Girlies

The girlies are seeming so old to me lately.  Emme seems to be 14 not 4 half the time and our little Stell Bell had decided to cop quite the "tude" lately.  She is definitely a little sassafrass at times and I have to decide whether to laugh or yell at her for being a stinker.  Recently we got bunkbeds in March and they are loving those.  They both sleep down on the bottom for now, I told Emme she can move up top when she is a tad older.  The bottom is a full so they have plenty of room and they actually like being with each other.  I just can't believe how big they are getting and I look at them thinking "weren't you just a little baby?"  They constantly are making us laugh everyday with their questions or comments on things.  They are awesome with Madden and are saying all the time, "Come on Dad he's just a baby!"  They really look out for him and he is pretty spoiled by the attention. 

Emme is really into Superheroes still, loves Spiderman and Batman the best.  She also has started a Hello Kitty obsession kind of out of no where, we haven't even watched any show or movie of it.  She is doing great in school, we continue or work on her sounds and letters since they take awhile to click for her.  She is always considerate to adults and students in her class and always willing to help others out.  She loves coloring and art is probably her favorite activity, I'm always amazed at that pictures she draws and the detail in things.  She will be doing another year of preschool next school year since we have decided to wait to send her to Kindergarten when she should actually should be attending and not test her in.  While I think she would do great off the bat, I don't want her to struggle later in either the work or confidence in being the youngest in the class.  I really think the gift of time will be good for her and hopefully for her confidence in high school etc. 


Stella like I said is quite the sassy girl lately.  She always makes us laugh with the looks she gives or little quips she has.  She has being going to an art class at the library weekly with her Nanny which she loves.  She tends to be very shy around alot of kids or withdrawn so I think it is good practice for her before she starts preschool in August.  She will be in the same class as Emme and I think it will be good for her to go with Emme for a year before Emme moves to Kindergarden.  Stella is really into the Fresh Beat Band lately for shows and she loves to color and do art.  She is very good with letters and sounds and she seemed to just pick these up without me working with her much so I think it comes more natural to her.  We are working on the sounds of the letters now so she can hopefully be reading in the next year or two.  We also do alot of counting with our flashcards almost daily.  She is super excited to be starting in August for school with Emme.  They both have been taking dance classes for almost a year now and they have a recital coming up in June this year.  They love dancing and Stella especially always requests music to dance to around the house. Our girls sure do keep us on our toes!



Madden 15 Months

Our little guy has taken off on two feet full time since my parent's visit.  He has been taking steps since 12 1/2 months but he decided he needed 3 months to want to walk full time :) He is similar to Stella in that way, they both took their sweet little time on deciding when they want to be mobile.  Now is is on the go all the time and I'm so glad he is fully walking everywhere because he loves to be outside with the girls playing and it's hard to let them do that if they aren't walking full time.  In the beginning he was very proud of himself everytime he would take 6 or 7 steps and he would clap every time he did it.  Now he gets around awesome and is pretty sturdy.

He continues to be super picky about trying new foods but he is getting alittle better.  It's mostly with fruits, I think it's the tartness he doesn't like but I have discovered if I make a fruit smoothy, he will drink that and it's a good way to get the fruits in him since he will only eat applesauce or a banana cut up at this point, however he did eat a few apple slices the other day so we are making progress.  He loves green beans like they are going out of style, still a fan of avacados, not into milk so I have to get him several things of yogurt a day to get the fat content in him.  He loves cheese, water, crackers, grilled cheese, chicken, hot dogs, bagels (anything bread of course), oatmeal, he eats craisens here and there and he started eating cucumbers on occassion too. 

