So, ya....

It might have been {just shy of} two months since I posted last. Oops. First there was nothing to report, then we had company, then the Olympics...

Well, Mark is 10 weeks old now. I know. He's a little peanut still, 11.5 lbs at his 2 month appointment. :)  The first 8 weeks were hard. Harder than I expected, to be completely honest. I got spoiled with Ryan and Jack as they were both such easy, go-with-the-flow, quick nursing babies. Mark was not. :) Mark is a "spitter"--and it is constant. He is small so just couldn't eat as much as I wanted him to, which meant he took longer to sleep longer stretches. BUT, we are in a good place now. He eats every 3 hours during the day, then 11:30 pm, and not again until 8 am, so I am happy to announce my re-entry to the land of the living. Unfortunate that the Olympics have kept me up so late as my sleep deficit has, as yet, not improved. :) 

A quick recap...I pretty much holed up for June with my mom's help (both coming here and taking the big kids to their house for a week) with the exception of VBS (or "PBS kids" according to Ryan). My mother in law came to visit for a week and we took our first major excursion out--to the Childrens Museum. My parents left for France for a month so we kinda holed up again. I did manage to make it to the pool a handful of times with the kids. Since I was stuck at home anyway I decided to jump in to potty training Jack. Praise the Lord, he took to it really well and was trained in a day or so with very few accidents. Very exciting and proud of him! My streak remains--I still have never had a baby love the carseat. Grr. Mark seems to be getting better. I keep having talks with him that his life is about to be lived in his carseat. We'll see. :) We did a good job of reading every day and spent plenty of time in the backyard in the sprinkler and slip and slide. I tried to work on Ryan's handwriting and Anna-Kate's math facts/flash cards. It didn't occur as much as I'd planned, but I figure ever little bit helps, right? :) I'm missing some pictures in the big iphone download, but here are a recent couple.

Anna-Kate is a super helper! Despite his intense scared look, Mark adores her. :) 

Our special breakfast date (at the ever so classy Waffle House, or "Wa-Ho" if you prefer)
to celebrate her heading to 1st grade!

We've been dropping Jack's nap to aid in easier bed times with the boys sharing a room (and school starting) and also so he is used to not getting one (more than a little car cat-nap) with so much carpool coming up. It's caught up to him. 

At the zoo!

The last few weeks I"ve made a concerted effort to do fun stuff with the kids before school starts back--especially since it's been a pretty laid back {or...boring...} summer. We went to the Disney Store and then had Chick-fil-A at the food court, we've been to the childrens museum, Six Flags a couple of times and went to the zoo. Thankful for friends and family who come to help--I'm still not quite a "one-[wo]man show" yet. :)