"Mama--I'm Mary, and Ewijah's Joseph!"

Playing With Little Sis

Wips (Lips--lipgloss)

The Joys of a Sleeping Baby

At 8-weeks-old, this little preciousness has slept 8 hours for Mommy and Daddy for two nights in a row now!! And then she sleeps another 2.5 hours after that! Could this be a trend?! Even if it's not, this little one has been an awesome sleeper from the start. I don't know if it's just her or her bed, but she will continue to sleep in her little hammock bed as long as possible! Mommy functions so much better when given ample sleep time :) She is also smiling quite a bit now. This morning while nursing, she had to stop a couple of times so she could look up at me and smile--so cute. And she is very curious already. There have been a couple of times when MJ and/or EM were around, and she had to stop eating to see what they were doing :)

Each baby has seemed easier to me. I don't know if it's because my perspective of "easy" changes a little each time or what, but right now, Kerith is an easy baby :) Don't get me wrong--she does her fair share of crying--it just happens to be during the day and not at night :) And she gets held quite a bit too, but that works great with me b/c I like to hold her and so do MJ and EM :) And she's nice and chubby, so I don't have to worry that she's not eating enough :) She is oh so cute!

Mikaela's New Name

Mikaela Samantha Joy Axelson Burr Julia :)

Sun, Moon and Stars

MJ: Why was Kaferine tired?
Me: She stayed up too late and had been swimming. The sun makes you tired.
MJ: The moon makes me tired. And I think the stars make Elijah tired. :)

So I've been trying to get a good picture of Kerith at this age to put up on our wall. She has started smiling recently, so the other day I thought I could catch a few. Some of these, I know I wouldn't pick, but they're just kind of funny. I can't decide. Do I even pick any of these, or do we just make a trip to Olan Mills? :)

"Shoe Fly"

Bzzz, bzzz, bzzz (fly buzzing around the dining room while we're trying to eat)
Me: Shoo fly!
MJ: (whining) I don't wike shoe fwies!

A Note on Numbers

I've started working with MJ on recognizing the numbers 21-100. Here is a list of numbers I would give her: 92, 56, 38, 26

Here's her answer:
MJ: "ninety-two, fifty-six, thirty-eight, two-ty-six" :)

A Conversation Between MJ & EM

EM: "Wo Wo" (Word World)

MJ: "Don't say that."

EM: "Wo Wo"

MJ: (as she's laying on the pillow on the couch) "Pwease don't ask me that again."

Conversations Between MJ & Mom

This girl is sooo funny and is always saying things that crack me and Eric up. Here are a couple of recent conversations.

MJ was sitting on the potty, and I came in to see if she was finished.

MJ: "Mom, the baby's just tryin' to come out."

_____________________

As many of you other nursing moms know, when it gets close to feeding time or if the baby starts crying or something, your body naturally starts "letting down. So I normally will just hold my chest really tight with my hands to stop the flow :)

MJ: (with her hands on her chest) "Mom, my milk's just coming out."

______________________

Mikaela has gotten pretty good at knowing the different rings on my phone and who they belong to. So one night I was cooking dinner, and I hear, "Mo-o-o-m, it's your sister!" Sure enough, my sister had just called. I just think it's funny that she actually knows everyone's rings :)

______________________

This was a couple of weeks ago. They'd been watching an episode of "Word World" where Bear is helping Sheep learn to ride a bike, and every time Sheep would want to quit, Bear would tell to to not give up.

Me: (After Eric's phone cutting out on me multiple times and me trying to call him back multiple times) "I give up!"

MJ: (running over to me, putting her hand on my shoulder) "Don't give up!"

I just lost it :) Obviously, these are all much funnier in person :)

Elijah Update

Well, for about two weeks now, I can finally call Elijah officially potty-trained!! He started out telling me by signing "potty," but for the past two or three weeks now, he just says, "paw-ee," (potty). Part of the test is taking two long trips to Walmart without having any accidents :) So, what do I consider "trained?" Whenever he consistently is wearing underwear and telling me he has to go without going in his pants first. We do still wear a diaper during naptime and nighttime. To me, "trained" means during wake times :) And yesterday he even started pulling his underwear up and down on his own! Yes, there will still be accidents, but they are much further apart now. Now it's Kerith's turn :)

He has also started to take an interest in the alphabet (after many, many, many episodes of "Word World" on PBS :) ). He even knows quite a few of the lower case letters! I don't feel like I've really worked with him a whole lot on his letters. I guess it just means more when it comes from a talking pig, duck, ant, bear and sheep :)

Recently, he has started calling me "Mommy" rather than just Mama. It's pretty cute :) And in the last couple of days he's started saying "nope" instead of just "no." A couple of other things he's learned from MJ: the letter B is B-yuh, bye is bye-yuh, go-uh, o-wuh, no-wuh and so on :)

And a couple of the funniest things right now are when he says, "I re-ee!" (the first e being short--for "I'm ready") when we're in the car about to pull out of the garage :) and "I d it!" (I did it! after going to the potty or pulling up his pants, etc.).

