Pretty Girl

I just couldn't resist posting this sweet picture of my beautiful baby girl.  We are so in love with her!

Power Yoga

It's been time for an update for awhile, but I'm still waiting for all the pictures from our trip to Montana, so hopefully I'll get to that sometime.

In the meantime, I thought I'd share a couple other things we've been up to. This morning Jordan asked me if he could watch a show while I was still in bed. I said sure. When I came out into the living room a few minutes later, this is what I found:

Jordan had found an exercise show called "Power Yoga" and was determined to do all the moves. Jarrett, on the other hand, was not one bit happy about Jordan's choice of a show and was laying on the couch pouting.

(We put the Wii away at the beginning of the summer because Jordan was obsessed with it. He has missed his regular dose of Wii Fit and also loves doing P90X videos to make up for it.) He is a funny kid, but at least I'm teaching him the good habit of exercise, right? I've also got a video somewhere of him running on my treadmill. Jarrett, so far, has not taken up the exercising habit.

Josey has been busy for the past 2 or 3 weeks putting in a fireplace and sandbox in our backyard. He has some big ideas for the rest of our yard, but for now it is kind of half-finished because he is tired and our funds are tight. But we're happy with what he's done so far. Yesterday the boys played in the sandbox all afternoon with their friends and it was a very peaceful afternoon for me. Thanks for all your hard work Josey.

Jaycie is growing way too fast.  At 8 weeks, she weighed 9 lbs 3 oz.  She started smiling about 3 weeks ago, but is not much of a smiler. This is the best shot I've got of a half-smile.  And since it has taken me ALL DAY to figure out how to get my pictures on here (and I still can't figure out how to rotate Jaycie's picture so I'm going to give up...something is really messed up with my Blogger account or computer) she has a new trick:  rolling over!  At 9 1/2 weeks, she is my earliest roller, but she did it 3 times today so I'm sure it's not a fluke.  She is a very good sleeper, usually sleeping 9-11 hours at a stretch at night, and then napping most of the morning. This has given me a much-needed energy boost and I'm starting to love running again. For awhile, I dreaded it every day because my legs felt so dead, but I kept doing it because I just knew eventually it would start feeling good again.

We're just trying to enjoy the last couple weeks of summer now. Luckily school doesn't start here this year until after Labor Day. Jordan will be starting kindergarten, which makes me sad. Times flies by way too fast.

The other day one of my friends said that her brother who flies helicopters for the army was going to stop by to visit her because he just happened to be flying by the area. (He did inform us that the fuel cost for one of these Apache helicopters is about $4000-$5000 per hour.) I'm glad I took her up on the offer to take the boys to see the helicopter because they thought it was really cool. I thought it was cool that I could just drive my car right up to the helicopter and there were not a million kids crowded around to see it. Little things like this make me happy to live in a small town. Even though we miss out on a lot of things, I don't miss the crowds.
We spent a hot weekend visiting my parents while Josey was at a basketball camp. The boys had a blast playing with their cousins in grandma's new pool. It's always fun to play with cousins and they were completely worn out. The trip must have even worn out Jaycie who slept from 9:00 last night to 5:30 this morning. I'll count that as my first full night's sleep in awhile, and it felt great.

Fossil Butte

Since we've lived here for 4 years now, we decided it was finally time to make a visit to our very own national monument, Fossil Butte. This area used to be covered by a lake that left a lot of fish fossils as well as some other animals, such as this crocodile seen here. It would be nice if Kemmerer still had some of the tropical climate! Although Jordan was mostly interested in trying to get us to buy something for him from the gift shop (which we didn't), I think the boys had a fun time. After visiting the museum, we decided to take a quick little hike (about 2 miles). It would have been great, but we were kind of in a rush and the mosquitoes were swarming like crazy so the whole time we're pressuring Jarrett to hurry and I felt bad for the little guy. He sure is a trooper though. At one point I asked him if he was having fun and he replied in the sweetest little voice, "Not too fun." I don't think he whined or complained once, although the same can't be said for his older brother who kept asking us about every minute if we could just go back. The little field trip did do the trick of exhausting them though, as it's 7:30 a.m. and they're both still asleep. I don't think they've slept past 6:30 once this summer. Enjoy the pictures and if you ever decide to visit us, this is what you get to look forward to!

