Busy, busy, busy!

I know it's not true,  but it seems like we spend a lot of time at the pool. Really they have just had swimming lessons 4 days a week for the last 3 weeks (which is only a half hour long, thankfully for Shawn and I, since we're not in the water) and I've been trying to take them to the pool about twice a week. They have definitely made some improvements in that area. Well, Katy still doesn't like to put her head under or jump in, but HAS done them both, so we'll call it progress. Reilly is swimming pretty well, but really has to figure his breathing out still. He is not afraid of trying anything, and will do back flips under water where he can touch the ground.  Jaina is somewhere in between. Shawn loves the water.

I've been meaning to give the girls summer haircuts, and planned to take Jaina, at least, somewhere, because her hair is so straight and fine I was afraid I would mess it up. But then one day after I bath I started cutting on Katy's. And it ended up shorter than I expected. Then Jaina wanted on the same day, and was grumpy I wouldn't make hers any shorter. They aren't perfect, but at least there is less hair to mess with with all this swimming!

We've had several visitors over the last couple weeks, especially since it was Katy's birthday time. Grandmas, Grandpas, and lots of party time.

Katy turned 4 and we had a fun day. She chose Lucky Charms instead of birthday pancakes, then she chose a park to go to before some quick present and then swim lessons. After lunch she picked IKEA as her fun place to go to. She is finally tall enough to go in their play area this year, and she loves it. The wait was nearly 30 minutes, but they had a blast. Shawn hung out with us, and had another first. (sitting in the shopping cart) After IKEA Jeremy had to get back to the office, so we had pasta (I believe) for dinner, at Katy's request and hurried fast to make her cake. It wasn't dairy-free, (since it used a whole stick of butter) but it was gluten-free, and pretty delicious.

The next day we rushed from swim lessons to Kinzi's birthday party and the girls had a blast too. Shawn did too, especially since his other Grandma was there waiting to kiss on him. (The lipstick is actually from Jaina - they were dressing up and doing a fashion show). We also went out to eat with Kinzi's family that night at IHOP (just Katy, Grandma, and I). There was a picture, but Katy looks a little crazy in all of them. Not in a cute way. She is my challenging one when it comes to the camera.

Grandma Weech stayed at our house for a few days, which was really fun. She made us some treats, came to swim lessons with us, took the kids to the Carson pool one afternoon (wearing herself out in the process), helped me get the kids' pictures taken Friday morning (forthcoming), and helped us throw a fun little family birthday swim party. It got a little scary the 24 hours before when we realized our neighborhood pool was temporarily closed, but luckily it opened before we wanted to swim that night!

It has been a little crazy having everyone home all the time. Thankfully up until recently they haven't fought any more than usual. I just have trouble with the constant noise level... things have been getting a little more stir-crazy lately, but the 4th of July and the mountains are coming up soon to break things up! It has been nice for Jeremy to get to spend a little more time with all the kids together. Saturday he took them to the airport to watch the planes, and they liked that. He and Reilly have also been watching little bits of the first Harry Potter movie some evenings since Reilly is currently reading book 5... Today we tried sorting ALL our Legos into sets and colors so we could get the sets put back together and not have Legos stored in 4 different places.

Shawn is growing fast. In the last two weeks he has started giving (open-mouthed, sometimes latched-on, painful, slobbery, adorable) kisses, he's getting much closer to sitting up, sleeps unswaddled -some- of the time, and has tried several foods for the first time (pears, green beans, sweet potatoes, squash). He likes them, mostly. He is still not really rolling (after doing it 5-6 months a few weeks ago) but has his second tooth through. Sleep training will probably be our next hurdle, as getting him to sleep is becoming increasingly difficult sometimes and he is still up every 30-60 minutes many nights. (The longest stretch he's done in weeks is just over 3 hours - I get excited when he does a 2 hour stretch even, and he's still sleeping with me much of the night...) Sigh. He's adorable, though!

These pics were after we took the group ones Friday, and he was not impressed. We'll be going back in a week or two when he's sitting to get some better ones...

6 Months!

Our "little" Shawn McKay is 6 months old today. He hasn't had his 6-month check up, but according to our kitchen scale, he's between 18 and 19 lbs. He has turned into such a chunk! He still fits into many of his 6-9 month clothes, but really needs 9-12 now, especially with the cloth diapers. I took these last night - he was wearing 12 month pj's and they were snug...

