did this sometimes I still catch myself going to open the gate or something.  Stupid little circles that helped hold it in place left a sticky gross residue and I tried using the steam vac to remove it, but it's going to take something stronger to get them off.  

Went and got my hair done!  Love hair day.  We wanted to do something fun and different so Marbella suggest some pink and I went for it.  Loved how it turned out.  The girls got a kick out of it.  And of course had to take a selfie.  ha ha.  I'm usually way way too self conscious for selfies.  I don't know what my problem is.  But, I quickly snuck one in the car in case anyone was watching me.  

Daddy's birthday donuts.  Didn't get them done sooner and Natalia reminded us. We went straight out of bed, and looked pretty awesome I might add!  ha ha ha.  

Sadly, my sister in law Steph suffered another devastating loss.  They found out they were pregnant right before we left for Hawaii and when we got home found out it wasn't a viable pregnancy.  She had to go in Monday morning at 6am for a D&C so we offered to have Cypress come stay with us.  The girls thought it was pretty cool to get a slumber party on a school night, so it was good to see some joy in a sad sad time.  

Cypress spent the day with us as well, we had pancakes for breakfast and then went grocery shopping after dropping Natalia off at school.  

We all went  to Casa Mexico for Charlie's birthday dinner (picture of him in the sombrero above) and of course we all had our thirty-one bags.  Shockingly we didn't have any repeats, all different.... we all had the All about the Benjamins wallet but almost in all different colors.  

Randomly Natalia didn't have school on a Tuesday because of teacher in service.. what a weird day to do it, but we took advantage and went to the zoo as soon as Lydia was out of preschool.  I packed us a lunch and we had a blast. 

Lydia was super brave and fed the giraffe!  One bonus of being there during that time frame.  Quinton made me hold him and he got a little scared when I got too close to take a picture. Natalia stayed back by the wagon.  

More fun pictures from our day.  They finally put in a new giraffe slide. This one is much steeper and goes much faster than the old one.  I was a little scared of Quinton on it alone, but I'm tall enough I was able to reach up and kind of hang on to him.  I still had to make sure the girls stopped at the bottom or they would seriously fly right off. \

Me.  All. The. Time.  ha ha ha

He's had a gross snotty nose for what seems like weeks now.  And his naps have been so inconsistent.  He once again woke after just a 45 min nap and then fell back asleep on me.  

This kid.  Perpetual mess maker.  I pick up one mess of his only to have him making another in the mean time.  He's figuring out some of the baby locks and the hair tie system on the games cabinet just isn't working.   He loves to just dump things out.  So the toy room is often a war zone.  

Oh Lydia.  This girl says some random stuff.  We were on our way to Costco and out of the blue she drops a bomb on me.  With a big sigh she proceeds to say "mommy we should have another baby"  me shocked asks her why, Lydia " because Quinton is a little man now and not a baby and we need a baby"  um..... ok kid.  if only it were that easy.  I'd have 12 if they were all like her.  

Junk in the trunk on the way home from Costco.  Really wishing I had another utility tote in the car, but otherwise my goods fit quite nicely.  And yes my pretzels are in the tote, don't want any of that chocolaty goodness to melt! 

Natalia went to one of her classmate's birthday party.  It was super hero theme, so I took my wonder woman shirt that I wore to a Halloween party last year and stitched it up to fit her.  She loved it!  They had a face painter there and she did a giraffe.  So cute!

Like I said, i'd have 12 babies if they were all like her.  I stayed up way too late folding massive mountains of laundry.  Sad because I still hadn't put away the massive mountains of folded laundry from the previous laundry day... so I finally gave up and left the socks and panties to be sorted the next day.  Anyway, I went to put Quinton down for a nap and came to find her sorting.  She was folding the panties and sorting them into two piles for me.  This one, heart of gold I tell you.

Tried frozen gogurts as an after dinner treat.  They loved it!  Don't know why I've never tried that before! 

Getting the girls ready for school.  Quinton got it in his head that he needed a back pack too.  Thankfully I still have this little one and he loved it.  Me making him pose for a picture, not so much.  He was pretty mad at me.  Just keeping it real. 

Quinton loves play with my kitchen tongs more than anything else in the house.  He will seriously just carry them around the house.  His favorite though is to attack us with them or grab at people, use them to pick up things... and he's always making this face while doing it.  Ha ha

Lydia's dance recital costume came!!  Recital is mid May and I'm super excited for them.  They love getting the costumes and can't wait to wear them for dress up after 

Well, we finally moved forward with speech therapy.  After voicing my concerns with the pediatrician, she referred us to the infant/toddler program through the state.  Its free until he's three and they come to our home for the sessions.   We had his evaluation last Friday the 22nd.  Thankfully he wasn't shy at all with her and sat right down with her to see what she had brought in her bag.  *when the gal came to do his intake he was super shy and glued to me* Anyway she said she would turn in her assessment to her team during their team meeting and determine his course of treatment from there... but that he would definitely qualify because he seems more than 6 months delayed in his speech.  Wah wah.  I knew that though.  He used to say some words but dropped them all together.  To hear him say Mama would be amazing, but even for him to be able to tell me he wants a drink, or juice, or milk something other than pointing and grunting would be so nice.  He totally understands us though and follows commands well so she says that's definitely not delayed and so it's not anything mentally wrong, he just doesn't want to talk.  So hoping for some good results at the end of this.  

This girl.  She's a reader!!  Her scores in reading are above grade level! YAY! and she loves reading with us at night.  She asked for a more challenging book from her teacher the other day.  As soon as I picked her up from school she was telling me all about the book on the walk to the car and then she got in and got the book out and that was the end of our talk.  I kept trying to ask her about her day, and she totally ignored me.  Ha ha ha.  Sounds like me honestly.  I totally zone out when I'm reading.  She finished that book in two days and she was sooo proud, and so were we!  

Our niece Jocelyn turned five!!  I'm still in shock that these three little girls are growing up so fast.  Five seems like a big step in that direction anyway.  Cypress and Jocelyn are starting kindergarten this year which seems crazy to me!  Lydia being after the cut off date has to wait another year, which also seems crazy to me, but I'm guessing she will catch up quickly she's a smart cookie.   These three are so so lucky to have each other and grow up so close in age!  I'm sure it'll cause us lots of trouble and heartache some day too.  ha ha ha

April 29th would have been puppas 11th birthday.  This was his birthday post last year and I had spoke about many years more with him. Sad.  We've been making plans for a garden we want to set up over Switch's grave site in the back yard.  

We participated with the Jarvis family in the March of Dimes annual walk for babies.  In honor of Bodhi.  It was bitter sweet.  To see all these babies who had lived under dire circumstances, was sweet... but to know that some babies like Bodhi don't make... so sad.  They had a moment of silence to honor those babies and I started crying.  

He was a super grumpy so I decided to get him to bed early.  I thought he'd at least enjoy having the tub to himself.  But NOOOO he threw a fit when I pulled his seat out of the tub and then got mad when I put hi min the tub and not in the seat in the tub.  He's big enough he really doesn't need it.  We keep him in it with the girls more for his safety because they are wild in there.  but thought with him alone he'd be fine.  He was really mad at me though! 

And that concludes April ladies and gentleman!!