Little Family MASH-UP

Howdy all!

I'm not sure why I always feel the need to start out with a salutation, but I do. So, salud to you.

We've had a crazy month around here, starting with TRENTON going back to work after 3 weeks of having him at home. How did we do without him? We actually did pretty great! And continue to do well, with the exception of today but that's a whole other blog post that probably won't ever happen. We'll just say Mackenzi is DEFINITELY two. Yup she is. And it's extra infuriating because she's so BIG that I keep forgetting that she is in fact TWO and usually hold her to higher standards of behavior which she usually doesn't meet. Poor girl. I'll remember her age eventually.

Here she is being CALM. She was describing herself as being a "tiny tiny baby with a binky" Not so tiny tiny anymore, my love. She's going to ROCK the sporting world! Can't wait.

But seriously, things have gone a lot smoother than I anticipated having three munchkins on my own. We've done outings a few times a week and haven't had any major melt downs by anyone, so far. (Again, excluding today! :)))))

Last week Jena and her newly graduated husband Joey, and BJ and his newly graduated wife Camille all came to visit post semester. It was so fun to have them here! My girls LOVE their Aunts and Uncles and were spoiled with tons of attention and wrestling partners or camels. (My girls ride human camels for some reason, not human horses...) We had a blast playing reverse charades, among many other fun games, and were introduced to a heavenly dessert by the name of Super Yummy (and easy!) Chocolate Cheesecake. It's no bake and includes Nutella. I know you're drooling. I'll hook you up with the recipe if you want. And with a piece of it if you want too - I'm looking for excuses to make it again!! (We made it for yesterday's post birthday family celebration for Brooklin's 4th birthday, and I'm already needing another excuse!!)

We loved having them here. Come again soon guys! Seriously though.

Looking up at Brooklin, who happened to be an expert Photo Bomber through most of the picture taking on Andrew's blessing day :) -- notice the sarcasm in that smiley face :)

While we had the siblings in town we blessed mr Andrew. It worked out that we weren't able to bless him in our sacrament meeting, but everyone was able to make it in the evening so we opted to bless him at my parents house the Sunday after general conference. It was fun to have all the family there, and Andrew looked so cute in his little white church outfit. I want to have him wear it every week to church until he grows out of it, but I don't want him to have a blow out in it or to spit up all over it, so we'll probably not do that. I have been thinking about framing the girls' blessing dresses, and think it would be fun to frame his little outfit too. We'll see.

Trenton did a nice job blessing him, and Mackenzi made sure to talk almost the whole time too. Not such a nice job, two year old! Luckily I'm pretty sure it was in whisper voices, but still. That girl! She is two. I'm just making sure everyone knows.

Next on the crazy business was miss Brooklin's 4th (and Papa's 56th) birthday! We celebrated by spending the whole day with everyone who was in town. Papa took Brooklin out to lunch for the first of their potentially annual Birthday Buddy Eating Outing Celebration (or something like that). I love that! And I hope it does become tradition, I think it's a cool thing to share a birthday with a family member (especially when it's NOT a sibling...) For dinner we had steak (per my dad's request) and Macaroni and Cheese (per Brooklin's request). Brooklin picked strawberry and blackberry and raspberry cupcakes for her birthday cake, and we did our best by making a box mix strawberry cake and frosted them with Strawberry Kiwi Koolaide flavored (and colored) buttermilk frosting. Those puppies were SUPER SWEET but tart at the same time. They were sugar overload anyway, that's for sure. Topped with strawberry gummies and those little candy raspberries and blackberries. Dad was chill and didn't request a separate dessert. I bought him Heath Klondike Bars anyway, in hopes that he'd at least get a little something he liked for dessert. I don't think we took any pictures on the birthday - how lame are we? I really have to be better at that.

Last on our crazy list was Trenton seeking and applying for jobs. He interviewed for multiple positions, had 2nd interviews (or scheduled 2nd interviews) for most of them, and just today accepted an offer for one of them. He officially gave his 2 weeks notice to Misters Ernst and Young and will take drug tests and have background checks tomorrow and will start a new more normal job two weeks from today, hurray!

He'll be working for ThyssenKrupp Aerospace (uh, no clue if that's the correct CRAZY way of spelling it, but it's close) and we're told he'll have 45 hour work weeks. That's a huge difference from his 75+ work weeks he'd been doing almost all busy season these last 6 months. The office he'll be at is in Kent and should cut his commute time in half. We've started house hunting to make his commute even shorter - but I'm waiting for the perfect house, so it may take quite a while.

A little update on how Andrew's doing: he's great. I seriously can't say more. He just started cooing today and maybe once or twice in the last couple of days, and it's SO CUTE! I forgot all about these cute little coos that babies do before they start forming letter sounds etc. It's probably my favorite thing. Andrew has restored my faith in Newborns -and I'm no longer terrified of them. I can even imagine having another munchkin or two. (AH! Someone remind me to read my journal posts from WHEN I WAS PREGNANT to stop that madness from happening! JK. Kind of.)

Last night he slept for 6 hours before waking to eat, and then 4.5, then 2, and then was up for the day. When he woke after the 4.5 hour sleeping stretch it was 6:30 am, so not too shabby. I'm contemplating starting my nighttime sleep program ritual of waiting ten minutes when he wakes up to see if he'll go back to sleep on his own - but so far have chickened out when it comes down to it because I'm just SO TIRED at 1 AM that I dont' want to wait, I just want to feed him and get it over with. But. Soon, I think. I'll try it soon.

And I know when I do I'll have wished I'd have started sooner :)

Oh well.

The moral is, he's awesome. We love him!

Oh, did I mention he successfully has taken a bottle, twice? Yup. He did. And it's awesome. And I can actually pump a fair amount, whereas while nursing Brooklin - it took 2-4 times pumping (for like 30 minutes each time) just to get 4 ounces. This time it takes me 5 or 10 minutes MAX to get 4-6 ounces. And the key part is, he drinks it. From someone else. Awesome awesome awesome.

The nipple we purchased is the Madela Calma - I'll repeat that for you who are hard of hearing - the MADELA CALMA. It's a bit pricey, but we only really need one and it works SO GREAT. He doesn't choke, and he has to actually work for the milk. It doesn't come from him "biting" the nipple, which means he won't learn about BITING ME until the normal 4 to 6 month age period.

Again, AWESOME.

Well folks, hope you've enjoyed my mash-up of all things Little. We're excited that Brooklin is 4, for Andrew to start sleeping "through the night", and for Trenton to have a "normal" job! (We're also excited for Mackenzi to NOT be 2, but we've still got a while... so.)

The end.