Oh man, where have the last couple months gone?! Geez, I have seriously neglected this blog, I am not sure how I will catch up! But I'll try...
...First off, we had our little boy ON HIS DUE DATE on March 9. It was a longer labor and delivery than I'm used to and he was a much bigger baby, too, but all still went well. We had him at Bella Vie with no complications and brought him home two days later. Liam Terry Kaiser was born at 8:19 in the morning and he weighed 8 lbs 12 oz! The girls absolutely love him and are wonderful big sisters.
Since being home, it has become an adjustment to take care of and haul around 3 kids now, but after the first three weeks, I felt like I was pretty much back to my crazy mama self. Jonathan had to go back to work after only one week, but we survived and it seems like every day only gets easier.
I even started preschool back up and although it sometimes feels disorganized, it's been going mostly well. We've had a lot of catch up and review to do, but both Emma and Chloe were anxious to learn and it's been nice to teach them more and more. Only 6 days of school left, now, though, over the next 4 weeks before we quit for summer. Emma has done so well, she is more than ready for kindergarten next year. Having taught both her and Chloe I can see now how just their 4 months of age difference really does show their maturity and learning levels. Chloe is definetly NOT ready for kindergarten yet and I look forward to giving her extra special attention at preschool/pre-k next year. I think we'll even include Adaya a bit to start teaching her some letters and numbers as well.
In potty-training news, Adaya started to really get it in mid-April and it was exciting to see some progress. In fact, after a couple days of going pee-pee pretty consistently in the potty, I let her wear training pants/pull-ups! I cannot even believe it. I had pretty much given up after a few failed attempts, despite being so incredibly sick of having two kids in cloth diapers...especially her with her huge, nasty 2 year old poops! (Which, by the way, still have not once been in the potty yet!) And, after a couple days, she relapsed again. I think it was mostly due to Mommy and Liam going away for a weekend, leaving a friend and Jonathan to pick up the slack. She refused when there was no potty seat at the DuPont's to sit on and then didn't want to sit at all after a couple days for Daddy or me. So, here we are, back to the drawing board. She still sits every now and then, but it is so hard to be consistent with all our running around each day and having Liam to cart to the potty as well. (sigh) Just another reminder how easy Chloe was at all these milestones and what a nightmare Adaya can be at them!
Speaking of nightmares, I don't know if it is the full moon this week or what, but the girls have been absolutely impossible to settle down at bedtime. Add that to my extreme exhaustion from watching all three until 7pm each night, I feel like I am getting nothing done. Man, it seems like the hardest part of the switch from 2 to 3 kids is the loss of time. Instead of checking off my to-do list, I feel like I am washing twice as much laundry, doing twice as many dishes and cleaning up twice as many messes...over and over again each day. It's a bit frustrating. I just wish I had some more motivation instead of sheer exhaustion after they are in bed. Instead, I just want to crawl into mine with a book, a glass of wine or the remote.
Liam was looking like he was gonna start sleeping through the night, but all of a sudden, after Grandma Beka came and visited last week, his schedule got thrown way off and it was hard to get him to nap properly during the day, which made him not sleep well at night, either. We are finally getting back into our routine this week...just in time for Papa and Grandma Cheryl to visit! At least they don't have to sleep on our couch, though!
Pretty soon we'll have some more room, though. We've finally scheduled our contractor friend, Matt, to start building a bonus room in our garage. It should be done by mid-June and I cannot wait! It wont have floors until fall, probably, but just having that extra living space this summer will be so nice!
We've started our garden and things are growing nicely. We made a lot of changes and are still updating it a bit. It's exciting to see everything looking a little nicer around here. Makes us a little anxious to sell so we can move. But we are still waiting on the Lord for that.
Jonathan's promotion has kept him super busy and stressed at work and home, but hopefully things will only get better as he continues to improve his department and hire better employees. That is the main reason we would like to move. To cut down Jon's commute so he can be home more. But, again, we wait for God's leading.
I think it is safe to say that Chloe has officially stopped sucking her fingers! After a dentist appointment, we were told we really need to get on that, so we purchased a yucky fingernail paint and a special dolly to help. And like everything with Chloe, it was totally easy. After the first week, she had only relapsed once and hasn't again since. We are so proud of our little girl!
As spring moves closer to summer, we're making more plans and I cannot wait to post more pics of all the fun family things we are gonna do!
