Check out the 4-year old! (and moving, moving, moving)

The long-awaited day finally arrived! Reilly (and Jaina too) have been looking forward to his birthday for months...  Here is our cute oldest child over the last few years:

2 days old

1 year

2 years

3 years



4 years!



Everything is crazy around here with all the packing (the semi that we're renting space in arrived yesterday too!) but we tried to make his birthday special. He had 4-shaped pancakes, got to go pick out a cake and run errands with Daddy by himself, had pizza for dinner, and a party with all kinds of people to play with. (It was a combined cake and ice cream+please come say goodbye and help us load our truck party) He even succeeded in blowing out his candles this year, which, for various reasons, hasn't happened before now!



Katy in her "party dress"





Loading the truck - and a beautiful sunset!



Reilly was so excited, because since it was his birthday, I let him have as much cake and ice cream as he wanted. Both Reilly and Jaina just sat and enjoyed their treats while all the other kids ran around playing. My cute little "twins...."



Katy was such a good baby! I think she only cried once during the two hours, and even stayed awake so she could take her last nap as soon as it was over, which gave us a chance to get the other two to bed. (On their mattresses on the floor; we packed our beds into the truck!)

I can't believe we're not going to live here anymore (in Iowa or in our house; we love our house!)  I'm really going to miss several of the people here, especially our wonderful neighbors!

Jamie even managed to get all our neighbors together for a group shot (well, minus all the Stewarts' kids, baby James, and Justine, who were all in bed!

(this one's full-size in case any of you want to click on it and save it)



Our last family picture in Iowa!



On the brink

of being able to pack everything, of moving, and mostly, of insanity. In the last 6 nights I think there was one where I got more than 7 hours of sleep, and I've even had to enlist Jeremy's help with the last two nights. And it's not Katy. Yes, she wakes up once or twice a night normally, but Tuesday night Reilly was up for about an hour in the night, Thursday night I was up with a headache until 2 am (and Jeremy off and on with me), and last night Reilly was up from 2 am until 6 am. I do not know why. I can't blame teething like I used to. He wasn't crying. I don't get it, but we are all so tired. The headache was a doozy. I have had one other headache that stands out as possibly that bad, and it was just over 10 years ago. Yes, I remember it vividly... Thankfully through a blessing, and a hot bath (the advil hadn't touched it, but if we had had anything stronger in the house, I would have taken it!) it finally settled down and I was able to sleep. I don't know what last night was, but it had better not happen again tonight. We have too much packing to do tomorrow, and as our "family time" is limited right now, we need some positive, happy interaction over the next few days!

On a positive note, our sweet baby hit 3 months this last week! She is getting SO big, and we are so thankful that she turned out to be such a good baby! We are truly blessed, and love our sweet little Kathryn Emily.

She is excited to go home and see all her grandmas and grandpas next week, but she will miss her daddy terribly!

She has recently discovered the joy of a walk where she is as tall as everyone else and can see everything!

And here is a picture Jeremy took of me the other night (in our only remaining piece of furniture on the main floor). These poor kids are a little starved for attention with all the packing we've been having to do (and with the sleeping mommy's been doing after they get up in the mornings after these long nights). Thank heavens for Clifford, Sesame Street, Baby Einstein, the Chipmunks, and Handy Manny DVD's, all available at our wonderful local library, but these kiddos are going to have to go through TV detox when we get to AZ!

As I said, things are getting mostly packed (which is making cooking harder and harder) and we load up most of the truck on Monday (also Reilly's 4th birthday!). The kids and I fly out Wednesday morning. All a little crazy! So excited to go to AZ and be done living in chaos, but it's going to be so hard to leave. Mostly because Daddy's not coming with us! :(

Hooray!

Life is starting to fall into place! After 3 long years here at Palmer (with a couple months to go), THIS handsome guy's hard work has paid off. He was offered (and accepted) a job as an Associate at the Nevada Spine Institute, in Henderson, NV. We are all very excited! The kids and I will be flying to Arizona on September 29th, and Jeremy will be staying in Davenport to finish the trimester and take part 4 boards until mid-November. At that point he'll start his internship in Henderson (at part-salary even - they're not often paid!) He'll find a place for us to live, and then (probably after Christmas?) We'll join him there. I never thought I'd be moving to "Las Vegas," but it seems like a good thing for us. And hey, it's only 8 hours from home (a huge improvement on this 24-hour nonsense), close to a lot of our good friends, and only 4 hours from Disneyland! Hooray for knowing what we're doing, and where all these boxes we keep packing are going!

September!

The "craft" we made the other day.
Those leaves are from LAST Fall...

I can't believe it. I feel like I kind of missed the summer, with the whole new baby phenomenon. That's fine, I'm not the biggest summer fan in the world, but I do wish we could have taken the kids swimming a few times. Maybe next summer we'll be a swimming family. ;-) Reilly (and soon, Jaina) is probably ready for swimming lessons. Now we just need to find somewhere to live (for more than a few months in a row) to set that up. We gave our notice to our landlady, so the kids and I will definitely leave Iowa by the end of September. Not sure how or exactly when we're getting to Arizona, but hopefully we'll decide that really soon! Loving the cooler weather, though. I'm sure we'll have some hot/humid days still, but at least there will be some nice days, too! Hopefully we'll get enough packing/cleaning done on the warm days that we can enjoy the nice days some.  Part 3 Boards are next weekend. A little crazy and stressful around here, but hopefully there will be a little calm soon! We've decided to get rid of as much as we can sell for what it will cost to replace it, so we've put a bunch of stuff on Jeremy's Facebook page (Davenport friends) in case anyone we know is interested, before we put it on Craigslist! I would rather just keep it all, but moving it is going to be rather expensive, and most of it will probably have to sit in storage for at least a few months...
In other news, Katy finally had her "2 month" dr's appointment. At 2 1/2 months, she's 12 lbs, 13 oz, and 23 inches long. Growing so much better than our other two kids at this age. Yay!

