Girls' Hair-- the fake french braid

I wanted to try something with Lanie's hair that would look like a french braid but wouldn't be as difficult, so I tried this. I don't love it, but it's cute enough to repeat. Afterword I looked at videos on youtube, and they included a ribbon. I think I'll try that next time. Anywho...

Here's the final look...

After parting the hair and generous spraying, you start with a small ponytail in the front, at a diagonal.

Then you grab another section at the diagonal...

And put it in a ponytail. It will start to have the look of a french braid.

Keep going...

Keep going until you reach where you want to end. I only wanted to do half-up.

Then you do the other side. Make sure you keep the ponytails in line, and the sections have to be even.

Here's the completed look.

I don't love it, but I'm going to try and tweek it a little bit. Stay tuned for some variations. :)

The Paci Fairy

We finally got rid of the paci for Lanie. The paci fairy visited our house...

Our Little Lucky Charm

Did you know that...

Rett has clover-shaped kidneys?

True story. When I was 37 weeks prego they did an ultrasound on me in which they saw that Rett has clover-shaped kidneys. When they told me this, I asked what that could mean, and they were SO helpful and said, "I have no clue." Awesome. They said the best way to figure everything out was to do an ultrasound around 2 months after he was born.

Don't worry, he's okay. Really. But read along if you want the long-story version.

Here's what a regular kidney looks like...

Rett's have little constrictions that make the I guess binding around the kidney come in to make a slight clover shape.

Anywho, that first day in the hospital after giving birth, they really wanted to see if he would pee. It took him all day that first day, but he did pee, and he's been peeing ever since. haha. :)

Since he was peeing regularly, they weren't terribly concerned and when Rett was about 2 months old we took him in for an ultrasound so they could really monitor the kidneys and see if they were functioning properly.

They were functioning fine, so they said that just to be sure that he's perfectly normal, they wanted to do another ultrasound at 4 months to make sure that the levels and whatnot are the same as at 2 months. They said scary things about kidney failure not being detectable especially in newborns and that it would be safest to do another ultrasound to be completely sure.

We did that ultrasound a week ago, and he was fine. Yay! They wouldn't let me take a pic of his kidneys, I don't know why.

He's our very own little good luck charm. And perfectly healthy! :)

I am Woman, Hear me Roar

I have wanted to redo the living room for a while now. I had the toys in Rett's room, and the girls could never put their toys away because he was sleeping. I wanted to bring the toys back into the living room.

Brandon wasn't so excited about the idea of moving everything around so I did it behind his back-- I mean, surprised him when he went out of town on Monday. :)

Here is what our living room used to look like...

One of the problems was that darn doll house. The girls love playing with it, but there was no place for it.

I also wanted to put the rocking chair back into Rett's room, and this is the wall I wanted to put all the toys on.

The new living room... The TV and bookshelf on this wall...

The long couch by the windows...

The new toy wall. Behind the curtain is that Doll House. Thank goodness I can cover it up when the girls aren't using it.

I put those cabinets together in the morning, and Lexi helped me organize the toys into the bins, which she was VERY excited about. Like mother, like daughter. :) Then I had my friend Ron come over and get the shelves up for the turtle cage. That was really nice because I would have done a terrible job getting those shelves up. I went to Home Depot, got the wood cut, painted them black, and bought the brackets. But I had NO idea how to put them up properly. I also had Vanessa come over and help me with the girls while Ron did the shelves.

The bins needed the tags so the girls can put their own toys away, so I looked up pictures online, had them printed, then put the pics on scrapbook paper, laminated them and tied them with ribbon, and put them on the right bins. I think they turned out kinda cute. :)

And don't worry, Brandon LOVES it. :)

All About Rett

I can't believe Rett is 5 months old already! That is totally crazy to me. I still want him to be my little baby. :(

Rett at his 4-month checkup was in the 10th percentile or something, but I'm not too sure about those statistics when they're so little. One squirm or miscalculation and they can be in the 10th or 90th percentile. Either way we love him. And he's quickly growing out of his 3-6 month clothes.

He's interested in all things technology. He'll look at any phone, computer, or tv nearby. And he loves his bumbo because he can see everything.

He was facing one way in his bumbo and I dared walk behind him instead of in front of him. He was following me the whole time I was walking around him. :)

He sleeps at least 8 hours, sometimes 9 or 10, and then another 4 after I feed him. He's pretty awesome that way. He sleeps in the crib at night, but in the swing during the day.

And lately he sticks his tongue out when he smiles. It's pretty hilarious.

His tongue is out 24/7 so his shirt is wet all. the. time. And man, he has a long tongue!

He LOVES his sisters. He loves it when they talk to him and try to make him smile. If anyone gives him attention, he's happy. But for some reason he's not high maintenance about attention, which is good. He sits right next to me in the bumbo while I'm making dinner and he's happy just to watch me. He's my little buddy. :)

He gets all excited when Jake and the Neverland Pirates comes on, which is so funny to me. He's already a total boy. He tries to find where the sound is coming from. :)

He is such a good little boy. He's calm, happy, and content. Except at church. We're still working on that. :)

We love our Baby Rett!

Lanie singing

1) Yes, Lane is behind in her speech. It's okay, so was Lex. She'll keep progressing. 2) This is her singing voice. It's hard to explain what that means but to me it's funny. 3) Hakuna Matata is ten times better with a 3-yr-old singing it. :)

Rett Laughing

How can you resist a baby laughing video?

Lanie's birthday cake

Here's Lanie blowing out the candles on her cake. Last month. I'm terrible, I know.

Lexi's Talk

Lexi gave a talk in February about choosing the right. When she did it in church, she froze and got scared. I think it's because we didn't go to the church to practice this time. I've learned my lesson. We have to go to the church to practice or she gets scared. But she did really well at home!