Happy Birthday Lulu!

I'm jumping the gun a little here but if I don't get it done now, it will never get done. Our little Lauren will be 3 on Tuesday. Wow! 3? Already? Time has flown. It does not seem like it was that long ago that we upheaved our little family and moved to Moscow, Idaho. Lauren was only 8 weeks old. She has been able to be my baby for the longest. We call her Lulu and here is why.... When she was born Avery could not say Lauren, she said "Laulen", so from that came Lala, I told my mom that is what her new nickname was and it reminded her of Telletubbies. So everyone started calling her Lulu. She also answers to Doodle Bug, Bug, Unamae(Her daddy's nickname for her), Laureen(how Hadley says Lauren) Bug It, Buzz, Doodle, Doo, Lu, Laur, well, you get the idea. I thoughyt the poor little thing is confused but she will tell you her name is Lauren Sommer Allen. She has been such a joy to have in our home. I never in a million years thought I would have a blonde hair blue eyed baby but I got one. I get comments all the time about how beautiful she is and I have to agree. She LOVES to play with baby dolls, her sisters, drive her brother crazy and make him laugh, go shopping, throw fits, play dress up and just hang out watching tv with family. She was our 3rd oops! baby and I don't regret one of them. She is such a happy girl (most of the time!! c'mon she's 2 still, 3 is pretty much the same though!) Her favorite thing to eat right now is Soup! She loves animals of all kinds, and moths, they are her butterfly friends!!! Every one of the kids has been given an animal to represent them, with her we went with a mouse first (Avery came up with it, she always asked is she could kiss mouse while I was preganant with Lulu) but the first animal sound she made was a piggy, and it was a great one, so pigs have kinda become her thing. I never had a child draw on the walls until she came along and now she has taught her older sisters how to do it too! She loves singing primary songs, I love listening to her. When she was born she had no hair just a little blonde fuzz. I thought she would never get hair. Well, she turned 2 and a miracle happened, her hair started growing, I think it was the AZ heat, everyone's hair is growing like crazy. She HATES having it washed though, I'm sure some of you have heard her (Even from down here) getting it washed, she's a screamer. She loves to be in a swim suit getting wet. Unfortunatley it's too hot to do that here during the day but we have our evenings. The girl LOVED her "stuffie" (pascifier) as you will see in the pictures to follow. She had it until about 2 months after we moved here. The transition wasn't as bad as I though it would be. Just 4 months after that I told her it was time to go potty and we haven't looked back. She even gets up in the middle of the night to go. She is so grown up. I know it's only 3 years but still, it's old to me. She insists to wear dresses all the time, I say she was born in the wrong era. She is a very influential, everything she does, i.e. wear dresses, color on walls.. her sisters have to do the same. Maybe she will be a great leader someday.I am so happy to have this little munchkin in my life. She says the funnies things, helps me out with Gabe so much and ALWAYS has me on my toes. I can't wait for school to start, her sisters will be in school and while Gabe is napping we can have alone time together. I'm looking forward to it. Enjoy the pictures!

Lulu at 8 weeks!

I think she either had a good diaper or just spit up in this one. Man Gabe looks just like her!

Her 3 month picture. She freaked until she had her stuffie in her mouth.

This is how she would take baths with mommy, babies are very slippery when wet. She could spend hours in here.

Her 6 months. Notice the chapped mouth...I wonder what that's from ?!?!?

9 months

1 year. I lover her teeth in this.
14 months, Oregon coast. This is the only happy picture we got of her all day, she hated it all.

Almost 16 months. I love that face.

Less than one month shy of 3. Dang she is cute.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LULU! WE LOVE YOU!

Funny, Just when I think there is really nothing to blog about...

Here is a cute picture of our fattness. At his 4 month checkup a couple weeks ago he was 20.14. 99% for weight. 90% for head and height. Big boy! He officially is too big for the infant seat so I had to go get him a convertable seat. Shopping is so fun without the infant seat when your baby can't even sit up yet.

