We keep very busy around here, which leaves me very tired at night (hence why my posts seem down to one a month, at best!).  We hit temperatures in the 90s last week, and thankfully, come this past weekend, we were back into true spring weather with 60s and 70s.  Winter is but a faint memory now!

This year, we started a very big vegetable garden:

We have plans (or have already planted) for: spinach, onions, parsnips, turnips, okra, cauliflower, broccoli, asparagus, brussel sprouts, leeks, shallots, tomatillos, cucumbers, zucs, spaghetti squash, sweet peppers, and are always thinking of more!

 Now that the kids are a little bigger, we’re playing outside more!

(testing out mommy’s new camera on my phone)

Evie and her friend Charlotte (they’re 5 months apart)

Briana and Mikey playing very nicely together

(this was taken soon after hearing about the bombings in Boston, made it that much sweeter)

The kids love their little bikes, scooters and the family wagon–even more now that they are big enough to  pull each other around!

Chalk never gets old!!

We are happy to say farewell to winter in exchange for nicer weather, shorts, and outdoor time!

A friend of mine who is a bit older than I, but also had 3 kids in 3 years mentioned to me once that I needed to take plenty of pictures of Evelyn, because I will not remember most of her first year.  She’s been right in some ways, because I can’t believe that Evelyn is already 7 months old, but I also have quite a few down moments in the day where I can do things like watch her sleep, or just snuggle quietly with her (that usually happens at 4a.m….).

At her 6 month appointment Evelyn weighed in just shy of 16lbs (50%) but also 28 inches (90%!)!  She is already wearing 9 month clothes solely for the length factor and if the outfit has footies attached, her feet barely fit!  Who wants to wager when she’ll outgrow Briana in shoe size?

She has started eating solids, though through talking with a friend, we’ve done very few purees and gone the baby led weaning route.  Basically, Evie eats what we eat in whatever way she can (usually sucking on it until it’s dissolved or mashed up).  In the few weeks she’s been doing this, she’s become quite the pro at picking up food, chewing and not freaking me out waiting for a choking to occur–turns out when they learn how to chew this early, choking risks are lower.  So she’s had crazy things like sarmi (ground beef stuffed cabbage w/cauliflower), she loves to suck on bell pepper sticks, and she gobbles up black beans, bananas, scrambled eggs, steamed carrots and sweet potato bits.

She has also started sitting on her own since our visit to Chicago in February.  I think she saw a friend’s son doing it, and since then has been on her own sitting and bouncing in place!  It makes life a bit easier for me too.

No big words yet, but she makes Steve’s day when she Dadadadas at him.  She still has such a sweet demeanor and can melt your heart with her big chubby smile.  Though time is flying, I still love how baby she is, and let her spend a little extra time chewing on her toes or rolling around; those days will soon be gone!

Oh, and she’s still fairly bald, but I have a feeling she’s going to get some curls someday soon.  Just a feeling!

Back in January, Steve and I decided to change our eating habits.  We never really watched what we ate, loved desserts (a LOT), and we were also coming off back to back babies!  So needless to say, we’d both gained a good amount of weight in the first five years of our marriage.  So Steve proposed a change our eating habits to a form called paleo or primal.  It’s a lot of meats, veggies, and eggs; and an elimination of all grains (there’s more to it, but that’s the simplest I can put it).  Thanks to Pinterest and the mass amounts of paleo recipes out there, we have eaten well!

(this was our meal eating brussel sprouts for the first time EVER!)

We don’t eat much of any dairy anymore either, but when we do, it’s when we make cauliflower crust pizza!

And we have a donut maker now to make almond flour donuts:

 Since I was already 8 weeks pregnant, I was looking to maintain a healthy weight (I gained about 60 and 45 pounds with Briana and Mikey, and didn’t lose much weight in between pregnancies!) and Steve was looking to lose weight in general.

Check out the difference of how I looked during each pregnancy!

8 months with Briana (yikes):

8 months with Mikey:

At the beach with the kids while 7.5 months pregnant with Evelyn:

And here I am just before giving birth to Evelyn (like 2 hours before!):

Well, 12 months later, Steve has lost 50 pounds and I only gained about 20 pounds during my pregnancy, but lost 45 pounds after delivering Evelyn (25 pounds off my pre-pregnancy weight).  Here’s a before and after of us (a not pregnant me)!

 BEFORE (April 2011)

AFTER (December 2012)

Since this isn’t a “diet” but a change in diet, we’ll keep eating like this going forward.  The kids still have things like crackers and goodies every once in a while, but Briana and Mikey definitely enjoy the paleo meals we make–Mikey loves having eggs every morning, Briana can rival Steve in bacon, berries, or sausage eating, and I now have to make 2 batches of paleo donuts on weekends to make sure there’s enough for ME when I finally get to the table where I’ve put the plate of goodies!

