5 Months Old

This little cutie is 5 months old. She weighs 17 lbs and is 24 3/4 inches long. She doesn't have any teeth yet but is working on them. She takes 2 -3 naps a day usually a morning, afternoon and an evening snooze. Still nurses every 3 hours and still gets up once a night to eat.

Favorite things: jumper, turtle toy, people talking to her, taking walks and being outside, suddenly fascinated with Penny. Wearing size 6 month clothes and size 3 diapers.

New tricks: Learning to use a sippy cup, eating rice cereal, sitting up!

Learning to sit.

Trying a milk popsicle. You weren't too sure about it.

Enjoys bath time now! Just chillin in the tub.

 

Family Pool Fun

Abby and Emmy getting ready to go in the pool.

Everyone has been enjoying the waterslide. The adults are too big to go down the slide but the water in the pool warms up nice and fast since it isn't too deep.

Abby loves helping Emmy do new things. She loved having her swim with her.

Showing off their painted nails

4th of July

This year we had a great 4th of July! We had lots of activities to do as a family. We went to Travis and Danielle's annual BBQ. It was a fun night of seeing friends, good food and of course fireworks. After hanging out at Travis and Danielle's acreage I am so excited to have our out of town place.

 

My little firecrackers.

On the 3rd we went to Jenny and Bob's house. We grilled out and the kids lit fireworks. When it was getting dark we walked over to Oak Lake to watch the fireworks show. It wasn't as good of a show as last years but it was still fun to watch. The kids had trouble paying attention to the show after we had sugared them up. I also made the mistake of breaking out glow sticks and then we totally lost their attention. Emmy fell asleep during the fireworks even though they were loud enough to shake the ground. I guess maybe that is telling of how loud our house is on a daily basis,

Emmy got to try out the baby swing for the first time. She thought it was great!

I see these two little girls being very good friends someday!

Abby and Emmy are the only ones that still like pictures. I can't resist they are just too cute.

 

Bryce and Caleb are completely obsessed with fireworks this year. It makes them crazy that Lincoln only sells fireworks on the 3rd and 4th. They have been begging to go out of town to get fireworks all week. We had set a spending limit and they each spent an additional $30 for their own fireworks.

Robb was more trusting of the boys lighting fireworks than I would be but I guess I can't keep them from the cool fireworks forever. As long as Robb is willing to supervise their pyro activities.

My cute 4th of July kiddos

On the 4th we were at our house lighting fireworks. We ran out of punks because the kids had been lighting fireworks all day. Caleb and Robb ran to the fireworks tent at about 9:30 to get a few more. When they got there the guy told Robb it was "make a deal time" for $20 Caleb got a huge bag of fireworks and this giant one was included. The tent was in the process of closing for the night so the guy had given Robb a great deal. Although we spent more on fireworks than we originally talked about, Robb said Caleb's face was worth every cent when he got that giant firework.

This was Abby's favorite firework. The elephant peanut one.

This is how baby chubs spent the evening. Luckily it has been unseasonably cool out because it makes it possible to keep her outside for all these activities.

Eating Rice Cereal

The day has come,,,,, Emmy gets to try food! This is the day that Abby has been waiting for Forever. She was so excited to feed her baby sister. Emmy was also excited. She has been trying to grab the spoon and fork as we take bites.

The first bite. Mmmm Mmmm Good

She thought eating was kinda funny and seemed to enjoy her cereal.

The Land

We have felt like we were busting out of our house for a while now. Adding a fourth child made us all the more sure that our house was NOT big enough for us anymore. This makes me a little sad. This is the house that Robb and I bought pre kids. We thought it would be our forever house and we thought it was huge. We have gotten to know our neighbors to the point of them being our main source of friends for us and our kids. We have brought all our babies home to this house and in a way have grown up in this house. However, we Need more room. We have been keeping our eye out for something that would work for us for a while now even though we weren't really in a position to buy until I went back to work. In our looking we have discovered that it is really hard to find a 5 bedroom house that has enough living space and a decent yard that is in our price range. We have also discovered now that our kids are older that having neighbor kids can sometimes be a real pain in the neck. I have always wanted to live out of town and in the last year Robb has sided with me. We have been looking at land to build on. We found a 3 acre lot right outside of Roca that we really liked. It was close enough to Lincoln to commute to our jobs but it was still out of town. One of the best things was that it was in the Norris School District. We have been wanting a smaller school district for the kids for awhile now. We put an offer in and after a counter and re offer we made a deal and the land is ours! The kids are excited and Robb and I are thrilled. We are looking forward to building on it hopefully next fall. Until then we need to make house plans and pick a builder. I see a lot of decisions coming in our future.

