The Beeson Castle

Well, last week we got our playset put in. We choice a Rainbow Playsystem from Recreation Unlimited. The specific one that we selected was the Super Rainbow. It is Super too!! The kids love it and so does Jim and I. It is actually big enough that Jim and I have fun on it. Jim works out on it. I love swinging on the buoy ball, climbing the Jacob's rope ladder, and sliding down the slide. The playset is cool. There is a racing car tire that is actually from a real Nascar race car. It is the left front tire of the number 6 car. You can tell it has been driven on too. Very cool! Here are some pics:

Here is the set being installed. Two men did it in 4 hours.

The kids and I watched all morning.

Here is the finished product from our sitting room window.

Here is a view of the back of our house and the playset.

Jacob is 4 Months!

My little Jacob is now 4 months old! It is hard to believe but thank goodness we made it through the first 3 months. Wow, those are hard! Jacob is now 16 pounds 9 ounces and is 26.5 inches long. So big! He is wearing 6-12 month clothing perfectly now. I love his little laughs and smiles. He is full of them. He also loves to talk but his talking has decreased some lately becuase he has an ear infection. Jacob is handling it pretty well though. He is rolling over both ways now and gets his body all contorted. He is so much fun to watch. He loves his Gymboree class too. What a joy he is!

When I compared Jacob's size with Sophia and James at this age, it stacked up like this:

Sophia 15 lbs 10 oz, 25.5 in.

James 15 lbs 15 oz, 26.25 in.

Jacob: 16 lbs 9 oz, 26.5 in.

Looks like in our family, the more kids we have, the bigger they get!

The pictures above are from his 3 month photo appointment. So Cute!!

Field Trip

Today was Sophia's very first Field Trip. I went as a chaperone. Since the kids go to a private school, there are no school buses. If there is a field trip, the parents are expected to drive the kids. This trip each child had a parent go with them so we did some carpooling. We had Sam and his mom Susan ride with us. Sophia and Sam play quite a bit with each other so they were excited to ride together. It was very cute to see them in the back together. Apparently Sam taught Sophia how to sword fight last week. It is very cute to see them interact. Anyway, back to the field trip, we went to a pumpkin patch. Everyone got to pick out a pumpkin. We also rode in a wagon, went through a hay maze (which the kids didn't really follow, they just climbed over the haybails), jumped in a bounce zone, and played on a playset. The kids had lots of fun. On the way back to school Sam and Sophia were very tired. I enjoyed going on my first field trip with Sophia and meeting some of her classmates and talking to some of the parents.

Stay tuned for tomorrows post. Jacob has his 4 month doctor's appointment tomorrow and I can't wait to see how big he is!

New Blog

This blog is going to continue because it is a good way for family to keep in touch with the children and Jim and I . Have just started a new blog www.mythreelittleducklings.blogspot.com

It will be an honest view of motherhood to three children, all of which are currently under 3. It is more of a venting avenue and will probably be very amusing to some of you. Anyway, just wanted to share.

Some Summer Pictures

So I need to finally start putting photos on the blog. Since I have my new computer (yippee!) and it is so much easier to use, I should be able to post more. Not to mention it is much faster than my 10 year old old laptop. This first photo is of Sophia, James and Kara standing in front of our tomato plant. The plant is still giving us sweet juicy tomatoes and is now more than twice the size that it is in the picture. I think it is going to take over the whole deck! For those of you who do not know Kara, let me introduce her. Kara has watched the kids since we had kids. She was Sophia's first babysitter, James' first babysitter, and now Jacob's first babysitter. She came twice a week this past summer and we love her. Hopefully next summer she can some three days a week. The kids have a great time with her and she helped us a LOT this summer.
This is a picture of Jacob around 2 months old. James loves to kiss on him and here he is kissing on his feet. James has become very affectionate with Jacob.
Okay so Jacob looks really goofy here but this is a photo of all three playing together.
Can you feel the love?

Since these pictures, Jacob has grown a lot. He is getting close to 15 pounds and is definitely the baby in the family. He smiles all the time (started smiling around 4 weeks) and blows raspberries too. He will even imitate raspberries. He is starting to poop more than once a week but still doesn't sleep super great during the day. He did nap for three hours in the bouncer today but forget about it in the bed. 45 minutes is the most he will do in his bed during the day. At night he will sleep for 11-12 hours and wake up once for a business feeding. He is holding his head up well and meets his hands at midline. He is starting to try to reach for items and LOVEs this (kind of ugly) red bird Carol got him. For the past 2-3 weeks he has been drooling up a storm. Way earlier drooling than the other kids. He has crazy hair (must be a male trait in our household) and his eyes are still blue.

My New Computer

I am in love once again. This time with a Mac. Jim and I got new computers and we went with Apples and we very very happy with the decision. I got a MacBook Pro. I do not think we will ever go back to a PC. We signed up for a year of personal service called One to One. It's like the Help on the computer only in person. Tomorrow I am going in to the Apple Store for a class on using iPhoto. I am taking Sophia with me. They have a station for kids where there are about 4-6 computers set up just for kids to play on while their parents take classes or get help. I think she will love it. If anyone is getting a computer soon, I would recommend an Apple. Did you know you can run Windows from an Apple and there is also Microsoft Office for Windows? I didn't know I was so far behind the times!

Quickie

Here is the quick new around our house:

Our two year old (James) had a stand-off with his Daddy tonight. He wanted to use the keys to open the door, he did not get to and as a result he screamed in the garage so the whole neighborhood would hear his complaint. In return, Daddy held his milk for ransom. It was an ugly battle but Daddy won and James is in bed with no milk, no stories, no Bible and a quick goodnight kiss.

