June

June was a BUSY month for us, but was full of fun!  I'll put everything from June except Kassidy's baby blessing weekend on here, and then make that the next post, so stay tuned for the joy that was having family together for such a special day.

Our June started out with a great baby blessing too, just not for our baby.  We headed to Spokane so Steve could bless my sister Jennifer's son, Enzo on June 8th.  It was great to have most of the family together at church.  Those are always such special, tender moments for me to see my family all at church together.  It's also always a special moment to feel the way Steve being a worthy Priesthood holder has blessed my entire family.

Later that day, Jennifer wanted to celebrate Wyatt's 3rd birthday, which had been the week before.  We all went to Chuck E. Cheese for a fun birthday party.  Jen had tokens for everyone, so Ellie had fun playing lots of games with Daddy while I took Mckayla on EVERY ride they had.  MG couldn't get enough of all the little rides.  See what I mean?

 The kids all loved having pizza, soda, and cake - of course.

 And our girls were even ok with Chucky, which surprised the heck out of me based on how Ellie has a love/hate relationship with mascots.

 One of my favorite moments was watching everyone get an "I.D." from this picture machine - especially Steve and my Dad who had to get a little lower than they may have liked to be in frame.

 Here are a couple of pictures of the cousins from that trip.

This picture cracks me up.  It shows just how crazy my kids - and 6 kids 3 and under - are when you're trying to get a picture of them.

As you can tell in these pictures, Ellie suddenly looks pretty different.  That's because on June 3rd we took her to "Monkey Doos" and chopped her hair.  After our brief love affair with "fancy hair" she suddenly decided she didn't want me to do anything at all to it, and a 3 year old who doesn't want their hair done and has long curly hair can only mean what Grandma Sun would call a "ragamuffin".  However, she looked darn cute with her short hair, so it all works out.  Here Ellie was calming Kassidy down.  These two already love each other so much.

 Around this same time we started potty training Mckayla.  She was showing a lot of interest, and we figured summer was the time to start working on it, with both of us home.  She took to it much quicker than we thought she would, which was a nice surprise for us.

Not to be left out of the excitement, at the beginning of the month Miss Kassidy decided she would start cooing and smiling too, which was so fun!

 We also realized that she was losing her hair, but only the dark hair.  Also, her eyebrows were coming in strawberry blond, and as this picture shows, we were starting to see hints that we may have a red head on our hands!

Of course we did lots of other fun things too throughout the month.  We went to the park and the girls threw rocks.  Kassidy excelled at it.

We saw lots of fun birds at the river this day.

 Cracks me up the giant rocks Mckayla will throw.

 We went on river walks as a family.  Kassidy once again slept through most of these.

We even went to a family expo one day, where Ellie refused to get into any of the safety vehicles or tractors, and instead the girls mostly just enjoyed their new Home Depot aprons, playing games for candy, and giant cheap sunglasses from the grab bags.

We also unexpectedly hit a splash pad one day.  Even though we didn't have swim suits we told the girls to go for it where the weather was hot and they were watching other kids get wet.  Mckayla (of course) dove right in and was soaked in a just a minute or two.  Ellie was freaked out about it until she had watched Mckayla and Daddy play for several minutes and then got jealous, which made her get brave.  She had a blast too in the end.  It's funny watching these two, our daredevil MG and our overly cautious Ellie...  Entertaining to say the least.

On the 12th we also took the front off of Mckayla's crib and put the safety railing up instead.  We figured now that Daddy was home for the summer (BIG YAY!) we would start getting her ready for the toddler bed.  She did so well, and loved Ellie's big girl bed so much, we decided it was time to move up fairly quickly.  On June 27th Mckayla came down to her room to sleep in our amazing toddler bed my friend built for Ellie at the same age.  She loves her big girl bed and the freedom it gives her, even if I no longer get to sleep in as she wakes up and comes right upstairs to get me.

Steve and the girls also got to watch a lot of NBA basketball in June as Daddy's team, the San Antonio Spurs, ended up winning the NBA championship.  There were a lot of excited people in our house that day. (Totally a picture from a different day that I just liked of K.)

