Greetings from Minnesota

Since I've been such a slacker updating our blog at home, I figured I'd maybe add a few pics from Minnesota (with only one kiddo along, I actually have time). I'll try to get up to date on the boys when we get home next week. No promises, though.
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Miss Sadie showing off her swimsuit

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Sleeping soundly...on MY bed.
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Breaking in Kylee's new toy.

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An afternoon with my cousin Dan, his wife Rachel and their "baby" Annie.

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Kylee asleep in the swing.

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Visiting with Great Grandma Liz

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Visiting Uncle Chad's burial site.

Fame in her future

Our baby girl just might be made for Hollywood if she continues to resemble stars such as these...
Sadie vs. Master Yoda: The ears are the biggest resemblance, but the lack of hair is another comparable feature.




Sadie vs. Al Bundy: I don't think I need to point out the resemblance here.


So Miss Sadie is officially 5 months old today...and Mommy's officially tired. On a positive note, I made it much further before I reached the point of exhaustion with this baby than I did with the previous two! Who needs sleep, right?

You might recall that many months ago I noted that this baby (boy) #3 was the most active in utero...and that has not changed in the outside world. She's a big fan of immediately rolling over onto her belly and then protesting the fact that she's "stuck." Lots of yelling going on at the Magee house. She also digs her feet into the carpet and has managed to push herself forward a couple of times. I have a feeling the gate will be going back up at the top of our stairs very soon.

She's also quite nosey, constantly wanting to know what's going on. I'm afraid some things Mommy simply cannot do one-handed, so Sadie gets put in her chair to supervise. God help me when she can actually bark orders at me!

She remains the emotional basketcase she was several months ago. However, she rarely fusses or truly cries. She just yells...all day long...And if Mommy thinks for one second she's allowed to turn her back on Miss Sadie (i.e., to hang up her coat when we get home), Sadie manages to go from smiling to screaming in exactly 0.3 seconds! Until Mommy turns around again - THEN we're happy. I feel sooooo loved.

She's remained a healthy baby, other than a little runny nose here and there. Not sure how much of that is teething, cold, or her GERD. But, it doesn't seem to bother her. Her GERD seems stable with her medicine (and for what that medication costs, it OUGHT to be!). And now that cold & flu season is coming to a close and the boys will stop bringing home school germs, I'm hoping she'll be good throughout the summer.

The boys are plenty busy, finishing up the school year and playing indoor soccer. Logan's convinced that Carter can read now because he can recognize which of his cars are "Hot Wheels" as opposed to some other brand. Little League changed their rules for this year, so Carter will get to play t-ball with Logan. Yikes. That kid with a baseball bat might not be such a grand idea. Helmets will probably be mandatory in the dugout after this season.

Ring side seats: the fighting continues...

Sadie: Hey! This is my gym. Get outta here!

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Carter: Oh yeah?! Mom says to share. Ya wanna fight about it?

Sadie: You're on!

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Sadie quickly moves in with a chop to the jugular.

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Carter, seemingly unphased, retaliates with a chest poke. But Sadie's quick with her reciprocating nose pinch.

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She follows up with an attempted eye gouge but falls short of the target.

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The ultimate humiliating loss: Carter pins her with a kiss.

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Sadie is voted as the favorite of the audience due to her cuteness.

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Carter, lacking any humility, shows off for the cameras.

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But Sadie gets the last word in with an after-the-match hair pull.

She may have lost this battle, but the war is far from over...

Conversations with a Logan

On the way into town today...

Logan: Mom, Daddy's the head of our household, right?
Mom: Yup.
Logan: What's "head of the household" mean anyway?
Mom: Well, it means he's the person most responsible for teaching this family about God and making sure we're living the way God wants us to. He's also most responsible for making sure we have food to eat and a safe place to live. He protects us too.
Logan: So who protects us when Daddy's gone?
Mom: Well, I guess I'm next to protect you.
Logan: Well what if you couldn't handle it???
Carter: Well, if a bad person came into our house and left the door open, Mommy could call a fireman or policeman and they would come fix the door.

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Logan: How many days are in a year?
Mom: 365
Logan: Wow! That's a lot of days.
Mom: Actually, every 4 years we have a Leap Year, which has 366 days.
Logan: Why does it have an extra day?
Mom: Well, because our years really have 365 and 1/4 days so every four years, that adds up to an extra day. So, February has 29 days on those Leap Years.
Logan: It must be boring for people who study the sun and earth. Just sitting there, watching the sun and earth, counting how many hours and days in a year...that would just be boring.


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Logan: Mom, how does mold grow?
Mom: Well, mold starts with something called a spore. They're really small. We can't even see most of them. When a spore lands on something and begins to grow, it eventually becomes big enough that we can see it and then it's mold.
Logan: Is mold bad for you?
Mom: Some molds are bad for you. But some are good for you. Penicillin was a mold that someone found on an orange. He figured out that it killed bacteria and so it started being used as a medicine to help people that were sick from bacteria.
Logan: Well, mom, if penicillin started on an orange, and since I'm allergic to penicillin, I better start being more careful around oranges.


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I'm off to take a tylenol now. My brain hurts.

The same gene pool???

Well, it took several days in 5-minute increments, but I managed to upload pics of all three kids at various ages. Take a peek and vote on our poll (to the right). I'm curious what people think.

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NEWBORN

Logan

Carter

Sadie

ONE MONTH

Logan

Carter

Sadie

TWO MONTHS

Logan

Carter

Sadie

THREE MONTHS

Logan

Carter

Sadie

FOUR MONTHS

Logan

Carter

Sadie

Promoting good ol' fashioned family violence

Sadie and Logan boxing.














