another week in review...

I was sick this week so behind on my updates; I'm going to try to do a quick overview here now.

Saturday 5/21: Brian and I go car shopping. We left Naylor and Lalon with Carson and Blaine (Lizzie was working) and took Whitley Ann with us. I figured we'd be gone 3 hours, holy moly it took all day. Blaine was a trooper though and all the kids were injury free and smiling when we finally did get back. We didn't buy a car, but we've narrowed down to what we like and will accommodate our needs. We did sell my little Lexus though - they gave us a fair offer and would buy it even if we didn't buy a car from them, so she's gone. I loved that car and it was a very good car for me for a long time. I would suggest it to anyone that doesn't have 3 kids or need a ton of space - Lexus is250 is awesome and fun to drive!

After picking up some pizza dinner and delivering just in time to the Swaringen house, we all ate dinner, played a little more and then put some very tired kids to bed. I think Carson, Naylor and Lalon all had a big fun day. THANK YOU Blaine for watching them!!!

Sunday 5/22: The kids both slept in late; Lalon until 8 and Naylor until 9!! We may let them play with Blaine and Carson every day - ha! No big plans for the day other than Michael Jr's dedication in the afternoon, so we worked in the yard and cleaned out the trucks and I got Kevin's F-150 all set with the car seats and will be driving that until we find what we like. We headed over to the dedication later in the afternoon and it was really nice. Michael had prepared a great spread and some of the ladies and I had brought desserts (I'll post those recipes later); it was all just perfect. After the dedication and folks were just hanging around, Carson, Naylor and Lalon got in the kiddie pool with Brian and Blaine for a bit and had a good time. It's so funny to see Carson and Naylor together and then Brian and Blaine behind them - it's the doublemint twins meets mini-me!

Monday 5/23: Brian heads out to Charlotte to work for the week and we were having play group at our house. A pretty routine day and all is going well. Around 9pm I start feeling not so great, but just take some Motrin and go to bed. I woke up a few hours later with fever and chills and was up and down all night.

Tuesday 5/24: Full blown sick. The kids are fine (thank goodness!), but I'm down for the count and have to call Brian to come home. In 2.5 years of being home with the kids, I've had to call Brian home only one other time, so this was serious. He was in Charlotte and couldn't get away immediately so he called around and made some magic happen (I'm afraid to ask what he promised all of these folks!) to come help. My first rescuer was our good friend JP. He came over around 11am, watched all 3 of the kids, fed them, put them down for naps and stayed and did his work from our kitchen - amazing and I am so grateful! At some point in the day (I was upstairs completely out of it), Aunt Amanda and her boyfriend Sam showed up to relieve JP of his duties and took over doing the afternoon play, dinner and bedtime. Amanda stayed until Brian was able to get home later that night. Someone later asked about my playgroup friends, wouldn't they help and I responded that yes, they would be here in a heartbeat no doubt, but I was VERY hesitant to call either of them since they both have young children and not knowing what I had, I didn't want to spread it on to them and / or their kids...

Wednesday 5/25: Okay, this is serious, so I call Gwen. After describing symptoms she says she's pretty sure I have pneumonia. All of the things I said fall into that catagory, but one specific symptom was a dead ringer... it hurt to cough, like if you've ever had a cracked or bruised rib, you know how bad it hurts to cough or sneeze, but only in one specific spot. So she called in some meds Wed night and I started those. Brian worked from home that day; I use the term work loosely as I'm sure he'd say he didn't get much work done while watching 3 kids.

Thursday 5/26: Already so much better! The meds took quick effect, the pain from coughing is so much better, but I'm extremely exhausted from the smallest task. It also feels like my chest is compressed or something heavy is on it and I'm having to take shallow breaths. However, this is 100 times better than what was going on earlier in the week! Very weak, but able to do a few things and rallied up the strength to take the girls to the doctor, but that wiped me out the remainder of the day pretty much.

Friday 5/27: Again, waking up feeling so much better. Still exhausted and the shallow breathing feeling, but I can tell the meds are working their magic. I think more rest and time will solve all of this - holy cow, what an ordeal!

We were supposed to leave for the beach last night, but obviously we didn't do that... now I'm trying to decide if we should go down tonight or maybe tomorrow... we'll just see how today goes I guess. A BIG THANK YOU to JP and Aunt Amanda for helping out in a moment of need. I'm going to have to bake a lot of cookies and pies to thank all of our friends for helping out with the kids over the past couple of weeks! ;-)

Current Naylor-isms

As I type this, Naylor and Lalon are sitting in the playroom and Naylor has the play phone. He's "talking" to Pa and he just said, "Lalon, say 'Hi Pa'." It is unreal to me how he's just grown up what seems like over night. He does so many things that make me laugh and make me wonder, "how does he come up with this stuff?". Here's a list of a few things while I'm thinking of them...

