Like Father

Like Son

Ben can't have facial hair on his chin at work. Something about safety and if he got hurt needing to be able to put a mask on him or something.

So he thinks it is super funny to shave this creepy mustache in before he leaves.

I hate it!

I like his normal facial hair. Anyway Slade ran into the living room with the Mister Potato head mustache on. Pretty funny.

I love how serious he got when I went to take his picture. 

Four Months

Ok who am I kidding? Because I am a slacker she is actually closer to four and a half months old.

I can't believe that our little Abbi is 4 1/2 months old already.

I have said it before but TIME PLEASE STOP! Preferably on a week when Dad is home though.

I also seriously need to take more pictures! I did a little photo shoot with her one night in her onsie because I don't want to forget all of her cute little rolls.

So here are her 4 month stats...

Weight: 15 lbs 12 ozs (80 %)

Height: 25.5 inches (80 %)

Head: 42.5 cm (80 %)

Abbi is a great little eater - which is evident by her weight, however she chokes on her food all the time. We are still nursing and I thought that it was a problem with me, like my milk was coming out to fast for her or something, but her doctor said that the choking was a symptom of reflux along with her super hard tight tummy, how she will rarely bend to a sit, and how she arches her back and grunts. So he put her on some medicine for Reflux. It isn't really helping. Well it did for about 3 days and now - not so much. She still chokes, has a tight tummy, is stiff and arches her back. So I am still giving gripe water and I guess I will just keep working with it until she grows out of it. I guess the only benefit from the medicine is that she isn't spitting up as much.

Other than that she is doing great.

Some other things we don't want to forget about Abbi

• Abbi yells. She loves to lay on her blanket, play with her toys and yell.
• She rarely cries, when she is upset she does this little grunt/cry instead.
• She has really good head control.
• She has not rolled yet, she will get on her side sometimes but hasn't got all the way over yet.
• She is super smiley!

Poor little thing scratched her face all up.

• The minute that I take her feet out if her jamies she tries to get her feet in her mouth, the problem is she is chunky and can't bend that far so instead she lays on the floor and kicks like this. 
  
  
• She tries to put everything in her mouth. We have a little medicine paci that she takes her medicine through and she likes to hold it and attempt to get it into her mouth.

Totally love her chubby little fingers and her wrist rolls!

• She loves to watch her brother and sister.
• She is super cuddly.
• She is totally mellow.
• She is not sleeping through the night, but I am sure that is my fault because I jump to get her everytime she makes a peep.
• She is still in our room. I know that I should really get her into her own bedroom but lets face it - I should probably work on getting Madie into her own bed first.
• When you hold her laying down she will lift up her head to try to sit up.
• We call her Abbi, Abs, and Abers. I also call her lady sometimes and when I do Madie reminds me that her name is Abbigail.

We sure love this little lady.

She has such a sweet spirit and we can't figure out how we lived without her.

Saved

I write blog posts in my head all the time. Unfortunately I rarely take the time to write them down. I wish that there was a way that I could just plug my brain into my computer and the post would be written, but that is not the case.

Ben has been gone for a week now and we have one more to go. This has been a really hard trip. The kids are really struggling this time and so am I. Every night this past week Madie has cried herself to sleep, amongst her sobs was "I miss Daddy, I hate Kota (North Dakota)". Slade has really struggled to listen and has also done a fair amount of crying. As for me I've just felt overwhelmed. I have not wanted to do anything, I've had no motivation, my house has turned into a dump. If I would have written the post that was in my head yesterday it would have gone something like this...

I am the worst Mom in the world. I don't even deserve the title Mom. I hate the Mom that I am, I never wanted to be the Mom that yells at there kids all of the time and never wants to do anything fun with them. And here I am - That Mom. My kids deserve better than me. I feel so alone!

But today that all changed. What happened that changed my entire emotional state? Nothing huge, life changing or drastic. I went to lunch with some friends. Not just any friends - good friends. Friends that have hard days like me. That simple hour and a half sitting in that restaurant totally saved me this week. That  hour and half was Huge, Life Changing, Drastic.

And guess what. I am not alone. I am not the only one that has days that they want to be a different Mom than they are. I am OK. And you know what else? I have a GREAT life. I have an amazing husband and incredible kids. Sure some days are hard, some days I want to rip my hair out and that is OK.

So thank you Ladies. You two have literally saved me this week. Not to mention possibly saving my kids lives :).

Love you guys!

Kids

Do you ever hear your kids talking and think "where do they get that from... oh yeah, ME".

I always have to laugh when I hear it.

Me: Slade, why did you ________?

Slade: Because.

Me: Because is not a reason, I want to know why.

Slade: Madie why did you break my lego truck?

Madie: Because.

Slade: Because is not a reason, why did you break my lego truck?

...

Madie to Ben: No more juice Daddy, it will make your bum hurt.

 ...

And then there are those comments that you have to turn your head because they are in trouble and you are trying not to let them know how funny they are being.

The girls and I came home from Idaho Falls. Madie walked right into the kitchen with her muddy boots on. I asked her to take them off. She screamed "NO" at me. I grabbed the water bottle and squirted her in the face (my new attempt at curbing her sassiness). She put her hands on her hips and screamed back "My Grandma is going to spank your bum!"

I happened to be on the phone with my mom when she said this, I had to walk away to wipe the tears and inform my mom that apparently she owed her 32 year old (shudder) daughter a spanking.  Madie continued to yell this at me a couple more times. Little Turd!

Man these kids sure are entertaining!

