Summer recap and Fall happenings!

*Be prepared for lots of rambling and lots of pictures!

I cannot believe its been so long since I've posted! Looks like I took the summer (& then some!) off, so I really wanted to update my little blog and do a quick recap!

Life with four kiddos is BUSY. We are constantly going, going, going.

We had a really great summer...Grant has therapy 3 mornings a week (2 speech sessions and 1 hour of OT), so as you can imagine, the driving back and forth as well as the therapy time itself takes up a lot of time. Almost every Monday of summer break I took the kids to the library and they picked out a few books to read while we were in the waiting room. And of course we have our weekly Target trip and a grocery store/errands morning too.We usually spent most of our afternoons swimming at my parents pool and trying to beat the heat!

4th of July!

In July we had our family vacation at Great Wolf Lodge in Charlotte. We wanted to stay somewhere closeish to home (aka little travel with a baby!) & we wanted something that would work for our WHOLE family, and Great Wolf Lodge was PERFECT. Its an indoor water park resort that has areas for the whole family. I spent most of my time in the kiddie area with Grant and Clara while Kane and the boys hit up all the water slides. It was surprisingly relaxing for me-Grant had a blast playing in the baby/toddler area and since it only goes to 1.5 foot deep, he could navigate the whole area without me having to follow him around. Clara and I sat in the zero depth area and she splashed away! Kane and the boys would always swing by & come check on us every 45min-hour and I would go on a few rides with the boys then too. The best part was that our hotel room was just down the hallway from the entrance to the water park so I could go back to the room with the babies whenever I needed! That was great for when Clara would get cranky and needed a nap & Grant needed a snack or something. We would leave and go out to dinner every night, & then return for late night fun at the resort arcade and bowling area. The last day there, we left that afternoon and stayed at a different hotel in Charlotte so that we could take the boys to visit a few landmarks. We went to the Carolina Panthers Stadium & we toured the Billy Graham library (which was so cool!! so much history there!). We had SUCH a good week & made so many wonderful memories with the kids...we are already planning to go back again when we can!!

After being home for ONE day from our vacation, me and Kane turned around and went back to Charlotte for Kane's annual meeting with corporate. He spent the morning and early afternoon in a meeting, and I had a glorious day shopping and eating lunch BY MYSELF, which never ever EVER happens. I missed the kids like crazy (esp Clara since it was the first time I had ever left her), but it was so needed. I really needed that little break. Once Kane got out of his meeting, we went back to the hotel for a few hours and then headed to a cookout at the president of the company's home on Lake Norman.

The first week of August brought the start of football for Carson! Harp decided not to play this year (he would rather play on the playground with the other kids), & that has taken up a huge chunk of time. He has improved SO much since the start of the season, so its nice to see the hard work pay off!

The end of August means back to school time! Our summer felt like it went by SO fast, but even so, the boys were ready to go back and to see their friends. They both love school SO much, and we all enjoy the routine school brings! Carson started 3rd grade this year and Harp's in 2nd! They both have amazing teachers this year and I am SO excited about that!

Our Clara girl is growing so fast! She is just two months away from her first birthday and my heart can hardly stand it. Her (big) personality is really starting to show! She is such a friendly baby with a streak of sassy with a little drama thrown in. ;) I'm told it a girl thing, ha! She started crawling right after our trip to Great Wolf (I could tell she wanted to while we were vacationing...she almost took off a few times in the hotel room), and shortly after that she started pulling to a stand & now shes cruising around the furniture! She loves to clap and her favorite song is "If you're happy and you know it." She can wave (at herself, ha!) and can say "hi" and "dada." She loves to dance and follow her brothers around (mainly Grant), and her newest favorite thing to do as of late is pull all the books off the bookshelf in her room. I can't even express how much joy she has brought to our family!