• Everything Naylor does these days is BIG.
• He likes to refer to himself in the 3rd person. His current favorite saying is, "Big Naylor's a BIG BOY!" - you kind of have to yell it out too.
• He has finally learned how to jump and he will jump off of any surface that he can get on. He has been hitting all the milestones pretty much on time, maybe a month behind or so on some (language, but he's caught up there now), but the jumping he was way behind on. He'd try to jump, but could never get both feet off the ground at the same time... we've got it now! And so, his favorite thing to say about jumping is.... "Big Naylor dood a big jump" (we need to work on his conjugations!).
• He is all boy and I guess that just comes natural because I'm not teaching him some of this stuff. He loves trucks and tractors and motorcycles. Anytime we are in the car he yells out each time he sees a big truck, school bus, fire truck, etc... He also yells to each motorcyclist to "BE CAREFUL!" - at least he's thinking safety first!
• We are progressing with the potty training and he did his first poop in the potty this week, which was pretty exciting. We haven't given up on diapers just yet, but we're on the right track.
• He loves being a big brother and takes such good care of both of his sisters. He may be watching out for Whitley Ann a little more and pushing Lalon a little more these days, but I'm figuring it will all even out in the long run!
• He's working on his counting and can count to 10 about 80% of the time. He's also working on his colors and knows most of them really well, especially blue and orange.
• He likes to tell me that Daddy, Blaine and Kevin are 'working hard' and 'Daddy's making the money'.
• He also likes to announce that Big Kevin is a big boy, most likely because we have Kevin's Ford F-150 truck right now (Naylor's most favorite) and he loves talking about 'Kevin's big truck with big tires'.
• Everything is "silly" these days and he'll say "Silly Whitley Ann" when she smiles or "Silly Lalon" when she is in fact being silly; it's pretty cute.
• He also likes to pretend to be grown up with favorite phrases like, "No running in my house!" (to his dumptruck) and occasionally he'll try to put Lalon in time-out and I have to intervene at that point.
• He really is a great helper around the house though, grabbing diapers or throwing dirty ones away, giving Whitley Ann her pacifier and helping Lalon reach something and it just melts my heart.
• When he wakes up in the mornings, he'll call out from his room "Good morning Mommy!" and that means, come get me, I'm up. Then he is sure to say good morning to everyone in the house; sometimes I have to stop him though because some of them are still sleeping!

He's at a really fun stage almost all of the time (all of us have our off days, right?). I'm glad I have this blog to jot down the little things that make me laugh and smile each day so that they don't get lost in the shuffle years from now.

Girl's doctor well-check

I took Whitley Ann and Lalon this morning for their respective 2 month and 18 month routine check-ups; we're a little off on the timing... it's hard getting an appointment for two! Both girls looked great and were doing all they were supposed to be doing. Dr. Artman said Lalon's collarbone is healing very nicely and that we didn't need to worry about her much longer; it was almost all set.

So here are their respective stats:

Lalon at 18 months:

• 23 lbs, 6.4 oz (30%)
• 32" (50%)
• 46.9 cm for head (50%)
• Lalon doesn't return until 2 yrs old!

Whitley Ann at 2 months (although almost 3 months now!):

• 12 lbs, 1 oz (50%)
• 23" (50%)
• 39.5 cm for head (50%)
• Whitley Ann returns at 4 months for her next check.

Week in pictures

Just some cute ones of the kids this week! By the way, we've had a much less exciting (in a good way) week with no major injuries or escapades!

Whitley Ann and Naylor just hanging out.

William Lawson and Whitley Ann's 3rd play date

Lalon all ready to go with her backpack, bracelet and hair 'did'

It's exhausting being this cute!

A new car!

I typed that blog title with the sound of Bob Barker from the Price is Right saying it in my head...

We don't actually have a new car... yet. We are in the market for a new car seeing as how the two we have don't really, completely suit the needs of our growing family. All of our friends and some family are highly suggesting I bite the bullet and get a swagger wagon, aka minivan. I'm resisting that with everything I am.

Our friend Brian sent this one to me this morning. We're going to look at cars this weekend, maybe we'll take this one on a test drive!

More silliness

These kids are the funniest and keep me on my toes for sure!

Naylor & Lalon "taking a nap". Naylor wanted to sleep in Lalon's bed, so I figured what the heck and gave it a try during nap time for fun... after 30 minutes they were still talking (quietly though), so I made him go to his bed so they'd actually get some sleep.

Just about asleep - don't you think?

Naylor saw this in Whitley Ann's room the other day and insisted on carrying it around for a day, saying it was his ice cream and licking it... what an imagination!

I think she's saying, "Hurry up, I'm missing the good part!"

Whitley Ann and Brian just kicking back watching The King's Speech

Naylor is the funniest.

We've just started a new counting method for discipline and after a few days I can tell that it is beginning to work (1-2-3 Magic if you are interested).

The first day I started it, we were at the beach and I say, "Naylor, that's 1.". Naylor's response, "No Mommy, Naylor's two; Lalon's one.". Oh brother!

I had to walk out of the room so he wouldn't see me laughing - he was right! He is starting to catch on to the concept of the counting meaning a time-out is coming if he doesn't straighten up.