Pumpkin Patch

First Haircuts!

On Lane's birthday, we decided to take him to get his first haircut. It was long overdue! We took him to a little barbershop in the town square and the barber was so excited about giving him his first haircut.

Before......(like I said, LONG overdue!)....

During......

He was definitely a moving target, which is to be expected. But other than that he did so well! In all the excitement we forgot to get an after picture. I was a little sad because he looked so much older! But I was very happy that he looked just as handsome! :)

While we were at it, we decided to take Reece for her first haircut as well. This was a very controversial move for us. My mom was in Florida, and she had been adamantly against cutting Reece's hair. So we didn't tell her we were doing it (trying to help her enjoy her vacay or bitterness that she went to Florida without us ---- you decide).

Since it was such a milestone for us, we pulled out all the stops and took her to Sweet & Sassy. I was a little nervous as we pulled into the parking lot. We had been debating on whether or not to cut off 10 inches to donate. Her hair is just too beautiful to cut and throw away! So I did a little research a couple of days before. I knew that it took multiple donations to make a hair piece, but it didn't occur to me that they dye the hair. And that is the best part of Reece's hair- the beautiful color! Not to mention, to cut 10 inches would mean to cut it to above her shoulders. Which would mean no ponytail. So as she sat in the chair and they put the smock on her, I made the call- just a trim.

Before......

During.....

After......

We ended up cutting FOUR INCHES! And it is still super long! A little piece of my soul died when I saw that the ends didn't curl anymore, but I had prepared myself for that to happen and actually took it quite well. Just like her brother, she walked out looking just as beautiful as when she walked in! :)

Recent Reece-isms

This picture was taken on Reece's first day of Parent's Day Out.

"Mom, I need to go play in the backyard because. . . because. . . because I'm awesome."
     Reece feels like she has to justify everything she does. If she can't think of a good reason, this is her go-to.

"Mom, my stomach hurts...because I have red hair. And it is long and beautiful."
     She's been admired a time or two (usually by complete strangers!) for her hair!

"Mom, can you tell Jacob to stop playing with my Legos? Because . . . they are breakable and they have mosquito bites."
     
     One day while sitting in our car in a parking lot waiting for Jason to meet us:
"Mom! If you don't unbuckle me and get me out of this car seat right now I am going to be more grumpy. than. normal."

     One day, while pushing her baby stroller around the house, she walked up to me and very matter-of-factly said this:
"Mom, this is my baby doll. She does not like birthday parties. Because. . . well because. . . well, I don't know. I just don't understand her."
     
     Last week Jacob had Strep and Scarlet Fever. Reece felt bad for him and said:
"Awwww. Poor sweet Jacob. Bless your head."

     Jacob and Reece were fighting over a toy and Reece yelled at Jacob:
"No, Jacob! Stop! Never! Give! Up!"
     I guess Reece has been watching too much Yo Gabba Gabba, but doesn't really understand the context of "Never Give Up."

Don't throw the baby out with the dishwater!

Can you guess what's wrong with this picture?

If your guess is a lack of healthy food (or food period), you are only half right. Look a little closer . . . . . yep . . . . . there's a baby in the pantry. For some reason this is his new favorite place to crawl to. Hey, where's Lane? I don't know, check the pantry. 

Feeding birds, riding camels....

Here are some pictures of Jacob and Reece feeding the birds at the Memphis Zoo. It took a lot of work to get the birds to come to us, but once they did it was so cool! 

Then Jason and Jacob got to ride a camel! His name was Mickey, which made Jacob very excited!

Once temps get back to the low 90s, maybe we'll visit again...

A week of firsts

About this time 5 years ago, when Jacob was about 9 months old, I walked into work and told my boss I was going to give him 6 weeks to find a replacement for me. I was going to quit working and stay home and raise my baby boy. Hands down one of the best decisions I ever made. It wasn't an easy decision, though. We had to make many sacrifices and I even nannied a couple of days a week for the extra money. But to this day I have not once regretted that decision. It has been the most rewarding experience of my life.