He is by far the most dramatic out of all the kids so far, if he gets told no or yelled at, he will put his head in his heads and cry or his little bottom lip will quiver and his eyes start to tear up, so cute though I must admit!  I'm loving the stage he is at right now, other than the little toddler tandrums here and there.  He is so much fun to watch and be around, he has the hardiest laugh ever and he is constantly saying new words, laughing at himself and the girls.  He loves to push any button or switch he sees and loves all the remotes of course.  He has discovered sticking out his tongue alot and he can show you where his head, hands and toes are.  He can say the usual Mama and Dada, Marley, hi, thank you,Papa, Grandma, Grandpa, Gabba (from Yo Gabba Gabba-his favorite show ever, oh joy!) and it seems like every day he is saying something else.  He loves to dance and chase after the girls and he talks all the time in his own martian language and he really thinks he is saying something.  He likes to go around the house and yell things and call for the girls except he can't say their names yet.  He is a huge cuddle bug which I'm so glad for since I would be heartbroken if he didn't like to snuggle.  Love my boy!

Spring Time Business

Spring is here and we sure have been busy.  We had my Mom and Dad as well as my Aunt Diana and Uncle Jimmy here from Wisconsin towards the end of March.  The weather was ideal and we took them to a Milwaukee Brewer's spring training baseball game, went for a pontoon ride at Bartlett Lake (which was amazingly beautiful), went to tea at a tea house in Carefree and the guys checked out a car show in Surprise.  Vacation always goes by too fast.  The girls had so much fun with their Grandma and Grandpa, it was really hard on them when they left.  It seems every year is harder because they are older now and aren't as distracted as easily to get over things.  We CAN'T wait to see them in September when we visit Wisconsin. 

Madden-8 Months!

I can not believe my little baby is already eight months old.  I am having a serious mommy sadness moment because time is just flying right by.  I try and treasure every stage and age but I can't help but feel sad that my "babies" are getting so old so fast.  It's true what they say, time flies so much faster every year you get older.  I swear time never moved by this fast when I was younger, I'm pretty sure it speeds up somehow but tries to appear like it moves at the same rate.  It does not.  Anyways, enough of my freak out.

Madden is doing so many new things lately, I feel like it is not just weekly, but every other day it's something new.  He is now soooo close to crawling, he has taken about two crawl scoots forward.  He can of course go backwards and roll from one end of the room to the other.  He just started trying to pull himself up onto things, which he can get from sitting position to his knees by doing this.  He can do his two crawl steps forward as I mentioned and now he can go from laying on his belly to up on his knees and then sitting.  He has just started doing all this in the past week basically.  Ever since we came back from visiting my good friend Danielle and her baby in GA a week ago, he has now been on the go basically.  He was already rolling and managing to scoot all over but seeing another baby who is crawling and cruising on things has really pushed him to do more I believe.  I'm all about him crawling asap because the faster they crawl, the faster it's over and they are onto walking.  Crawling to me is the hard stage because whenever you go somewhere, they want to get down and you can't always put them down if you are out on the dirty floor so walking is easier in that aspect anyway.

He can now say the syllabols Ga, Ba, Pa, Ya and Ma. He likes to blabber alot and just started saying Ma the other day so I'm pretty sure Ma Ma is going to fly out of his mouth any day now. I don't know if it counts if he said Ma for mama but he's going the right direction anways.  Brian always says it doesn't because they don't know what they are saying but I disagree, they are repeating everything they are hearing so it's the first step in language. 

While he is still on baby food, he has moved onto consuming other types of food: chicken, beef hot dogs, beef stew, any veggies or fruit cut up and the occassional noodle.  He has entered the getting mad stage when he sees you are eating food and won't give him any so we either have to eat out of his site or give him what we are having to prevent a melt down.  He is just like his Daddy in that aspect, he gets mad when he doesn't eat!

He continues to be the happiest, most laid back baby ever unless he is teething which he can be miserable for a few days when he has teeth coming in.  So far he has his bottom two teeth and now the top two just popped through and are still coming in.  For the most part, he is really easy going and will entertain himself with toys and scooting all over the floor.  He loves to laugh at his sisters and the dogs and just thinks they are the best thing ever.  The girls of course dote on him all the time so they are still not sick of him yet!

We love our little Mad man!