Hadley's class went to the zoo and I tagged along with my other little ones in tow. She is really not too sure about being this close to a peacock.

Hadley's school did a performance and displayed their art. Here she is "singing," "De Colores"

I could not help but take this one of Gabe relaxin'

I put Lulu's hair up in curlers. Well, it didn't really take so I used my 1/4" barrel curling iron. She was so good and patient. The sad part is, she looked so pretty and all we did was go to the ghetto grocery store.

Here is Hadley's class singing for us moms. Only a couple of us came to celebrate their last day of Kindergarten with them.

My big girl's last day.

Hadley and Mrs. Tang. I hope Avery get's her next year. We miss her already.

Hadley and Jeadyn and Breadyn. I still can't tell these 2 apart.

We have this couch my parents gave to us. It has been through a lot but it still stands up for us. I figured out if we keep feeding it fat babies it will hold up forever. I gotta agree with the couch, he is so *YUMMY* !!!

So a few night ago when I couldn't sleep, (no surprise there, after all it's 4:49 am and I'm still up, whole other story in itself) I walked into the kitchen and felt like I had a hair or something on my leg (I have been losing a ton of hair lately, whole OTHER story in and of ITSELF), so I bent down to brush it off and this is what I saw flying across the floor...

Now, mind you that I'm really not afraid of spiders but when they can be deadly and my kids are sleeping on the Living Room floor just feet away I flipped. I threw a jar over it to trap it, then I somehow scooped it up into a bowl, put the lid on it and went and woke up Jamie. He kinda freaked. Funny thing is, I was just finally getting tired enough to go to bed. I was getting an ice water to take to bed when all this happened. So, I really didn't sleep. I put that bowl inside of another bowl and just stared and swore at it. I researched black widows for pretty much the rest of the night/morning. I called the property managers and they had someone out here Monday. I put the spider, still inside the 2 containers, out in the garage, I wanted it to suffer like I did when I had no sleep. As of Monday she was still alive. Luckly she was not on me long enough to bite me, I had just walked into her web she had made all over my kitchen in just a couple hours time. The exterminator told me to look for her egg sack, 'tis breadin' season! GREAT!

Hhmm, I guess stuff has happened in our house. Stayed tuned... Lauren's 3rd Birthday is the 9th and my parents are coming down on the 15th to drive back up to Idaho with me on the 17th. (Jamie is flying to Denver for a conference, then over to Idaho for a couple weeks then has to go back to Tucson all alone. I'm sure he is so sad about it!! I could do the drive myself but last time with 4 kids, because Gabe was nursing and diaper changes, it took 19 hours. NO THANK YOU!) There will be Jamie's 31st Birthday (6-16), family, friends, Father's Day, maybe Jamie and I could go to the temple and even on a date, friends, Bear Lake, hunting (for Jamie), 4th of July, back to school shopping, family from Virginia, a BBQ here and there, family from California, lunch with friends, Bear Lake, more family, and a wedding.. Wow, all in a month and a half's time. So much for Vacation. The girls start school Aug. 6th. So we gotta hurry back after the wedding. Grrrr.

I just realized there is nothing about Avery in here, real fast, Hadley is tkinda eaching her how to read, she is reading a lot of the little books Hadley brought home from school and is very curious about wordsand sounding them out and addition. She's getting a nice jump start on Kindergarten. More about her next time too! Thanks for hanging in there!

Gabe's first swim and girls in pool

Guppie's first cereal

Gabe's first jumperoo

Here goes nothin'

Here are some pictures of Easter. All the kids in their cute Easter outfits and Gabe in his first Easter outfit....

Check out that huge 3 month old. I also pierced Avery's ears for her 5th birthday. Yes! I did it myself I happen to own a piercing gun. There were a lot of promises made to get her to calm down after she FINALLY decided she wanted them done.

I love having a baby who love his Jumperoo. He just goes crazy in it. We bought it when Lulu was a baby and she pretty much just sat in it but Gabe jumps like a mad man.

Check out these legs. Don't you just want to chew on them?? They are mighty tasty.

