Ellary is 1 Month Old!

I've not been the best about posting to the blog since Ellary was born, but now that she's a month old I figured it was time to make some mention of her! Ellary was born on June 1 at 5:22pm. Yesterday she turned 1 month old! Our life has been a little crazy since her arrival, but all in all, #3 is relatively easy. She's a great sleeper during the day, and a great screamer in the late evening. It's taken us a lot of work and patience to get her to sleep at night, but once she falls asleep she wakes every 3 hours or so for a quick feeding and then back to sleep. She's started sleeping in her crib at night and taking morning naps pretty consistently. She tends to sleep well in her car seat as long as it's in a moving car, and she tends to sleep whenever we take her somewhere. She's also working hard on holding up her head.

Kellen and Addie have been doing very well with her. Addie has latched on to one of her baby dolls, and every day she comes to me with the doll in her shirt saying that she needs me to give her check-up and help her deliver her baby. Once her baby is delivered, she dresses her, changes diapers, feeds her, burps her, takes her for walks around the house in her stroller, and puts her to sleep in Ellary's crib, at which point we all have to start whispering. Kellen loves to entertain the baby when her eyes are open, and as soon as we tell him she's awake he comes running to her and says "here's big brother!" He's great at sitting with her when she's in her bouncy chair and talking to her or showing her toys.

Today is my first full day home with all three kids. Kellen and Addie are off from camp this week and Geof has a busy work week, so we'll see how it goes managing 3 kids by myself! Here's a link to some pictures from Ellary's first month.

Addie's 3rd Birthday Weekend

We celebrated Addie's 3rd birthday on Friday with several of her friends at the Build-A-Bear Workshop. We started with pizza and cake, and then everyone headed down to the Workshop to build their bear. Addie has been planning her party for what seems like months, and her requirements were that she had a ladybug cake and a pinata. I made a tower of ladybug cupcakes that Addie was thrilled with, and the kids devoured them in minutes. At Build-A-Bear, each guest got to choose and stuff their own special bear to take home. Addie made a bear she named "Bubble Flops" and Kellen made a bear named "Loggy." We weren't sure how to do a pinata at the Crabtree Valley Mall foodcourt, and we were quite sure we couldn't do it at Build-A-Bear. So Friday night she got to choose where to go for dinner (Chick-fil-a it was!), and then she got to go to the party store to pick out a pinata. Today (Addie's actual birthday) we let Addie invite the neighbors to the backyard to break open a pinata. It was big fun! Kellen was so impressed with all the weekend fun that he's already planning his own birthday 6 months down the road!

Saturday at the Parks!

In the hopes that non-stop activity would encourage this baby to make her way out, we woke up yesterday and tried to plan out a day of Big Fun. In a remarkable display of preschooler mobilization, we were out of the house by 9:15 to go explore Blue Jay County Park at Lake Harris north of Raleigh. We had the park to ourselves for a while and were able to enjoy a great big playground by ourselves for a while. We went on a grueling one-fifth mile hike past the edge of the lake and had a picnic lunch by a giant field, where we later played soccer and frisbee.

This wore us out pretty well, so we did take a few hour break before ...

Heading out to a baseball game! Although I (Geof) didn't write down how to get to the ballpark that we'd never been to before, we did eventually find our way there just in time for the anthem. We saw the Carolina Mudcats defeat the Birmingham Barons, but most of our crew was mostly interested in the snack offerings. We started with popcorn and sprite, followed by two portions of blue cotton candy. We didn't get home until 9:30, but actually had a very fun night at the ballgame! Kellen and Addie are both excited to go again sometime.

Preschool Water Day

This is the last week of preschool for Kellen and Addie (at least until preschool summer camp begins!). Kellen's class had a water day and spent most of the morning outside getting wet. It was a fun time for the kids (though actually quite chilly outside), and also a very clever way to make sure all the toys had one last washing for the end of the year! It will be sad for Kellen and Addie to move on from the teachers and classmates they have come to really love, but I'm sure they'll have a blast in their new classes this summer and fall. Poor Kellen came home sick from water day, and I've been having lots of contractions, so hopefully the baby will hold off until Kellen's feeling better. Here are some pictures from the day.

Friday at Busch Gardens

Against my doctor's recommendation, we took a trip to Williamsburg this weekend for Mother's Day. On Friday, May 11, we spend the afternoon at Busch Gardens. Kellen had a great time playing in the water area in Land of the Dragons, and Addie proved quite the dare-devil, riding the Katapult (scrambler) twice! She wanted to ride the big swings and was interested in the roller coasters, but she's not quite tall enough yet. :) I hung in there, walking all over the park, but we suffered that night thinking that the baby was sure to come. A day of walking in the heat less than a month before your due date will produce lots of contractions! No baby yet... Click here to view more pictures (all Busch pictures courtesy of Granddad H!)

Visit to the Strawberry Patch

Today after preschool I took Kellen and Addie to pick strawberries at Page Farm, a strawberry patch just a couple miles from the house. Kellen liked picking berries and leaving the long stems on so he could twirl them around. Addie just tried hard to pick and not squish the berries. For the last few minutes of picking, more berries went in mouths than in our buckets! Now we have a big bucket of berries in the fridge (pregnant mom likes this!) and bags of berries in the freezer. Visit our Shutterfly album to view pictures from the patch.

Kellen the Beatboxer

We all know Kellen's main interest is music, particularly the drums. Occasionally I show him clips from American Idol, and this week he saw Blake Lewis beatboxing to his arrangement of Bon Jovi's You Give Love a Bad Name. Well, Kellen decided that turning his mouth into a drum was the next musical challenge he would tackle and he's been beatboxing since Wednesday. So far he does what he calls an "electric snare" with the occasional bass drum thrown in. Soon there should be a link on the blog to a short video clip of Kellen's latest talent!