And Lyla loves me, well at least my boobs! haha
Peekaboo, Everett!
Category: Breastfeeding
Our 4th of July!
Guess what Costco had this year! Fireworks! I was so dang excited when I saw them because for a huge box it was “only” $50! Normally when we buy fireworks at the fireworks stand it’s twice that! So I got a big box of fireworks from there and then we went to a stand to get sparklers and pop its! We got a variety of sparklers to try out!
Brooklyn had stayed home, she doesn’t like to go on most errands. Once home I painted nails… anyone who wanted them painted got them painted. Me, Sierra, Ember, Everett, and Lyla.
I had bought 4th of July themed shirts the second I saw them in WalMart probably a month or more ago! The kids finally got a chance to wear them!
We packed up our fireworks and lightweight camping chairs in the back of the van and I noticed someone had thrown an applesauce pouch into the back and it spilled everywhere! Luckily I keep baby wipes in the van and was able to wipe it up but sheesh.
One more sad part of getting divorced and moving into an apartment is we don’t have a yard and legally you can’t set off fireworks unless you have private property and I looked up the laws and you can’t set off fireworks at parking lots or parks or on streets that aren’t yours… luckily there is a special parking lot set up for people to set off fireworks! It wasn’t close to where we were going to watch the fireworks in the sky so I was a little worried about making it back in time to see the big fireworks but it all worked out and I was so thankful for this area to do personal fireworks!
The kids’ dad was there, we share holidays, and I have pictures of him with the kids but I’m not posting them because ya know, I keep him off my social media, but in case you were curious, he was there and so far we’ve decided on sharing custody on all holidays and birthdays.
Payson and Ember doing peace signs ♥
And now… fireworks!
Lyla was thrilled. She kept trying to run up close to them so keeping an eye on her was a full time job. Like with every second of every other day. haha!
I told the kids that I think once they’re 10 years old they could light fireworks as long as they light it and then immediately hurry back toward the van. So Sierra lit her first fireworks!
These are tightly cropped photos from larger versions since her dad was with her. The originals (which is what I’ll use for our scrapbooks) are so cool! I think cropping up close like this is better than blurring faces though! Do you?
I didn’t get pictures of the other kids lighting fireworks because I was also filming parts of our day…I vlogged a lot. So as soon as I edit that I’ll add the video to the end of this post.
After we set off our last fireworks we drove back to our city to see the fireworks in the sky. Our city does a really good job and we always get “front row” seats. Literally as close as you can get, we get. It’s AMAZING! It’s like we’re sitting right under the fireworks!
Several of the kids wanted to sit right between me and their dad to be close to both of us during the fireworks. That was tricky setting up chairs. We were basically bunched together in a big group. It worked well and was touching that they were so concerned with being next to both of us.
Lyla liked the fireworks, she sat on her dad’s lap through most of it and Everett sat on my lap. But you can bet that she also wanted mom and mom’s boobs a few times throughout the night. haha
After the fireworks ended the kids’ dad went home since it was late. We went and did sparklers over by where we’d parked our van.
It was awesome having three different types of sparklers! We liked each one for totally different reasons. It was a blast. Such a perfect day.
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! 🙂
The Funnest Life = Park Life
The second the weather warmed up we started going to the park every single day. If it’s warm, we’re at the park! There are 4 really nice parks within a 7 minute drive of where we live! And most of that 7 minutes, for the furthest away park, is spent just waiting at traffic lights! The distance isn’t far, all are 2 miles away or less and it’s super awesome because living in an apartment means we don’t have a backyard so we use all the wonderful parks around here as our outdoor space. I set up the trunk of my car with outdoor toys (tennis rackets and balls, water guns, horse shoes, frisbees, kites, sand toys, etc) so any time we feel like playing outside we just drive right over to the parks! I store the toys in cheap pop up laundry hampers from WalMart.
It is so amazing to live in the city we live in while we have to live in an apartment! I feel lucky every day to be able to have a cozy home and everything we miss in a house and neighborhood be within biking distance. Heck, we could even walk to this park I’m blogging about today if we needed to.
I carry our collapsible drinking cups with us, too. Sometimes I bring water with us and we also use the water fountains at the parks. (That link is an Amazon affiliate link)
Brooklyn doesn’t love this particular park so she wasn’t there, we went while she was still in school. She has school for three hours after we pick up Sierra from school since Sierra has half days.
I think all the kids’ swimwear in this post is from Costco and Target. Maybe all from Costco.
We found a cool dragonfly on the playground and took pictures and then realized that one of its wings looked bent and we worried it was too injured to survive. I hope it was fine 🙁
This park has a fun splash pad and also a cool sand pit the kids love.
Need. More. Water!
Also Costco has decently affordable bathrobes for kids and I bought some and they’re AWESOME! If you have little kids, especially 5 and younger, bathrobes are so much easier to use than regular towels since the kids can walk around in them drying off before you head back to your car! Payson and Ember had robes, too, but they were in the dirty clothes that day.
Group picture before we left.
So I took off Lyla’s wet clothes for the drive home and she was so hyper while I was loading our supplies and the stroller into the van. She was seriously SO happy and full of energy. She loves sitting in the front seat.