8 months: 

9 months:

I wanted to jot this down for future purposes, but Grant is doing SO wonderful lately. He is really developing and his hard work in both speech and OT is finally starting to pay off. He still has a way to go, of course, but I just wanted to mention how excited I am for him. We spent the summer working on preschool stuff & he mastered identifying all of the alphabet, & identifying shapes (he already knew colors & numbers for a long time now ;). In OT he is working on pre-writing skills & using scissors, which has been trickier for him-he has fine motor delays (VERY likely due to his poor eyesight). It has been a long, long road with lots of tears and prayers. My personal goal for him and my main hope and prayer is that we can get him caught up to where he needs to be by the start of kindergarten. We have so much ground to cover, but I really think it can be done!

Well thats all for now! Hope to start blogging again more regularly! :) Check back in a few days for pictures of my girl at 10 months!

The Fog is Clearing

I have 4 kids now. 

Some days I can't even wrap my brain around that. FOUR. We've been a family of six for almost 6 months now (how are we already halfway through Clara's first year?!), and the fog is finally clearing. We are in our groove, our new normal. I'm feeling more and more like myself. 

I hate that I haven't kept up with our little family journal so I'm going to post a bunch of pictures with random captions to catch up on whats been going on over the last several months!

Here goes:

I took this of the kiddos back in March. I wanted a picture of them all together. Holy Cow. I felt like I had wrestled a bear trying to get a picture of all them looking at me, but I managed to snag one. (secret: Carson's eyes were actually closed in this one, so I had to photoshop his eyes.) 

Heres another group pic: I think this was before my mom's birthday dinner at the end of March!

A few pictures from Easter Weekend!

A flood of Clara pictures: aka guilt because I haven't blogged her little life like I did with the boys! ;)

Sweet girl at 5 months!

Dimples

Harp showing off his artwork that was on display at our local Spring Festival! He was super proud (and we were, too!) 

So...I just realized I submitted this post before finishing this post sometime last week...maybe the fog hasn't cleared as much as I had thought, ha!

Continuing...

I can't forget to mention how much progress Grant has made! I decided to get him evaluated for Occupation Therapy right after his 3rd birthday. He definitely qualified for services, so he goes for 1 hour every week. I really think it has been wonderful for him! Apart of OT is feeding therapy and ever since he started, he has been eating SOO much better. I also requested around his 3rd birthday for an extra speech therapy session which was obviously approved. So he goes to speech 2x a week now (once at the office and once at home). After the summer I am going to push for both sessions being at the office...I really think it benefits him SO much more than the sessions at home. Anyways, enough rambling with that!

 Grant always uses 2-4 word phrases now...that doesn't seem like a big deal, but it is HUGE for him. He was evaluated for speech during our annual craniofacial appointment back in March, and the speech pathologist there thinks he has a touch of Apraxia of Speech (which, thanks to my "Medical License" in google, I had already gathered he had, ha!). Anyways, for Grant that means his brain is not being able to put a sentence together, despite being able to say each individual word correctly. For example, if you ask him to say "I love going outside!" he can say each of those words individually "i" "love" "going" "outside" however, when you tell him to say it as a sentence, "I love going" ends up becoming jumbled gibberish and he'll end with "outside". Its confusing and complicated,  but it suits Grant because NOTHING with him is ever easy! :)

Potty training....is not going. We're on a break until schools out for the boys. He understands the concept, he knows what he is suppose to do, he can say the words, recognize when he urinates, stay dry for long periods of time. It is not a battle of the wills, it is 100 percent a sensory issue. I have a game plan in place but honestly its more of a Clara issue at this point-I need her to be a little older so I can devote the time and effort to potty train Grant.

Last but not least...we went back for a repeat hearing test on Friday...they weren't able to get the results (which is very frustrating because I told them on the phone they wouldn't be able to...not getting into that right now, though...), so we are going back for a sedated hearing test next. We will know definitely if there is or is not hearing loss.

 

Carson and Harper are doing so good, as always :) Excelling in school, enjoying their childhood to the fullest extent. Carson is playing tackle football this fall which I'm nervous about, and Harp decided not to and wants to take hip hop dance classes...we are signing him up for summer classes which will be so much fun to watch! :)

They sat on our front steps and waited all week for the ice cream truck to come by...he finally came by while they were outside and were just SO excited!



Well that is definitely all for now...longest post for me in a while and it only took a week to type up, ha! 

Catch-up Post...Clara, Christmas, and a New Year.

Wow. 

That's about all I can muster right now, ha!

Life with four kids has been wonderful, but crazy. Transitioning from 2 to 3 was very smooth, very natural. Grant was an easy baby, the boys were 4 and 5 years old...it was simple. This time has been more chaotic. I feel like I wake up and it's Monday and go to bed and its Thursday. My days are packed with school, laundry, school pick-up, dishes, laundry, Grant's therapies, kids' homework, laundry, doctor's appointments. basketball practice, shopping, cleaning the house, making sure Grant doesn't smother Clara 300x a day, cooking...have I mentioned laundry? haha! Not to mention feeding/burping/changing little miss all day and night long...She is definitely one of my more high-maintenance babies. It's a good thing she is cute! 

So that pretty much sums up the last 7/8 weeks. Clara was only 5 days old on Thanksgiving so that day was kind of a blur. To be completely honest, Christmas break was a complete nightmare. The Monday before Christmas, Harper spiked a fever...took him the next day to the doctor and he tested positive for the flu. By Christmas Eve/Christmas Day Grant was sick with the flu, Kane started showing symptoms Christmas night, and Carson ran a low-grade fever all week. By the weekend,  all of their fever had broke...but then Clara got diarrhea that lasted the whole following week and Grant starting vomiting (and had a bad case of diarrhea) that lasted several days...by New Years Eve, Harper was puking  his brains out in the Old Navy parking lot. Y'all.....I was DONE. There were several days during that break that I just wanted to crawl in a hole. BUT, everyone finally got better and life got back to "normal." 

******

Clara is the sweetest thing at almost 8 weeks, the boys are playing youth league basketball, and Grant is still working hard in therapy. Here are a slew of pictures from the last 2 months (in no particular order). 

Christmas Eve. Poor guys are SO pitiful.

Before their Christmas concert at school.

Clara at exactly 1 month. She weighed 8lbs7oz and I think was 20in long. I laugh at how I was able to do monthly updates with Grant...sorry Clara...not going to happen, sweetie!! 

New Years Day...our crew had finally been fever free and everyone was on the mend.

Sweet girl.

The boys at basketball practice last Saturday:

With sissy's paci :)

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All for now! Back to my beautiful. wonderful, chaotic life! Check back tomorrow for a birthday post!

Fall Fun

Checking in after a few months off to post some pictures and update our little journal! 

2014 had to have been the fastest year in the history of the world...how in the world it is November is beyond me...In just a few weeks (or less!) we will have a new baby in our family...it feels like it was just yesterday when we found out we were unexpectedly expecting again! 

Life is so busy, but in a good way. It's just the season we are in...the boys of course have school all day, Grant still has therapy 2x a week, and I have OB appointments galore. The boys are in scouts right now, but I'm not entirely sure we'll continue with it....we'll see! 

Here are some random pics from the last month or so! 

The boys at 7.5, 2.5, and 6.5 

We had 2 Iron Men and a fireman for Halloween this year! (Harp was suppose to be Captain America but he outgrew his costume before he could wear it!)

 From the character parade at school...Harp was Anakin from his Star Wars book and Carson was a Ninja!

Grant before church last Sunday...Even though 90 percent of Grant's clothes are the boys' hand me downs, its still crazy to see him wearing the same clothes the boys were just wearing like yesterday...

Carson photobombed by Grant :)

From Harper's field trip last week!

A couple of belly pics: 

28 weeks:

34 weeks:

Kane has had the same vehicle for 7 years and although it wasn't the nicest car, or the most attractive car, it has been a faithful car to us...but it is officially DONE. We knew we would have to buy him a new vehicle soon, but were hoping to hold of until after the new year...until we started having issues with our van too :/ Having one "dead" car and 1 unreliable car just weeks away from having a baby is not ideal, but as always, God provided. We will still have to get some work done eventually on our old van (that Kane is now driving) but we are really LOVING our new van! :)

All for now...as crazy as this sounds, the next time I update this blog...we will be a family SIX!

Until then...