And Lyla loves me, well at least my boobs! haha
Peekaboo, Everett!
Category: Attachment Parenting
Going to See Toy Story 4!
I was 12 when the first Toy Story came out and I loved it. I’ve seen each movie since. We went on the opening day of Toy Story 3 back in 2010!
So when I heard about the fourth Toy Story of course I planned on going opening day! Unfortunately we couldn’t but we did go a few days later!
I actually didn’t even get that excited from the trailer, it didn’t look all that funny, weirdly enough. But my whole family was laughing the entire time! I hated the ending and my kids really hated the ending (Woody LEAVING his child?!?!) but whatever. It’s a movie. haha
Oh my gosh Forky: my kids were roaring with laughter.
After all that laughing and good endorphins my kids had so much energy. They wanted to run around and play outside the theater for a while before heading home.
They always want to have pictures here:
Little rest.
Back to the van.
We needed to go to Costco for some groceries and Lyla fell asleep on the drive over so I put her in the ergo while we shopped!
She woke up in the store and wanted to breastfeed before heading home!
It was such a great day! 🙂
Stores!
I started Everett off in the stroller thinking we were only getting a couple things but quickly went for a cart when my arms filled up. Everett loves riding in the cart these days! He bangs his casts against the handle and smiles and giggles up at me. Cute. 
A different day: 
I believe this was Saturday night and Allan stayed with the other three kids. That made my shopping trip a thousand times easier!
Ember begged to ride in the cart with Everett so I let her. Why not? 
The next day we went to another city here in Colorado to look at rentals and also to look at homes for sale! We might buy… we just don’t know what we’re going to do!
Anyway, after all that we hit up Sam’s Club. 
One the drive home we stopped at our current favorite rental one more time. 
Adorableness and Yuck
One morning I woke up to find Ember in my bed! She often does that when Allan’s out of town because there’s extra room in my bed. The cutest thing is that even if there’s room next to me she crawls into bed and cuddles up to Everett! It’s so so sweet ♥ 
Everett woke up crying and when I went to get him out of bed… I noticed a huge mess! He (and obviously my bed and blanket) was covered in poop! It was from his butt to his neck and all over his arms!! Thank freaking goodness I had baby legs over his casts! Yeesh. 
Last Errand Before Everett’s Surgery
Everett’s surgery is on Monday. I’ve been trying to use my spare time (spare time, ha) here and there to get ahead on some things in preparation. Buying and making foods to have for the first few days so I don’t have to cook… making sure I purchase everything I’ll need. Making sure I have some stuff to make Everett’s first few days better for him. New toys, the right clothes, some disposable diapers for the hospital… stuff like that.
So, the last week Everett has had maybe one or two spots… you know his rash? It was looking like it was gone! I was really glad because his surgery is so close! Well, today he has a handful of spots!!! DARN IT! I have no idea what these freaking dots are but they don’t seem to correlate with ANY food or ANY thing. GRR! He has about ten today. I am really hoping they don’t turn into full on hives or anything, and hoping they don’t increase in number, and hoping they just GO AWAY. I can’t keep putting off Everett’s surgery forever! As much as I’d like him to never have surgery, his bones will start curving (probably have a bit already, honestly) and he’ll have to get pins and maybe even other surgeries to correct it!! Can you imagine how horrible that’d be?! Pins in his hands means casts. Casts for months at a time!! UGH.
So we’ll see! We’ll see what those spots do tomorrow. We’ll see how his skin looks Monday morning. We’re cutting it down to the wire, for sure! I don’t want my son to have surgery in general but I DO want him to have it ASAP for his own sake! I don’t want him to have additional problems for putting it off so long. It sucks that he has syndactyly type 3 instead of the other ones. In type 1 and 2 they can wait for practically ever since the bones won’t curve.
But oh well!
So we went to Target today to get some disposable diapers. I only have cloth and don’t feel like doing cloth at the hospital. I also got a mini swing for Everett. I’m hoping that I have enough baby equipment to entertain him for bits and pieces of the day in the weeks to come. Mostly I plan on going on a lot of walks and to state parks and stuff to distract him (he adores nature) but while home, especially when I’m cooking or cleaning… I need some fun things for him.
Oh yeah, I also bought him a new carseat! I needed a larger one to make room for his casts. It’s good timing since I wanted to get him a larger one, anyway, since bucket carseats are a pain. 
He was asleep by the time we got to Target. I started to get him out of his carseat but then decided to take a picture first! 
I hate shopping at a store with my kids. I left the older girls home but it was still a major pain with the younger three. Everett was fine but Payson and Ember… whew. Kids make shopping take ten times longer than it should! This is why I shop as much as possible on Amazon. I love Amazon prime and its free shipping! 