Photoshoot

Jeremy took some really cute pictures of our kids Sunday. They tried their best to be cooperative (I'm thinking there were promises of fruit snacks...)
Jeremy just left tonight to go to Las Vegas for a job interview. I hope his trip is great and that he gets lots of calm studying time for Boards! We love him so much and miss him already!

Our happy munchkins!

Our big almost-4-year-old.

A little too smart some times... :)

Miss Jaina. Completely full of it one moment,
total drama queen the next. We love her!

Miss Kathryn Emily. So sweet and wonderful!

They love their little sister so much!

Finally getting to play with the puppets I
was using to keep their attention!

Mega Catch-Up Post (with Palmer Wives' Grad below)

There really shouldn't have to be one of these after not blogging for only 1.5 weeks, but life is really a little crazy right now, and apparently we've taken a lot of pictures. Many of them on Jeremy's camera, and I hadn't uploaded them to the computer in a while. He is in Chicago today (Saturday) again, trying to glean what knowledge he may from Dr. Dickholtz, so I'm just sitting around waiting for Katy to wake up from an abnormally long afternoon nap so the three children and I can go grocery shopping. Doesn't that sound fun?? Our fridge is seriously desolate. There's not much in there, and what there is, is possibly expired. That's what happens when Jeremy usually has the car (and I'm too chicken to go out, for the most part, anyway) and he is extremely busy. We really haven't seen much of him lately, and it's not going to get better any time soon. He will be gone part of next week, plus trying to get as many numbers (adjustments) as possible at school, and studying like crazy for part 3 of Boards for the next two weeks...

His birthday was last Monday, and he was at school from 7 am to 6 pm. Katy and I were both getting Jaina's cold, but I did manage to make him a cake, and we sang to him that evening. That's about all that happened. We haven't even had a chance to go out to celebrate his birthday yet because the evenings are just too busy!

A few of the things that have been going on:

Various ward activities, including this one, a Back-to-Basics night, where we learned about homemade bread, pancakes, and yogurt. Ironically, the pie-eating contest was done with (from what I hear) were some pretty icky little processed pies. Jeremy did not win. I am thankful!

I haven't been to the temple since a month or two before Katy was born, but Jeremy's made it down to Nauvoo a few times. He really enjoyed playing with his camera down there.  Half of it is the beautiful scenery, but I suspect half of it is also being there alone, and not having anyone bugging him while he does it! This is one pic I really like that he took in July.

Also, Jeremy's MTC companion (also one of the witnesses at our wedding), Stephen Merrell, his mother, and his two sisters stopped by briefly to visit us. They live in Virginia, and had been in Chicago for a baby blessing. Luckily, we are on the way to Nauvoo, where his sisters had never been. Jeremy has seen him a couple of times (and they talk often), but I hadn't seen him since our wedding! Reilly and Jaina thought he was pretty awesome...

Speaking of Reilly and Jaina, they're doing well. Their behavior is a little better most days, other than Reilly's inability to leave the DVDs and the projector alone. I have to watch them a little more carefully than I used to, because my little partners-in-crime have decided they can make some pretty amazing messes when they get the slightest bit bored. Rather frustrating, considering how well-behaved they used to be (at least Reilly), but they're still great kids, and we love them so much! We can't believe Reilly is about to be 4. They're both growing out of their summer shoes, and Jaina has grown out of a second size of clothes this summer.  She mostly wears 4T, the same as Reilly! We can't go anywhere these days without at least one person asking if they're twins.

Besides, who couldn't love two kids who get so excited about oatmeal for breakfast?

And Katy is wonderful. I'm really enjoying her.

I just have to know that she can't stay awake for more than an hour (for the most part) and then she needs her 45-60 minute nap. So we wake up and go to sleep all day long. She really does best when we just stay home and let her do her thing, but she tries to be a good sport when we're out and about.

She'll take a 2-hour nap here and there, but I never know when. She sleeps 3-4 hour stretches at night, mostly, with a 5 or 6-er here and there.  I look forward to her starting to stretch those awake and asleep periods out a little so we can actually get out and do stuff without messing her up too much. :)

This is Katy's friend, James. He lives next door and they like to hang together a lot. He is 6 weeks older and a lot bigger! He has more hair, too. Katy tries not to be jealous.

She has started giving us some pretty good smiles. Especially when her daddy comes home. She LOVES her daddy. She only sees him for a few minutes some days, but she still gets very excited.

She has also decided swings are not evil. She will sit in this one, especially, for 10-15 minutes at a time sometimes. Mommy is very excited! So are Reilly and Jaina. We do a lot of time outs because they can't seem to let her and the swing alone...

We're still working on tummy time, when we think about it. She's really not much of a fan...

And here is a picture from last night. We had a little campfire gathering in the back yard, and Katy got to wear one of her sleepers. (not so much because it was cold, but to protect her little self from mosquitoes!) My other kids lived in sleepers, but since Katy is a summer baby, and swaddled for all of her 6-7 naps a day, she mostly just wears onesies. This little sleeper is so cute on her though!

If you got this far, I'm impressed! By the time I posted this, I had, of course already done the shopping thing. It didn't happen until after 5 though, because Katy randomly was awake from 9:30 to 10:30, then took a 3 hour nap, then was awake for 45 minutes and took another 3 hour nap. She fell asleep an hour into shopping for a bit, was awake for a while at home, then took another nap, before getting up to eat and hang out for a bit before going to bed. She does act like she feels top notch. Growing? Hard to tell... Shopping was okay. A little crazy with a fussy little one, but Reilly and Jaina were awesome. Thank heavens!