All Things Christmas

I am only a month late posting anything about Christmas... I know I am a slacker. In my defense our Internet wasn't working at home and typing a blog post on my phone just did not seem appealing to me.

While Ben was gone working and Slade was with his mom the girls and I made Christmas cookies. We were able to send some to Ben in North Dakota to help him get in the Christmas spirit as well.



Madie thinks that helping me in the kitchen is the best thing ever. The minute that I get my apron out she has to have hers on as well. Of course aside from her apron she is only in her usual at home attire...

t-shirt and underwear/pull-up.

And what did Abbi do to help out?

Well she hung out in her highchair and eventually fell asleep. She is such a good baby!

Christmas Eve

My parents neighbor in Wisconsin sent our kiddos Reindeer food from Santa.

For about two weeks before Christmas Madie constantly asked me if it was time to put the reindeer food out yet.

The kids were careful to spread it as evenly as they could all over our front and back lawn.

It was so fun!

I definately think this will become one of our traditions even if Santa doesn't mail it to the kids.

Ben was able to come home for Christmas. He was home for almost 3 weeks. So awesome!

A little bit of Christmas around our home.

I hadn't planned to put everything up this year. I just wasn't feeling it. While I was putting the tree up Madie kept saying "Oh Mommy, you made Christmas". That totally changed everything for me... she was so excited, how could I not put it all out?

Our tree Christmas morning... can you say SPOILED.

Look at those smiles.

 

Madie with her Ruppunzel barbie.

Slade and his Beyblades.

Well this pretty much summed up Abbi's  reaction to all the chaos.

Aside from the kids Ben totally spoiled me this ye

ar. He got me a one hour massage, one hour facial, and a one hour  facial at Sage day spa... LOVE HIM! He also got me new pots and pans that I totally love!

The kids and I made Ben a blanket with a bunch of pictures of us on it so that he could have us with him while he is away at work.

What a great Christmas!

Gratitude

My sweet little Abbi is 12 weeks old this week. She is growing so fast. I really wish that I could pause time, she is so much fun and such a good baby. But that is for a different post. What I want to talk about is how her turning 12 weeks old this week made me realize is that if I were still working I would be back to work this week.

When Madie was born I took my allowed 12 weeks off and went back to work. I am pretty sure that it was the worst day of my life. It was the day after Christmas and I left my beautiful little princess that I had waited almost 29 years for to go back to work. Luckily Ben had that day off so he was at home with her but it was still so hard. I don't think that I got through a single conversation that day without crying. I was lucky enough to find a babysitter for her that was close to my work so I could go and see/feed her on my lunch hour but I still hated leaving her everyday. Two months after going back to work Ben lost his job due to the economy. It was almost a year before we were able to find him steady work again. That was a really long hard year but we made it. And through that year we understood why I had to go back to work even though I hated it.

So when we found out that we were expecting Abbi we decided that we had to get me home. It was something that we had been working towards for a while but knowing she was on her way really pushed us along. It also helped that some simple math told us that my entire paycheck would go right to daycare. So we took the leap and I quit my job.

It has been a bumpy road since then. Slade and Madie were so excited to get to stay home at first but that soon wore off when they realized that they didn't get to play with their friends all day anymore. The fact that I was sick a lot didn't help matters either. But I think that we have finally gotten ourselves into a routine and we are all functioning much better.

I am so grateful that I get to be home with my babies. I am so grateful that I did not have to experience that dreadful day of leaving my baby again this week. I can't stop thinking about how lucky I am and how far we have come as a family. I am so grateful for my husband. He claims that I worked just as hard to get me home but he is truly amazing. He worked whatever jobs were available, he made so many sacrifices so that we could have me at home.

He works so hard!

He is still making sacrifices for us. Ben working in the oil fields in North Dakota is hard. It is hard on all of us. I get terribly lonely when he is gone. Slade is really struggling with his behavior. Madie has taken to biting her nails (fingers and toes) and has resorted back to wanting me to spoon feed her again. And little Abbi doesn't know any different.

Ben has it the hardest though. While we are lonely for him, the four of us at least have each other. Ben is all by himself in his loneliness. By the time he comes home he can barely handle it. He comes home and he can't stop hugging us. He is so grateful for everything at home. A home cooked meal, his own warm bed, being able to sit on his couch and watch his own TV but most of all he is grateful to just be home with us.

It breaks my heart that he hurts for us so much while he is gone. But I am so grateful that he is willing to do the really hard part to take care of us. I am grateful that it is important to him that I am home with our kiddos. I am grateful that he goes through so many painful days so that I don't have to go through the pain of leaving my babies.

I feel incredibly selfish but incredibly lucky that he would be willing to make that sacrifice for me and our kids. He is a great man. I am so lucky to have him and I hope that he knows how much I love him and am grateful for all that he does for our family.  

Daddy you are the BEST!

We love you!

The Santas on the Bus?

Madie Loves to Sing.

I mean she can turn anything into a song and if she can add motions she is even happier.

She gets it from her Dad... don't believe me? Go for a ride in the car with him... he has some moves.

Her all time favorite song is

The Wheels on the Bus

She did pick up a few Christmas songs to add to her repertoire but she always goes back to her favorite. One afternoon I overheard her playing and singing in her room. This is what my little lyrical genius had come up...

"The Santa's on the bus go Ho ho ho, Ho ho ho, Ho ho ho. The Santa's on the bus go Ho ho ho all through the town."

She hasn't come up with a movement for it yet but I am excited to see what she comes up with.