Ethan and other news

Today is Ethan’s 6th birthday. I can’t believe I’m a parent to a 6 year old, and I can’t believe I ended up with such a great 6 year old! He’s my stubborn, smart, sweet, and silly firstborn.

Newborn

1 year (He reminds me of Elsa!)

2 year

3 year

4 year

5 year

 

6 year

We held a birthday party at our house on Sunday afternoon. There were 7 kids total. The weather held out and thank goodness because it was 2 hours long and by the first hour we’d done everything! The kids played outside and had a great time.

It was funny to see how everyone grouped up immediately. The boys talking Bakugan, Lego and Star Wars…

The girls doing girly things…

We played Pin The Tail on the Donkey. Twice. Because oddly, about half the children pinned the tail on perfectly the first round. Hmmm… that doesn’t seem right! They could see through the blindfold :)

This was Gwen in the first round… getting it perfect of course!

Ethan had me make a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and chocolate sprinkles. Served with chocolate ice cream. This kid is a chocoholic like his Daddy!

After presents and cake, we had a SpongeBob piñata. Hilariously, everyone pulled the string (that’s how they do it these days instead of hitting it with a stick. So not as much fun) and nothing happened. The one string that no one pulled was the “trick” string.  After candy was gathered, the kids wanted to bat around the piñata. They really had a good time with that!

Two of the kids yanked off the legs and proudly displayed them to me!

It was so great to see all Ethan's friends here and having a good time. I’m gonna have to get them all together again because everyone played perfectly together and had a blast.

Today, still completely wearied from the party, I had my 16 week midwife appointment. All was well. Blood pressure perfect and heartbeat found. I’m having persistent bad to severe headaches again (happened with Elly too around this time) and like last time I saw a midwife, they don’t seem to get how bad they are. I’m sure many many people complain of headaches, but these are quite quite bad. Not just an annoyance. I think part of it is that they can’t prescribe me anything anyway, but I’d like to hear something other than Tylenol (useless) and massage (impractical). Worse comes to worse I’ll go see my GP and maybe she’ll give me some drugs for the worst days. If anyone reading has ideas for me, PLEASE let me know.

I scheduled my mid-pregnancy ultrasound for April 21. Seems so far away! I’m positively dying to find out what we’re having! Hopefully these next 4 weeks will fly by.

Soft Spring Days

I don't know if there is a better type of day in the Pacific Northwest than those right before and during spring when the sun is shining and the world is fresh with growing and blooming things. The air is clean, the breeze is warm, and the sun is so bright after the long slog of fall and winter. Its just lovely!

We spent all of our day out and about. First was grocery shopping, which we do every Monday. It was kind of bittersweet because it was Ethan's last day in the store daycare. Next week he'll be turning 6 and have aged out of it. Bummer! I love having the in-store daycare at my grocery. That one hour to get my shopping done is so precious and the ladies that run the care are awesome! I suppose the upside is that in two months Elsa will be old enough to go in, so it'll all even out. I'd much rather shop with a 6 year old than a 2 year old.

After shopping, we ran home and dropped off the groceries, then went to our friends house to have lunch. They run a dairy farm and while we were there I took Elly to see the little baby cows in the domes (see this post for info on the cow domes). Elsa was making me laugh by calling them puppies! They would stick their warm noses out and lick her hands and she just loved it! She would have gone by every single one of them if she could.
After lunch, we packed up all the kids (7 total) and headed out to a local park. The sun was out and the kids played hard. We wrapped it up when both my older kids were crying and the youngest one wasn't far behind. Naptime! It was great to absorb all that Vitamin D and visit with friends.

The only two pics I snapped today, thanks to a failing battery:

Jack and Ethan.

Max and Gwen.

Pregnancy has been going well. Same old stuff :) Occasional nausea and a recent upswing in exhaustion have been my plagues. I'm trying to enjoy what I can about this pregnancy because it will probably be my last. But its hard not to complain! I'm not yet showing enough for maternity clothes. I'm shocked! I'll have to go back and check, but I'm pretty sure that by 12 weeks with Elsa I was in maternity clothes. I guess working out so hard really did pay off by strengthening those abs and putting me in better shape overall. Unfortunately, I've been doing little to maintain that.... working out is SO not something I want to do right now. I've been doing it about once a week which is not enough! I'd like to be doing it 3x a week, but it seems like an impossible task with everything else going on.

Ethan started t-ball a couple weeks ago and seems to be doing well! Practices are every Saturday and wear him out completely (very good!). This was him on his first day (he has more official looking uniform now!):

And for good measure… the girls!

Yep, this is Elsa. And yep, she climbed all the way up without my help (she even told me “No Mommy!” when I tried to assist). I thought Gwen was a monkey…

And isn’t this the sweetest picture? I love how cuddly the kids are with one another.