Gymnastics

Athen had his last day of gymnastics this week at California Gymnastics Academy. He did a really good job and enjoyed gymnastics and new friends. This was his last week since he is going to be starting pre-school in a week. What a big boy he is. He is starting pre-school in Lafayette right across the street from our new house. We are excited. He will be going 3 days a week from 9-1:30.

My dad took a nap with Sutton for a few hours the other day. He woke up before her and didn't want her to wake up so he laid there with her for several hours. He had one hand on her and the other scrolling around on his iphone. Every time she made a noise or moved around he would pat her on the bottom and she would fall back asleep. It was so adorable.

My mom wanted to do a little photo shoot of Sutton but putting her in the bouncy chair was not a good position for her to be in so we didn't get any good pictures. Plus the boys kept on wanting to get in the picture.

We heart weekends!

We heart weekends around here for a few reasons. The main one being, papa is home to spend time with us, play with us and help out. Another is, we get out of the house and get to do fun things outside (since we have papa to help us), and because weekends are my time off - from house cleaning, dishes, and cooking.

Over the weekend we headed to the beach and to Piedmont park for a BBQ. At the park we colored monster bags with the boys and ran around in the sand with monster bags over their heads. The boys both love monsters right now, although Crew is often scared of them.

We bought a little portable gas grill that we can use with our camping propane for days at the park or beach. We tried it out for the first time with some Hebrew Nationals. When you can't eat something for 9 months is starts to sound really desirable. I enjoyed eating the hot dogs just as much as the kids.

Look how precious this little one is. This is her one and only hair piece. I wish I had more I'm just not sure where to get them. My friend Rachel made this adorable outfit for her. I love that she looks so girly. She is getting bigger and bigger. She weighed 9.5 pounds at her doctor visit last week. That little chunk.

I hope you are having a poopy day. I am!

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha! I need some attention, even if it is not the good kind.

Another poopy day

We had another poopy day today. I sent Crew to his room for literally just a few minutes for time out and sure enough I came in to another poopy mess. It wasn't as bad this time, I was able to catch it before it got too out of hand.

Here are some high lights from our day:

- a poopy mess in the bedroom
- a brand new bottle of shampoo dumped out/spilt all over the counter
- all the trash bags and ziplock bags scattered all over the kitchen floor
- Crew with a swollen cheek and lip with bruise marks and a big huge bite mark (on the cheek and lip) from his big brother Athen.
- Several temper tantrums
- A sleeping baby for most of the day which means a long night ahead
- A new box of fettucine and orzo opened and spilt all over the carpet and in the bedroom with little boys running every where with it.

On the bright side, look at this sweet little girl that I get to dress up cute. I am loving it.



Over the weekend we did our first family of 5 walk around the lake. Athen has finally decided to ride his pedal bike so now Crew can ride the red bullet bike. They are both enjoying their bikes. Athen still likes the red bullet bike and steels it from Crew any chance he gets.





Athen stole Crew's bullet bike and is doing jumps off the curb. All the guys around were so impressed with his skills and his confidence. It was funny.

Baby Sutton's first bath from her papa. Look at all that dark hair. She is such a cutie.




Here is a picture of my cute little ragga muffin with his cut eye. He was playing "monster" putting his blanket over his head and running into things and he ran right into the edge of the trunk. Poor little guy.

I cry everyday!

I cry everyday. I'm not sure if it is because:

- I just gave birth a few weeks ago and my hormones are all wacked out or,
- I have 3 kids now under the age of 4 and it is HARD or,
- I have two little boys who no longer mind, listen or obey me or,
- my days consist of scrubbing poop off the walls, carpet, sheets and toys from my two year old who likes to take off his diaper during nap time or,
-we live in a small apartment with no where for my boys to run around and play all day or,
- my boys love to wrestle, hit, kick and bite each other and are constantly leaving marks on each other or,
- I am constantly yelling all day long and it makes me feel like I am a bad mama or,
- my youngest son gave himself a swirly in the toilet after I had bathed him twice already in one morning or,
- my body is still recovering from giving birth to an 8 1/2 pounder in just a matter of minutes or,
- I am almost 38 and have given birth 3 times in three and a half years and that is a lot to do to an old lady body or
- after the third baby it is much harder to get rid of all this fat I have around my stomach and hips or,
- because I have gone crazy.

All I know is that I find myself crying a lot lately. Sometimes, I am yelling and yelling and I just drop to the ground, grab my precious little boy, hug him tightly, say I love you, I love you and just cry with him in my arms and sometimes as much as I want to cry I just have to make myself laugh. Laugh when you want cry!

Luckily, my kids are so cute and precious, they make all the crying worth it, and luckily the thought of phases reminds me that there is a little at the end of the tunnel.
Being a mama of 3 littles is a challenge but one of the best and most rewarding challenges life can bring. I love these littles to pieces!!!

Cute as a button

Athen has been loving his new sister to pieces. He has said a few funny things in the last few days so I thought I would share.

The other day he told Rick that mommy finally hatched baby Sutton from my egg in my tummy  and now she was a part of our family.

He was laying down next to her on her blanket, admiring her and loving her and he said, "Oh no mommy, her hands are cracked. It's okay, we can glue them back together."

How cute is that!

First day

Rick went back to work today. It was nice to have him around for a week and a half to help with the energetic boys and the little baby.

