Baby Food

Brynlee and Annalyn have both been begging to feed Kyla since before she was even born. They could not understand why our baby didn't take a bottle and they really wanted to give her some big people food. Our pediatrician recommended waiting until Kyla was six months old (she said four months with my other girls) but she said we could start a little bit sooner than that if we wanted. We waited until Kyla was 5 and 1/2 month before we gave her any rice cereal.

As soon as I even suggested feeding Kyla Annalyn had the bib out and was wearing it and she had the baby food and a spoon out and she was ready to go. It took me a while to get the high chair cleaned up. As soon as I was done, my girls were ready. I made up a bottle with some formula to mix with the cereal and we gave Kyla her first bite of cereal. Kyla didn't seem to mind the stuff at first but she got her fill pretty quickly and then she didn't want anymore. We got some faces out of Kyla that made me think she really didn't like it after the first few bites. I let Brynlee and Annalyn both take a turn feeding Kyla and giving her her bottle. I don't think Kyla liked it so much but the big girls loved feeding the baby. I have only given the stuff to her one other time so I am sure she will come around to it soon. The second time I tried to feed her she stuck her thumb in her mouth and did not want to take it out. I let her have a few bites of some butternut squash the other day and she really liked it. I can't believe she is growing up so fast.

We tried to get Annalyn to eat the baby food but she refused since she isn't a baby. That was a wise move on her part. I am so glad that these girls love to help out with their little sister. They are all getting big.

Stuck in the Chicken Coop

The girls and I all spent a long time playing outside earlier this week. We checked the mail, played in the front yard, and then I pushed the girls in the swings for a long time. This was Kyla's first time in the swing and she seemed to really enjoy it. I walked over to the chicken coop to check on the chickens and Annalyn begged to go in and get the eggs. She loves to get the eggs but then she likes to pack them all over the place so I don't let her get them very often.

One of our chickens started sitting on the eggs several weeks ago. Joel kept moving her and taking the eggs since we didn't want her hatching eggs in November. Joel is the one who is in charge of the eggs and he usually takes care of them but he neglected them for a few days and when I cracked one of the eggs open I could see that there was actually a little baby chick growing in the egg. I felt really bad for killing it so I had Joel go and take the rest of the eggs back in the coop for the hen to sit on. Annalyn and I had spent a while in there looking at those eggs. In the end all of those eggs disappeared. There were egg shells and blood left in the nest, but no babies so we are not sure what happened.

Brynlee is really scared of our rooster so she didn't want to come in the chicken coop with us to get the eggs. She was standing outside where she could safely watch us. Then all of a sudden she just left and went in the house. I didn't think much of it. I called her but she didn't answer. As soon as Annalyn and I had collected all of the eggs we went to leave only to discover that the door to the chicken coop was locked. The door only locks from the outside and we were locked in tight. There is a little opening on the side for the chickens to walk through and I thought about trying to squeeze through it but I was holding the baby and I didn't want to set her down in the poopy chicken coop and there was no way I could get through while I was holding her. Annalyn was too afraid of the chickens to attempt it. She wanted me to send Kyla through the hole. Brynlee was in so much trouble. She obviously locked the door before she went inside. I don't know if she did it on purpose, she probably was just trying to keep the chickens in and didn't realize that we would be stuck. Or maybe she was being malicious and she wanted to play on the ipad without me interrupting. I tried to call Joel to ask him which wall he wanted me to knock down but he didn't answer. I tried to call my mom thinking she might be almost done with work and that she could come and open the door. She told me my dad was home and to call him but he didn't answer. I tried Joel one last time. I had to call Joel and tell him, "Hey honey. So, we are stuck in the chicken coop." He was perplexed at first but then he started laughing at me. "This is not funny," I assured him. "We are really stuck." Joel gave me permission to knock down the door. It was not an easy task. Joel built a really strong door. Plus I was holding the baby in one hand and the light is kind of in the way so I had limited room to gain leverage. Eventually I kicked the door hard enough that it came open. Thank goodness. Kyla was starting to cry at this point because she was getting hungry. I didn't want to have to nurse a baby in there. The only thing I could think of once I got out was how much trouble Brynlee was in. I found her comfortably sitting in the house playing on my ipad without my permission. She had even drawn the curtains back. Oh she was in trouble. I snatched the ipad away from her and she wasn't allowed to use it or watch any TV for the rest of the week. That was torture for her. Especially since I let Annalyn play on my ipad several times.

As soon as we were safely inside my mom called to see if we had made it out. As soon as she was assured that we were safe she just busted up laughing. I do have to admit, that was probably a strange call to get at the end of the day. I had to tell my mom that Brynlee had locked me in the chicken coop. At least my mom didn't laugh at me until she knew I was safe. I think Joel's next project might need to be fixing the door to the coop so that it can open from the inside.