My Talking Copycat

My little man is finally starting to say more and more words. Here he is saying "Layla" (Mikaela), Dak (short for Daddycakes), and I still can't quite make out what he says for Kerith. I figured I better get this recorded soon before he started saying their names correctly. I almost hate to correct this stage of talking :)

And here's my little man copying MJ. He literally copies almost every single thing she does. I can't ever get to my camera soon enough though to get all the things he copies when they run around the table like this. Maybe b/c I'm usually laughing at how accurate he is in copying all the things she does. I managed to get a tiny piece though, so here it is :)

A Couple of Mother's Day Pics

Unfortunately, my sweet, wonderful, awesome husband can't read my mind on how to use my camera and take pictures the way I would like for him to (hence the very clear, dirt background). And there were a few mosquitos that were freaking MJ out. So put together an uncooperative kid, a non-photographer husband and a mom who's making us all late for church, and this is all you get :)

Kerith's First Coos

This is pretty much for the grandparents and family to see, I know. But Kerith is starting to find her voice, and it's pretty cute :)

More Splash Park Fun!

Well, it's that time of the year again when they turn on the water at the splash park! The park is about 30 minutes from our house, but it's free and is totally worth it b/c we usually end up spending 3-4 hours there. We're going to make a real effort to make it as many Fridays as we can. Last week, the water was on the whole time we were there, but today, it didn't even come on until around 12:30 and was still having some problems. MJ LOVED the water last week and still got in it today, but the 2-year-old boys are all scared of the water right now (or something). Elijah copies everything else Mikaela does, so I thought he'd be right in it with her, but he still didn't want to get in today :(

Last week, one of the other moms asked me if it's been any harder with three kids. The only thing I could think of was that I don't get to take as many pics as I would like b/c I seem to always have a kiddo in my arms :) Oh well--I like having them in my arms, so I guess that means I'll just have to have fewer pics sometimes!

Here are some pics of what we were able to get last week and today.

What a Dork!!

On Tuesday, I thought I should actually get my kiddos outside and try to get them to run around some. Eric gives me a hard time about keeping them confined within our 1000-square foot house :) Well, the mosquitos have been pretty bad. Elijah's legs had looked like we put him in a mosquito pit or something. So I got everyone outside, went inside and grabbed the Off and started spraying everyone down (except for Kerith). When spraying, it surprised me at first b/c the spray came out of the top rather than the side and it bubbled up white on our skin. I thought this was kind of weird but didn't stop. Then I thought, "Wow, they really have made this stuff smell better--it smells very fruity." I went to take the Off back inside and happened to look at the can to see that I'd just sprayed all of us down with Mango Splash Glade air freshener :)

Our Future Baseball Player??

Reminiscing (Part 2)

I think this will just always crack me up. It's just so Mikaela--she is so strong-willed but is always doing something that makes us laugh :)

Reminiscing (Part 1)

So Mikaela has been wanting to look at pics of herself when she was a baby (and hear herself talk when she was a baby :) ) I'll get to her in a following post--I just couldn't help but remember little man's hair stages :)

Was It Worth It?

So, I just can't help myself--maybe it was the couple of months past when I didn't take hardly any pictures at all. It's just that once I get going, I realize how much I really like taking pics, and I have a really hard time stopping :) Thank goodness for kids who force me to be more balanced whether I want it or not :) So--was it worth it? Worth what, you ask? Worth the 50 mosquito bites I got in the 20 minutes we were outside so I could take these pictures. I think so :)

Our Little Lovey at One Month

I can't believe little miss is already one month old! So I finally made it outside for her first photo session :) It's really hard taking pictures of babies and kids by yourself--especially when MJ and EM are whining for me to come back in the whole time :) And it was a kind of bright and windy outside for my little tender-eyed girl. Oh well--here's some of what I was able to capture. Hopefully we'll have more photo ops soon!

