G turns One YEAR Old!!!

Grady turned ONE on Sunday. (sniffle, sniffle)

Our little boy is such a joy! Oh, how we love him!

We celebrated with just a small family party on Sunday. Grady didn't really give us a big show when eating his cake. He ate an entire piece of pizza and a pear, so I don't think he was hungry.

Micah and the girls tried to show him how to snarf down cake with no hands, but he wasn't impressed. So the cake eating was a bit of a let down.

Ice cream was a different story, however. He was happy to eat up a bowl of vanilla bean ice cream in no time!

Grady opened his presents and has enjoyed most of them. 

I think the balloons were his favorite, however! They are always a hit with kids!


Little G is a bit more laid back than his sisters were at his age. But, I can't say that I mind. I'm soaking up his milestones as I know how quickly I will forget them!

One year milestones:

• crawls and cruises
• takes one to two steps and stands alone.
• loves to dance to music/singing
• does a traditional crawl unless something is in his hand, then he has a funky lopsided crawl
• says dada, hi and "uh-oh"
• plays with the dog dish water every chance he can get
• Loves baths and comes crawling when tub turns on
• does not typically sleep through the night anymore, but surprises mommy from time to time with a full night of sleep
• has started drinking cow's milk without a fuss
• still nurses three to four times a day
• NO TEETH...yet
• loves to "walk" while hands are held
• climbs stairs well
• Rarely complains...he's a "go with the flow" kinda guy!

My lil newborn...

My lil toddler...

Why did it have to go so quickly?! 

Miscellainious

Weird. Now Blogger is letting me add photos. I guess I'll keep this blog going as long as I can and if they cut me off, I'll move to the other one I created. 

It's been three months since my last post. So I have a lot to catch up on. Too much, in fact.

I'll bombard you with photos...so prepare yourself!

Addie lost her first tooth...

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Grady turns one next week and still hasn't got any!
Mr. G is so close to walking. He takes steps but still crawls as his main mode of transportation!

Micah's folks came out to visit for two weeks. Here's a pic of Grady and Papa.

What young'n doesn't get into cabinets from time to time?

The girls have it made. They manage to get Grady to push them around the house!

 Mr. Dare Devil...

The kids love our new iPad. We have to wait until they are asleep to fight each other for it. :)

Addie had to sleep in our room while we had company. When we come to bed, we move her to the floor on her sleeping bag. One night, we came to bed and found her like this. Her arm was rigid in the air!

Eliza Ann finally has a handle on pooping in toilet. It's been hard to convince her that it's much easier. As a reward for her consistency, she's been enrolled in dance class. This is something she's been talking about doing for 3 months. She's over the moon about it. I loved watching her in class. She might be a natural. And Miss Tiffany thought she was hilarious---- very outgoing!

One of my goals for last year was to organize the pantry. I didn't get as many house goals done as I had hoped, so I made sure this was done before the end of the year. It has to be done every year anyway, but this year, I used Thirty-One bags!

Speaking of Thirty-One, I promoted my first Director this year!!! One more & I will promote to Senior Director. I'm hoping to earn a trip this fall as well! Micah and I haven't been on a vacation together since we were married. It's way over due!

Family pictures

blog change

Evidently, there is a limit on the amount of space one can have on blogger. I've exceeded the amount, unfortunately and haven't been able to update unless I want to pay monthly. I've been debating what to do, so I've decided I'm just going to link to a new account so from now on...my blog has moved:

www.moreofmicahandbeth.blogspot.com 

Eliza turns three!

You know that poem:
"Sugar and Spice and everything nice,
That's what little girls are made of."

That describes Eliza Ann quite well. She's just a bundle of fun...always saying funny things...with passion and energy. One minute, I can't believe how cute she is...the next minute, I'm worn out from her exasperating, independent behavior.

My "Miss Middle" just turned three...and I tear up just thinking about it. She just can't be three already! How can this have happened?

It seems like yesterday, she was crawling around, making "trilling sounds", and giving out the best giggles. I miss those BIG BLUE eyes and hanging jaws. I loved to kiss those cheeks.


