Beach Trip

Nornally we spend MLK weekend with Paul's family in Maggie Valley, NC. However this year we all went to Myrtle Beach instead and stayed at the house of a family friend. We had a great time even though the weather didn't quite cooperate!

We got there on Friday afternoon in the pouring rain and got all settled in and just hung around the house.
We got up early Saturday and went to the aquarium. The girls went to the aquarium when we were at the beach over the summer and they were really excited about going back. All Ellie could talk about was going to see the mermaid. She was so, so excited. (We'd totally convinced her last time that it was a real mermaid.) Both girls were excited about the exhibit where you can touch a jellyfish. Last time they spent about 20 minutes working up the courage to touch one and this time they were much braver...I'm pretty sure they thought they were experts as they told all of us the correct way to touch a jellyfish. I was really proud of them for their bravery!

touching the horseshoe crab

love this part of the aquarium!

Brave girls touching the jellyfish. Ruthie did it too but we didn't get a picture.

After the aquarium we headed back to the house for lunch and to let Ruthie and JP take naps. While they were napping Emmie and Ellie went with Paul and Fred to feed the ducks at the park down the street. (It was a really fabulous park. They had a super playground and a pond with ducks!) Later Gin-g and I decided to go to the outlets and we took Emmie with us. I rarely get time with just Emmie and she's a great little shopper. Plus it's so much easier to buy pants for her if she's around to try them on. We had a great time shopping with Emmie although we had to drag her around from the jewelry display jn every single store...that little girl loves shiny things!

Hanging out in the little car at the outlet mall. She was obsessed with all of these little rides and I offered to put money in so she could ride but she wasn't brave enough to try it. She said she needed Ellie there to do it with her :)

When we got back Emily and Blake were taking Ellie to the park to play on the playground so Emmie tagged along with them and Ruthie and Franklin and I went over once she woke up from her nap. Saturday evening we went to a seafood dinner and then to a little Christmas shop/gift shop nearby.

Apparently Emmie was discussing serious issues with Uncle Blake. Perhaps they were lamenting that she tried to eat all of the clam strips off his plate before he realized what was going on!

We came back and put everyone to bed and then Fred, Gin-g, Paul, Blake and I played our new game, What the Face. It was pretty entertaining! We headed to bed only to be woken up in the middle of the night by Emmie throwing up. Yuck! Fortunately she only threw up once and we think maybe something she ate didn't settle right with her. By morning she was all better!
Sunday was COLD and rainy and windy. It was pretty awful weather. We hung around the house in the morning and then after naptime we went bowling. It was lots of fun and I must say I thought I bowled a pretty good game. Which of course had nothing at all to do with the fact that I was in a lane with bumpers! Ha!

Sometimes you bowl like this...


...and sometimes you need to hang upside down!

JP supervising with Uncle Blake

Emily bowling

Sometimes when you're little it seems like forever before the ball gets to the end!

Paul the pro bowler ;)

Emmie bowling

We went back to the house for dinner afterwards and after the kiddos went to bed we settled in for a rousing game of Phase 10 which I was quite excited to WIN! (This NEVER happens. The joke in the family is that Fred will start out about 4 phases behind everyone and then all of a sudden he's won the game. Every.single.time.) 
Fortunately Sunday night was much less eventful than Satruday night in that nobody threw up!
Monday morning we got up and went and ate breakfast. The place where we were eating had a basket of crayons at the front and a stack of coloring books. The girls all got a few crayons and a coloring book and were happy as can be to sit quietly and color. Genius. After breakfast Paul and I took the kids to the beach for a few minutes. They had been begging to go the whole stay and it was SO COLD. They were excited to see the ocean even for a few minutes!

We found a sea urchin!

JP's first time seeing the ocean. He was mostly unimpressed.

After the beach we headed back to the house, packed, and headed home at lunchtime.

We had a great time during our weekend away and loved getting to spend time with family!

Papa, JP, Emmie, Uncle Blake, Ellie, Aunt Emily, Ruthie, GG

4 Months

I am 4 months old!

• I weigh 13lb 4oz (7th percentile) and am 24.5 inches tall (17th percentile). I was bigger than my sisters were at 4 months but in MUCH lower percentiles! When she was my age Emmie was 12lb 13oz and 24.5in and Ellie was 12lb 14oz and 24in. Ruthie was 12lb 9oz and 23 1/4 inches. Mommy was 12lb 8oz and 25in and Daddy was 12lb 9oz and 23.5in.
• I wear 3-6 mo clothes and a size 1 diaper (but will be going to a size 2 when I finish up the ones).
• I nurse every 3 hours during the day. Sometimes after my 330 feed I also take a 4 ounce bottle. I also take a bottle of formula at bedtime. The bedtime bottle is usually between 8 and 10 ounces. I just started getting cereal in the evening around 7 as well. Mommy is not at all sure where I'm putting all that I'm taking in!

• I'm doing GREAT with my cereal after only a few days. Most of it stays in my mouth now and I'm also doing great with the little sips of water I get out of a regular glass after my cereal.

• I was sleeping about 11 hours at night but this month has been rough. Between a cold right around Christmas and bronchiolitis and an ear infection in January it's been a rough month sleep wise. Right at this moment I'm generally waking up to nurse once during the night, usually around 3 or 4, but some nights I sleep all night! I get my bottle around 9:30 and then eat in the morning at about 8:30.
• I nap off and on while we take everyone to school and then will sometimes take a little snooze around 1030. I take a long nap (2-3hrs) between picking Ellie up and picking Emmie up and then take about an hour nap around 5. I go back to sleep around 8:30 for about an hour. Mommy usually holds me for my morning nap and the one before bedtime. I sleep in my rock n play for my long nap and my one before dinnertime. I sleep in the rock n play at night. We will be transitioning soon to my crib!
• I think my sisters are pretty great. I love when they talk to me and play with me and I even love when the curly headed one lays in my play gym beside me! My favorite thing is when they read to me.

