Harper, Roman and I enjoyed our first morning at the pool, while Portman and Ada stayed home and napped. The kids had a great time and Harper was very enthusiastic about swimming… finally! Roman was more timid, but had fun once he saw Harper in the water. Harper was very confused about her 2-piece suit and kept trying to pull the two pieces together to cover her tummy. Although, she somehow managed to still show everyone her tush!

Roman has recently started talking a lot (finally!), and like a typical boy, it’s mostly about poop.

Roman: “Ewe, yuck poop!”
Me: “You’re doing a poop?”
(several minutes of grunting)
Roman: “Ta-da poop!”

Roman: “Baby Ada!!! Baby Ada ewe yuck poop.”

Must. Keep. Blogging.

I’ve obviously had a hard time keeping up with this blog over the past few weeks, but I do have some time this morning to share a few tidbits from the past week. To lead off, Harper has been saying some really funny things this week. I have to constantly remind myself not to drop f-bombs or any other inappropriate words in front of her because she is clearly parroting me! Here are a few of my favorites from this week:

Holding a box of mac n’ cheese at 3:30 in the afternoon:

“Mom, seriously, you HAVE to let me eat dis!”

Trying to get her pj’s on:

“Good lord! I can’t get dis on!”

Responding to me yelling at her to hurry up:

“Chill out, mom! I’m getting my shoes!”

Shouting from the potty:

“I’m done! I did poopies! You can say ‘holy cow’ now!”

Last weekend Ya Ya and Pop Pop came up for a visit, and we took the kids to Burke Lake Park for a picnic and train ride. Ever since then, Harper and Roman have been staging “choo choo picnics” in the living room. They lay out a blanket and Harper serves them play food from her kitchen while Roman drives a Thomas train around the blanket. It occupies them for a LONG time and is so cute!

Here are some recent photos of everyone. I also haven’t had much time for picture-taking, but I manage to get a few every now and then.

I thought this was really funny for some reason – the barricade in the middle of the tub. They end up like this almost every night!

Playing choo-choos while wearing choo-choo pj’s. That’s about as fun as it gets!

 
Ada turned two weeks old this week, and we sort of feel like we are getting the hang of things. It turns out that 3 kids is a lot of work! I’ve been very lucky to have Portman home a lot more than usual for the past few weeks – I literally could not have done it without him.

Of the three kids, Ada is definitely the easiest as an infant. She is super easy-going, only wakes up once at night and hardly ever cries. However, she eats. A LOT. Approximately every 1.5-2 hours during the day, which is probably why she sleeps so well at night! The biggest challenge for me has been to keep up with her feeding schedule while making sure the other kids also get the attention they need. Getting out during the day is next to impossible unless Portman is home and at least one of the kids can stay with him (usually during a nap).

Despite the challenges, it has been so much fun to have Ada home. She really is an easy baby, and she tolerates lots of aggressive hugs and kisses from her brother and sister. Harper absolutely dotes on her and is constantly saying things like “she’s so cute!” and “can I just touch her?” When friends or family are over, she instructs them on how to (and not to) hold her, and is very protective of her baby sister. It’s absolutely adorable. Roman, on the other hand, has started throwing a lot more temper tantrums. We’re not sure if it’s just 2-year-old behavior or jealousy, but it has definitely gotten worse over the past few weeks. He is also super clingy with me, and if I am home he will scream if another adult (grandparent, babysitter) tries to help him – like put him to bed or help him out of his high chair. I suspect that the constant stream of visitors hasn’t helped, and hopefully we will get back to a normal routine and he will snap out of it soon!

We had Ada’s 2-week checkup on Tuesday and she weighed an impressive 9 pounds 1 ounce (94th percentile) and was 21.5 inches long (99th percentile). She had gained nearly 11 ounces in 8 days! She is a BIG baby. To put it in perspective, she is approximately the same size that Harper was at 8 weeks! She is absolutely adorable and I just can’t hold her enough. Since (a) we don’t have a bedroom for her, and (b) she is the 3rd baby and we are well versed in baby sleep habits, we didn’t even try to put her in a crib or bassinette to sleep. She sleeps in our bed every night and I’m not sure that I’ll be able to handle putting her in a crib when we move – I just love snuggling with her all night long!

In other news, Roman’s speech just exploded over the past few days. A week ago he was only saying one-word “sentences” and most of the time it was in Roman-speak. For example, he would say “dee-tee” for juice and/or Toy Story (the movie). About two days ago he decided to start talking, and now he says 2-3 word sentences that we can actually understand, and his vocabulary increased from 20 words to an infinite number of words. He is repeating everything we say and genuinely wants to talk. It is so darn cute!

Here are a few recent pictures of the kiddos. I uploaded a ton to Smugmug this morning if you want more than just a taste! A special thanks to Uncle Luke for taking some gorgeous photos of the kids on The Lawn.

Decorating Daddy’s birthday cake. Harper did the sprinkles, Roman did the tasting:

Sometimes TV can be educational:

“Daddy, do you know that owls are noc-turtle?”

And sometimes I question her intelligence altogether:

Harper: “We don’t ride music notes.”
Me: “We don’t? What do we ride?”
Harper: “Dragons. Can I smell Ada’s tush?”
Me: “Sure.”
Harper: “Hmm. No poop.”

Learning about nursing:

“Mommy, do you like it when da new baby eats you?” (5 minutes later) “Mommy, are you a healthy choice for da new baby?”

Packing for her trip to TX with Daddy:

“Mommy, you and Ada need to come wif us on da airplane because we are all fwee girls and we need to be together.”

And…drumroll… our first official Romanism:

Portman: “What would you like for lunch?”
Roman: “Two treat.”