Steve is about 20 pounds lighter than from our wedding day, and I’ve got about 15 more pounds to lose before I get there.  But now that I’m no longer doing rebound pregnancies, I feel like I can get back into a good workout routine…one of these days.  The kids think that I’m a jungle gym if I’m on the floor working out, and I wake up so early with the kids that setting an alarm to get up before them isn’t even an option in my book!  We’ll just have to see what happens this next year, but 2013 will hopefully be a healthy one once again!  I know giving up grains (aka breads, pastries, corn, etc.) is hard, but if you’re looking into a new years resolution, think about giving this a chance instead of counting calories and starving yourself (we don’t count cals–we eat when we’re hungry until we’re not…and all the bacon you can handle!).

Steve and I like to decorate our Christmas tree together and enjoy some couple time alone (especially now!) enjoying our work.  These days, we have little helper elves!

But we still got our alone time in to enjoy our family tree

While we don’t like to be away from family during the holidays, we really don’t like to travel during them either.  Add 3 kids to that equation, and we’re perfectly content sitting in our pj’s on Christmas day–all day!

But, we thankfully have my Aunt Linda, Uncle Matt, and cousin Joey just 45 minutes away!  So for 5 of the past 6 years, we’ve celebrated Christmas together, along with Matt’s sister’s family.  This year was very loud as another kid, another college student, and comings and goings were added to the mix!

It was quite warm too this year!

Just a few years ago, we had to push my car 2 blocks just to get it onto tractionable road to get home!  Almost got snowed in!

 Everyone’s getting so big!  We enjoyed the usual big Italian feast cooked by my Aunt Linda, and opened gifts with the kids.  Good thing we gifted a black lab ornament to the Cimentos…because Mikey broke the legs off a few others :-/

We’re always thankful for family in the area to spend the holidays with!  We can’t wait for Grandma to come visit over her break!!

As I try very very hard to make sure Evelyn is given solo attention at home, I should make a better effort here on the blog too!!  She had her 4 month appointment the other day, and I left the office on the phone with Steve telling him to line up recruiters from Penn State’s women’s Volleyball team!

Evie weighed in at 14.6 pounds (50-70%), and 26 inches long (90%)!  I knew she was a bigger baby by how fast she was growing out of her clothes, but didn’t think she was that long!  I thankfully have a girlfriend who has very tall babies who has handed down pajamas to us, so we’re all set.  She’s even able to sit in the bouncer now (both Briana and Mikey needed a pillow beneath them to reach the ground!).

Evie continues to be a VERY well mannered baby that is content to hang out amidst the chaos of terrible 2s and potty training.  She’s very smiley lately, and especially likes it when Briana sings to her or when Mikey lays on the floor next to her and lets her poke at his face a bit.  Overall, Evelyn is a very healthy (most important) and happy baby who brings lots of joy and calm to our ever busy lives!

We have had a very busy November, but one full of thankfulness!  At the beginning of the month, we headed up to Delaware to participate in our first 5k (notice I didn’t say “run”) in honor of my late boss, Josh Hardin.  I think we did great, considering we were pushing about 100lbs of kids!

Also at the start of the month, we began potty training Briana.  We’ve tried previously, but there have been some big life changes for her at those times (experts tend to advise staying away from training during these times)–2 babies were born and we moved once!  So far, so good.  She has her good moments, and also her oopsies moments when she’s deep in play.

We attempted to take family pictures, but the kids were amicable at different points, so none of the family pictures really turned out.  However, we got a few funny pictures of a certain sassy little girl:

We also had our family grow by another four legs!  Friends of ours had to give up their dog, Jade, and she is the same breed as Ditka, so we felt like it would be a good mesh of doggy personalities.  So far so good…though she’s a shoe chewer, and we have lost 2 pairs of shoes already.  But I have to say our house is the most picked up it’s ever been–so maybe it’s a good thing we have to be this tidy!

For Thanksgiving, we gave up control, and headed to our friends, the Sauters, for a great time of food and fun!   We rested and hung out in this nice weather for Black Friday–I worked enough years of retail to keep me far, far away from the stores!

Today, Steve and I headed to the NRA headquarters to take a shooting course together and spent time shooting at the range.  We had a great time, and after getting warmed up, I ended up with a few pretty good targets:

December is going to be the month of outings for just me and Steve, so we’re really looking forward to those moments.  But I love December because as the kids are getting older, we get to experience more special holiday moments with them!

My baby boy is 2!  Boy did this past year really seem to fly!  It’s been a busy one, filled with a lot of activity, but Mikey has grown in so many ways!

You finished up perfecting your head–and got your helmet off in December!  You went through a bit of a transition period after that, learning how to walk without the few extra ounces of weight on your head…and had the bruises to show for it!

You put the first stamp on your passport, as you traveled to England!  You also showed us that you don’t like traveling on planes, though we’ll cut you a break, you just got tubes put into your ears, so we have no idea if that flight was painful for you.  I guess we can say you also had your first taste of whiskey, because we tried EVERYTHING to alleviate your tooth and ear pain!  Skinnycow Icecream is what eventually did the trick!