• This month I celebrated my first Christmas. I slept through a lot of the celebration but thought it was pretty fun while I was awake. I especially liked that there were lots of people around to hold me! (It's possible I became more spoiled than I already was.)

• This month I had my first overnight trip. I went to Myrtle Beach with the Edwards side of the family. I was sick so I didn't sleep very well but I was pretty happy during the day and didn't seem to mind being away from home.

Supervising the bowling with Uncle Blake.

First time at the ocean. It was cold and windy!

• I had my first trip to the aquarium at Myrtle Beach. I was somewhat impressed with the tunnel where the fish swim all around you.
• This month I had my first cold and my first ear infection and I also had bronchiolitis. It was a rough month!

• I LOVE to play with toys. My favorite right now are my little hanging toys that play music and my o-ball.
• I love when people sing to me.
• I've started laughing when you tickle me.
• I really like to be held.
• I will sit up with the boppy behind me for a few minutes. I really love doing this.

• I'm not super content to sit in the bouncer for more than a few minutes and while I will sit in the bumbo I much prefer to be sitting up with the boppy "on my own". I am now anti swing.
• I've started chewing some on my fingers when I'm tired but will stay take my pacifier sometimes. I only get the pacifier in the car and at naps. At bedtime I go down without it.
• I tolerate all my time in the car very well. Mommy is very thankful for this!
• I've started taking a bath with Ruthie sometimes in the big bath tub. I sit in my bumbo and do really well. I'm not quite sure what to make of it yet!

Ruthie at 4 months.

Ellie at 4 months.

Emmie at 4 months.

Baby Giggles

JP has just started really laughing. Before he would look like he was going to laugh but the noise wouldn't come out of his mouth. I was so excited to capture this video of him laughing...baby giggles are the best!

JP tries cereal!

JP is 4 months old today and I was kind of ambivalent about starting cereal now. I figured I'd wait a few weeks but he was still acting hungry after I nursed him around dinnertime so I figured it was as good a time as any to give cereal a go! HE.LOVED.IT. It didn't take him long at all to figure out the "see spoon, open mouth, get food" thing. Now if only his tongue would cooperate and not push the food back out! Although, I will say I thought he did amazingly well for his first go at eating from a spoon.

This first video was early on in the process. (I also love that you can hear Roo in the background talking about "P".)


This was towards the end.


He finished off his "meal" with a few sips of water. He LOVES to get to drink water out of a cup. He was so excited tonight that he wanted to help hold his cup!

a little bit of the everyday

Time for a quiz!
Which of my babies is this? You can leave a comment with your guess on the fb post!

Emmie is obsessed with Hi-Wire (trampoline park). There is a Hi-Wire bus that comes to school everyday to pick up the kids that go to after school there and she tells me all the time that she wants to ride the Hi-Wire bus. Well, the other day she told me that she could ride the Hi-Wire bus because she's been on a field trip on a bus so she knows the procedures. And she's done a bus fire drill. So there's that.

The other day I remembered that Ellie was sitting up pretty well with the boppy by 4 months so I decided to see if JP was ready to start working on sitting up. He did SO well and he absolutely LOVED it. He got really mad when I laid him back down. How is my baby old enough to be sitting up with the boppy? Slow down time!


Ellie is a SUPER lazy kid. Sometimes even getting her to get out of the car when we get home is like pulling teeth. It's just too much effort for her! Needless to say getting her to help out around the house is just a nightmare. So I was SHOCKED when I walked in my bedroom the other day and Ellie was making my bed. It was just the sweetest thing! (And then she got in a fight with Emmie because Emmie wanted to help and Ellie wanted to do it all by herself.) I have no idea what brought it on but it meant so much to me because it was so out of character. Now if I could only get her to make her own bed...


I had The People's Choice Awards on the other night while I was pumping and JP was HILARIOUS! His eyes about bugged out of his head during the opening number!

The other night after putting the girls to bed they were being loud so I was fussing at them and telling them they needed to go to sleep. Emmie responded (completely seriously): "Oh, is it time for me to go to sleep?" Palm to face. I told her it was and she went right to sleep. Why didn't I tell her that years ago?

Ruthie is such a good big sister. I was so worried about how she would react to a new baby since we had always treated her like she was the baby. She is super gentle with JP (most of the time). She is always concerned about him and is always making sure that he has everything he needs (pacifier, toy, blanket, etc). She also loves to lay down beside him and play with him or read him books. It just melts my heart and I can't wait until the fall when both big girls are in school all day and JP is old enough to interact with Ruthie and do fun things. We're going to have so many fun adventures!

Ruthie's party

My friend Micaela over at Bre's Adorable Creations made this shirt for Roo....check out her stuff!

We had Ruthie's party at My Gym today. She had so much fun and didn't know what to make of being the center of attention! We had a small group of friends and it was really nice and not overwhelming for Ruthie.


Ruthie LOVES the bubbles (or bubbies as she says)



All 3 of my sweet girls together on the big swing


zipline!




Ruthie and Weston...they've had a weekly playdate in the dance studio lobby since they were newborns!






Elmo cupcakes!

Singing happy birthday to Ruthie. She didn't understand why her cupcake was on the counter and we were making her get in the swing!


She LOVED her cupcake!