Yum Yum Week-end

Shea and I flew to Indianapolis two week-ends ago to visit with some of the greatest women in the world. As always, I left inspired and so very thankful for the fantastic family I have... and am counting the days until I can see them all again (August!!).

A few pics of our time together...

Shea, chillin' with Nadine and little Lainey.

Shea and my cousin, Nadine.

Nice and cozy with Graunt (Great-Aunt) Jeanne.

Shea and Lainey adored each other. Lainey was so sweet, continually showering Shea with hugs and kisses. I SO wish we lived closer so these cousins could play together as they grow up!

Lainey, giving Shea sweet cuddles.

Shea, loving Lainey's lap...even if they're not that far apart in size!!

Lainey, Shea and Graunt Kaye.

Great Granny and Shea play with Lainey.

I was so happy to introduce Shea to our Great Granny!

Here's Lucy giving her little 'cuz a little smooch.

My cousin Sally, keeping Shea nice and giggly.

Graunt Kim with Shea. Yes, there was a definite pass-the-baby theme going on all week-end. I have to say, I had it pretty easy!!!

Shea and Graunt Kathy, practicing silly faces. Graunt Kathy was endeared to Shea on our first night there when she rescued Shea from her crib, letting her stay up past her bedtime. :) That's what aunts are for, right?

Graunt Kelly, sharing breakfast and brochures with Shea.

Seventh-Month Shea!

Attempting the splits, while wearing her fancy shoes and a dress I wore when I was a baby.

Serious Shea.

Dex- top and Jax- bottom, also glad their little sis is seven months old!

A few random thoughts on Shea (they're random because I'm trying to make lunch WHILE I do this... if I wait until I have the time to organize my thoughts, this will NEVER get done!).

Shea turned seven months old this week. I'm constantly amazed at how fast time goes with little ones. As one of my mommy friends said, recently, "The days can seem so long, at times, but the years just fly by." This is very true.

Last week-end, Shea and I took our first airplane ride together to go visit the gals in my dad's side of the family for our annual Yum-Yum week-end retreat. She was amazingly spoiled by all, but I didn't exactly expect anything less!! :) Of course, that also meant that I was spoiled, as Shea was either held or played with by a great aunt, cousin or great granny the entire week-end and I, for the most part, had an empty lap (something that doesn't happen too often). I was so glad that she was able to meet some of the fantastic women in our family and that they were able to meet her. I made the same trip with the boys when they were the same age. I'll be posting photos sometime soon.

That same week-end, Shea made her first attempts at pre-crawling and within two days of returning home, she officially entered the mobile-baby phase. She is crawling all over the place!! I remember the boys were speed rollers/crawlers. Shea is a little more cautious about her movements. She keeps her tummy low to the ground and appears to be creeping up on her prey. It's pretty cute.

Then, yesterday, she decided to pull up to a stand. I used it to my advantage and changed her diaper with her standing up, holding onto the back of the driver's seat in our car (since she's also got the determination her brothers had when it comes to trying to escape diaper changes!).

She took her first big-girl bath with her brothers this week-end. Dex and Jax thought it was about the coolest thing EVER. They each carefully took turns holding her in their laps while I washed her up. Then, they gently washed her hair with a washcloth, which D.R. and I thought was one of the sweetest big-brother moments we've witnessed, yet. Shea also thought bathtime with her brothers was a lot of fun. I'm beginning to think everything is a bit more fun for a baby when you have two goofy brothers to keep you entertained and happy!

Shea continues to be a champion sleeper, she adores her daddy and continues to be far more interested in her brothers' toys than in her own.

I remember sitting in the operating room before Shea was born and all I could think about was how much I missed the boys and how sad I was that there was going to be this new little creature taking me away from them. I was so afraid I wouldn't love her the way I love the boys and that a new baby would just upset the way our family functioned. Last minute fears, I guess. Of course, within minutes of her birth, the love just poured out of me and it continues to grow, just as it does for her brothers. It's humbling for me to see how profoundly three little people can affect my life. Yes, our family functions differently, now... but it's not any more difficult that it was before. In fact, in some ways, I'd actually argue that it's easier. Shea brings a level of peace and calm to our family and can make each and every one of us smile, at times when we ordinarily might not want to.

Okay... time to get back to the munchkins... and lunch... and the adventures the boys have planned for our afternoon (surely, that will involve disassembling the couch and/or kitchen table!).

Snow pics

Scenes from our living room window... And it looked like so much fun, I had to run outside and join them!

As usual, I giggle everytime the boys concentrate with their tongues out! Too funny.

I love how they work together on random projects. I have no idea what they were doing here, but it involved a salad spinner and a strainer, and they were doing it as a team! (Jax- blue, Dex- brown)

Dexter decided to mitten-swap about every five minutes. Once his original pair was too wet and snowy to keep his fingers warm, he played musical-mittens until we went inside. Good thing we have that big box of mismatched mittens in the closet! Here he's actually trying to squeeze into a pair of Shea's mittens.
He soon swapped those for one of last year's mittens and one my gloves.