I finally broke down and got the girls a cheap pool. They have had so much fun in it. Gabe loves being outside so here he is watching his sisters splashing him.

GABE
So we went to Gabe's cardiologist on Monday and they did another echo and everything seems to be healing up on it's own. He is growing so fast. He now weighs over 19 pounds. Yes, I just said 19 pounds. In case you are wondering he will be 4 months on the 17th. His 6-9 months clothes are slowly finding their way to the storage box. I love the look on people's face when I tell them how old he is. He also FINALLY hit a milestone today......He successfully rolled back to front. I know he's a little late but when you have that much to roll over...

He has become very aware of his hands and loves them in his mouth at all times. His favorite thing is to try to eat his hand while nursing. (Mom is not so much a fan of this) I can't tell you how much fun and happiness he has brought to our lives. We love him and we love how he lights up whenever he sees any of us. I will tell you having a boy is so strange.

LULU

Wow, where do I start?? She has discovered it's fun to call people "Stupid", stick her tounge out at mom when she is in trouble, and snuggling or just smiling at you will melt away any anger you might have. There is something about those blue eyes that just gets to me. She has grown up so much. Her vocabulary is amazing and frightening. She will be 3 in a month and it's killing me. I'm thinking about entering her in to a cute kids contest!! MAYBE! I have been told she looks like a little doll. She is not handling the heat very well though. 2 minutes outside and she is beat red and wants to just die. Poor kiddo!

AVERY

She is so excited to start Kindergarden this fall (Summer, school starts Aug 6th here). For some reason, the thought of sending her off is much harder than sending Hadley off. I have no idea why. She is already reading a little and just blows me away how fast she catches on. She loves playing games, any game any time. If it were up to her she would play games all day. She loves Go Fish, Old Lady (Old Maid) Uno, Princess Uno, Fundominos, puzzles, the list goes on and on. I can't get over how much she is like me, right down to the way her eyes hide when she smiles. She LOVES helping me with the laundry, sorting is her favorite part, she also is such a great help with Gabe. I love the little stink and don't know what I would do without her help.

HADLEY

So, in 2 weeks Hadley will have finished her first year of school. She is on a "D BOOK" They go in levels A, B, C, D... She skipped C all together. She is adding and subtracting EVERYTHING. I think she finally figured out that is she keeps her mouth shut and just obey the teacher and follows the rules life is much easier. She is such a big help to me and her sisters and brother. I'm so excited to have her home for the summer, I love having her around. I am not okay with her starting 1st grade this "fall" but she already is older than everyone in her class as it is. I just want them all to stay preschool age forever. She is growing so quickly I feel like I'm missing out on it all. I love all she does to keep everyone happy and she has such a special relationship with her Papa and I hope it never changes.

JAMIE

In a week he will be finished with his 1st year in the PhD. program. He has enjoyed it (I think more than he would like to admit) I'm so proud of all his hard work and how determined he is to get through this. This year seemed to fly by so here's hoping the next 2 fly just as fast. I love you Baby, thanks for all you do and put up with.

ME

I stay at home and feed Gabe, take Hadley to school come home, feed Gabe, then I get the kids breakfast, then I feed Gabe, then I might change the laundry over, get the girls lunch, then feed Gabe, pick Hadley up from school and come home to feed Gabe. I think I just realized why he is 19+ pounds. I have made a couple of friends here so life is getting better, now if these triple digits would subside.

Sorry this post is so long that wasn't my intention but that's just what happened. Hope everyone has a WONDERFUL MOTHER'S DAY! I get to teach Relief Society so mine won't be as wonderful as it could be. I think it should be combined so the men could teach on Mother's Day and vice versa for Father's Day. I'll look into that!

So, my friend had this on her blog and I thought I would share. I laughed forever. Some of the ones I read to Jamie even made him laugh and if you know Jam ie you know it HAD to be funny. Check it out...
http://www.myregisblog.com/

I want to p[oat something about what we've been up to but I gotta run so I'll get to it soon!!