Shelby's new friend

We recently met and became friends with a family from church. It was such a blessing meeting them as I had been praying for more opportunities to meet people and get connected. As I have said a hundred times on here, moving is hard! Our new friends have two boys. The younger of the boys, Josiah, is almost two. Shelby and Josiah are becoming great friends. Shelby didn't call him by his name for a while. She just referred to him as the baby. I think she felt really big not being the youngest for once. These are some pictures of Shelby and Josiah on their last play date. I used my cellphone, but I will make sure to take my camera next time.

Riding the merry go round.

Shelby and her BFF Josiah

Relaxing

She spent the whole morning walking around with her hand on her hip. It was so funny. I never did get a good picture of it though.

Look how strong I am

Just a cute picture from tonight. Macey really thought she was holding her Uncle Davie on her shoulders.

Sleep

Whoever told me (and I know someone did) that once your baby hit about six months you finally got to sleep again, lied! My babies are 7,5 and 3, and I will tell you that not a night goes by that one of them doesn't wake me up. Abby and Macey will wake me up to let me know that they had to go to the bathroom or got a drink. Then there are those nights where they hear a noise, have a bad dream, or simply can't sleep. Shelby goes through spells of waking up every couple of hours for no reason at all. Two things they are consistent about are they always wake me up instead of Bret, and they always want me to tuck them back into bed. Oh the joys of being a mom. :) Truthfully, I love it. Maybe I don't love all the middle of the night visits, but I love being a mom. It is the most exhausting and rewarding thing I have ever done in my life. I also know that once those middle of the night visits stop, I will miss them because it means my babies are that much closer to growing up.

All of this talk about not getting sleep was brought on by an especially bad week of sleeping. Shelby has not been feeling well which meant lots of middle of the night comfort, Tylenol and even a shower (after she threw up all over her bed). Nothing beats cleaning vomit off of sheets at two in the morning. Abby and Macey were also up several times for various reasons. I even caught Abby in the office playing the computer at 3am! She insists that she thought it was morning, but I think I have a little computerholic on my hands. Needless to say, computer time is now limited.

I have pictures to post, but I have not had a chance to go through them yet. It has been a busy week. I will leave you with an old picture of my beauties. I love this picture of them, but it makes me sad to see how much they have grown up in two years.

Shop till you drop

Shelby is such a little trooper. She gets a bad rap for being really spunky (which she is), but she is also a really good kid. Because we moved here in July, there was no room anywhere for her to go to preschool. She has been stuck hanging out with me everyday all year. I think, for the most part, she enjoys having the time alone with me, but I know she gets bored too. There are some days when she spends a good part of the day in her car seat. The fact that it takes 35 minutes each way to get her sisters to school doesn't help. When she reaches her breaking point and can't handle running anymore errands, she falls asleep. This usually means her entire body falls over. I have tried to find pillows and blankets to hold her head up, but they never seem to work. I do miss the days when she napped at home, but at least she is able to rest in the car. Her only quirk is that the only music she likes the hear while she is falling asleep is Joshua Radin. These pictures are probably not that cute to anyone but me. Every time I see her sleeping, I snap a picture with my phone. There is something so sweet about watching your baby sleep.

I took this picture today. It is my favorite for several reasons. One, she has spaghetti all over her face, and two, she insisted on wearing her white sun dress with black, shiny dress shoes.

Shelby's first trip to the dentist.

Shelby went to the dentist for the first time today. I took the other two girls before they were three, but Shelby is so strong willed that I was worried about taking her. She was adamant that she was not going to open her mouth! Last night, she informed me that she might "accidentally" bite the dentist. However, once we got there she loved it! Everyone was so nice, and Shelby ended up loving all the attention. The sticker, balloon, bouncy ball, bracelet, gold medal and sugar free ice cream they gave her helped too!

Shelby smiling at the dentist when he came in. She brought her pink poodle for moral support.

Flashing her pretty smile after getting her teeth cleaned. She got a gold medal for being the best helper of the day.

Happy Easter

We have had a hectic and wonderful week! I will blog some more later about all the things we have been doing this week. Church was wonderful this morning. I love the sermon on Easter Sunday. So many emotions wash over me as I hear again about the Crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. I always leave feeling so thankful and alive. After church, we went to the El Paso Club for lunch with my family. The girls usually enjoy being there, but today they were a little grouchy. Like I said, it has been a very long week for everyone! After a quick nap, we had an Easter egg hunt at my parents. It was very windy and cold today so the egg hunt lasted only a few minutes. It is now seven and the girls are already in bed. Woo Hoo for early bedtimes and no school tomorrow!

Our movie star...sort of

Here is a clip of Abby's Extreme Makeover Home Edition debut. The YouTube clip is eight minutes long, but you can fast forward to 1:12 and see Abby and her classmates.