One Year Older

I turned 29 this month. I don't feel like I should be this old yet. To celebrate my birthday Joel decided he wanted to make me a cookie cake. He made up a batch of cookie dough and used 2 cups of cake mix instead of flour. The girls both helped him. The cake ended up never cooking, it just started to boil in the oven. Joel had to start all the way over. At least he cleaned the mess. The pan that the first cake was in was terrible to wash. Eventually Joel came up with a nice looking cake and he brought home some pizza for dinner so I didn't have to cook. Brynlee wrapped up one of her baby dolls and gave it to me. She told me she was getting a little bit too big for it so she wanted me to have it. Joel bought me a new electric skillet since my old one broke. My mom and my brother Josh came over and ate with us. The girls helped me to blow out my candles and we all enjoyed the cake and ice cream.

I really wanted Joel to take me on a date somewhere for my birthday but he told me that wasn't going to happen. I had even gotten my mom to agree to watch Brynlee and Annalyn. I wasn't sure if he would really take me out but in the end he pulled through and we went out for dinner at Olive Garden the next day. We had to take Kyla with us but she was great. Overall it turned out to be a good day. Joel really doesn't like celebrating birthdays and it has been hard for me to adjust to not making a big deal of them. I know he tried to make it a special day for me and I am grateful to him for that. I really love my family and I am glad I got to spend my birthday with them. Here's to one more year in the 20s.  

Kyla - 5 Months

I got a little bit sad today as I was looking at old pictures of little miss Kyla. Babies just grow so fast. Kyla is already 5 months old. She is still the cutest little baby but she isn't near as small as she used to be. At least she is way happier than she ever was before. Her hair seems to be getting thinner and her bald spot in the back is nice and big. I love how her little ears stick out just a little bit.

Kyla is napping better during the day and she has been much more content to just sit and play. One of her favorite things is to watch her big sisters. She now sucks her thumb all the time which is kind of nice right now. After a few minutes of fussing she will find her thumb and then she will be happy again. We sure do love her.

Kyla finally figured out how to roll from her belly to her back and she is super close to going from back to belly. She has done it a few time when she was propped on a pillow or with a little help from someone. She is reaching for things, grabbing them, and putting them in her mouth all the time. She used to stare at her hands so intently and just open and close them over and over again and practice using them. She is getting pretty good at getting ahold of the things she wants now. Kyla loves to be held during dinner and will intently watch everyone eat. I haven't been in a huge hurry to start her on solid foods but she is ready for them so I will probably start soon. Kyla learned how to blow raspberries, the ones where you stick your tongue out and blow, and it is so funny when she gets going. She will start spitting and just laughing away like it is so funny. And she does it over and over again. She has got a pretty great little laugh.

Kyla was on antibiotics for an ear infection and drank that medicine without any problems. She seemed to like it. She is going to other people without crying now; as long as she is in a good mood. She gets lots of hugs and kisses from her sisters and she seems to really like them. When her sister's get right in her face and talk to her, she just laughs. Kyla is now wearing size three diapers and she is outgrowing all of her 6 month clothes. I just started putting socks on her since it is getting colder and she likes to suck on her socks and get them all wet. She drools all the time too so her shirts are often wet.

Have I mentioned how much Kyla likes baths? Most of the time I am lazy and I just stick her in the water for a bath with her sisters. She likes that. She really likes it when I put her in the baby bathtub by herself. She enthusiastically kicks her legs and coos and talks during the whole bath. She sure is growing up and is so much fun. Here are some more pictures from this last month.

The Month of October

This month the weather was still nice enough that we could go outside so we tried to take advantage of that. Brynlee has been begging to do preschool again so I decided to start doing it again once a week. This time there is just three other kids. The best part is that another mom is going to do preschool at her house on Thursdays (I get Tuesdays) so now I can get a few hours to myself. I don't think I will let Anna go every time but she gets so sad when she is left out and she loves to go. Brynlee has been having lots of major melt downs lately so I am hoping that having a different person work with her will help her learn to regulate her emotions. She had a meltdown when it was time to leave preschool last time so I don't know if it will help or not.

We spent lots of time getting ready for Halloween and we celebrated Joel's birthday. Joel took a Friday off and we got to spend the day at the Idaho Aquarium since I had a coupon. It is a really tiny little place but they had some neat displays and the girls even got to pet an iguana and pet a sting ray. It took them a long time before they would stick their hands in the water and touch the sting rays. Annalyn was the first one to brave touching the sting ray. Brynlee wasn't afraid of the iguana at all so they pet the iguana without hesitation. I don't know why they were scared of the stingray. Brynlee was so excited while we were there that we had a hard time keeping her by us. She kept running ahead to the next thing. We were going to spend the next day doing more things as a family but someone needed help with a project so Joel spent the day helping them. At least we got to do something on Friday. After the aquarium we went to the park with the girls and then we watched a movie at home.