You also welcomed a baby sister in August!  You’ve been such a loving little brother, after you got over the first few weeks of shock of someone else crying in the house.  You like to hold her everyday, and now respond to her cries with, “Iz owkay babeeeey.”  You insist on kissing her anytime she’s at your height too!

You have shown us that you are very strong willed and opinionated, but you have a quiet snuggly side to you too!  We’ve watched you examine child safety locks before figuring them out (instead of just trying to bust them open), and you now know your ABCs and can count to 10!  I think you’re going to be a tinker-er like your daddy.  But you also like to do silly things like chew on crayons and chalk still, and you have a new habit of climbing up walls by hanging on doorknobs which makes us shake our heads.  We are learning to embrace your adventurous nature by letting you do so much more (and say “no” less to things that scare us) and letting you learn on your own.

We wish you a fun filled year ahead, and love you so much!

Well, we survived our craziness!  We spent 64 hours on the road with our 3 little ones and have lived to write about it!

The ride to St. Louis (our first stop), was a little hairy because Mikey slept wrong and kinked up his neck.  After a night’s rest in the Lou, we were off to Colorado.  We were all exhausted by the time we hit the Colorado border:

But we were all really excited to get to the Thompson’s house and have the kids meet their cousin Faith!

We spent the first few days hanging out, going to the zoo, and visiting cousin Jake’s gravesite and new bench:

 Evelyn also got plenty of attention meeting new family members!

But not all family members love holding newborns!  We love giving cousin Mandi a hard time about her fear of newborns, that we make her hold one anytime we’re around!

After a few days in Denver, we headed down to Colorado Springs for Steve’s 10 year USAFA reunion.  It was a great time spent with friends

and hanging out around the Academy (Clune Arena below)

 On Saturday we went to watch some Falcon Football, joined by Judy and Clark (a huge help with climbing into the upper decks with 3 kids!!  Phew, that’s when the altitude hit me!)

Thanks to one of my mommy friends, her gift of a knit winter outfit came in handy on one of the colder days down in the Springs!  Isn’t Evie cute?

After our week in Colorado, we headed back to our halfway point and stayed with one of my bridesmaids and long time friend, Angela and her husband and daughter Adelaide.

Adelaide and Evelyn are 10 days apart–and seeing how Angela and I met at Lake Geneva Youth Camp, these girls are probably destined to be BFFs long distance and attend camp like we did.  But for now, they will have this 10 minute meeting as their only memory.  For now

Needless to say, we’re happy to be home.  Happy we went and saw all the people we saw–for many, we hadn’t seen them since our wedding five years ago!  Many have been to Iraq and Afghanistan and other countries — and back safely.  We were truly grateful for the hospitality of the Thompsons and Falconers who let us run amok in their houses!  Now, to get some rest…

As previously mentioned, Steve suggested to me a few weeks ago that I take a weekend away.  A Me-cation, a retreat, call it what you will.  Evelyn and I headed out on Friday night to Upper Marlboro, Maryland, to stay with our friend Miranda.  She greeted us with a warm hug and chocolates!

We headed right to bed, because the next morning, we headed out to Annapolis, Maryland.  Home to the US Naval Academy–I’ve been there before with Steve and my cousin Joey for an Air Force football game; but never got a chance to walk around the city–and it’s adorable and it’s on the Chesapeake Bay.  What more could you ask for?

We did a little shopping around town, and got back to Miranda’s house just in time to miss a tornado that went through the town we were last in! Yikes!  It made for a nice little storm to watch, and cozying up to watch the Air Force football game.  We watched it girl style–with cheese and sausages, mocktails, and salsa.  Evelyn loved it!

We parted ways the next morning, and headed to Tyson’s Corner Mall–to get in a bit of slow, leisurely shopping as well as meet up with our friend Lee!  We had lunch at Wasabi–a rotating sushi restaurant in the middle of the mall.  We loved it because you pick your sushi off the conveyor belt as you wish!  Plus, you can take your time and snuggle with a cute baby

Evelyn and I ended out our weekend by doing some shopping for some winter clothes for her.  She had a blast choosing some cute new onesies and dress.  We were both pretty tired by time we got home since we’d been walking all day!  But, it was nice to get away and spend some alone time with my youngest–who knows how often that’ll happen??

 The kids had a great time with Steve too–they loved talking about riding in daddy’s car, going to the farmer’s market on Saturday, and playing with our new friends in town (the friends we stayed with in England have moved back to the USA and just about 2 miles away!!).  They both went to bed each night exhausted from lots of daddy time–but at times couldn’t even stay awake in the car apparently!

We all had a nice little break from the norm…I wonder if Steve will do it again with all three one day so I can go on a girls weekend?  But for now, I’m just thankful for Steve’s service as a husband and daddy to give me a break from the chaos!