I knew that sometime in the very distant future, my baby boy would be starting kindergarten and I wouldn't get to spend all day, every day with him. Well, that day came a little faster than I thought it would. I am so sad dropping him off at school every day, wearing a backpack that makes him look like he should be falling backward, and walking to the door all by himself while he looks back and waves to me. But at the same time I am happy to see the wonderful "big boy" he has grown up to be. We have a joke in our house: I give him a tight hug and say Hey Jacob, will you do me a favor? He says Yes! I say Will you stop growing and be my baby forever? And he says No!!!! Then I always tell him that I'm glad because I love to watch him grow. I would give anything to hold him as a baby again, but I really do love to watch him grow and am so excited to see what he has in store for us in the future! I guess I can't keep him to myself forever. I'll share him with the rest of the world now, I know he makes it a better place!

So far, Kindergarten has exceeded my expectations. I feel so clueless, but everyone has been very helpful. For instance: when they pass out the students' car rider numbers at registration (you put a piece of paper on your windshield so they know what child you are there to pick up), who knew that the kid was actually supposed to memorize that number?! Not me! When it was my line's turn to pick up, everyone was getting their kid but me! I had to completely hold up traffic while I pulled up to holler out my window that my kid never came out. The principal said, "I'll go get him! Sometimes it takes them a while to remember their number." Oops. Was I supposed to teach him that? I didn't think that was even feasible, but he had it memorized by dinner that night and we haven't had a problem since. I am always opposed to the way that society is making our kids grow faster than they need to, but I do have to say that I am impressed by how well everything just happens at school. And I just have to mention how much I absolutely adore his teacher. She has been wonderful to him....and me! I could go on, and on, and on, but I would be typing all night. I feel so blessed to have her for my first experience with school.

Jason took the day off to be my moral support. But the day still drug on for.e.ver. (Channeling Squints Palledorous). Reece walked up to Jason that afternoon and said, "Dad, will you paint my toenails?" Random. But that gave me the opportunity for a lovely distraction! I asked if she would be interested in getting a "pedicure" and she said yes! So we went and had pedicures together.

Haha! This next picture cracks me up! 

Another first for the week: Lane started waving. I have to say, we may have a baby genius on our hands. Most babies do the open-and-close-their-hand-and-wave-at-their-own-face deal when they start waving. But not Lane. He gets his whole arm into it. And he does it on demand, without seeing you wave first. Just say "hi" to him and he starts waving. Also, if you say "yay" or "clap clap" to him he claps. He also gives high fives. And he knows all of the presidents in inaugural order. Ok, not really. Sometimes he misses James K. Polk and Martin Van Buren. We're working on it.

Here he is in all of his cuteness (please forgive the terrible lighting).

I think it is (beyond) safe to say that colic is over. It lasted about five months. Five months of absolute madness. But you can't tell by looking at him now! His smiles and laughter can light up a room. He has been through such a transformation. Every now and then we ask him Lane, what did you do with our baby? Whatever you did with him, we don't want him back! We'll keep you! 

Breaking News: USA adds one gold medal to the medal count

The gold medal for cuteness goes to....

REECE!

We're baaaaaack!

We recently connected with some distant relatives and promised to share pictures of the kids with them.  What better excuse to get back into the blog?! We changed the address to sellsfamily5.blogspot.com. Now the time has come to make a new title! Here are some ideas we've come up with (and even some suggested by others):

The Three Amigos
Sold on Three
Third Time's a Charm Pain in the Rear!
Zone Defense
We Bought a Zoo
Party of 5
The Trifecta
Three and Counting...
Three and Out
Three Kids Mafia
Once, Twice, Three Times a Baby
Jacob and Reece and Lane Makes Three

Anyone who knows me well knows that I am awesome at making decisions, so we may decide on a title sometime in the next few months.

We desperately need to unload pictures off of our camera. We've been busy busy busy and have a lot to share with everyone! Jacob just started kindergarten, Reece's hair is getting so long that it goes past her waist, and Lane is such a happy boy these days (bye bye colic! Hooray!). But for now we'll share this picture of Jason and the kids from Father's Day.

I am hoping to do a good job of updating from now on! These kids are just too cute, gotta show 'em off! :)

Kodomo Wa Kawaii Desu

Jason has a trip to Japan coming up, so today we took the kids to Paint a Piece to make some gifts for him to take to our friends over there. They painted some sake sets, a sushi roll plate, a miso bowl, and several sushi sauce dishes. It turned out to be a lot bigger task than we realized!

When I told the kids this morning that we were going to Paint a Piece, they sort of frowned at me. Usually when we go there, we get the kids to do a handprint on something and we don't let them touch or paint anything. When I continued and let them know that when we got to Paint a Piece I was going to let them paint all by themselves with no handprints, they were so excited!