Yankton (Part 2)

As always Yankton was a blast. It is cool that this is something that our kids look forward to every year. The other families that we go with are not family but they feel like it. Even though we may not do a great job keeping up with each other during the year, we can pick up where we left off before. Everyone shares the responsibilities of cooking and helping with kids so it ends up being a nice break for us.

The kids had fun roasting hot dogs and marshmallows for smores.

We hit up the go kart track and all the kids pick and adult to ride with. I didn't make the cut this year. Too many other cool adults to ride with but that was okay, Emmy and I took some pictures and cheered everyone on. They did the bumper boats too but due to bugs Emmy and I left before that.

Brook, Aj and Abby

So glad that they come to the lake! I love watching the kids play with their cousins.

Grandma and Grandpa

John, Ginger, Abby and Aj

Andy and the boys

Emerson's First Yankton Trip

This was Emerson's very first Yankton trip! We took Abby when she was about this age and I remembered having to pack a crazy amount of stuff and that it was a little rough being on vacation with a baby but hey I knew Robb and I could handle it. Not to mention when you take a vacation with Grandma and Grandpa they are usually more than willing to help. Thanks Bob and Susie!

 

Robb was showing Emerson the lake. She liked the water until she realized she was getting wet...

......then she didn't so much like the water!

This adorable little peanut was a little bit of a vacation challenge. I think she was teething because she just wasn't quite herself. She was drooly and a little grumpy at times. Also we didn't follow her schedule what so ever so I think she was confused on naps and bed time.

The first night we were there I attempted to get her to sleep in the Pack n Play. That wasn't going to happen so I put her in our full size bed with us (we are used to a king so Robb and I barley fit). Needless to say the first night was a sleepless one for me and then after 3 hours up with her I made Robb get up too. Daddy and Emmy ended up taking a 1am walk most nights we were there.

This how Emmy and I spent a lot of the time. It was the easiest way for me to keep up with the big kids and she loves it.

Grandma Susie thought Emmy needed an adorable swimming suit and matching hat just in case she decided to take up synchronized swimming.

Although we worried about her getting too much sun and getting bug bites we did get to spend a fair amount of time outside. It was a team effort of all the people that went to Yankton but we had a great vacation with baby Emmy. A big thanks to Steve who let me borrow his rocking deck chair every night so I could rock her to sleep and most nights that is where Emmy and I slept.

The Best Week in the Summer (June 19-24)

This summer we had talked about not going on our annual Yankton vacation for various reasons. When we approached the kids about this we had a mutany on our hands and we weren't the only ones. Andy also threw a fit! Everyone's response was "Yankton is the Best Weekend in the Summer!" How can you argue with that? As always we had a wonderful time! This year we weren't able to get the Lodge (the ridiculously huge cabin that everyone fits in) so instead each of the 4 families had their own cabins. We stayed in a cabin with Robb's parents and Andy. They were nice enough to agree to put up with us for the week. The cabin was not the only change this year... we also welcomed Megan's new husband Lane and his 2 girls. This was Emerson's first year at the lake and Steve wasn't able to participate in all the lake activities since he was still recovering from his femur fracture.

 

This isn't even all the kids! We are missing 4 kids in this picture.

Abby made instant friends with Lane's girls Brie and Addie

The weather was great and the kids spent a lot of time out on the boat. The boys have become very adventurous tubers and got up a couple times on water skis.

Abby wasn't so sure about water sports but she enjoyed the swimming.

They all swam to the cliffs and picked up cool rocks and shells.

So much fun boating!

