Right now all three kids are asleep. And Brice is still at work.  Ahhhhh. . . peace and quiet.  So far I have eaten an entire sleeve of shortbread girl scout cookies and am working on the second one. That's cool, right?

I'm also going through pictures from 2012 and I came across these gems that I wanted to post back in December.  

These brothers love each other so much!!

Or do they?

An almost smile.

Little Olivia is kind of a grumpy pants. A very cute and pretty grumpy pants.  She has smiled at me, but only like two or three times.  Usually in the morning when she's awake and not eating she will be content to sit and be happy, but after four in the afternoon if she's not asleep or eating, she's fussing.  She wants to be held and if you do not hold her then she will let you know how mad she is.  In fact, so far there have been three times when she screamed so loud and so long that she turned purple and pretty much almost passed out.  Which is scary.  I know if she faints she will just start breathing, but its still scary and I still don't want that to happen.  So I'm afraid to let her get too mad.  Which means getting her to go to sleep on her own eventually will be difficult.  

I was trying so hard to get her to smile.  And she just kept giving me this look like, "Really, Mom?"

Today was kind of a rough day.  

I got a clogged milk duct/mastitis yesterday. I don't think its full blown mastitis, but it was a clogged duct that bothered me enough to make me get a fever and feel all achy and like I had the flu.  But I got the clog out last night and started feeling a little better today, though not completely. So I was exhausted and not feeling well today.  And then the boys woke up bright and early.  But not really "bright" and early, since it was still dark.

I remember like a year ago when I put a post on here was like, "I'm soooo lucky.  My boys sleep till eight or eight thirty blah blah blah blah"  

I think I wish I could go back and punch that stupid girl in the face, or at least make her knock on wood.  Because now we are lucky if they sleep past six.  

And here is what happens to a two year old when he wakes up at 5:45.

And here is what happens when that two year old who woke up at 5:45 refuses to take a nap.

And Jace is fine with being tired as long as he has some kind of gaming device in his hand.  But take it away and you've got a whining, mean to his brother, irrational four year old.    

So I have no choice but to put the boys to bed extremely early.  And Jace usually falls asleep within minutes.  Cameron takes a bit longer, but usually he's had a nap during the day.  Brice thinks that if we keep them up  later at night, then they'll sleep longer.  But that hasn't proven to be the case.  

We finally took Olivia to church this last Sunday.  I surprised Brice and myself by getting there with the three kids ten minutes early ALL BY MYSELF.  

That will probably  never happen again.  It must have just been some kind of first-time-taking-a-cute-little-girl-to-church adrenalin.  

6 weeks old.  Already.  How is it fair that when you're pregnant time goes sooooo sloooowly, but once that baby is out. . .

it zooms by too fast.  

She can't wait to see you in a couple of weeks, Grandma!  

I've been finding that lately if I do one thing that I enjoy during the day (that isn't just watching something while I'm feeding the baby) I have a much better day.  And feel much better about my days in general.  So since I still don't feel up to exercising much yet, and can't really go get stuff with the kids for the many thing I want to try and make that I've seen on pinterest. . . playing with pictures and putting them on this blog are all I've got.  

We went to the park again yesterday for about twenty minutes-- that was as long as the boys could endure the wind.  I hate when the day should be beautiful but the stupid wind messes it all up.

I got these pictures of Camers that I liked.  

His eyes are beautiful, I think.  Sometimes they look dark and sometimes they look lighter.  I guess they're hazel.

And Jace's eyes are jet black.  I know this picture is in black and white, but really when its in color, the eye color doesn't change.  They are so dark.  You can't even see the pupil most of the time.  

And little Livvy's eyes are still looking blue-ish.  Maybe all three of them will have different colored eyes. They were all born in different states, so that would be fitting. 

Cameron peed on the couch this morning.  I guess that's my punishment for telling everyone that he was so easy to potty train.  

When he zoomed off the slide and landed on his butt at the park yesterday, he jumped up and yelled, "I'm okay, I'm okay!"  He pretty much thinks he's just as old as Jace and thinks he can do everything by himself.  Which sometimes can be hard to deal with because he throws a fit when I do it for him. 

Here is a funny story about Jace:  

One day Auntie Lisa was watching the boys while I took Olivia to the doctor for her one month check up.  I guess Lisa said something to Jace (who was in the kitchen--she was in the living room) about how in just six months he would be going to school.

He responded by running into the living room and said, "Well I may not be going to school. I gotta learn to wipe my own butt and that is disgusting!"

Yes it is disgusting.  And I am tired of doing it.  I'm tired of hearing this:  "I'M DONE!"

I was feeding the baby once when he yelled that he was done so I told him to wipe by himself.  A few minutes later he came in to where I was and said, "I think I still have poop on me." So I asked how he knew.  

"Cause I felt it with my hand."  And as he said this he was pretty much rubbing his hands all over his face.  Disgusting.  So I immediately jumped up, ignoring the baby who instantly started screaming since she was in the middle of eating, and threw him in the shower.  

So for now he still calls and I come running when he's "done".  I guess we have six months to work on it.

And also I discovered you can put videos you upload to youtube right on your blog.  Every time I've tried to upload videos directly to the blog it never worked.  But now I know how.  So here come some videos. . .

If you watch this video all the way to end, you will see how reluctant Jace is to get close to his sweet little sis.

