Vienna

some of my new favorite pictures

Starting this post, I only intended to put 2 pictures up.  But the deeper I got into my picture file, the more I realized how little I've put on this blog lately.  So I had to include ALL of my favorite pictures from the last few months.  Don't worry, they're really awesome.

 Jude fell asleep with Grandma's phone in his hand.  He's just so cute!  It was questionable there for a while whether he liked Grandma or her phone more.  But the verdict is in, and it's.....GRANDMA!!

 I just love this picture.  They are so cute together.  It's no question that she's going to be spoiled.

 While Grandma was here last time, we started a new tradition of  "Monkey Monday".  The kids wear their monkey hats, eat bananas, and we even had monkey pancakes (pancakes shaped like a monkey head).  Grandma made them monkey masks, too.

Vienna getting in on the Monkey Monday action.  Complete with the banana peel she grabbed out of her daddy's hand.

 My mom made these darling aprons for my boys.  They love to help me cook so they were very excited to have their own boy-ish aprons.  Jude's is on backwards... :)  And I'm happy to announce that our walls are no longer that ugly dark mustard yellow color.  I'll put pictures of it's new look as soon as we finish.

Ok, I really love this picture.  It's just so perfect.  The boys have been wearing "night-gowns" (my t-shirts) to bed lately.  They always seem to have the most energy right when we're trying to get them to go to bed.  Funny how that works.

 Vienna just makes us all happy.  Carter and Jude both just love to be close to her.  And share their toys with her.  And give her countless hugs and kisses.  You get the point.

 Carter took this picture of her in the car.

 Like I said before, they love her.

 At the zoo, Jude was riding on Dennison's shoulders.  Anytime he had something to say, he'd lean down like this to tell him.  He always cracks us up.

 Jude doesn't like to sleep in his room alone when Carter's at the hospital.  I usually let him sleep in my bed (see next post) but sometimes I give him the option of sleeping wherever he wants.  One night, he chose Vienna's crib.  He didn't even tell me he was going to bed or that he was going to sleep in her room.  I just hadn't seen him for a few minutes and I found him already asleep in here.  What a goofball.

 She is just so cute!  There's not a doubt in my mind that she was sent to our family right now to make us all smile and laugh every day.  She's really good at that :)

This was in the hospital last month.  Those are his "blood-bug eating monsters" with his dolphin and turtle on their heads.  He set them up like that so they could watch him play his computer game.  I just love him.

So there you have it.  The best of the best from our lives recently.

The things we do for our kids...

 We all do things for our kids that we probably never imagined doing before becoming a parent.  Here are just a few recent examples from around our house:

 Dennison was mowing the lawn and Carter kept telling him that he liked it long.  So Carter stood on this spot, right in the middle of the front yard, and said, "Don't cut this grass!"  So he didn't.  One long square of grass is a small price to pay for a happy little boy.

 Whenever Carter's in the hospital, he pretty much gets his way, um.... 100% of the time.  He wanted to pull Vienna around in the wagon.  So we did.  All the nurses thought it was the cutest thing ever.  It was pretty cute.

 What a man!  Vienna strapped on and pushing the stroller while the boys jumped in and out of it.  This was our day at the zoo.

 After eating Nacho Cheese Doritos or Cheetos, Jude does not want us to clean off his hands because he likes them to be "orange like a tiger".  Whatever.

 

When Carter's at the hospital, Jude has a hard time sleeping in his bedroom by himself.  I usually let him fall asleep in our bed and sometimes let him stay there all night.  He's not the best sleeping companion seeing as how he sleeps sideways, usually with his feet in my stomach.  But he's so cute and it makes him happy, so...

 

Ok, so this is the best one.  We've been talking with Carter about what he would really like to do that he's never done before.  He's eligible for a "wish" from the Make-A-Wish Foundation since he has a life-threatening illness.  He keeps telling us that he wants to swim with fishies.  We can't really think of any good way to go about something like that.  Since he's still so young, snorkeling or scuba diving is out of the question.  So this was our solution.  We have this pool that we set up in the back yard and then we went and bought 12 goldfish.  Funny side story:  As he and I were getting back in the car after purchasing said goldfish, Carter was holding the bag and it somehow came open on top and some water spilled out along with 4 fish.  I found 3 of them on the floor of the car and put them back in the water quick enough so they were ok.  I could NOT find the other one.  I searched and searched but it was no where.  I thought maybe the girl had miscounted while catching them for us.  So we started driving home and about half-way there, Carter tells me that he thinks there's a fish in his shoe.  I laugh and tell him it's probably just water and feels slippery like a fish (he was wearing crocks).  He insisted that it really was a fish and I just couldn't imagine that it could be.  A minute later, the bag slipped off of his lap onto the floor so I pulled over to retrieve it.  When I opened Carter's door, he had his shoe off and a dead fish in his hand.  Gross!  I could not believe that a fish had somehow landed in his shoe and he didn't notice until it was already dead.  We had a good laugh about it and then he threw it out his door.  He told me that it's ok if a car runs over it because the fish is already in heaven with his friends.

