Insta-tandem

We picked up this sweet insta-tandem bike from craigslist. Tyler and I negotiated this jump a few times at Northgate. He's kinda grown out of the trailer and Kira's too small, so Heidi pushes her in the stroller and I ride with da boyz.

Scott's Boomerang in Concord

Rock City

We live about 5 minutes from this beautiful state park. FYU, state parks are free this week due to earth day. Not that they are too expensive otherwise, but still. It takes about 15 minutes to get up the mountain. Originally we were going to go to Big Sur, but due to no campsites available went up the street to Mount Diablo State Park for a day trip. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed every minute of it. We headed strait to Rock City where the boys enjoyed climbing the rocks, driving RC cars over the rocks, chasing lizards, going on adventures and climbing trees. I got to read a little, Danny, Tyler and Kira got a nap and our day was a success.

Tyler would climb the rocks, get to a perfect spot, throw his car and go retrieve it before doing it all over again. He loves playing with his little cars.

We told the boys not to play with the red ants and Tyler got so scared of them for about 15 minutes that all he wanted to do was be held. It was quite silly. He is never scared of things, especially insects.

Scott found a hole to play in.

Kira did quite well in the baby bjorn which made hiking much easier.

The lizard we never caught. All Scott wants to do is catch the lizards in our court, at camping, wherever we are and of course we can never do it. Any hints??

Climbing trees. Scott is getting pretty good at climbing. Tyler is lucky to get about 2 feet about the ground.

3 Weeks Old

I can tell that Kira will be my second easiest baby. Tyler gets the cake on difficult after his sludge/stones tummy pains for 6 months, Scott was chill and Miss Kira is chill with a little bit of fussy. Mommy McMillan is diagnosing it with not liking the fire hose vomiting thing and a minor case of colic. 5pm to 8 pm is the worse. She scrunches her little legs up and is just uncomfortable. It is sad to see. The medicine seems to help with not spitting up when she lays flat. She spits up like a normal child now. It took a couple of friends to tell me her vomiting was beyond a little spit up and she probably has colic at night. I think everything is just fine and dandy after Tyler and Carl until people tell me her behavior isn't normal. What would I do without friends? The worse part is to see her in pain and at night feeding her, burping her and everything coming up just to start all over with a hungry baby. I guess any routine takes too long at night when you want your beauty sleep. If it doesn't improve by 6 weeks, maybe I will request an upper GI to give me peace of mind that there is nothing we can do to help alleviate the problem except wait. We shall see. We are grateful that is all that we have to deal with.

As far as motherhood with three goes, I am loving it!! The boys relationship is getting closer and closer. They are sleeping the in the same bed right now and it is fun to hear them talk and play before going to bed. Eventually Scott tells me to come in and tell Tyler that he needs to go to bed because his brother is tired. The downside of sharing a room is that the boys never get the sleep they need and it usually results in added fussiness during the day. We need to do a better job at getting them down to bed earlier. I love that they are such good friends and so close in age. It is so great having two of the same sex in a row. So fun to see their relationship grow.

I feel like I have my time with Kira when the boys are playing. Scott was difficult because everything was so new. We were serving in the spanish branch so didn't have immediate friends and play groups to go to that Mormon Mommies are so blessed to have in wards. I know wherever I go, I will have immediate friends from church with kids which is such a wonderful feeling. When I went out with him, I planned how long I would be out, where I would nurse him and if I could do it. Now that is all so second nature. It is such a wonderful feeling to realize you can just go and worse comes to worse use a t-shirt from the car with some fancy knots if you run out of diapers. I have only done that once with one of my children and it wasn't Kira.

So I feel I am on cloud 9. I have four wonderful children. I have felt Carl close by lately for some reason which is such a wonderful, humbling feeling. Sometimes it brings me to tears to realize that he is close by and watching out for our family. I no longer envision him to be a baby. I envision he is in the spirit world working and with loved ones. I can only think I feel him more because we have such a new spirit in our home. I can only imagine that she is surrounded by numerous angels. I love being a mom. I love the increased love and joy you feel with each one. I have energy and feel wonderful. It is amazing!! I didn't feel great during my pregnancy, so now I feel I can conquer the world. We are doing a lot of fun things and taking advantage of how easy it is to haul a newborn around. They don't get into anything. All they want is to be held, rocked, burped changed and fed. I love how she looks at me. It is priceless!!

We had a great day at the Chabot Space and Science Center in the Oakland Hills. They have a great planetarium. We saw a kids show about a cardboard box visiting the planets and I learned a lot as did Scott. It was fun. Here are the kids playing in the kids room.

Sitting in a spaceship.

Where's Tyler??

Mini Astronaut excercises. The kids aren't quite tall enough so made up their own which consisted of splits.

It was a great day except for Danny being in quite a bit of pain. Of course this little one who we LOVE.

Pure Love!!

Can't tell you how much those smiles brighten my day. I laugh just looking at how happy Scott seems holding his sister. Little ones are truly heaven sent and bring a sweet spirit into the home.

Visit from Grammy and Grampy

Danny's parents came to visit and help with this little munchkin....

And I had my camera with me for the whole week. My resolution is going AWESOME and now I have pictures to prove I actually do things as a mom. And remind me it is full of fun, excitement, frustration, love, exhaustion and of course TOTALLY WORTH IT. Danny and I are in a stage of life that we usually love each other and our kids so much. Some of it is because of the challenges we have had. They have made us appreciate life so much and we are so grateful for our many blessings. We really feel undeserving of how great our life is. We wouldn't change the things we have been through or will go through, both good and bad, because they make us who we are and appreciate what life is all about.

We had so much fun having Grammy and Grampy with us. The boys talked about them coming for weeks. We all had so much fun having them and can't wait to see them again. Danny's dad could only come for the weekend because of work, so Tyler called Grammy Grampy all week. It was pretty funny and he just didn't get that she was Grammy.

Grammy making easter eggs with the boys. They had a great time hunting for the eggs and an even better time eating all the candy. I think Tyler inhailed a pound of candy in record time.

Of course we went on bike rides. Too bad there isn't a car seat adapter for a bike trailer. I guess that would be dangerous. I see jogging in my future to keep up with the boys. We got a tag-a-long for Tyler which is awesome.

Grammy and Grampy tried out the RC cars.

Enjoyed pre-school day at the Lindsay Wildlife Musuem. The theme was babies...how perfect is that? Here are the kids learning all about baby mice. They loved making horse and bird prints with their feet and paint. It was a lot of fun with so many projects and fun things to do.
Sunbathing to try to get rid of her jaundice. My first baby with jaundice. What a great thing she was born in March. One more reason to love a spring baby!!

We went to the city and played at the Academy of Science. Danny had the afternoon off and we enjoyed a beautiful day at the park with him.

Went to the visitors center at the temple and watched the little videos that Scott loves and the Testament in the Little Theatre. I love having the visitor center. There are usually only a couple people there and so many things to do with the kids. So grateful for eternal families!!

Did I mention we love this little one??

A LOT!!

Oakland Zoo Day. We all loved the monkey's.

And of course holding baby Kira. Love that girl. It won't be long before she will actually be enjoying all these fun outings instead of sleeping through them. Enjoying the ease of the infant stage (except for getting up every 2 hours at night, feeling like I am a milk machine, and a million dirty diapers).

Thanks so much for such a great week Grammy and Grampy. You guys are the best and our kids had so much fun.