Brice has been working late alot lately.  And this week he worked till six or six thirty and then went and worked on a side job that he and Troy were doing together.  Some kind of shelf building I think.  So I had to fly solo for not only the whole day but also for bedtime.  Which was exhausting.

Yesterday was Saturday and even though Brice has been working on Saturday for the last month, he usually only works till twelve.  Which means I get up on Saturday morning and countdown the hours and minutes until he will be home at twelve so I can wash my hands of the boys and retreat to my room with Olivia.  This Saturday, though, he had to finish up that side job, which meant he was going to be gone allllll day.

Now ordinarily I would have groaned and complained and whined and been every bit the naggy wife that sometimes Brice claims I am. . . but with all the hospital bills starting to roll in any extra money is appreciated.  So I tried to be stoic and supportive.  I think I did a pretty good at not feeling too sorry for myself.  In fact, I even decided to spice things up Saturday morning and instead of just starting on the same old boring chores that you have to do day in and day out I decided to try and get some pictures of all the kids together.  My goal was to get a really cute one to put in the 11 x 14 frame we have that currently just has a picture of the boys.

The attempt was not a complete fail, but I didn't get one that I like enough to put in that frame. . .

But I did get some cute ones.

The problem was two-fold.  First of all, Jace is a weirdo and was not being cooperative at all when it came to sitting and helping with the baby.  His issue is weird.  That's all there is to it.  See he has this weird thing about hair.  He likes pretty hair and he will always comment on girls who have pretty hair. Like his aunts Emily and Melanie.  He loves their hair.  

Olivia does not have a lot of hair, and Jace is disgusted by it.  Literally.  Like when she is in the bouncy seat at the table while he is eating he wants me to cover her head up with a hat or put a bow on it.  Is that weird or what?  The other day when I had a bow on her he said, "I like it when she has a bow or a hat on.  That's when I like her."

So he was hesitant to get too close to the baby and when I tried to get him to hold her up and help support her, he would just cringe and sit there frozen.  Sort of like a cat will do when you put clothes on it.  He just froze and wouldn't move.

Sweet little Cam has the opposite feeling.  He just wants to touch her all the time.  This photo shoot was probably the closest and longest he has been by the baby since she was born.  

The second problem is obvious when you think of three kids and just one person. . . trying to get them all in a cute pose while trying to take pictures and also trying to cover up the pillows in the back with the sheet that kept falling over.  I was pretty sweaty by the time we were finished.  

The boys looks thrilled, don't they?

Thrilled again.

So finally I yelled, "Come on guys, just smile so we can be done!"

Not quite what I had in mind.  But nice attempt.

This is Jace being disgusted by the baby. 

But look how cute she is.  What is the matter with that boy?

Her eyes look blue.  But they're that baby color blue.  I wish they would stay blue.  But the odds of that are not great.  I don't even know if its possible for us to have a blue-eyed child.  

So yesterday, despite being at the end of a long and tiresome week, was a good day.  I even took the boys to the park (you can drive right up to the play thing so I could stand by the car where the baby slept and be close to the boys at the same time).  I didn't even lose it when Cameron pooped in his underwear. And I made a real dinner that wasn't macaroni or peanut butter.  Yay me!

So far I have we have survived 1 month of the me against three.  Some days have been harder than others.  There have been calls to Brice at work with me sobbing and kids screaming in the background.  There have been consecutive days where the boys have been dressed in the same pajamas.  And days where they've eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for every meal.  And days where I've forgotten to eat and then by two o'clock am wondering why I'm suddenly feeling like a crazy shaky rage monster.  And there was even one day where I could smell the boys from across the room and realized I didn't remember the last time they had been given a bath.

But there have also been moments where everyone is happy and clean.  And we can sit together in the living room and I've been able to play a game with the boys while Olivia sleeps soundly in my arms.  And also nights where I've been able to wrestle the boys in bed by 6:00 and have the whole rest of the evening with just one sweet little baby to snuggle.  And there was even one morning when the boys slept till 7:30 and Olivia slept from 2:00 am till the boys woke us both up.  That was the best morning ever and after 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep I felt insanely cheerful.  

And now my "giant" baby boy is potty trained. Which makes him even more of a big boy and even less of my baby boy.  The first night I came home from the hospital I went in to check on the boys during the night and when I looked in Cameron's bed I was surprised to see not my little baby boy but a big hefty two year old. It's funny how the "baby" still seems like a baby until you bring home the next baby.

The biggest brother is taking on his responsibilities pretty well.  Aside from all his craziness which sometimes gets in the way of the whole listening job.  He's pretty good at running to get me things (after I ask two or three times) and even though there are moments when all he wants to do is torture his little brother they also play pretty well together.  It's during those moments when I make myself very scarce, because even the slightest disturbance in their play might mess things up.

Like the other day they made a catapult and were sending things up into the air and trying to catch them in a bucket.  As soon as I got out the camera to take pictures of them the magical spell of brotherly bonding ended and the whining and fighting started.  Lesson learned.    

And then there is this sweet little baby girl who I just want to kiss all the time.  So far she pretty much just sleeps and eats, though she is starting to stay awake in between the sleeping and eating a little longer.  And it's amazing how she can go from sleeping peacefully to starving and very mad in a matter of seconds. 

I love her lips.  And her little eyelashes.  And her little nose.