Alyssa - June

Our First Family Hike

We were ready to finally get out of the house as a family of 5. So, we decided to go up to the mountains for a couple of hours, hike and have lunch. Alyssa was in the baby carrier the whole time and did great! Briana and William loved looking at the fish and ducks. We all loved the fact that it was so much cooler in the mountains than it was at home.

I'm Awake!!

William is by far the best sleeping baby I have ever had. I started training him very early on using the book, On Becoming Baby Wise. I always put him down for a nap or to bed wide awake. He very rarely fusses or puts up a fight. On top of that, I trained him to "sleep in" or at least play in his bed for a while before crying or asking to get up. He would stay in his crib until 830 on most mornings and sometimes as late as 900am.

That is until a few days ago . . . . he decided to break this great pattern. He still goes down for a three hour nap, thank goodness! He still goes down for naps and bed without much of a fight. However, he has decided that his new awake time is 7am. Not too bad considering many of the horror stories other moms tell me about 445am wakings and such. So, he wakes up at 7 and starts yelling in a very loud voice, "I'm awake! I want breakfast! Mommy come get me, I'm awake!" I'm usually downstairs with Alyssa in the mornings, often times lying down on the couch trying to recover my lost sleep. This yelling is so hard to ignore! It just keeps going and going. So, I get up at 7 and go upstairs to get my baby boy out of bed. Which also means my day has officially begun. While William still remains my best sleeper he is also my highest maintenance child and while he is awake, I'm on. There is no more lying down on the couch or relaxing of any sort while he is awake. I only wish he would have discovered this new trick after Alyssa began sleeping through the night . . . . but of course it could be much worse and so much earlier in the morning than 7 so I guess I'll consider myself lucky for now. :)

Weddings . . .

Briana's new obsession is with weddings and getting married. It started out with her looking through our wedding album and asking questions. This only raised her awareness and she began to see weddings everywhere. At the end of Cinderella, on tv commercials, on tv in general and in pictures from magazines and books. Now, she has become obsessed with marrying her cousin. Today, I asked her if she wanted to see the wedding video from our wedding and I thought she would be really excited considering her new obsession. Instead, she let me know that after she and Weston get married I can take a picture of them . . . . .I guess that wedding video can wait for another day!

My Gym

My kids love My Gym. They would go every day if I let them!!

Outdoor Picnics . . . .

are the new obsession with both Briana and William. I merely suggested having a picnic outside one day just to break up the monotony. Now they want to eat every lunch outside. They also like to pretend that they are puppies and so they eat like puppies. I decided to get out the camera on one particular picnic and definitely got some keepers . . . :)

No More Newborn Diapers :(

Alyssa is our last baby and I knew she was going to grow fast. She is. Today I put on her last newborn sized diaper and it barely fit. She hasn't even hit the four week mark yet and we are in size 1 diapers already.

365 Update

I have been doing the work and taking the pictures everyday. However, with a newborn, organizing the pictures and putting them online has proven to be a lot harder than I thought. Normally I would work on it for an hour or so after the kids were in bed but now I am running to bed too. I have to get in as much sleep as possible before 1am because that's when Alan goes to sleep and has to get up for work the next day. Leaving me with the am Alyssa duty that can be very unpredictable. So, when things calm down and I get a minute to edit and sort through my pics I will post more and let you see how much she has changed already.

Just a few pics from the last week or so . . . .

I Survived . .

It's almost 930 and I survived my first day alone with the kids. Thursday's are Alan's long day because he has night school till 10 or so. So, technically still going with all three on my own. Not as bad or crazy as I thought it was going to be. I think Alyssa felt sorry for me and was actually eating and sleeping on a somewhat regular schedule. Not to mention my older ones love to eat and play on their own, which helps greatly.

I even decided to go on my first trip on my own with the kids today. We went to my parents house but it was still a huge milestone for me and it was great to get out of the house!!

Of course, I'll still have to take one day at a time. Eventually, we will have to start attending our mom's group events again . . . .but for now we'll stick close to home and try and make it through the day. I'm still waiting for Alyssa to start sleeping through the night then I will really have it made!!

Dreading Tomorrow . . . .

Alan is going back to work and I will have all three, all day by myself for the first time ever! I know it won't be as bad as I am imagining right now. If I survive, I will fill in the details of the day. One thing I have learned from doing this before is that it does get better. . . . . wish me luck.

This is our first official family picture. With so much going on we haven't had too much time to pose as a family of 5. We don't get our professional pictures taken until November so this will have to do for now!

Alyssa's First Visit to Great Grandpa's House

Alyssa's very first visit to great grandpa's house. Alan had a few more days off and so we decided to head out to Victorville for dinner. The kids always love to visit their great grandpa. Briana always gets ice cream and William gets coins. This was also the perfect time for our little girl to meet great grandpa for the first time. As you can tell from some of the pictures below, the kids were in a silly mood by the time we got the camera out . . .

Pump It Up!

Pump it up is one of the many places we visit with the mom's group. On this particular visit we were able to take daddy along because he had the day off. So many great advantages to having daddy come along. First, daddy can climb into all the inflatable bounce houses while I watch on the sidelines. (Especially, while recovering from a c-section) Another great advantage, daddy actually got William to climb up the ladder and slide down all by himself!! This skill would have been very usefull weeks ago while I was carrying him up the ladder while 8 and 9 months pregnant. No matter how many times I encouraged and begged he wouldn't go alone. One trip with daddy and he climbs up like a pro! Go figure . .

Project 365

I decided to take on this project when Alyssa was born. Basically, I will be taking photos of her every single day for one year. So, far I have been taking the pictures. I have to admit the first week or two will be a little boring. The fact that she is a newborn and sleeps most of the time . . . along with the fact that I'm still recovering from surgery has taken some creativity out of the process. Still I do have high hopes for this project and look forward to all the comparisons that can be made as Alyssa grows and changes this year. I will be adding each photo to my picasa web album and then sharing the month's montage on my blog.

More info on this project: http://photojojo.com/content/tutorials/project-365-take-a-photo-a-day/