 And other than that, our month was busy.  I know, seems like a lot happened already, right?  And it did!  However, adding on to all this, I also worked in June.  To help pay some of Kassidy's medical bills (making babies is expensive!), and to help out at work, I taught the first session of group swim lessons starting June 16th and ending the beginning of July.  It was pretty fun for me, after I got over the anxiety of being just weeks away from having given birth and now wearing a swim suit in public.  Didn't think that one through....  However, if we had known how rough it would be having such a young, nursing baby with Daddy all morning on his own with the 3 girls, we may have decided it was just too soon.  Poor Daddy had a rough go where Kassidy didn't appreciate using a bottle much at all.  He spent a lot of time wearing the bjorn baby carrier to keep her asleep and happy until I could get home to feed her.  However, we survived.  I did try to blow my face up half-way through lessons as I realized I was getting sick and then started hurting as I taught diving and deep water swimming.  You're really not supposed to be going under several feet of water when you have a sinus infection...  But, with the help of a quick-care doctor we got that cleared up, I finished lessons, and we looked forward with anticipation to an even fuller July, and the first time in years where neither Steve or I was going to work!  It was going to be a fun summer!

May

Our May began with a lot of family welcoming Miss Kassidy to the world.  May 1st found us coming home to our big girls who were being watched by "Grandma Sun" and "Papa Rose".  Where they had been there since the 29th, my parents made sure that we were all settled in and then took off to sleep in their own beds that night.

 The girls were ultra clingy, especially Mckayla.  She had just come out of some major separation anxiety, and us suddenly disappearing in the night for a couple of days with only a hospital visit and some time where Daddy came home to help out did not win us any favors.  It was WEEKS before someone could come to the house without Mckayla getting upset and thinking we were leaving her again.  Poor girl.

There was more Grandma time to look forward to though, as Grandma Bennett arrived on May 2nd to come meet Kassidy and help out for a bit.

We had lots of fun with Grandma.  On the 3rd we took her out to a spot at a local park where the girls like to feed the birds.

 This girl sure loves to swing.

 Ellie playing conductor I believe with Grandma.

Admittedly most of the next week flew by for me.  Grandma and Steve took care of the big girls for the most part so I could rest and focus on getting to know our newest daughter.  Grandma and the girls had lots of fun too.

I honestly felt kind of bad that Grandma did so much of the work and I did very little interacting or work, but with three kids this time it was easier to remember she comes to let me rest and enjoy helping out, so I felt less guilty and even more appreciative of all her help.  Especially since it let me do a lot of this:  (These are from throughout the month, not all when Grandma was here, but you get the idea...)

 Grandma got some good pictures of all this girl's hair!

We did, of course, follow what have become family traditions as well.  We had Henry Weinhards soda to celebrate a baby being born.  Grandma brought nail polish and painted the girls' nails.  Grandma also brought Kassidy a pound puppy, which she makes for each grandchild, as well as her AMAZING quilt, which is more of a recent tradition with our babies each getting one.

We tried to get pictures of all the girls with their amazing Grandma Bennett quilts, with limited success.  Grandma's quilts are seriously amazing.

Another tradition was that Kassidy slept in the Bennett Family bassinet when she came home. 

On the 11th it was Mothers Day.  Steve got me a beautiful necklace with one of the stones that is accepted for April birthstones so I would have Kassidy's birthstone.  Reva got me a beautiful pot of flowers for our front porch.  I even snuck to church to watch Ellie sing in her first ever Primary performance as the children all sang a couple of songs to all the mothers and women in the congregation.  She was so excited to sing with the Primary for the first time (talking about it since October when we explained she could join the children singing when she knew the songs and was in Primary).  I was happy to watch her sing and then sneak home to keep Kassidy away from crowds for a week or two longer.

Our girls on Mothers Day

That night Grandma packed her bags to head home the next day.  She had been with us quite a while and it was time to head home.  Our last night with Grandma here.

I was both looking forward to being alone with the girls so I could figure out our new normal and settle into a routine, and just flat terrified.  I didn't think I was nervous at all until late that night, and then I may or may not have cried.  But, Grandma traveled safely home the next morning, and the girls and I did just fine.  I learned to accept rather quickly that someone was probably always going to want/need something and be crying, and we moved forward.
MG our first day on our own.