 Shawn is still not sleeping that great, but we're starting to work on that. He take 2-3 naps a day, usually about 45 minutes to an hour, but sometimes 2 hours. He goes to bed between 8 and 9 and "sleeps" until 7 ish, but he's up several times in there and then in bed with me for a 5-6 hour chunk in the middle. He is still swaddled, so we need to tackle that next, but he is sleeping in his bed now instead of in his swing most of the time.
He still nurses (!) and takes up to 30 oz of formula a day, in 3-4 oz bottles. He tried his first food this week - little bites of pear. His favorite home activity is bouncing like a crazy person in his jumper or having his siblings sing to him. He loves to be out and about and see new things. He loves swimming.

He just barely started rolling from tummy to back occassionally and is not quite ready to sit up yet. It's possible that since he gained so quickly, his little muscles are still working on catching up. :) He is teething like crazy (that's an amber teething necklace, not a fashion statement) and I can see/feel one bottom tooth ready to break through any day, we hope. We love our little chub-a-lub and can't imagine life without him!

Summer's On (a mega post)

I just realized that there is a blogger app. There wasn't last time I checked, but that was probably quite a while ago... Maybe I can actually get back to blogging regularly. I really need to, because it's the only way I keep a record these days, and I'm guessing life is just going to get busier, not calmer.

We've just completed our first full week of summer break, and it's been a busy one!

Last Thursday morning we traded babysitting (Katy) with a neighbor while packing and cleaning in preparation for a trip to Pima. About noon, Jeremy. Shawn, and I attended Reilly's little awards ceremony, then Jeremy stayed to help with Reilly's end if school party and Shawn and I went to Jaina's awards and party. Both kids did super well in school this year. Reilly got awards for reading over 100 books and for being the best at phonograms in his class. Jaina got awards for pretty much every subject. They had two very different teachers, but both really enjoyed their years. Jaina, especially grew and blossomed so much and was friends with everyone in her class, I think.

As soon as we were done with all that, we jumped in the car and headed to Pima for an unexpected funeral for Grandpa Maurice. He was 90, and went peacefully, but it's always sad to lose somebody. 

We had a really nice visit and stayed for several days. It was great to finally meet our new little nephew, Logan, who was born a few weeks ago. We missed David & Nicole, who weren't able to make it. All the little cousins played together better than they had before, and we had a really enjoyable time. Shawn slept as well as he ever does (iffily) so it was all good. We had some fun water play, some great card games, visited with lots of relatives living and gone.

Once we came back Monday morning, summer was in full swing. We took our first swim of the season, and everyone (including Shawn) definitely enjoyed it. 

Since them we've learned about giant pandas and sea turtles, gone swimming again, ridden the carousel (free for a few hrs on Thursdays) and played outside (on a nicer, cooler day) at Superstition Springs mall, played with our smiley-faced baby boy (who is finally sleeping in his crib at least part of the time) and watched a little too much tv.

Friday night we attempted a "family fun night" involving pretend camping. The tent, card games, and mini s'mores were a big hit. The campfire songs they'd never heard, foil dinner food they didn't want to try, and sleeping in the tent, not so much. I was mostly grateful we weren't -actually- camping. Maybe in a few years...

Today has been a busy, good day. Shawn refused (while smiling) to take a nap this morning, because he knew we actually had somewhere to be at a certain time. We signed the three older kids up for a session of swim lessons through Mesa Parks & Rec and they started today. It's only 8 lessons (in a 2 wk period) but hopefully it will get them all moving in the right direction. They had a good time, and Shawn did amazingly well for not having napped.

(they're happier in that picture than they look, I promise. They liked it)

Monday is usually a day Jeremy kind of takes off, and he's usually sweet and helps get tge house back together (from the weekend) and laundry caught up. So we worked on that a lot today. 

Shawn had been a little extra fussy lately, and drooling and chewing like crazy. It stems like babies just start to get gun and a little more reasonable when teething hits. I really dislike teething! But at least he's easy to distract. He loves to go places, (even just to Bashas' tp grab an FHE treat) and is usually happy when we're out and about unless he's overly tired.

Family Home Evening is something we've been trying to get back in a good habit of doing the last few months (since Shawn was born and all the craziness that goes with that) and it has been a little rough, especially with a certain almost-4-year-old. But tonight there was little fighting, everyone more or less listened, and they were even reverent for the prayer. I hardly had to threaten withholding the treat afterwards at all. ;-). I know that there will be many, many more difficult moments, but it's so nice to see some progress once in a while. It gives you hope. 

A few more pictures of our (drooly) cutie tonight, and then I'll quit. Hard to tell how long this post is on my little phone screen, but I think it's getting up there...

(Not sitting yet, but we're trying to encourage him!)