seriously...

The last 4 weeks are a bit blurry. It really feels like one big long day since she was born. Probably because of the sleepless nights and the millions of poopy diapers. But I have
loved every minute of it.

She is such a sleepy, mello, sweetheart...during the day. At night she is still a sweetheart, just not sleepy and mello. We put her to bed and we are in there every 5 minutes popping that binky back in her mouth for at least an hour until she is deep asleep. We are working hard on the sleeping schedule thing, as I don't work well without my 8 hours of sleeping bliss. Oh, how I miss my sleep!

I have loved having a girl. I haven't gotten peed on in the face, which is really nice. Also- she is my little doll and I can dress her up. I am a little baffled on the bow situation though. Does she need a bow everytime I get her dressed? While it is fun to put the finishing touch on her head, I kind of feel silly. Maybe it is because we don't go anywhere and I am dressing her up just for my enjoyment.

I'm feeling great! Now I am just waiting for my hair to fall out...literally. When I had Luke, my hair started to fall out about a month after I had him. I was so worried it would never stop and I would be bald. It was seriously falling out like crazy. Now I know it does eventually stop, so it isn't as traumatic.

I am also back to eating healthier and soon to be back exercising. It feels good, but I have a long ways to go to be where I want to be weight wise. Dang food...I love it too much and those 9 months of eating whatever I wanted were wonderful, just not so wonderful on my butt. I don't think I realized how much damage I'd done until I had the baby....the big belly made everything else look a little smaller!

I've lost weight twice before, and I can do it again. It does help that Clara is more fussy when I eat chocolate, so she is trying to help me out that way :)

Anyways, as you can tell we love Clara. I look in her eyes and I feel like I've known her forever.

Crazy how that works.

Wowzers

look at all those people

We had a fun Easter Weekend with our families. The highlight was when Ike the Easter Bunny showed up at the family party. He walked into the room and all 12 kids were either screaming for joy or screaming out of fear! It was crazy loud and awesome, and I wish we had it on video.

Luke was pretty excited....

Even though you probably didn't have the Easter Bunny pay a personal visit and give you a big hug....we hope you still had a wonderful Easter!

I thought I was excited

to take pictures of my new little girl...
It was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I think I'd rather take pictures of other peoples babies as it is not as frustrating and I have more patience.

I did manage to get a few pictures that I thought were sorta cute, but will definitely be taking more soon...

baby number three...

I can't believe Clara is almost 2 weeks old. The 2 weeks leading up to having her seemed like forever, and then once she came it has flown by. She has been such a sweet baby, and we love her so much.

I have this little statue my mom gave me for Mother's Day last year. I love it and would often look at it and think about my 2 boys and how blessed I was to have them. I kind of had a hard time thinking about leaving that stage of my life behind and adding to our little family. Just like when you are about to have your second child, you wonder if you could ever love them as much as you do your first....and then you find out you have plenty of love to share. The love just keeps growing. Now we have Clara and already I can't imagine my life without her. I have so much love for these kids, and feel so blessed to be their mother. I know....this is cheesy stuff.

Ike was able to take off almost 2 weeks of work. I know, how lucky am I? But it still didn't seem long enough! With my Dad's help, Ike spent about 4 days putting this beauty together. We are (I think I am the most) so excited for this playhouse/swing set. It will be so nice to send the kids outside this summer to play, thank goodness for tax returns!

It was a lot of work for them, and as I was recovering from giving birth to Clara and fighting Mastitis and a bad cold...I had to hear Ike complain about how sore he was. I had a hard time giving him very much sympathy :)

The finished project...now if it would stop snowing they could go and play on it!
Clara had jaundice and was on the lights for 3 nights at home. I started to sob when the pediatrician told me she would have to be on the lights...6 hours of sleep in 3 days doesn't help an already emotional new mommy. Both Luke and Max had jaundice too, so really I was just tired and felt like crying I guess. As the tears were flowing I told him sorry for crying and he said to make sure to get help if I continue to feel like that.
Now I was crying because he thought I was crazy!
That is not something you tell a woman who JUST had a baby!!

I was so happy to give back that stupid light bed and be able to actually dress her! Here she is in her very first outfit, and her very big green binky which she loves oh so much.


Her big brothers love her to pieces. As you can see from the picture below we have a constant job of trying to keep Max off of her. He just wants to give her hugs and kisses all of the time. They are both really good with her though.

It is so cute to see Max as a big brother...


We are adjusting well to 3 kids. Thank goodness my boys can sit and watch TV for hours...and for the next few weeks I won't feel guilty about that.

Thank you everyone for your love and support as we welcomed Clara into our family!