Payson asked as we were leaving if I could take pictures of them on the red ball. I didn’t want to, I just wanted to go home already but… why the heck not? It’s better to spend a few minutes goofing off on the thing than rush everyone home for nothing. 
I took a picture of my front seat just to show how my car looks at this phase in my life. I’ve never done this before and wish I had to look back on the ways I organized things as a younger mom!
The basket on the seat is full of Everett’s diaper stuff, an umbrella and a sunhat for Everett for super sunny days, and some antibacterial wipes. The basket on the floor is for my cart cover and Ergo. My diaper bag is there on the bottom left. And the Target bag hanging from our 4 wheel drive stick is just for trash. 
I set Everett’s swing up as soon as we got home. He was so freaking fussy still. He’s been a beast this week! I don’t know what’s up with him, teething? I don’t freaking know. He’s not sick, doesn’t have any symptoms… just cranky. So anyway, he LOVES this swing. 
I gave him his binky and he was out like a light! I was surprised. Hopefully this thing gives him some comfort in the weeks to come! 
Oh gosh, Ember getting dressed by herself… one of my favorite things to watch. The outfits she puts together and the adorable way she struggles to get dressed or wiggles this way and that to adjust all her clothes ♥ 
The kids had popsicles. 
Breastfeeding a 3.75 Year Old
I hate it. But she loves it. And she wins. Darn my love for her and her happiness 😉
It will be a glorious day when she and Everett are weaned. Except I’m sure I’ll cry my eyes out about it and miss it like crazy. hee 
[boob pictures removed] 
Everett in Tie Dye and Fixing My Bed for Cosleeping
All those plain white clothes, muslin blankets, and gerber diapers. Now colorful. 
I was sick of only nursing Everett on one side most of the night (so that he could lay safely between me and Allan) so I went to work figuring out how to make my bed safe for cosleeping. With Ember we got one of those bedrails but it wasn’t very safe because Ember could roll between the bedrail and mattress easily no matter how tight we made it. We can’t roll our bed against the wall because we have wood floors and our bed wiggles around like crazy and could easy peasy move away from the wall.
So some kind of addition to the bed was needed. I’d seen some products online (and only online) that would’ve worked but they were insanely expensive!
Randomly while thinking about it one day I realized I could use a wedge pillow under the sheet to keep him safe!
A foam wedge pillow sticks to the mattress perfectly, doesn’t move at all, and the wedge part keeps him from rolling. I bought a wedge pillow at Wal-Mart for $20 and cut it in half and then cut half of one half in half. haha (that’s confusing!) I arranged two of the pieces under my sheet and voila!! It works perfectly!! 
And another random photo included, Everett in his seat: 
Us Four in Our Bed
Ember’s sickness leads her to revert in her bedtime routine. She now climbs into bed with us in the middle of the night. I’m quite cramped squished four deep on a queen size bed!
I’m just so thankful that Ember is old enough to not cry for breastmilk in the nights anymore! She’s happy to be in bed with us, the fact that I face and nurse her brother instead of her is fine with her. 
People! A Store! A Bumbo!
Super random collection of photos today. I can’t even remember where I am in my pictures folder… sorry if these have been blogged before. I know I facebooked them (sorry facebook friends for the repeat photos!) 
“Mom, can I hold Everett?” Heard dozens of times every day. By each of the older four. Sometimes Everett really likes it. Those are nice times 🙂
Everett likes to grab people by both sides of their face and bring them towards him. It’s the sweetest thing on earth! I love this next picture so much! 
Mostly Everett loves his mama. He likes me to hold him all day long. Every day. And most especially early in the morning when I’m getting the kids ready for school and in the evenings while I’m trying to make dinner. Those are his crankiest times… and my busiest! Fun timing there, huh? 
The kids have been obsessed with bugs and little critters the last few weeks. I remember loving playing with bugs and worms as a kid. Funny because now I think they’re really icky 😛 
I took a nice closeup of my bald spot. My hair is falling out at an alarming rate. I honest to goodness think I have about half the hair I used to have! I hate the postpartum shedding phase! I debate chopping my hair off every single day. Then I realize that with my crazy curly hair it’d be more work and not really look any better and I just don’t cut it. But it’s been in a ponytail almost exclusively these days. Mostly to try to cut down on the amount of hair all over my house. Because it’s gross! 
Errands with the littlest three. I still do love that Payson only goes to school twice a week. 
Everett will never be a lonely child. Youngest of five means five built in friends for life 🙂 
