Caleb...

... has discovered Mariokart.

Small Victories...

I made a quick trip to the mall by myself with all three kids. They needed to pick out Christmas ornaments. We managed to find everyone an ornament, grab a fancy Christmas cookie, and get back out without any meltdowns or crying babies. It was my first real shopping experience with all three kids. Yay for small victories!

Playing at the Park

We've had some really pleasant (if somewhat changeable) weather lately. Yay for playing outside!

Fall Pictures

I love these pictures. I'm really lucky that the kids' school makes the extra effort to get siblings together.

Ok, so I'm trying to publish from my phone, and the pictures are not showing up properly. For now you can click on them to see them. I'll try to fix this mess later. I'm not really impressed with this app. :-(

Randomness

Hi... How's it going?

We're okay here, I suppose.

Eleanor has her first cold, which I'm not thrilled about.

 I can't say I'm surprised. We've all been just a bit under the weather lately.

 Even so, I've gotta say I love these kids.

 They are so fun, and they're getting older too fast!

Have a great day!

My Girls

Here's something fun for me: dressing Eleanor up in clothes that Madeline wore. I think they really look alike. You can tell who is who fairly easily with Eleanor's crazy spiky hair. (She's the one in the big pink bow.)

 In all fairness, though, Madeline was actually three or four weeks older in her picture. I should really do this shot again when they're the same age for a better comparison. I just took advantage of the cooler weather today to use some of Madeline's long sleeved outfits before Eleanor was too big to wear them.

But I've gotta go. Eleanor had her 2 month shots today, and she's quite cranky. Hopefully I can get some more pictures on here soon. 

Have a happy day!

Eleanor

     Okay, so we've been a bit busy around here. Apparently some people think that large life-changing events like having a kid deserve blog entries.... and that's probably true. Here ya go. There's not really a good way to catch up, so I'll summarize:

 Eleanor joined the family on July 2nd. She's beautiful, fairly easy-going, and she likes to spit up.

Caleb and Madeline really like her, and they seem to be adjusting well. Madeline is a little overly enthusiastic. She tries to help a little too much, and isn't quite as gentle as she needs to be. Caleb likes to hold her, but he's always afraid she'll spit up on him. 

We are working on finding a new routine, and establishing a new "normal." It's taking a while because honestly, there are days I don't even get a shower. Life is a challenge with three kids under five running around the house. I keep thinking that things will become easier when the school year starts. If nothing else, it will help us stay in a routine. Right now I'm having a hard time keeping the kids and myself sane. It is way too hot to play outside during the day, and there aren't really any indoor play areas that I feel comfortable tackling alone right now. I'm not sure I can keep track of Madeline in a crowd while still caring for Eleanor, although I know that will get easier as they both get a little older. Luckily, I have a lot of indoor activities that we've been switching out in an effort to keep the older two occupied. 

The past few weeks have been challenging. I'm exhausted. My house and hair are a mess. I don't have time to do laundry, much less work out to lose this baby weight. BUT, I'm loving (almost) every minute of it. I am very blessed in so many ways. I'm especially thankful that I'm not a prisoner to the postpartum depression that followed the birth of my first two. I'm not sure I could have handled that gracefully in front of Caleb and Madeline. 

So, basically, life is going on like it tends to do. Hopefully I'll get back into the swing of blogging more often. Just don't judge too harshly; we all know how consistent I am with that. 

Have a wonderful day!

Slushy Monday

Today was one of those get-a-slushy-after-school sorta days. Madeline had some make-up days left, so she had school today, too. It was a nice little break for me... and I sure needed a break. Madeline was sick last week, so she hasn't been sleeping well lately. That means that I haven't been sleeping lately. Things are getting better now that she feels better, and Madeline is sleeping again. Unfortunately, Caleb didn't sleep well last night. I'm worried he'll come down with it next. Hopefully last night was just a false alarm. I could really use some sleep!

Have a restful night!

Catching Up

     Yay! A new post without someone having to ask first. You should be impressed. :-)

We've had a pretty normal couple of weeks here. The kids are going a bit stir crazy from the rainy weather, but otherwise we're still in the same old routine. I've been very tired and run down, but I assumed I was just being pregnant or whiny. It might not all be in my head, though; the doctor's office called me and said I was fairly anemic. Hopefully getting some iron into me will help.

Anywhoo, I had to include this picture of Madeline because she just looks so old to me here. We stopped at Auntie Anne's to get a pretzel. I've never seen a child that loves cream cheese so much.

     This picture made me smile just because it's a perfect example of how kids in this new generation use technology. This is what they were doing during Sunday evening service at church. I know Caleb was playing angry birds, but who knows what Madeline was doing. It probably involved deleting some apps... she does that sometimes. I promise they're not playing games 24/7... Please don't judge me!

     This is a new little project I did last night and today during nap. It's a set of toddler-friendly flash cards. I found the idea over at http://www.sewmuchado.blogspot.com/ where there's a tutorial and everything. I decided to make some spelling Madeline's name, so she can, ya know, practice spelling her name. The back sides are all different shapes. I like how you can play with them on the ring, or take them off to arrange them. Either way, I think it'll be a toy she enjoys. Please don't enlarge the pictures and look at my wonky stitching. To save time I did them on my machine, but hand stitching would have been much prettier. I've decided, however, that I should always weigh the benefits of a time consuming project (aka: it'd be prettier) against the cons (aka: I'm about to hand the finished item to a 2 year old), and in this case speed won over beauty. LOL

Actually, since I started writing this post we made a trip in the car to pick up Caleb from school. Madeline took the cards with her and played with them the entire time. She kept thanking me for making them. (How sweet is that?) I think I'll call that a successful project, especially since Caleb has already asked for some. :-)
Have a great day!

So It's Been a While...

My posting has been quite lazy lately. Sorry. Things are going fairly well here in Clark-land. Everyone is pretty much over the virus or whatever it was we just passed around. Josh was the last to get it, so he's still a little tired, but otherwise we're healthy.

School feels like it's winding down, even though we still have several weeks left. I suppose it's the warm weather. Caleb is going to be upset when it's out for summer vacation, but I'm glad that he loves school so much. We'll see how a 5 day preschool works out for him next year.

Madeline is finally about finished potty training. We still have occasional accidents, but I'm thrilled anyway. Our goal was to have her out of diapers before #3 gets here, and it looks like that's taken care of.

Speaking of #3, my pregnancy is going well. My blood pressure issues are still under control with medication. Everything else looks good. We still don't have a name, though. Hopefully we'll decide on something soon. It's starting to stress me out. :-)

Anywhoo, here are some pictures off my phone. This first one cracks me up because the kids were so excited that they had on matching Cars pajamas. They asked me to take a picture on my phone, and I was happy to oblige!

The rest of these pictures just show what happens when you leave your phone lying around. It gives you a little view from Caleb's perspective.

Have a great day!