Jacob is 11 weeks old and weighs in at 13 lbs and 8 oz. He is looking a little like a linebacker and is oh so cute. He laughed today for the first time when we played pat-a-cake. I love it!

Sophia started to randomly do math problems at dinner yesterday. She is actually pretty good and can do simple math like 2+3, 8+1, 45+0, etc. I don't know where she learned this (I asked her teacher and she said they haven't done addition yet) but I am assuming it is just the natural genius that she inherited from her mother :)

Jim is nailing down his details to Big Ben National Park. He is getting excited about the trip while I am getting anxious that he is going to be gone.

My update is that I have a cold, a yucky green gunk in your lungs cold. Cough Cough.

Another Month

Another month has flown by. It is amazing how time speeds up with the more kids you have! Here is what is new:

Sophia has graduated from Gymboree this past week. She has loved it and so have we. She will have her last soccer lesson next week. She doesn't really like soccer and wants to try swim class again. Swim begins next week. Ballet will begin in September and she is already practicing her twirling. Sophia has a "meet the teacher/practicing school day" next week. Mom and Dad are very excited for that! Sophia continues to be a great help around the house. She has started to chew on her hair (a stress issue that has developed since Jacob's birth). Tomorrow we are getting her hair cut to her shoulders.

James has definitely reached the Terrible Twos! One moment he is sweet and fun and the next he is screaming and mean. He is super cute though when he says, "I sorry Mom. I sorry." What a sweet innocent voice!! He knows how to push my buttons though and I realize I have been giving in too much. So, we are going to start sticking to what we say and that's that!! James is moving on up in Gymboree and is continuing with soccer. His "meet the teacher" is next week too. We are very excited and hope he doesn't get kicked out of school....just joking!! (kind of) Ahh, to be the middle child...wait... I am!!

Okay, so Jacob. My sweet sweet Jacob. He had his two month checkup today. He is 12 pounds 13 ounces and is almost 24 inches long. He coos all the time (his favorite is "Ah Goo"). He loves smiling at faces and rolls from belly to back. He loves his bath time and you can lay him down completely awake at night time and he will put himself to sleep. Napping during the day is slowly starting to take place, although he will only nap for 45 minutes at a time in his crib but will nap for 3+ hours in his car seat. He is ADORABLE! Now all he has to do is to sleep through the night (he still gets up twice to eat). Needless to say I am tired every morning! On the bright side though, he has reached the 8 week mark which means we can take him out in public now. (For those of you who don't know, Jim has a strict policy of keeping newborns away from the public for the first 8 weeks. He has too many bad stories from the ER of newborns getting exposed to too many bad germs at an early age).

I am doing well. I see my cardiologist next week so hopefully he gives me the all clear and I can start working out to shed all of the baby weight I have gained over the past 4 years. Bedtime by myself when Jim is working has taken on a routine and isn't stressful any more (as long as everyone cooperates). I just bought my first coffee maker which I am really excited about. Now I am just counting down the months for when I stop nursing and I can have caffeine and wine again.

Jim is hanging in there as well. He is doing great when he is off of work but on weeks when he works he is dog tired. The ER continues to be extremely busy which I guess is good because it means Jim will always have a job but it is wearing him out. One night this week he had to work a double because there were so many people to see he couldn't go home when the other doc came in to relieve him. He finally made it out of there after working 13 hours. YUK! He did give an interview to the newspaper this week so that will be interesting to read the article.

Other family news...we are thinking of taking the kids to Disney this year (James and Jacob are free so that is helping with the decision). But we might decide to take a more relaxing vacation back down to the condos at Marco Island. We don't know! We did take a trip to Holiday World this past week and had a WONDERFUL time. Thanks Mary for the food and lodging!

Time Flies

Time certainly flies by now that there are 3 little ones running around the house. I will do a little catching up. Jacob is one month old now and he had his check-up today. He weighs 10 pounds 8 ounces and is 22 1/2 inches long. That means he has grown 2 1/2 inches in a month! He is eating great and sleeping well at night, only getting up twice to eat. He is starting to smile at us and is getting spoiled already by everyone!

Sophia is at science camp this week and loves it. She only has 2 more weeks of summer ballet and she loves ballet too.

James is loving hanging out with Mommy and Daddy. He has become my little shopping buddy. When I run errands, he comes with me and Sophia stays home to help take care of Jacob.

I go back to the doctor in 2 more weeks. Otherwise I am fine.

Jim is working like a dog lately. More and more people are coming into the ER for care. It has been busy but he is hanging in there.

In the next two weeks we are getting irrigation put into the yard (Finally!) and a new cabinet insert in the pantry. That's about it for the house projects for the year. Now we can start saving for projects for next year, which includes the laundry room.

No vacations scheduled yet except for Holiday World but Sophia and I are working on Jim for Disney World. It doesn't look promising though.

Jacob Henry Beeson

So in case you haven't heard or haven't received any Snapfish pictures (which if you do please send me your email), Jacob Henry Beeson arrived on June 12 at 5:11 pm. He weighed 8 pounds and is 20 inches long. He has lots of dark brown hair. He is very cute! Labor was super easy and quiet/relaxing. We sat around and talked until it was time to push. Even the OB doc sat with us for 45 minutes (it was slow on the OB floor) and we did some shopping while we waiting too. All very relaxing. James and Sophia love him very much. James kisses him all the time and Sophia is a great big helper.