This is just a picture Josey took of the sunset from our porch. We do get to experience some beauty here.

June

I just wanted to do a quick little update while I have a few minutes. The kids are in bed and it is nice and peaceful. I can't believe Jaycie is 3 weeks old today. She has already brought so much joy into our home. I've heard the transition to three kids is a lot more difficult than having two, but my life has been made a lot easier due to the fact that Jaycie is a very good baby and Josey is home for the summer. Jaycie sleeps for about 3 hour stretches at night, and she's only awake for about 15 minutes to eat and then back to sleep, so I've been feeling pretty good. She almost only cries when she's hungry and she loves to be held. It has been a lot of fun to have a summer baby because we can go outside and go for walks and still do a lot of fun things. Jaycie has been to the pool a few times already, and each time she has just slept the whole time. We've gone to Bear Lake. We've enjoyed watching Jordan play his first season of T-ball. It took him awhile to get the hang of things, but then he started enjoying it quite a bit more and also became a little goof-off (as you can see from the picture). He did get to play on the same team as his two best buddies, so that was fun for him. We've banned the Wii at our house for the summer, due to Jordan's obsession with it. The trampoline has been doing a good job of keeping the boys entertained. They got a chance to sleep out with their dad one night and I think they loved every minute of that, although I'm not sure Josey did. We're looking forward to visiting Montana in about three weeks and letting Jaycie's grandparents meet her for the first time. We're sure they'll be in love.

Introducing...

Jaycie Rose Allen, the newest sweet addition to our family, was born Thursday weighing 6 lbs 6 oz and measuring 20 inches long. I'm proud to say she has a beautiful head of dark hair. We'll see how long it lasts. She is beautiful and sweet and perfect and I'm so happy she was born healthy and strong. She came 16 days earlier than expected, but I really had been hoping (and doing a little bit of praying, I'll admit) that she would make an early entrance.

So far, she has been a sweet angel and has let me get a lot of rest. I'm feeling great. The labor went very similarly to that of my boys, with my water breaking at 3 in the morning and no contractions starting until I went to the hospital at 9:30 or so and got some pitocin. I was only dilated to about 1 cm. By the time I got to 4 or 5 I was really ready for the epidural, but they were a little slow getting it to me (in my opinion, nothing could have been fast enough) and before it started to really kick in I felt like I was really close to having a baby. But then I complained about feeling a little too much pain on my right side (that's right, I like to feel NO pain) and so they upped my dose of the epidural a bit and by the time the doctor was ready for me to push I could feel absolutely nothing. With my other epidurals I felt no pain, but I could definitely tell when I should push. This time was hard because I pushed for about 40 minutes feeling nothing and probably made no progress. But the doctor and nurses were encouraging and when the epidural finally started wearing off and I could feel the need to push, it only took another 20 minutes or so to get her out.

I'm so happy to have Jaycie here as the newest member of our family. The boys just keep saying how tiny and cute she is. Jordan has many questions about the umbilical cord. They are loving giving her kisses and Jarrett always makes sure to ask me if his face is clean before he kisses her. My mom has been here trying to keep them entertained, and I appreciate her help. I'm in bliss and a little hormonal as today I started crying watching a CMT music video. I can't even remember the last time I cried, but I guess I better warn Josey before things get out of hand. (And just because I'm a little surprised myself, I will let you know that the day before Jaycie's birth I did run 2 miles pushing the boys in the jogging stroller. Who knew I would really run through my whole pregnancy?)

May Snow Day

This is what you get to wake up to in May (and June, and probably July...) when you live here in Wyoming. I know you are jealous! The good news is that the wind isn't blowing! And the boys got to enjoy about 10 minutes of playing outside before Jordan filled Jarrett's coat with snow. Jarrett came in bawling because he was freezing and Jordan was trailing after acting perfectly innocent. I really wanted to stuff some snow down Jordan's coat (which I'm sure Josey would have done), but I resisted the temptation and was actually rewarded a few minutes later listening to Jordan apologize and ask Jarrett's forgiveness. (Remember that last post about being happy every day that I get to stay home with these boys...I think I was feeling a little sappy considering it was Mother's Day.)