So anyway, back to the picture.  Right when we got home, he dumped the fish into the swimming pool with him.  He loved it for a couple minutes but the pool is so big that the fish were just hiding on the side.  So Carter decided that he wanted them back in the bag.  He grabbed the bag and a minute later he had scooped one back up!  I was so surprised that he caught one so fast!  He caught 6 of them and then I helped him catch the rest so they could all sleep in the house that night.  We played that game again the next day and now the 7 strongest of the bunch are on our dining room table in the biggest bowl I could find.

4 months old

 

Little Miss Vienna is 4 months old!

She weighs a woppin 12 pounds(14%) and is 25 3/4 inches (92%)

 As I'm going through pictures of her, I've noticed that most of them are of her and Carter together.  It seems that these two are always close by each other.

 Carter ran to her room to get a hair bow for her and then put it on all by himself.

 Carter reading to her after our picnic.

 She is still a little angel.  She can roll over both ways and doesn't hate tummy time as much as the boys did.  She's getting really good at grabbing things and is very interested in everything going on around her.

 I put her hair in pigtails for church today and Jude told me, "I don't want Vienna's hair like that!"

Haha, I don't know what he has against pigtails.

We sure love our baby girl!

Things I've learned lately

Lesson #13: Bath foam is really awesome.
Sometimes the suggestion of it is the only thing that will get Carter into the bathtub.

Lesson #12: Seeing your kids love each other is one of the best things in the world.

Lesson #11: Wind is very powerful.
I already knew this but seeing the wreckage after a wind storm was pretty scary. There were branches everywhere in our yard.

Lesson #10: From here on out, wherever we live has to have a pretty view from the kitchen window like this. I open the blinds on this window first thing every morning. I just love to look out there, especially when it's sunny (which isn't often).

Lesson #9: When Jude and his Daddy put their heads together, they come up with some pretty fun games.

Lesson #8: A monster and shark bath towel will make your kids act like a monster and shark all day long.

Lesson #7: Always dress my baby girl up really cute.
Carter calls this her princess dress :)

Lesson #6: The boys are great entertainment for Vienna.
Note: I do not recommend standing this close to the bathtub while Jude is in it... very dangerous.

Lesson #5: Forts are always awesome. Especially if you can sleep in them.
Also, Jude refused to sleep on his bed so we moved it into the other bedroom and he now sleeps on a mattress on the floor and couldn't be happier.

Lesson #4: When you get an opportunity to take a picture with all three of your kids in it and happy, do it!
Also, matching shirts for my boys is still cute.

Lesson #3: Goldfish don't last very long.
Hopefully the new beta will have a longer life span.

Lesson #2: My embrace just doesn't compare to daddy's.
This little gal loves her pops. This is how she falls asleep just about every night.

And the #1 lesson I've learned: Don't leave Jude alone with the paints.
You should've seen the table. And chair. And floor.
How did he get it on the very back of his head??

Vienna's baby blessing

Isn't she beautiful!? This is the same dress that I wore for my blessing. My mom made it. She's amazing. She also made that darling hat for Vienna.

Jude loves to hold her!

Carter does too, but he was really grumpy.

We all got to go to church together! It was so nice. I don't know when it will happen again, but I'm glad we got to do it for this special day.

5 Years!

Can you believe it? Dennison and I have already been married for five years. Once I give you a photo journey through our life together, you might find it a lot easier to believe. A LOT has happened! Don't worry, it's the abbreviated version.

Engagement pictures

At our reception

Aren't we cute?!

These were our first "children". I really loved these cats. Especially Oliver, the orange one. Yes, I had a favorite.

He's now living in Idaho with only 3 legs.

And this is Leroy:

He was kinda weird, but really funny. He was scared of Dennison if he was standing up.

They had a love/hate relationship.

This was our first home purchase. We fixed it up and sold it less than a year later.

And this was my car that we sold when we bought our Trooper.

And this was Dennison's truck that we sold.

Then we had a baby! Cute little Carter. 7 lbs 11 ozs almost 3 weeks early.

4 months after he was born, we moved to a different state. Our stupid car broke down along the way. It was not fun, but it makes for a good story now.

When we moved, we left our cats at my sister's house. I really missed them so we tried getting a new little kitten. Isn't she cute? Her name was Juanita.

Well she was also mean. She only lasted a couple days in our house.

Then Jude was born! What a sweet little baby. 9 lbs 2 oz.

We bought another house! There's still a lot that we want to do, the first one being to finish painting. We really dislike that grey poupon color you're seeing in this photo. And that silly curtain is only temporary.
P.S. We've moved a total of 5 times in five years. I hate moving.

Baby #3!! A sweet little angel girl. Vienna. 8 lbs 2 oz.

Not to be a downer, but it's a huge event in our lives. 3.5 weeks after her birth, Carter was diagnosed with Leukemia. Not cool.

This is the most recent family photo. It makes me sad to look at it though because Carter is obviously sick-looking. It was taken about a week before the diagnosis. But otherwise a cute picture, right?

And look at how cute our kids are now!

I don't have one of them all together.

And this is the most recent photo of the two of us. Not at our best, but it will have to do.

It was taken at the beginning of January in the hospital.

It's been a fun, exciting, and crazy ride. And we're still in love after all this! :)