I had been wearing Ember’s hat while unloading stuff, wanting to put it in last so it wouldn’t get squished.
And then of course Lyla insisted on breastfeeding before leaving.
Busy Day of Errands!
I had my therapy appointment today and wanted to take the kids on another hike since the weather was beautiful again. I wanted to get the kids compasses and a hiking book for all of our upcoming summer adventures so we stopped at Cabela’s, too!
And here is the vlog!
Good Morning!
I got Lyla to sleep later in the day. Look at my BOOBS!!! Lyla is so vicious when she breastfeeds and tears my skin apart!! She also pinches and slaps and bites holes in my nipples all the time! I don’t blog daily so I never mention these things (I do on facebook) but it’s a nonstop injury fest over here 🙁
And a package came so I passed her off to Sierra while I brought the stuff in. They looked so cute together!
Exciting mail! Inside were our family picture clothes!
The sunset was beautiful that night.
We went shopping.
This was the next day, I had the kids try on their clothes. Good thing I bought these all early because some of the items were HUGE!
My Lens Came Back!
So my camera lens broke and I was naturally devastated and it took me months to decide to send it off for repair. It was painful to pay $400 for that repair. Ugh.
This was the day I dropped it off at FedEx and it went on its way to California! (The shipping alone was $47!! OWWW)
And this was a few weeks later when it finally came back!
I didn’t have a chance to try it out because I have kids. haha
We went to Office Max.
We checked the mail once we got home and I snapped some pictures of Brooklyn and Sierra for fun.
And then we went grocery shopping!
Another Sick Day
Hanging with my baby girls in the morning.
The only way on earth I can meet any of the needs I have to meet every day. ERGO LOVE.
I guess not sleeping for days and days and holding a baby 24/7 does a number on your body. My shoulder/neck area got so hurt I could barely move. I made a rice heat pack out of a sock and kept it on my shoulder.
Lyla was so cranky and I was so sore I finally gave up on making lunch and took the kids to McDonald’s instead. I was hoping the drive would put Lyla to sleep but it didn’t.
The kids were excited about their happy meals because the toys were from the ninjago movie and pretty fun!
Lyla wanted my lens cap and wanted to put it on my camera.
Why is McDonald’s so yummy?
One of Ember’s chicken nuggets was a two-for-one stuck together mutant nugget!
Lyla got a hold of Payson’s apple juice and was happily trying to drink from it (it was empty though) and that was a nice tiny break for me!
But then it was back to wanting mama and mama’s boobs!
I was trying ice for the pain since the heat didn’t work earlier.
The kids were playing on the ipad.
I realized it had been three days of that high fever and that it had broke and remembered that when Ember had baby measles as a baby she’d had that pattern and this was the day spots would appear if Lyla had baby measles so I checked and sure enough:
And here is Everett just being a cool dude.
Life with Sick Lyla
Laundry in the morning. I washed the new clothes we got from Costco!
Made breakfast while she fell asleep in the ergo.
Got Everett dressed while Lyla still napped.
She woke up and played at the window.
I had a snack.
Then we went outside.
Here are some of Allan’s pumpkins.
And unfortunately the corn died during an early freeze we had.
Everett loved looking at the veggies Allan and the other kids pulled.
Here he is happily showing off his playdoh. This kid LOVES playdoh!
There were some spiders and ladybugs on some of the vegetables!
The people who worked hard that day!
Poor Everett begs me to hold him all the time and I’m almost always holding Lyla instead. Since I was wearing her I could pick him up and he was really happy about that!
I’d noticed that Lyla was warm all day and took her temperature with a new thermometer since the kids broke my old one.
I tried it on myself first and she was happy when I did it on her next 🙂
With her slightly sick I didn’t want to go to the store but we were ouuuuut of food and needed to. Everett was extremely excited to go to WalMart for some reason! 🙂
That night I was up late with Lyla who was really cranky. I snapped these pictures before finally heading to bed.
It wasn’t long before I woke up… Lyla tossed and turned and cried and cried. I finally got up to just walk with her and rock her. She was burning up so I took her temperature again. It was 103. I don’t usually give my babies tylenol or motrin for fevers because I am a believer in letting fevers run their course but she was not sleeping at all and I knew that she’d get better faster if she could sleep more so I attempted to give her baby tylenol. Problem is Lyla throws up everything (even many foods!), when she gags on new tastes and sure enough- one drop of tylenol hit her tongue and she immediately projectile vomited!! Oh but it didn’t stop there! I had set off her barf alarm and she threw up twice more! She throws up so so so much when she doesn’t like a taste! I’d JUST nursed her for like five hours straight too so she was full of milk and there was a whooooole lot of vomit. Luckily it was mostly milk so it wasn’t really gross but unluckily it got all over her and me and the bed which meant baths for her and me and an entire load of bedding laundry!!
The GOOD news is her nighttime bath cooled her down significantly and she was able to sleep much better. So from 3am until 7am or so she slept decently well. She tossed and turned and I didn’t sleep much but she didn’t cry much and she got some good sleep.
Here’s a problem I ran into. I bought two new thermometers and they each give me totally different temperatures each time! The one below seems to be closest since it matches our regular body temperatures when we’re not sick so I use that to go by.