It made me nervous to be in the boat when Robb would pull them on the tube. They like a crazy wild ride and that is what they got!

I even got out on the tube. Bree and I vs Andy, Bryce and Caleb

We all had a blast doing water sports this week! Thanks to Robb and John who were always willing to take anyone boating that wanted to go. A big Thanks to John who put up with a ton of kids all week long.

New Job

I have been working supplemental (fill in) in the Endoscopy department for the last year almost. I work in the pre/post area which means that I get people ready to go to their procedure by taking a health history, starting an IV and doing vitals and a short assessment. When they are finished with their procedure I make sure that their vital signs stabilize and get them some juice and discharge them. I have enjoyed it but it is a pretty cushy nursing job. Very rarely is there anything serious or gross that I have to deal with but the down side of it is that I am not guaranteed any hours as supplemental. Endoscopy just recently had 3 people leave for various reasons and they posted an opening for 2 part time and 2 full time positions. My boss had asked what I thought about taking one but they were looking for someone who could train full time throughout the summer, which just wouldn't have worked for our family, so I had declined. I had heard at work that they had a lot of applicants and although the hours would work well I convinced myself that I probably didn't want to help with procedures in the first place.
The next week I got a call from my head boss and she conferenced in my supervisor and another nurse that works there. I had all the kids home with me and of course since I was on the phone Emerson was crying and I had to walk around the house trying to avoid the other kids. I was terrified that I had sent someone home and they had later died of complications or something like that. Luckily it wasn't about anything terrible but instead they offered me a part time position in Endoscopy. I didn't really know what to say! They said that although they had a lot of applicants, most were new graduates (which we don't hire) or nurses they felt like didn't fit well with the unit and they were willing to work with me throughout the summer and not make me train full time. I thanked them for the offer and told them I would discuss it with my husband and get back to them the next day. Ugh! The worst part of being and adult, having to make Big decisions that will affect the whole family. After Robb and I discussed it, we made the decision that I would take the job. I am glad that I didn't have to go to all the hassle of job hunting but I am a little sad that I had to start working part time yet this summer. The other dilemma I had was that I used to get to say I was a NICU nurse. I took care of preemie babies. Now when someone asks what I do I get to say I am a Butts and Guts nurse. I will now be the Doctors right hand man during colonoscopies and EGD's. Neither which is very glamorous to describe! Oh well I guess it doesn't have to be forever but the day shift hours were too good to turn down! Hopefully the job will grow on me!

Happy 8th Birthday Bryce and Caleb

Every year we let the birthday kid choose

what they want to do for their birthday "Day". This year Bryce and Caleb had a hard time agreeing on what they wanted to do and it was a bit of a stressful morning. Anything Caleb wanted to do Bryce did not and vis versa. So....next year we have decided we will either let them each pick an activity and a food choice or we will plan a fun day for them to avoid the mess we had this year. They are branching out enough that they are having trouble agreeing on favorite activities.

The other difference about this birthday was that they boys wanted clothes instead of just toys. They each got a Nike outfit. Caleb got a watch from Abby and Bryce got a hermit crab from Abby. Bryce has been wanting a pet and we figured that a crab is about the only thing we could add to the family right now.

The first activity of the morning was golfing. Of course the girls stayed home for that so I don't have any pictures. They had fun playing the junior course and were back mid morning for more birthday fun. Next they wanted to go to the pool. The weather was not very cooperative though. It was windy, cloudy and we were in a thunderstorm watch all day. We held the kids off for awhile trying to decide what the weather was going to do but finally decided to just go and if it started raining so be it. The water was freezing but they had a great time.

This is how Emerson hangs out at the pool. She slept most of the time.

Bryce 8 years old

Caleb 8 years old

Happy Birthday Boys!

They both got to choose somewhere to go eat but we talked them into splitting that up throughout the weekend so it wasn't so much food in one day. Bryce's pick was Lazlo's and Caleb's pick was Chipotle. More delicious than the McDonalds choice of just a couple years ago but much more expensive.

 

 

 They also decided to not have cake this year and instead had Oreo dessert, a family favorite.