Crew and Sutton are sleeping and Athen is having "quiet and relaxation" time so I thought I would take a minute to blog about my first morning on my own.

It started out around 7:00 when the boys woke up. This is what happened in the next three hours:

- I was feeding Sutton on the rocker in my room with the door open and the gate up so I could see the boys in the family room but they can't get to me or attack us while we are feeding. I sat there and watched them get into the game cabinet (which was apparently not latched completely) and pull out all the games. They dumped all the little pieces of each game and card set all over the family room (settlers of catan, cooties, card games, memory etc. - lots of pieces as you can imagine). Although I was yelling across the room for the boys to pick up the pieces and stop dumping them out I knew that by the time I stopped feeding Sutton, hopped up and over the gate, across the room it would be too late. I'm still not that quick to move around during recovery. This was the first mess of the day. I should have documented it but didn't think about documenting until the day went on.

Shortly after that I found Crew with a blue color crayon. He was "drawing pictures" all over the bedroom door, and the family room walls. Lovely. Good thing we are moving out soon and they will be painting over the walls.

The next incident of the day was the one that I decided to laugh at instead of cry because I really did want to cry at this point. Crew was in his bedroom with the door shut. I figured this was a good place for him to be while feeding Sutton. We had just spent a lot of the weekend cleaning and packing up most of the boys toys so I figured he couldn't do too much damage in there. When I went in to check on him I found this mess:

Yes that is right, poop EVERYWHERE. This isn't the first time he has done this (4th time) however, it has been a while so I thought maybe he grew out of this phase. He smeared his poop all over both beds, the walls, carpet and most of the toys all over the floor. I spent the next hour or so cleaning beds, carpets, walls and a little boy who was covered in poop (he went straight to the bath tub). I haven't even began to clean the 50 plus toys that are covered in poop.

What have I gotten myself into? Can I really handle three kids? I don't know how people have more then 3. Good thing they are so stinking cute or I think I would go more crazy then I already am.

Sutton Ann Bingham

Our little Sutton came on July 26th. She came fast and furious. If you don't want to hear the details of her birth then stop reading and continue down to the picture part of this post. I am recording my birth experience because this blog is our family journal and is a record of our lives.

It was Thursday night, the night before our "first" due date. I had a few short contractions but nothing consistent which led me to believe she was coming. Crew came so fast so I wanted to be ready. I called my mom around 10:00pm and told her to be prepared I thought she would be coming. She said she would rather come and get the boys now then at 2:00am so she headed over.

She got there around 10:30 and took the boys home. Nothing seemed to be progressing so I started stressing out - what if she wasn't coming tonight and I made my mom come all the way over to get the boys. Rick convinced me to get some rest which I didn't want to do. I wanted to walk around and get her out not lay down and relax. We both headed to bed around 11:30ish. Rick fell quickly asleep while I laid there waiting. About a half an hour later I had some contractions that were a little more painful. At 12:20 I woke Rick up and told him it is time to go to the hospital. It was an answer to my prayers to have a few small contractions around 10:00 so my mom could come because if that didn't happen the boys would have been in the delivery room with us.

Lucky for us the hospital is less than a mile from our house. We walk in and I told them I wanted to see the doctor ASAP the last one came fast. They moved me straight up to triage and brought the doctor in. He checked me out and told me I was dilated to a 4 and 80% effaced (I was surprised I wasn't further along). I told him I wanted to get an epidural so they brought me to the delivery room. The nurse was going to give me an IV and let the liquids flow for about 20 minutes and then give me the epidural. The nurse was SO lame. She was taking her time and she couldn't get it in. She tried 5 times to get it in and couldn't. At this point I was getting grouchy and yelling at her "Hurry and just get it in before it is too late." She finally got another nurse to try (she was unsuccessful as well). I am still yelling hurry and get it in I have to push. The doctor immediately came and sure enough I was dilated to a 10. It was about a 10 minute period from the time I was a 4 to when I hit a 10.

All of a sudden my water ruptured, and I say ruptured because that is exactly what it did. There was so much pressure down there that it burst out and blew about 3-4 feet all over the floor and anything or anyone that was in front of it. It was like bats flying out of a cave.

I had two contractions and pushed through them and she was out at 1:05am. Luckily, the nurse was so incompetent and couldn't get the IV in because if she did and they gave me the epidural it would not have kicked in until after the delivery.

The doctors and nurses were surprised she came so quickly. They kept saying this girl just walked right in here and delivered a baby. They also said Sutton had a perfectly round head and kept saying she looked like a c-section baby.

She came so quickly that she didn't get squeezed through the birth canal enough so when she was born she was filled with fluids. She was spitting up fluids for a few days and has a hard time holding down her milk. She is getting a little better now.

Her name is Sutton Ann Bingham. She weighed 8 pounds 4 ounces and 21 inches long.



The most precious moment was when my mom brought the boys to meet their little sister. They have been so excited to have a little sister and to be big brothers. When Athen walked in the room he was shaking his hands back and forth just like he always does when he is excited and had the biggest eyes and smile on his face. It was so precious it made me cry. A few minutes later he spotted a juice box on the back counter and quickly lost his attention on his new sister. It was pretty funny.




My handsome boys were so excited to hold their new baby sister for the first time.

Sutton's visitors at the hospital - Grandma & Grandpa S.


Grandpa O.

We are SO happy our little baby Sutton is here with us. She completes our little family.