No, Carter didn't get these injuries from his sister. Rather, he wiped out on the carpet at church on Wednesday night. I wouldn't put it past Sadie, though...she's got some sass to her and I think she'll defend herself nicely in the future.

If I could save time in a bottle...

Grandma Jan shook her finger at me over the phone last week for not keeping up on my blog, so I figured I better get caught up before I get to a point where I CAN'T catch up! I've got a whole list of excuses and I figure everyone on the planet is busy, so I'll skip all the reasons why it's been a month since I've updated this and just get started.
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So I guess I'll start with the person that people look forward to hearing about the least....ME!
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I threw a baby shower for a friend of mine (the same one that's given me TONS of baby girl stuff; she's the reason I cannot justify buying Sadie any clothes). Her baby girl, Alexis, was born the end of July but hadn't had a shower yet. Being the youngest of 7 kids and the only girl, she is definitely the Princess. So, Princess theme is what she got.
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My attempt at a princess cake. Baked a cake in a batter bowl, tipped it upside down and stuck a Barbie in it. The best part was the decorating. I couldn't figure out how to get the little pearl candies on there without getting a tweezers and spending an hour doing so. So, I started throwing them and about half of them stuck to the frosting pretty well. The other half...are still being found around our kitchen floor.

.And the diaper princess. She looks a little more like a football player with a crown, but she did have a scepter (spoon) and toy jewels (rattle).

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Lastly, Sadie and I will be flying to Minnesota for a couple of weeks, mostly to see my cousin, Michelle. We leave May 28 and get back June 15. Michelle had a baby girl Dec. 21. However, baby Kylee was born at just 26 weeks (for those of you that aren't aware, a normal pregancy is around 40 weeks. The standard "cut off" for when babies even have a chance of surviving is 24 weeks). She weighed just 2 lbs 1 oz. Since then, she's had no major set backs and is showing some stubbornness. She's now in a crib, off all medications and is beginning to take a bottle a couple times a day. Hopefully she'll be home the end of February or beginning of March. Since Michelle and I have often been told we look a lot alike, it'll be neat to get pictures of our baby girls together this summer.

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Kylee's grown from this (5 days old)

to this (7 weeks old).

So now for the update on OUR Princess...Miss Sadie Lady.

She continues to be the center of attention at our house. Both Ryan and I have said she doesn't seem to cry much...but she does YELL at us. I think she communicates very well. Ryan says she's harder to figure out than the boys were; I think she's easier. Must be the difference between boy and girl communication.

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She smiles a lot and has a good belly laugh now. She's also quite the puker, so she remains on the skinny side with her weight. She insists on being upright at all times. Being reclined back in a chair will not do. Hence, her first accident occurred last week. I was feeding her and Carter needed a little assistance in the bathroom. So, I propped her in the recliner, walked in and helped Carter for about 15 seconds, only to return to find her face down on the floor. She landed on a pillow, but when I entered the room she was in the middle of the LONG, SILENT INHALE before the SCREAM. In those few seconds, she managed to pull herself forward and roll off the chair. The floor is her place now. We'll take our chances with Aspen running over her, I guess. There goes my "Mother of the Year" nomination.

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She's also quite the emotional train wreck. She can go from laughing to yelling in 2.4 seconds. I think she might be even more emotionally unstable than her mother!

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This is the "My parents are so dumb" look. She's sulking because she has been told she has to wait to be picked up. She may resent her brothers for this in the future.

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Carter loves his sister to pieces. He cannot enter or exit the room without touching her. He cannot contain his love for his baby sister. Thus far, we haven't had a single jealousy issue with the boys and Sadie.

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Cuddle time on the floor
Logan's in more of the motherly mode when it comes to Sadie (as opposed to Carter, who merely SMOTHERS). He's eager to help fold her homemade baby wipes or cloth diapers, likes to read to her and gets her pacifier when she's fussing. He feels bad when he can't soothe her.

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Storytime

Showing off her tap dancing shoes.



One of the few smiles caught on camera. Sneaky little bugger.

Carter's doing well with preschool. He learns a new letter each week. Today he told me he learned "W starts with Watermelon." He's going to do preschool again next year since his birthday is the first week of school. We thought it best to give him another year to mature rather than always running to keep up with kids older than him his entire education. Plus, he still naps 2-3 hours in the afternoon, so I think full day kindergarten would really tire him out.

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Working on his valentine envelopes for his school party. There's the infamous long tongue again...

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Bonding over the Wii. Daddy and Logan are racing. Carter's cheering them on. And Sadie's protesting the lack of attention on HER!

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A day off from school. The boys were great entertainers for Sadie. They even read to her and played with her until she fell asleep. Now if they could've just quit wiggligng and kicking her little jungle gym, she might've STAYED asleep.

Logan had his second conference a couple of weeks ago. He's doing great in school. He's figuring out multiplication. Obviously, that's not being taught in kindergarten...but he's figuring it out anyway. He was telling me that "if you have 3 things and 3 things and 3 things and 3 things, that's the same as 3 X 4, which is 12." HUH???!!

He had a friend over to play after his conference and was found crying silently on the couch after his friend went home. He missed his best friend. So...we baked a cake.
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And licked the box.

Feeling much better.

The Bumbo seat helps a little with Sadie's desire to be vertical at all times...except that her skinny little butt moves too much, so she slumps over to the side (and then YELLS for someone to save her). But, it'll do when she merely wants to see what Mommy's doing.

Looking studious.
Got it!Prefers her fingers anyway. So much for all that work.