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Our Brood

In our crazy life I know I need to make an effort to write down what our children are up to at the moment not only because they change so quickly but also because I want to be able to look back on these blogs as a sort of memory scrapbook on all the things they were doing and accomplishing since time just seems to fly by so quickly. Every parent knows how fast their kids change and I don't want to miss out on the "pm's" (precious moments) is what we call the kids when they are being extra sweet and cute. So here is a little paragraph on each of our munchkins:

Emme-number one as I sometimes call her (only because she was born first)

Ah our Em bug, or buglet. I just want to start by saying I can not believe we have a 3 & 1/2 year old who will be 4 in September. That seems so crazy to me that she is already that old. She seems like she's 13 half the time with the things she comes up with and her facial expressions. I thought eye rolling started at teenage years or at least like 8, not 3. She really comes up with the silliest things and has us laughing on an hourly basis. Not only does she have us laughing, she frequently cracks herself up and finds her own jokes to be the funniest. I think she takes after Brian on this. She really is a caring little girl who loves being a big sister to Stella and especially "Maddy Mo" aka Madden. She loves making him laugh and smile, helping keep him occupied, and feeding, bathing, etc. He just lights up when she is talking to him and she's always so gentle with him. She also loves her play partner Stella and really loves being her boss half the time which Stella doesn't always seem to mind. I don't know what they'd do without each other honestly. The really play well together and are more into making up games to play together, coloring, and their new favorite- lining up their dolls, stuffed animals who they refer to as their friends, and bedding on the floor against the wall. Emme loves going to preschool and she doesn't cry anymore which is great because that went on for months when I would drop her off. She would only cry for a minute until I left but I always felt bad. Now she loves going, feels comfortable there and really looks forward to it. She mainly plays with her friends Lilah, AJ, and David. Her teacher Ms. Kendra says she has made amazing progress since she started, she is always the first to help the other kids, she chooses her own work to do, knows all the color grading scales, and loves to read books. She wants to read so bad so they have been working on all the sounds so she can put the together to be able to read. We also do a letter of the day at home every day so she can really work on that. The goal is to have her reading by this next school year which really amazes me. Her teacher said they like to have all the four year olds reading so I will be looking forward to that. Emme loves reminding us every day that we are her best friends along with her Grandma, Auntie Mo Mo, and Madden and Stella. She often asks Stella if they are sisters and best friends which cracks me up. She also loves to help pick up which im taking full advantage of while it lasts because i know that is a fleeting moment. She loves wearing dresses and tutus on a daily basis and her new nightgowns are all the rage in our house these days. Our little 3 year old is a funny, caring, bright, amazing little girl who we are so lucky to have.

Stella aka Stell Bell-

Where do I start with Stella...our 2 year old is definitely in the twos, terrible twos at times. We love her to pieces but whew, she can wear you out at times. Stella has definitely developed a little attitude recently and she will let you know it. Most of the time she is our little ray of sunshine however. She loves playing with Emme and always wants to include her. She is very loving to her brother and loves to kiss and hug him. If you ask her to get something for him, she is right on it. She really loves being a bis sister just like Emme. Stella loves to dance and be silly. Poop is the funniest thing to my children right now which I always thought was a boy thing, turns out, it's not. They love saying everything is poop and then laughing. They will be pretending to make tea in their kitchen for us and then they will say "here is your poop tea" and then crack up. That is one phase I will not be sad to see go I must say. Stell loves to color and play with her doll. She is also very into her dresses and tutus and of course anything that Emme does, she must do too. She lives playing with Mommy's "puter" aka my iPad. We are working on cleaning up with Stell because she loves to make a mess and then leave it to Emme to pick up. I definitely wish she had the picking up gene that Emme has. We have almost mastered potty training. She does really well for the most part. She only wears a pull up to bed and usually wakes up with it still dry in the morning so I think she's really doing well for her age. Stella really is a sweet little girl and I think once we get past the two stage, she will be even better :) She for sure is a Daddy's girl at the moment whereas Emme is a Mommy's girl. At first I was taking that to heart because she used to be more attached to me but I have come to terms with it because they all go through stages and I needed to accept that. I think since Madden came along she realizes that Mommy can't always do everything so she gravitated towards Brian and that honestly is one of the hardest thing about having 3 kids. You can only do so much and have to accept that. Overall, she is a very smart, sweet little girl. And then there is...

