Madison is a month old. I find that so baffling. Where did the month go?
Madison had her first real bath. She was a fan:
We went to a family dinner at my Grandma’s. Madison was adored by all:
Ben came up and spent some time bonding with the baby. He brought Cafe Rio with him. He’s welcome anytime!
Madison is usually an okay sleeper but occasionally in the evenings she’ll really fight going to sleep. This has happened the past two nights so naturally I’m worried this will happen every night here on out for the rest of our lives, and I get really exhausted thinking about that. Let’s all hope tonight is a good night.
Brooke got hold of the camera one day while I was showering. Apparently Madison became unhappy:
But she fixed the problem:
She also got a shot of Spencer’s mouth:
Brooke was off-track during March so we didn’t have to worry about school which was so nice as I was recovering from giving birth. One day the girls were bored so I pulled out some Perler Beads that I bought several weeks ago. This kept them busy for days:
Caroline made a circle design and Brooke created what else? A unicorn:
Brooke being off track and me just having a baby meant there were a lot of days where everyone stayed in their pajamas:
Brooke spent the last couple of days looking like this:
Her left eye got scratched and became all red and swollen. Luckily it has started healing and she’s almost back to normal.
I woke up early to feed Madison and finished right as all the other kids were waking up. Since it was Saturday and Dallas was up, I decided to take advantage of him being home and I went back to sleep for a bit. As I was crawling into bed I heard Brooke say, “Where are all the decorations?” Oops. I had forgotten to put up the happy birthday sign and to cut threes out of paper and hang them everywhere. When I woke up I saw that Brooke had taken matters into her own hands and had decorated for me. Bless her.
Some of Brooke’s threes were a little more abstract than others. That yellow paper on the ground is a three:
Everyone was excited to see what Spencer got:
This postpartum mom needed a cake that provided maximum satisfaction for the birthday boy with minimum effort from the mom. This cake fit the bill:
He loved it:
Madison was actually awake for a bit…
…until she got into this position which must be more comfortable than it looks because she was out for hours:
Caroline is forever the doting big sister. Every time she looks at Madison she says in a high-pitched voice, “Oh, she’s so adorable. I just can’t take it!”
Caroline noticed a most unflattering mole on my arm. Black hair grows out of it which grosses me out so I try to keep it trimmed but obviously had slacked in the grooming department on this particular day.
Caroline (with a note of mild horror in her voice): “You have an eyelash growing on your arm?!”
***
Me: “Want to go to Grandma’s?”
Spencer (excitedly, pumping both fists in the air): “YEAH!”
Me (matching his enthusiasm): “When we get there, are you going to say, ‘I love you Grandma!’?”
Spencer (pausing for a moment and suddenly getting very serious): “Actually…I’m going to play with cars.”
***
Spencer, Caroline, and I were walking into a store. In the parking lot Spencer suddenly stopped, backtracked about five paces, and picked up a rock.
Spencer: “Caroline! It’s a rock! I found a rock! It’s totally a rock, Caroline!”
(You probably had to be there for that one. The “totally” part is what got me.)
***
Caroline had to be sedated for some dental work. I told her they would give her something to make her fall asleep and they’d fix her teeth while she was sleeping. While we were waiting for the dentist, she was lying down looking tired.
Me: “Are you going to go to sleep right now?”
Caroline: “You mean without even a sleeping spell?”
***
Me: “Caroline, would you like more apples?”
Caroline (carefully considering this offer): “I’m happy to report…I want a grapefruit.”
***
We were at my mom and dad’s house. Spencer and Caroline were in the basement watchingAlice in Wonderland. My mom and I heard Spencer coming up the stairs mumbling to himself, “That was the stupidest tea party ever.”
Oops. In going through my pictures I realized I never posted anything about Thanksgiving. For instance, I skipped posting about this cute pilgrim:
Dallas’s dad invited us to his house for a delicious Thanksgiving dinner:
The girls love to make candy houses at Christmastime. We got too busy to do them before Christmas so we made them in January:
The girls made candy houses. The boy smashed his house in a fit of rage and decided to just eat all of the candy instead. Actually not a bad idea:
We had a huge snowstorm and Brooke made a snowman (notice Caroline is holding snowman’s hand):
Brooke thinks it’s really fun to roll every single one of her socks up like so:
The first time she did it, Spencer woke up for the morning and saw the rolled-up socks on the ground. He excitedly yelled, “Doughnuts!” and began to take a bite before I could warn him of the reality of what he was about to consume. He wasn’t too happy with his mouthful of cotton.
Caroline sporting a static electricity do:
Spencer and his cars. Inseparable:
I went in to get Spencer from his nap and found he had gotten stuck in his shirt. He was so tangled up; I have no idea what he was doing:
I bought a large pack of paper towels and the kids thought they were the greatest toys. Brooke made a huge “temple” and then had to decorate it so it could be beautiful:
The great name debate. We’ve been trying to figure out what to name Baby #4. One day Brooke and Caroline decided that she should be called “Blossom.” They were both satisfied with that name so Brooke made a name tag and stuck it on the fridge next to the ultrasound pictures of the baby:
Saying “cheese” during lunch:
Dallas whipped up a gourmet meal for his mom, Stratton, and Anna:
Here’s Brooke’s homework paper. She saw the staple in the corner and just had to turn it into part of a duck’s beak. Of course. Isn’t that what you think of when you see staples in papers?
Brooke has given herself a middle name:
Speaking of Brooke, her room looks like this:
She is trying to turn her room into Ponyville.
You remember that scene in the movie A Beautiful Mind when John Nash’s wife goes out to the shed behind their house, opens the door, and is horrified to see all the newspaper clippings and string and everything else plastered all over the walls? That’s sort of how I feel when I enter Brooke’s room.
Especially after she got the “great” idea to tape the flying ponies to the ceiling:
And then we have this gem taped to the side of her bed:
You can see it’s her hand print. It’s there because whoever wants to climb up into the top bunk has to match their hand to hers and if it doesn’t fit, you can’t go up. (You can also see she has paw prints that allow her bears access to her bed and the circles are pony prints.) I feel like she’s just one step away from installing retina scans and voice recognizers to protect her space.
Dallas had a birthday! The girls got it in their head that we needed to play musical chairs to celebrate, so we did. Good thing too since Spencer looks like he’s having the time of his life:
After our rousing game of musical chairs, Dallas opened his presents:
A movie and candy. We really go all out for birthdays around here:
