Grilled Pizza

Last night for supper, we grilled pizzas! I found this recipe (that whole site is amazing btw) and was excited to try it. We had a pretty good no-yeast pizza dough recipe, but I made her pizza dough last night and I'm not sure if I'll ever go back, especially since it makes 2 portions and I can freeze one for later.

They turned out to fabulous, cute, and super delicious! I loved the feta and fresh basil on them. I can't wait to make them again. 

And here's Beckett standing by our little cherry tomato plant. We picked our first ripe one last night. I'm sad we don't have our little garden like we did last year. Like, reeeaally sad. :( I loved tending to it and picking all those fresh vegetables, but at least we'll have our favorite, cherry tomatoes, to snack on all summer. 

A Jasper Update

Like I said last week, Jasper is now one month old. I'll try to keep my remarks about "how fast it's going!" to a minimum.  He's grown a bunch and is already starting to look different.

I'm already cah-razy about this kid. He seems to fit into our family flawlessly and he acts like he's been around for much longer than a month. He's gone golfing with us, to the pool, church, a movie, parks, family gatherings, a parade, picnics, playdates, and more. We definitely haven't slowed down because of our couple week old, newest member of the family. Having a 5 and 2 year old hasn't left me with much of a choice!

The one thing that has helped me keep moving is my moby-like wrap from loveyduds. I wear it almost everyday, whether while making supper or walking through a field of strawberries. He loves it, I love it, and people comment on it just about everywhere we go. I can wear it for hours at a time and he just sleeeeps and sleeeeeps.

The number one question that everyone asks is if he is sleeping well at night. And yes, he's doing great. We love, love, looove having him sleep in bed with us. Makes things so much easier and we are all happy campers who are sleeping well! (For those wondering how we make that work, we have a big king size bed, and it goes Wade next to the wall, then me, then Jasper, then the other half of the bed. We only sleep with a sheet in the summer, no comforter. Having 3 kids has trained me to be somewhat of a light sleeper and I feel totally comfortable with him so close. Wade also approves, which is important because if he wasn't on board, we wouldn't do it. I could go on, so just ask if you want to know more)

He started to smile this past week which has been super fun. The big kids love trying to make him grin, which probably annoys the heck out of him since they are all up in his face all the time.

He's eating well, pooping well, sleeping well, spitting up a lot, and is overall doing fabulous. Man, I adore this little person and I'm going to try and enjoy every minute of him being this little!

Fail.

Well, that was a big, fat FAIL of a challenge! I knew I wouldn't be able to do it as soon as I hit 'publish' but I still wanted to try. At first I was annoyed and dissapointed that I didn't complete my little self-challenge, but I'm over it. I have kids ages 5, 2 and 1 month old- I'm cutting myself some slack. But I'm still going to try to blog as much as I can during the month of July just so I can catch up a bit. It's been tough with Jasper nursing all the time. Makes it hard to type! (Actually, I'm currently pecking out this post with one hand, at the kitchen table while the kids do play-doh and J is sleeping in my lap!)

Last week was crazy busy, but this week I've intentionally slowed down so we could enjoy just playing. Reese has even gotten into the habit of asking me what we're doing each day and where we're going, as if I'm her event planner, which doesn't feel that far from the truth! (not to mention her personal chef, chauffeur, teacher, etc.)

Some recent pictures of what we've been up to in June:




Daddy and the boys (I love saying that!)



New buzz cut, but he calls it his Woody & Buzz cut ;)



Grandpa and the big kids on the tractor, while we were in town for Grandma Alice's 90th birthday party



Brothers, can't say they look so much alike here



A gorgeous day out at the strawberry farm



A self-portrait. I have a million of these on my camera. Love those freckles.




Homemade popcicles- is my tongue red?!




Strawberry Rocketships- so cool! Thanks Sara!! :)




Bubble guns




Thanks other Sarah!!!!!





I got nothing for tonight. But I'm determined not to fail on my one month blogging streak on DAY 2!!

We had a fantastic day with both sets of grandparents. These are three pretty lucky kids. I hope they realize someday how blessed they are to have such caring, wonderful grandparents!

Wade and I are watchin this show right now. Have you seen it? It's actually really cool!!

It's JULY!

Time just seems to be racing past me and I can hardly keep up. We have stayed quite busy this month and it bugs me that I haven't documented any of it. Which I suppose is fine, I guess that just means we've been busy LIVING our lives! But there's been so many fun, happy memories that I want to somehow capture this time right now and remember it forever.

So, just for fun and because I like challenges, I'm going to try and post something on the blog every day for the month of July! I've got so much going on in my brain right now that it will be good to get it all out.

Today: Jasper is ONE MONTH OLD and Reese is FIVE YEARS OLD!!!!! Yay! So fun. This morning we went to a bead shop with her best friend, Talia. They each made a necklace and then made matching 'twin' bracelets. After that we had lunch at McDonald's complete with ice cream cones. Five. Wow. And Jasper? I don't even wanna go there. Someone slow this down!!!

I have a baby sleeping in my lap, so adding pictures today seems to hard, but I at least wanted to jump on here and say hello! :)

He's here!

Jasper Bentley

10 lbs and 22'' long

June 1, 2011

4:32pm

Life is good.

(**Warning, lots of pictures of my kids ahead!!**)

My oldest holding my youngest.

My three kiddos. Still not used to saying that!

The middle child and his dump truck. Pausing only half a second to snap this picture.

Another one. Man, B's face just makes me giggle and melt all at the same time.

Mr. Chunky Man on day 4 of life. Chillin' w/ his mama while his brother and sister go golfing with Dad.

The first day home from the hospital. She's such a proud big sister and wants to hold him ALL. THE. TIME! (Sidenote- she calls him Baby Lincoln, because that was her top choice for names. We told her she could call him whatever she wanted, but his real name is Jasper. I think it's slowly growing on her.)

Overall, things have been going so well! I'm feeling better and better each day. I'll try to get his birth story typed out soon while all those memories are still fresh in my mind. His labor and delivery went very well and the only rough patch was afterwards when they had to go back in. But more on that later ;)

(I must say I'm sad that the only pictures I have are the ones I took myself. Wade took a couple of me and the kids, but I don't have any of him. I so missed my sister being there to document everything. I highly recommend having someone take pictures for you!!)



Wade and the kids just ran to the store...

{found here}

Right now I am:

• sitting in a quiet house hearing nothing but the clock tick, birds chirping outside, and the happy sounds of a graduation party happening next door.
• loving anything and everything turquoise, so this site that I just found made me super happy
• eating Greek yogurt with fresh blueberries (healthy!) & chocolate graham crackers (not so much)
• trying to decide if the ice cream truck I just heard slowly cruise by our house (cheesey music and all) is cute and nostalgic or a little bit creepy.
• comfortable & content :)

Last Day of Preschool

I can't believe this school year is already over! I feel like I was just writing her First Day of Preschool post back in August. Last night, we had Reese's closing program at Immanuel where she sang songs and they acted out The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Her teachers, Mrs. Limback and Mrs. Grim were fantastic! We've been so blessed that they could be in our lives this year. They did so many fun things and their Christian influence has had such an effect on our family- the way we pray, how we interact, challenge our kids, etc. I can only pray that I will continue to do as good of a job of teaching Reese about Jesus as they did.

(So funny, Reese wore the same skirt on the first and last day of school! HA!)

Pictures...

Reese and her preschool friend, Sophie, on Bike Day. (and B chillin' in the back!) On Friday, they practiced bike saftety and rode around the parking lot. So cute :)

 Just had lunch with my sweet friend, Kolby, and her bf Jake. This picture was from 4 years ago after a fun night out in Minneapolis. (The first time she lived there!)

 Pulled this off of facebook today. My little brother/American soldier/JCrew model.

Found this on Pinterest last night. Loove the color combination of gray, yellow and blue!

(Haven't been to Pinterest yet? GO. NOW.)

Woooah, Baby!

It's late, but I wanted to update with a couple belly pics and a little video where I caught this little wiggle worm playing around in there.

36ish weeks. I think.

At 38 weeks, it's strange to think that this pregnancy is almost over and in a few weeks I'll have a baby in my arms and not my belly. For some reason, I have been totally appreciating this baby and pregnancy even more than the other two. I know that I have been sooo incredibly blessed with 2 sweet children and (so far) 3 great pregnancies, and it's not something I take lightly. I thank God all day for what He's given me. Surely I don't deserve all of this happiness.

38 weeks, taken tonight. Gotta love that my shirt doesn't even come close to covering my whole belly!

And here is the sweet little monkey. When watching this video, keep in mind that, beside breathing, I'm really not moving, that is alllll baby. It even amazes me to watch it!

Getting Settled In!

We've been in our new place now for one week! Slowly but surely things are finding their way from boxes to where they belong. Pictures are being hung on the walls, laundry is getting washed and put away, and I even made cookies today! Our carpets got cleaned this morning, so I finally feel a little better about walking around without my shoes on. It's been an adjustment getting used to not having a garage and other minor things. I've been trying to shift my thinking from how outdated and poorly taken care of this place is to realizing how incredibly blessed we really are.

I wish I had pictures to show you, but I have no idea where the cable is to transfer them over. I've been too preoccupied to look for it because I've been catching up on all the cable shows that we've been missing out on for the past 3 years! HGTV?!?! I could watch it all. day. long.

Wade's been busy at work, yay for rain today so he could come home early!

Reese has less than two weeks of school left and today they went on a field trip to a farm.

Beckett has two scraped knees so you know it must be getting nicer out. Last weekend Wade's mom sent down some little cans of strawberry pop and this week I've been using them as bribes to get him to stay in his bed during naptime. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Baby is doing well. 2 weeks left! I've been super tired lately but otherwise feeling good and sleeping well. Again, so blessed. :)

Okay, pictures sooooon, I promise!

One Big Long Paragraph & No Pictures

I can't believe it's been a month since I last posted. Yikes! I think I've been overwhelmed and in denial that we will be moving out of this house on Friday, which is only F-O-U-R days away!!!!! I have had countless posts made up and ready to type out in the back of my head, but instead I've found something else more passive to do instead. I've been doing just about everything else besides packing. Part of me feels like we're just going on a little trip and I'll be able to pack and pull it all together the night before or something! Uhhh, not so much. Either way, a few of the things we've been up to: decorating Easter eggs w/ crayons, making and delivering May Day baskets (Reese got the biggest kick out of ringing someone's doorbell then running away!!!), hanging out w/ family for Easter, birthday parties w/ friends, both of the kids got a hair cut (Reese just got her bangs cut. She hates them. Because apparently she's a 16 year old trapped in a 4 year old's body. Totally not cool, Mom.) As for me, I've been trudging along w/ this baby in my belly. 36 week appointment went well this morning and I measured at 37 and a half weeks, which means this could be another biiiig baby. Awesome. To help him understand, the other day I tried telling Wade to imagine he had swallowed a live squirrel and it was trying figure out how to get out of his belly. That's what it feels like. Or it did. Now it feels more like a baby elephant. Picnics at the park even though it's still kind of cold and windy out, lots of trips to Goodwill, lots of trips to the bathroom, hosting friends for Bible Study, soccer practice at the Y, April was pretty cold and rainy, so Wade's been able to be home a bunch, which is great. May is starting out sunny and warmer, not so great. Especially when now I need him home to pack, move, basically do everything so I can lay on the couch and finish cooking a baby. kidding. a little. but either way, not gonna happen. We've been bickering a lot lately and I think it's because of the unspoken pressures of moving/all that goes with it + a hormonal, tired pregnant mama + Spring planting season + excitement/anxiety over moving out of a house & neighborhood that we love.

There. Maybe I'll post some pictures soon, or maybe I won't, but at least the blog has been updated in the most unorganized way. But at least I can cross it off my list.

Aaaaaaaand I just successfully spent another hour NOT packing. :)