Grandpa Knape's 85th B-Day Party

This past Sunday, we went down the road to celebrate Eric's grandfather's 85th birthday. It was held at Eric's Uncle Gregg's clinic. MJ and EM had a blast looking at all the horses and running around all over the place :)

My Sweet Boy With His Cute New Haircut

The Hard Life

The Baby Scale

Kind of random, but I forgot about this pic (KL at 10 days). This is what Jackie (our midwife) uses to weigh tiny babies in. I just think it's pretty cool but for some reason always forget about taking a picture :)

Our First Fam of 5 Pics

Friends

On Monday, Mikaela's friend, Elyona, turned 5 and had an impromptu tea party with us. She had quite the beautiful spread of little treats and tea (thanks a lot to her oldest brother and sister)! Unfortunately, I didn't get to get a good picture, as I was dealing with my point-and-shoot and holding Kerith :) MJ wasn't really interested in the tea or food--she mainly just wanted a piece of chocolate :) After the tea party, everyone ended up playing in the water outside. I think Elijah enjoyed that part more than anyone--he definitely wasn't ready when I made him come inside :)

A Little More on Easter

Last Sunday after church, we went down the road to Aunt Cheryl and Uncle Gregg's house. Mikaela and Elijah both had a lot of fun playing with all the other kids and hunting for eggs and toys. Although I do think Elijah actually had more fun "batting" at the eggs that were hanging from the trees :)

More importantly, we got to share with Mikaela that Easter Sunday is the day we set aside to celebrate something we've talked about many times before--that we are sinners, so God had to send His son, Jesus, to die on the cross to cover our sins; but He didn't stay dead--He arose and is alive and lives in Heaven with God. She gets very excited to tell us back that Jesus isn't dead--He's in Heaven with God :)

I'll leave you with a few more pics of my cuties!

A Couple of Easter Pics

Art

Unfortunately, this is NOT the kind of art that makes me happy, but I thought I should have some pics for memories later on :)

My Other Sweet Girl

Tonight we were watching "Swiss Family Robinson," and they were on the ship doing something. So Mikaela told me that when she used to be a man she used to do that too :)

Pure Sweetness

Uh oh--looks like we might have to get out the paci after all

:(

Daddy's New Way of Entertaining

Visitors/Sweet Memories

Last Saturday, we had visits from Uncle Jon-Jon, Aunt Lindsey, Evan and Emma and then later on from Grandma F and Granddaddy. MJ and EM still don't quite know what to make of Uncle Jon-Jon, so they were a little stand-off'ish', but Evan had fun playing with "new" toys, and I got to see and hold Emma for the first time. Then Grandma F and Granddaddy came with balls with the intent of tiring out MJ and EM, but I'm not sure who was more tired afterward :)

This past week went well! So far, Kerith has been a pretty easy baby. I think Elijah prepared us very well by getting up so much at night :) Mikaela LOVES to snuggle with Kerith and touch her hands and try to open her eyes when she wants to talk to her :) so I have to watch fairly closely. Then, I was very pleasantly surprised when Elijah asked me multiple times this week to hold Kerith! It is so cute; he'll hold out his hands, and I'll ask him if he wants to hold Kerith, and he shakes his head yes :) There was one day when I kept asking him if he was done, and he kept telling me uh-uh (no). After a while I thought he was probably really meaning yes, so I tried to pick her up, and he put his arms over her, making it very clear he wasn't finished holding her yet :)

And I just couldn't help myself--I haven't had to clean out poopy diapers in a long time now, so I've already started putting little miss over the sink to do her business :) The amazing thing is that she knows what to do! I don't expect to catch them all, but it's really nice to have some in the sink rather than having to clean out a diaper :)

Here's a little Mikaela funny. Both MJ and EM are very intrigued with the peri bottle. So last night, we were getting them ready for bed. We told MJ to go to the potty, so she does. Next thing, Eric and I are both watching her, trying not to laugh b/c she'd grabbed the bottle and was "washing" herself off just like Mommy :) She's also started "nursing" her baby again--still at her stomach :)

Munchkin Mischief

While I was busy doing something today, this is what I walked into the kitchen to find. Mikeala kept telling me to come into the kitchen b/c Elijah was getting into bags--I didn't realize she meant my Ziplock bags. He had pulled out three different sized bags! And for those of you who know me, yes, I picked up each bag individually, lining them up and put them back in their proper spot :) Elijah was trying to help me out by stuffing them back into the box :) The spilled raisins are nothing new--it was just an added bonus today :)