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!