3 Months

Chloe is now 3 months old. If we thought 2 months was a cute age, 3 months is even better. She is so happy and alert and fun for everyone. Here are some pictures of her cuteness...

She's still pretty good about letting everyone hold her, but she just wants me when she's tired.

This picture cracks me up - Levi is putting her binky back in. He's so helpful.

 The boys have learned the best way to make her smile - rub her chin.

This picture is a little blurry, but I love Chloe's obvious patience with her brothers as they do "baby gymnastics" with her. She's more fun than a toy.

She's getting better at lifting her head up, sort of.

Chloe is sleeping through the night and taking good naps. Unfortunately I have to wake her up multiple times a day to take kids to school and pick them up, but she's cool with it and just goes back to sleep when we get home.

 Her hair always sticks up in the back! It won't be long before we can put it in a bow.

She's starting to chew on anything that happens to get near her mouth - fingers, chew toys, my arm.

We went to the Los Angeles temple this weekend, and she was such a good little traveler. She cried towards the end of the 3 hour car ride, but other than that she was happy the whole time. She makes everything more fun.

Easter

Easter morning started early for us, since we have 9:00 church and had to search for baskets and eat candy and get cleaned up in time for a quick picture by 8:45. We got up at 6:00 to fit it all in. Chloe was not a happy camper by this point, but then she ended up sleeping through church (our first time back since she was born), so that was a blessing. It was so good to be back at church, enjoying the talks and music - especially on Easter Sunday.

The Easter bunny did things a little different this year. Instead of written clues to find the Easter baskets, the boys had to decipher picture clues.

Here are a few of them. Some were super easy, some were a little trickier, and one was so hard it even stumped Dave. That was fun!

The baskets were in Chloe's bassinet, which she wasn't sleeping in at the time. That whole hospital thing really threw off her sleep, but now she's sleeping at least half the night in her own bed.


We never know what the boys are going to be wearing in the morning when we've been out on a date the night before. Apparently Brennan slept in Spencer's Smee costume (from the Peter Pan play) inside out. We thought he looked like an egg.

Tyler CRACKS me up! Dave and the boys got on a roll of egg jokes the other morning that went on and on...

Levi slept in and had to eat his candy quick before getting ready for church.

Funny just-woke-up face!

I gave this cute dress to a friend's baby last year, and she held onto it in the off chance that I would have a girl and she could give it back to me. Chloe's also wearing a pearl bracelet from Kristen. Cute, cute!

Levi has been coming home with me and Chloe right after sacrament meeting for the past couple weeks to avoid getting sick in nursery. His nose is finally clear after about 3+ months of constant colds.

Sunday afternoon was our Easter egg hunt. We divided the yard into 3 sections and hid 75 eggs: 15 each.

The area around the playground was for Brennan and Levi.

The lower section was for Tyler and Dallin.

I guess I hid theirs a little too well, because even I couldn't find the last couple.

And the sides were for Spencer. Of course Dave made his the hardest, but I think he found most of them.

I spent the day making cream pies, eating chocolate, and enjoying a lovely ham dinner with family. For Family Home Evening the next day we did our Resurrection Eggs (a carton of plastic eggs with symbols of the Easter story in each one) and watched He Is Risen. All in all a very successful Easter!

Chloe: 1 month

Chloe has bounced back pretty quick from her stint with RSV. At her 1 month check-up she weighed 7 pounds 9 ounces, so she gained over an ounce a day after she got out of the hospital. Her doctor was very happy with that, and he said her lungs sounded all clear. Yay!

I dress her in a lot of pink, not just because she's our first girl after 5 boys, but because she looks so good in it. I have some neutral colored clothes I kept from my other babies, but she just doesn't look as good in them.

We were home one week before Dave's family came to visit from West Virginia for a week. I'll blog about that next.

Brennan took this picture of us one morning when I realized that I didn't have many pictures of me with her, even though I wasn't wearing make-up or contacts and she was all cranky by this point.

My friend sent Chloe this cute swimming suit and sunglasses, so we had to take pictures of her in it.

We took these in Spencer's ocean bedroom, so we stuck various shells next to her.

Love those big, bright eyes!

One gorgeous day while Dave's family was here we all went out back. I realized it was Chloe's first time outside, other than going to and from the doctor and hospital. Grandma brought her this cute outfit.

Spencer took some pictures of us - this is my favorite one. Dave's sister was surprised how little she is. I guess she looks bigger in pictures when she fills the whole frame.

Welcome home, baby!

After being off oxygen for 24 hours, Chloe was able to leave the hospital on Tuesday. Her sats dropped a little bit that last night there, but they gave her a treatment, performed chest percussions and suctioned out her mouth, and she did better after that. We were home when the boys got off school, and they were SO excited to see us.

For family home evening the night before, they made me a huge list of all the things they loved and missed about me while I was gone. It made me cry. Here are a few of the things they wrote: my smile, homemade cookies, tucking them in at night, reading them books, hugs and kisses, cooking dinner, cleaning, laundry, helping them say their prayers, playing games, talking to them about their day, playing, laughing at their silly jokes, my pretty face, giving them gum at church, helping with homework, taking them places and loving them, even when I'm angry. I missed them just as much. It was quiet and calm in the hospital, but I missed the noise, chaos, work and joy of being a mom to these sweet boys. I think the whole experience made us all appreciate each other SO much.

And cute little Chloe is doing so much better! She never has to work hard to breath, and her cough improves every day. She spends all her waking minutes looking around at her surroundings with wide eyes, like she knows she's in a new place. I love putting clothes on her and holding her without wires and kissing those soft cheeks without oxygen tubes and yucky tape in the way. Now I just need to fatten her up. She still wasn't up to her birth weight when we left the hospital.