Madden aka Maddy Mo-

My 18 lb handsome little man. Yes, 18 lbs. He had his four month check up a few weeks back and weighed in at 18 lbs and 26 inches long, he is now 5 months tomorrow. No surprise on the length of course. He is a solid little guy. Stella weighed 18 lbs 6 oz at his age and Emme was almost 16 lbs. It's hard to know if he will be like Emme or Stella because they are both totally different body types. Emme was very chubby as a baby and then tapered off to become a little wisp. She weighs 32 lbs right now and Stella is 31 lbs so they are only one lb apart. My guess is that he will be more like Stella. He will for sure have blue or green eyes, blue right now but I know that can change. Stella has always had blue but lately they have green to them so we will see for her too. Madden is the happiest baby all the time. He always has a huge smile for us and is such a laid back little guy. He loves to talk and babble all the time. He gurgles a lot lately and is always laughing which just melts my heart. We are so lucky to have such a good baby. Luckily he has learned to like his car seat now, at first he would flip out after being in it awhile but now he doesn't seem to mind. He has developed a schedule for napping and how he falls asleep which is great because he went through a stage for awhile that was hard because he would only let me rock him to sleep which I would have to be standing up doing it, that was not so much fun. He goes to bed so well now and puts himself to sleep and sleeps through the night which makes Mommy happy. He's for sure teething because everything goes in his mouth and he is drooling non stop. No teeth poking through as of yet. He eats 7 oz every 3 hrs roughly so about 4 to 5 times a day. He loves to roll non stop, if I put him on his back, he's on his stomach in a matter of seconds. I wonder if he will try to crawl early to keep up with the girls. He is really trying to move lately and push forward with his feet so he makes a good effort.  He really loves being silly and coyly smiling at me when we are playing and right before he falls asleep. It amazes me how a four or five month old knows what is funny and how to be funny. He loves his swing, that is how he falls asleep often and he loves his vibrating chair too. He likes to be in his command center, the exersaucer, and the bumbo too. He loves loves loves his binkie and a soft blankie by his face when he's tired. I'm sure you can tell I'm in love with my boy!

Family Visits

I might be crazy, but we had Brian's family in town and my family in town the whole month of January pretty much. Yes, right after having a baby, I know. Probably not the best planning but it just seemed to work out that way. Hopefully everyone had a good time and excused any lack of having it 'together' on my part on the new baby. Overall, I think we pulled it off pretty good.

The girls of course had such a blast with their cousins, Brianna and Acadia. If it already wasn't a circus around here, it sure was with 4 screaming little girls running around! It was chaos but a good kind. They all got along really well and Madden and Lily pretty much just laid around like the little blobs that they were :) Our days seemed to go by very fast as they always do and luckily we had some very warm weather so there were plenty of park trips.

The day the last of Brian's family left, my parents came into town so we wasted no time there. It was a great help having my Mom and Dad here to entertain the girls and it doesn't hurt that they adore them as well. They did plenty of bugging Grandpa to be taken to the park and pushed on the swings. Definitely hard seeing them go, thank goodness my Mom will be heading this way in April hopefully to visit while my Dad is on a work trip. Emme keeps asking when Grandma and Grandpa are coming back and then she says "maybe in two months." So she is more than ready to see them again!

Christmas

It was a little busy this Christmas since we had a newborn who was only home from the hospital for one day before Christmas. But since I had preplanned everything and had all gifts wrapped etc., I was all set. The kids of course got way too spoiled and we actually got to spend Christmas with Maureen and Jerry this year now that they are here which they loved. I think Madden will enjoy Christmas next year a little bit more since he will know what is going on but he seemed pretty content anyway :)

Can You Tell They Are Related?

Emme 3 days

Stella 5 days

Madden 7 days

It's a Boy!