Nope, Mommy's glove is just not a good fit!
Man, this is too cold!! I need a new glove!
Jax, enjoying buckets and snow... what more could a person want?

Hmm... something is missing. What could it be? I SAID, something is missing!
Not that!!! :)

Oh, boys!!!

When faced with hours upon hours of time inside, due to cold weather, etc, the boys continue to come up with interesting and creative ways of entertaining themselves. It's times like these that I am SO VERY thankful that they have each other! Of course, it goes without saying that their creative playtime usually involves loud decibal levels and much clean-up! :)

Yesterday, for example, after a good 15 minutes of letting the boys play upstairs, I wandered up to see what they were doing. They were singing, in unison, "We're organizing our books... it's organize time! We're organizing our books... it's organize time!" As I heard them, I smiled to myself. It's so funny to hear them making up songs and playing so nicely. THEN, I saw what "organizing their books" actually meant. My smile faded as I witnessed three near-empty bookshelves and two boys proudly filling their dresser drawers with story books. Eek!! "What are you doing?!" I asked, with the panic of someone who DID NOT want to be spending the next 30 minutes putting books back into the bookshelf. "Mommy, we're organizing our books! It's teamwork! It's time to organize!" They were so very proud of themselves... it took every ounce of restraint for me not to completely freak out. Instead, D.R. used this as an opportunity to fix the back of the bookcase and we slowly started the process of putting the books back.

This sort of industriousness is something I see as a good and a bad thing. I love the fact that the boys are NEVER bored. I LOVE THIS. However, their "projects" often overwhelm me!! :)

Here are a few of the other ways they're keeping busy, these days...

Their attempt at a rocket ship quickly turned into a space shuttle fort. WAY FUN. Forts are a daily occurence for us, lately. The bigger, the better. If Baby Shea is content to stay inside with the boys, that is the ultimate!! Here, Dex is captain.

Also a daily happening, the afternoon wrestling match... usually lasting a good 1-2 hours. Theresa can verify. It's like clockwork!!

Dex, as Spiderman, trapping me in another web.

I think it's a twin thing (maybe a twin-boys thing?!), but neither boys has any personal space. This means lots of cuddles/wrestling for any visitor. Here, the boys get as close to Grama as possible!

Dex, as Indiana Jones.

Jax, as Indiana Jones.

Rarely, are the boys actually Dexter and Jaxon, anymore. More commonly, they are Batman, Iron Man, Spiderman, Indiana Jones, astronauts, aliens, Chicken Little, Bruce Wayne, Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Optimus Prime... the list goes on and on. It doesn't matter that they've never seen the movies, they've seen pictures and they've heard us tell them the stories. I think my new favorite is when they're Indiana Jones and they go on treasure hunts. At first, they would gather up toys while singing, "We're going on a treasure hunt.... to look for gold!" and pile them high up on the couch. After a day or two of this, we tried the reverse treasure hunt. At the end of the day, we would treasure hunt for toys and then place in the toy bin. A much better way of cleaning up!

Just for fun

I get such a kick out of these video clips. Granddad, wrestling with the boys... and Shea, watching calmly (you can tell she sees a lot of wrestling!). Also, Shea trying to inch her way toward a toy... so cute.

In the past few days, Shea has started doing the famous baby-rocking-on-her-hands-and-knees move that we all know and love. The best, however, is the look she gets as she's rocking. It's as though she's saying, "Okay! Now what do I do?!!"

Shea's Baptism

The kids were really happy that Mimi and Graddad were able to come into town the night before Shea's baptism. Jaxon was especially hoping that Mimi would share her birthday DVDs with him. :)I took absolutely NO photos, believe it or not, so these are pics that other people were nice enough to send to me!!! Shea with her family, godparents (Chad, Meredith- with Jake & Henry- and Theresa) and my dad, who baptized her.Shea- enjoying BOTH of her grandmas at the same time!!Of course, the boys were MORE than happy to help Shea open her gifts.

And THRILLED at all the fun beverages available to them!

And I just love this shot of T and Jax.

More smiles...

A few of the things that make me smile... D.R. and Shea. No explanation needed. They just make me happy!

A few days ago, I came downstairs to find the boys with my electric pump turned on, each trying to pump milk from their belly buttons. When they saw me, they just smiled, like it was the most natural thing in the world. It cracked me up. I tried to get a photo of it, but by the time I grabbed my camera, they had moved on to trying to disassemble the whole thing. I did, however, get one shot of Dex giving his belly button a second try. Too funny!

And lastly, the boys and I decided today that they needed a code word for their non-stop wrestling matches. Frequently, what starts out as a fun game ends up with one boy smothering another. I asked them what the code word should be and they were in complete agreement that it should be "chicken little." What?! So now, in addition to the hilarious sight of the boys loudly attacking each other ALL THE TIME, I hear random shout-outs of "CHICKEN LITTLE!!!!"