One of the other notable family visits took place during Reva's visit when my sisters Jennifer and Julie came down on the 5th to meet Kassidy and for our family to meet Jen's newest little guy, Enzo.  It was a crazy house with 6 children 3 and under, but Grandma was a total life saver keeping big kids busy while Jen and I tended newborns, Jennifer napped after working night shift earlier that morning, and Julie got to meet her niece and help out with kids all day.  Us three sisters together can get a little silly and chatty,and it was nice we could still do that with Grandma to help out with so many kids running around.  Thanks Grandma!

Kassidy and Enzo.  Thirteen days between these two, and I love that they were just naturally in the same newborn pose here.

One of the most fun things I got to do that month was go see Wicked for the first time in Spokane with Julie, Jennifer, and Jennifer's boyfriend Mathew.  Jennifer and Matt had bought 4 tickets and invited Julie and I to go with them.  Steve insisted I let myself be selfish, so we went to Spokane for the weekend so he could watch the kids while I went to the musical with my sisters on the 19th.  That made for a late night driving sleeping kids home after the show, and a long tired Monday for both Steve and I, but it was a lot of fun!  Big thank yous to Jen and Matt for amazing seats I never would have had otherwise to see a show I had wanted to go to for years!

Late night is an understatement.  We didn't leave Spokane till 11pm, so we didn't get home till 2 am.  By the time we got the girls to bed and unpacked it was 3am before we went to bed; and I went to work the next day.  My students quickly learn that the size of Mtn Dew Bennett is drinking on that day tells you what kind of day I'm having.  A can = everything normal.  20 oz bottle = a little irritable.  1 liter bottle = watch it.

Imagine the fear on my students faces when I came in and started drinking from a 2 liter bottle of Mtn Dew.  I warned them straight up "I'm on 3 hrs of sleep, imagine a lion with PMS and roid rage, multiply that by 10 and thats roughly how irritable I am today."  Somehow ALL of my students were REALLY good that day.  I cannot confirm nor deny that some of them may have gotten PTSD as a result though.

Steve playing with the kids at Matt's house where we had lunch earlier in the day with my Mom, Dad, and Kerry.

The show was so fantastic!  We were just a little bummed we got an under-study for Elfeba, one of the leads.

May 30th also found us out of the house for a big event.  Ellie finished her first year of Preschool with Teacher Tammy.  Ellie loved Tammy and preschool and it was such a fabulous introduction to preschool for us.  The kids sang a few songs and we all enjoyed some desserts while chatting in Tammy's backyard.

Ellie was definitely the entertainment.  She rushed Tammy while she was speaking to shout and excitedly give her the flowers we brought.  And, of course, she was a ham during the songs.  Everyone always loves watching Ellie when she's in front of a crowd.  Makes us a bit nervous though....

 Ellie's class.  There were a few changes through the year, but this was the core group the whole time.

 Proud of herself at the end of a fun year.

May wrapped up with news for us right on the last day.  As we had suspected, Kassidy also seemed to have pain from reflux, so on May 31st she visited our fabulous pediatrician and started her prescription to help out with reflux.  Boy had she grown too!  At one month old she was already 9 lbs and 11 oz in her clothes and diaper that day.  She was long and skinny, so people never believed me that she was just shy of 8 lbs at birth, let alone that she was almost 10 lbs at that point!

And that pretty much wraps up our May.  Steve's students completed their AP and state end of course exams.  Quick moment of bragging, my kids did the best they've ever done on both tests.  74% of my biology kids passed the state test and 28% of my AP kids passed the AP test.  Both were far and away the highest passing rates Pasco High has ever seen.  I learned to handle three kids on my own while he finished up most of his school work for the year.  The month flew by, as they all seem to with 3 kiddos keeping us on our toes.  I'm afraid of how fast time is going with Miss Kassidy while I'm busier running the two big girls places and trying to be semi-productive.  Such is life I'm afraid, and our summer would go by just as quickly.  But, for the very good reason that we had so many fun things to keep us busy!