Eliza has grown into her name. She's spirited and sweet on any given moment- and I love every bit of her.

We had some friends over for a small Pumpkin party last Friday for a playdate, but my camera battery was dead and my iphone was low on storage...so I have nothing to show for it. We did have a good time. The kids pinned the Heart on a skeleton and painted pumpkins. My friend Laurie took a picture of everyone's pumpkins after the party, but guess who refused to get in the picture and sat on the stairs inside?

Miss Sugar and Spice...

 On the morning of her birthday, I decorated her door...

Her birthday fell on Sunday this year, so we went to Chuckie Cheese's after church. She had fun...even though it was a small family affair:

Things to remember about Eliza:

• She still loves BABIES!
• She's expressive and makes friends easily.
• E is good a sharing. She's not a push over by any means...but will usually offer toys to other children to make them happy.
• Eliza loves to pray at dinner and she says the cutest things!
• She often will open her Bible and pretend she is reading. She'll say "Jesus loves me for the Bible tells me so."
• Eliza Ann is about 90% potty trained, but is still not convinced that #2 needs to be done on the toilet. She's highly opinionated about the matter actually. When we get some consistency out of her, she will get to start dance class; something she's DYING to do.
• Eliza loves to dress up in princess dresses. She's particularly hung up on a purple velour dress (that she wore to the BS Princess Party). 
• Eliza is strongly attached to her lovey and binkie. That's going to be the next big girl change...getting rid of the binkie. She only gets it when she sleeps right now and she happens to be the best sleeper of all three of the kids, so I hate to mess her up. I'll mess her up either way, so the Binkie has to go.
• Eliza knows many letters and their sounds...maybe close to 20. 
• Has a sweet tooth...that may be a bit of an understatement.

Funny "Elizaisms";

In the bathtub, "Mom, there's a pocket in my bottom!"

"Go Haychalks!"

"Swimming Soup"= swimming suit

"Grady has a penis. Mommy has milk (signing milk)."

Life

I'm busy...too busy. I can't keep up. Some days, I think I'm drowning in my responsibilities. Truly, I put myself in this position. I started selling Thirty-One to make extra money and now...it's almost too hard for me to keep up with. My kids should be my first priority, but since promoting to Director, I have a quota to keep and it's really hard to manage with three little ones. If I take a step back, however, I lose all the girls on my team and have to start over. I think I might have to look into childcare one day a week so that I can put energy into my job.


Once I start thinking about doing that, however, I think, "Ummm, my job is my kids, so what am I doing?" UUhhhgggg! Decisions, Decisions.

I must say, my favorite thing to do is home improvement. But to do that, I must make some money....which goes back to the PT job thing. So....here's what's going on at the house this week.

I've finished the hutch but then my table looked pretty beat up. So I finished off the table as well.

It used to have a stained top, but was chipped and damaged. Now it's distressed black to match my hutch. I poly'd the top so that it's more durable than the last finish. I'm not a huge fan of the shiny top, but at least I know  it's protected and can withstand my children's abuse. I found out, since finishing it, that I could have used a finishing wax to get a softer sheen. I'll store that in my memory for NEXT time.

I just finished painting my garage door black and putting up hooks for coats and backpacks in the garage. We don't have a mud room and I'm preparing for winter coats. I'm tired of them taking over the house...along with shoes and boots. Now we have a place to store everything!

Here are some pictures of little man...he's changing so much. Still not crawling, but sooooo close. This morning, he learned how to get from a rocking to a sitting position.

Here, Lucas is trying to get some lovin' from Grady.

 "I'm kind of a big deal."

I'm going to work on a rolling cubby/bench for the playroom next. It shouldn't cost too much and will hopefully provide a bit more storage. I'd really like to have my entire main floor painted: ceiling, trim, and walls. But---- the estimates I'm getting are in the thousands and I don't have the money for it. Of course, I don't have the TIME to do it myself. Someday soon...It will get done...I hope.

Princess Party

We attended the annual Blue Springs Princess Party this month. The girls had a blast...as they have in years past. I only have half of the pictures because some are on Micah's phone too, but I think you can see how much fun they had...regardless!