The First Ten Days...Ish

In a moment of blind ambition, I thought to myself what a great idea it would be to take a picture of Spencer every day for the first ten days after he was born, to track of the remarkable changes at the beginning of life. (Taking one picture a day for ten days doesn't actually sound that hard, I know, but trust me, it's more complicated than you think, especially when your subject is either crying, pooping, or sleeping 90% of the time.) I still think it was a great idea, even though it didn't quite come to fruition...we made it through 8 days before the project completely derailed. But since this little guy has been grossly under-represented on the blog over the last few weeks, I figured we could still do a little Spencer Shout-Out to show his growth so far.

day 1

day 2

day 3

day 4

day 5

day 6

day 7

day 8

Then, several days later, there was this:

The recurring theme: he is somehow cuter every day.

On Doing Nothing While Doing Everything

Well, I heard it again and again, and yet I still didn't want to believe it: "Once you have four, you can't get anything done." I will readily admit, as many times as I heard it, I smugly thought to myself, "Well, maybe you can't get anything done, but I'll be just fine."

Given the fact that I have nearly fallen off the face of the earth since April 18, you can probably guess where this is going. (Don't let Craig's guest blog posts on kite flying, x-rays, picnics, and the Tooth Fairy fool you...I haven't sat at the computer since my brief post on April 27th.)

Turns out the prediction was pretty darn accurate. Since Spencer was born, I have fed him, held him, changed him, gotten up in the night with him, held him some more, kissed his fuzzy head, and abysmally little else. All of my wild fantasies of making dinner, keeping the house picked up, writing thank you cards, helping kids with homework, staying on top of my church responsibilities, and starting some moderate exercise (HA!) have gone right out the proverbial window and gotten lost in the bottomless blue of Spencer's beautiful little eyes. 

Then again, it's not so bad.

After all, who wouldn't be powerless against the amazingly magnetic snuggle power of this sweet little boy?

1st Annual Palm Valley Phase V Picnic Extravaganza

We LOVE our new neighborhood. It has been such a great blessing to be here and to top it all off the HOA organized the 1st Annual Palm Valley Phase V Picnic. It was a total blast! The girls needed to get out of the house to expend some of their bundled up energy and let Mommy and little Spencer have some peace and quiet, so this was the perfect outlet for them.

There was a really good spread of hamburgers, hot dogs, chips, candy and all sorts of other goodies, but despite the selection, Savanna and Alexa only ate about 4 combined bites of their hamburger and J pounded down half of one. Next time I will just get one to split between the three of them. 

The girls in all of their face painting glory:

  

Getting ready to enjoy some thrills on the bounce house slide.

                       Ready to go at the top.                 On the decent.                 Giving the a-okay. 

Some great hair flying shots of Julia bouncing down the slide:

This one is my favorite.

They even had a pony ride that the girls all loved.

Alexa even went on by herself...she is getting so big. 

    

The petting zoo was a winner too with baby and mommy chickens and goats, geese, and a baby calf. 

   

Julia and Savanna were even able to feed the baby chicks. You can't tell by Savanna's smile, but

the baby chick was digging its sharp claws into Savanna's hands as she held it. She's a tough one.

    

Can you believe that they even had a rock wall? Even more, would you believe me if I told you there was hardly a line for it and that all three of our adventurers got to try it out? They were all really good climbers despite the fact that they were all wearing flip flops. I think Alexa may have gone the highest though with a little bit of help (i.e. part of the hand holding her up in the corner of the picture below). Since Lex didn't weigh enough to come down on her own I had to pull her back down by her feet. It's a good thing she could not climb up any further or she might still be up there.

   

   

All in all...this was a great community picnic that we all had fun at. Can't wait til next year's!

Kites and Kids

There's nothing quite like taking three impatient, albeit very cute kids to fly kites from the dollar store. Alexa broke her kite before it even got off the ground, Savanna broke hers running too fast while the wind was already blowing hard and Julia was patient enough to accept some kite flying tips from daddy before the wind got the best of it. 

Here are the day's kite flying stats:

• # of minutes before Alexa was ready to go home: 5
• # of times Savanna asked if the kite was ready to fly: 12
• # of times Julia said "that's not fair that Savanna gets to fly her kite first": 3
• # of kites purchased: 4
• # of kites survived: 1
• # of Daddys survived: 0

All in all 45 minutes of excruciating kite flying was well worth these 2 cute pictures of the girls. I would do it all over again, just to get another 2.

X Ray

As if the Monson clan did not have enough excitement on our hands with having a new bundle of joy added to the mix. The first full week that I took off to be home with Katie and Spencer everyone got sick...Julia came home early from school with a stomachache (we are pretty sure she was faking since she had a big smile on her face when I picked her up, apparently I did the same thing when I was her age...no surprise since she is me), Alexa got a fever and threw up all over the floor and Savanna had to go to the doctors for an ear infection, inflamed nose from allergies and a cough that just would not go away. Savanna also had to get her first chest x-rays to screen for asthma, which came back positive for slight asthma. 

Even though she did not like wearing the Looney Toon gown, because it didn't match her skirt and wasn't very cute (her words not mine), Savanna was a brave little trooper. I would say that her smile makes up for any cuteness lost from wearing a hospital gown, what do you think?