We are still unsure about Joel's job and what will happen in the future but for now he has still been busy working. Kyla got sick with an ear infection but is doing better and has been so happy lately. It was mostly a low key and quiet month. Brynlee had several play dates with her friends and I babysat for a few people but mostly we just stayed home and enjoyed spending time with each other. I love spending my days with these three girls. 

Halloween Excitement

Brynlee has been talking about Halloween for so long. Her excitement has been catching. I don't think Annalyn really understood what was going on, but she was excited too. We put up several decorations around the house, did some Halloween crafts, carved and painted pumpkins, and the girls wore lots of dress-up clothes to prepare for Halloween. Brynlee has been telling me that she was going to be a ballerina for Halloween since her birthday in June and she never changed her mind. I was a little bit worried about her being warm enough in a leotard and she really wanted to wear her pink short sleeve leotard. Luckily it was a fairly warm night.

I think Joel did most of the pumpkin carving. The girls helped a little but they were so quick to be done helping that I didn't get a good picture. I did get a picture of Kyla and Joel with the pumpkins.

Since the girls didn't get to help with the carving very much I thought it would be fun to paint some pumpkins. Joel told me we could do that without him so I invited my mom to join us for some pumpkin painting one day after school. Brynlee painted a cute little face on her pumpkin while Annalyn painted both of her pumpkins completely pink. Annalyn had been packing those pumpkins all over the place for weeks (she still is). There was one pumpkin that we started to carve that was already a little bit moldy that Anna wanted to paint so she painted that one too and she even used a rose pink color instead of straight pink. As soon as she was done painting each pumpkin she would announce, "I am done, I need another pumpkin." Brynlee couldn't wait to start painting but she was done really quickly. She did keep coming back to give everyone else advice on how to decorate their pumpkins.

The girls actually cooperated that day for a quick picture with all of our pumpkins. Here we are sitting outside with our Halloween shirts on.

We have being doing preschool with some of Brynlee's friends. They come here on Tuesdays and go there on Thursdays. They were going to have a little Halloween party at preschool on Thursday but the other little girl was sick that day. Since I don't get text messages I didn't know that until we got to their house and my girls were all dressed up and ready to party. They even had me paint their finger nails and put make-up on them. Since the party was inside Brynlee got to wear her pink ballerina outfit and Annalyn wore the Cinderella dress that Brynlee wore the last two years. I called my sister Heather and we went over to her house for a quick makeshift party with Jakobee and my girls were happy with that.

On Halloween day Joel ended up shooting his hand with a nail gun and coming home from work a little bit early. I guess the nail hit a knot in the wood and shot out of the wood and launched right into Joel's left hand. It went in there pretty deep and his hand was really swollen and sore. It is fine now but it looked pretty bad at first. He still wanted to go trick or treating with us but he couldn't do as much to help since only one hand was working at full speed. Annalyn decided she wanted to be a lady bug, Brynlee was a Ballerina (it was a warm night but luckily I convinced her to put on tights and to wear her black long sleeved leotard), and Kyla was a little witch. We started out by visiting Paul's Market, the local grocery store, for some trunk or treat put on by some local vendors. Then we went to a random subdivision so that the girls could go door to door. Brynlee had a blast and had to comment about everyone's costume and house decorations. My favorite was when she went up to this door, knocked, and when the door opened she said, "your door is really creepy." The guy then laughed and said thank you. Brynlee was really good about saying trick or treat and thank you. Anna would usually just get the candy, say thank you, and then beg me to hold her. I carried her almost the whole night. Luckily Brynlee was a trooper and walked the whole time. I finally got so tired that I traded and held Kyla so that Anna could sit in the stroller. We ended the night at grandma's house where we stopped for some candy. We were her first and only trick or treater and no one stopped at our house. That is what happens when you live in the country.

The girls ended up with a good amount of candy. Annalyn ate a little bit but we pretty much made the girls go right to bed with the promise that they could eat more candy in the morning. Annalyn must have been dreaming about candy because she woke up at 5 the next morning crying for candy. I think she woke the whole house up since I told her she needed to eat breakfast first. I finally let her have a sucker but she still wasn't content. I make the girls clean the house, get dressed, and eat before they got their candy out. They gorged on candy until I finally took it away and hid it again. Brynlee is good about sharing but Annalyn is not. I tried to get her to share with me and she would not let me have any of her candy. She did give me a piece of Brynlee's candy. After eating all of that candy they were too full for lunch and they ended up destroying the house. I think the candy was a bad idea. Maybe I better eat the rest of it for them? There is a lot of candy left.