And the color is blue! Didn't see that one coming! Needless to say, my blog has been totally put on the back burner with having a newborn and three kids now. Whenever I even get a few minutes of time to do something, it's usually taken up with cleaning the house, doing laundry, or making meals for the kids so therefore, that equals my blog being severely neglected. My point in this is that I'm way behind so I'm now catching up.

We are now a family of 5 now and we have a son! Needless to say, this came as a huge surprise to us since we just thought we were having another girl. Madden Cullen Lilly was born on December 21st, 2011 at 10:05 am, weighing 7 lbs 8 oz (my biggest kiddo yet) and 21 1/4 inches long (the same as Emme). I didn't go into labor with him and had him on my schedule c-section date which was a relief since I was afraid I wouldn't have my wonderful doctor that delivered both of my girls. Everything went smoothly and this was my best c-section yet as far as pain level, not getting as sick, and having the best nursing staff. I was worried since I was having him at a different hospital than the girls but it turned out to be a great experience and I had the best nurses who took care of me. When he was born, Brian got to see he was a boy first and I almost couldn't believe it. I secretly really wanted a boy since this was our last, even though a girl would have been great too. I love my girls and really a healthy baby is number one but if I could have choosen, that is what I was hoping for. He looks so much like Emme, and really both girls when they were born. As he is getting older, he looks just like our little Em bug, the resemblance is crazy. He is such a wonderful little man, very good baby and doesn't even have a fussy time like most babies do. Not to say he doesn't get fussy here and there, but he really is an easy baby. I got lucky in that my first was my hardest so it has helped that the following two have been very easy going. Doesn't make it any less of a circus around here but it could be alot worse!

The girls adore their little brother and are constantly wanting to snuggle him, feed him, hold him, and play with him. Emme is so enthralled with him, even now, I thought that he would get old to them but he really doesn't. I guess he is their own little live doll. Stella is pretty good as well with him, I just have to watch her more since she likes to lay on him and smoosh him alittle thinking she is being helpful. There hasn't been any jealousy issues which I think is due to the fact that both girls have never remembered being alone in any way so they are used to the divided attention. I always hear of people having a little difficulty with this so I am glad that hasn't been a problem. We are just so lucky to have our two girls and now our sweet little guy to make our family complete. I am in love to say the least!

Emme's First Day of Preschool

Emme is in preschool! I still can't believe it when I say that and she has been going for a whole month now! Her first day was August 8th, she goes Mondays and Thursdays from 8:30 until 12:30. The first day was really hard on both of us I think, she has never been to daycare or had to be left really by me so she cried when I had to leave her which in turn made me bawl like a baby. I felt awful having to turn my back on her and leave. She cried for a few minutes and then off and on for some quick moments that first day the teacher said and then she had to ask about every 20 minutes about me coming back to pick her up. The second day she went to school went much better as far as not asking about me picking her up and she didn't cry in between activities. Every day we have gone has gotten better. She actually still cries when I drop her off even still but only for a minute and then she moves on to her tasks for the day. I know she loves school because she always says she wants to go back to school and has fun when I ask her. They do art day on Mondays and Yoga and pizza on Thursdays which I think is really fun for her. She just seems like such a big girl to me lately, where does the time go?
Emme's cubbie for school
All dressed for the first day of school!

Our July Vacation

We took our vacation to Wisconsin in July this year, my cousin and very good friend both got married a week apart so it worked out perfectly for our visit. Other than being disguistingly hot and humid, we had a great time. There were a few days there where it was about 100 degrees with 90 some percent humidity that almost did us in, especially since my parents have no AC! But we made it through and the rest of the trip was luckily not as bad. The girls had a blast as usual, we got to go to the beach, hang at my parents house and my grandma's, visit some friends that we haven't seen in forever (which was looooong overdue!), and just do some relaxing.
Playing with our friend's Doug and Brianne's little girls, Alex and Carys Feeding fish at my Grandma's house Playing at Pattison Park on the beach Eating ice cream with Audia in Minong Picture with Grandma and Grandpa