Here is a video of Picasso and Michelangelo at work. A couple of things to look out for: 1- Watch Jacob struggle with peeling his eyes away from his masterpiece to look at the camera. So cute! 2- When I'm talking to Jacob you can hear Reece say in the background, "We are painting ourselves!" (so excited to be painting on her own!) 3- I try to repeat back what the kids say so that one day when I watch I will understand what they are saying, so stay tuned for translations. 4- Towards the end Reece is saying something and will not stop saying it until I repeat the whole thing back to her! Silly girl.

PS- I'm so excited that I figured out how to put videos on here! I'm definitely still learning. On the last video I posted I somehow added an echo theme to the sound. Oops! And for some reason the picture quality doesn't look great. I would love to learn how to make a closed caption on the video to share translations of what the kids are saying. We'll see!
Oh, and the translation of the Japanese title for this post is "Cute Kids." :)

Our Flower Girl!

Our friends Jacob and Alix got married this weekend and had Reece as their flower girl. The wedding was absolutely beautiful! The dress, flowers, music, and church were all so perfect. 

With the way I was acting, you would've thought my daughter was the bride! I was so excited and so nervous at the same time. From the moment we walked in the doors, Reece acted very shy and wouldn't let Jason or me put her down. She wanted to be held constantly. Alix and her mom were so wonderful about the whole thing. They said if she goes down the aisle, great. And if not, no big deal, no pressure. But I still really wanted her to do a good job for Alix. The plan was for Jason to keep her in the lobby until her turn to walk down the aisle. Then, when it was her turn, send her to where I was sitting (the edge of the second pew). 

Here's a video of how it went. I missed her coming out of the doors because she ran out so fast! And I didn't want to be "that mom" and jump out in front of the last two bridesmaids that were still walking. When the video starts she is looking back at the ring bearer like she wanted to say, "What's the hold up? Let's go!" 

We were so happy! She got a lot of compliments after the wedding. She didn't steal the show from the bride, but she came pretty darn close!

Keeping up with the Sells Family

We had considered changing the name of our blog, but I can't think of any better way to describe our days right now other than adventurous! To say that things have been crazy here would be a gross understatement. Having 3 kids is an adventure. Having a baby with colic takes it to a whole new level. 

About the time Lane turned 3 weeks old, he started getting fussy. That got progressively worse, day by day. It got to a point where, at times, he would cry non-stop for over an hour. Just last week, I was having to feed him every hour and forty-five minutes or so at night just to keep him happy. But, of course, he loved to make liars out of us and would behave like a perfectly happy baby at the doctor's office. Dr. Bubba (our pediatrician) knows us well and believed our story and diagnosed (for lack of a better word) Lane with colic. He has no intestinal issues and is eating and gaining weight just fine. We think his colic is more hormonal. He is just growing and changing so much and so fast. I suppose his tiny system has just had a hard time handling it all.

Things seem to be looking up now though! We definitely have our bad moments, but we've had some good days too. After having weeks of only bad days, we are very thankful for the good ones! When we get a smile (or even sometimes a giggle!) out of him, it is the greatest feeling in the world. I'd compare it to hitting the jackpot on a slot machine or scoring the winning touchdown at the Superbowl!

We have high hopes that things will calm down a little now. Lane will be 15 weeks old tomorrow. In that 15 weeks (which has felt more like 50 weeks), we have experienced the following: Jason- one virus and one cold; Angela- one terrible stomach virus, one cold, one eye infection, and two false alarms for mastitis; Jacob- two (yes two) stomach viruses and the herpes simplex virus; Reece- two (again, yes two) stomach viruses and a mystery virus we are guessing was a horrific case of the herpes simplex virus (This virus caused a rash on Reece that was seriously the scariest thing I have seen in my life. Pictures of her have actually circulated around the medical community here!); Lane- colic and thrush. That brings us to a grand total of 15 illnesses. One for each week that Lane has been here. Add a c-section recovery, Thanksgiving and Christmas, and you have the recipe for official madness. 

Through it all, we are so thankful for our crazy little family. Despite all that's gone on, we are all healthy. The colic is passing and we know that we're gonna blink on Lane's first birthday and say, "Whoa, what happened?" 

So, if you haven't heard from us or seen us in a while, this is why! We're hoping to resurface soon!