Month: February 2012

Update on Caroline Jean

Post author By Joy
Post date February 24, 2012

Caroline is 5.5 months old, 17 lbs., gobbles up rice cereal, holds her toes, & dives toward/grabs toys.

But most importantly, she’s still very kissable & yummy!

I’m not very meticulous about keeping super-detailed notes about this baby girl– She is the 3rd child, after all. *sigh* But I do keep some notes, & I do adore her just as much as I did her siblings at this age!

There’s something so wonderful about babies at 5 months. They do more & interact more, while still maintaining their pre-crawling pudginess. Caroline isn’t extremely vocal or smiley, but she is such a content, easygoing girl. She likes when I just carry her around the house, outward-facing so she can take in all the action, and grab anything within her reach.

One way she expresses her contentment is by making a nasal humming-gurgling sound that always makes us smile. Hard to describe—Pace says we’d better catch it on video before she stops doing it!

Caroline has a lot more hair than Chase or Charlotte did as babies. She enjoys grabbing faces & hair. She has just a little bit of stranger anxiety. No teeth yet! She likes naps and expects them. At sleep times, she likes to have a pacifier & to be snuggled up to her Minky blanket.

This baby girl currently wakes up all the time at night (and I’m unfortunately not great at being an outstanding, cheerful mommy to the older two when I’m utterly exhausted). I’m working on weaning Caroline off the middle-of-the-night nursing in hopes that she will sleep better soon. If that doesn’t stop the night waking, we will say good-bye to the pacifier so that she isn’t dependent on a parent replacing it in order to get her back to sleep.

And we think that Caroline is a beautiful baby!

Family Fun

Rub-a-Dub-Dub, Three Kids in a Tub.

Post author By Joy
Post date February 24, 2012

And I managed to keep the photos G-rated.

They hadn’t ever bathed all together before, and I don’t intend to make it a habit, but Caroline was kicking and leaning eagerly toward the bathtub as Chase & Charlotte were having a grand ol’ time in there. I could tell she clearly felt left out, so I put her in there as well. The more the merrier! Chase was very careful and held his baby sister tight.

Chase & Charlotte’s smiles looks a little weird in this pic because they had gum in their mouths. They’ve been obsessed with gum lately, & they faithfully save their earnings from chores (5 cents/chore) to buy gum. I figure they can spend their money on whatever they want, as long as they pay tithing first. When Chase buys gum, he saves the pack as long as possible, but Charlotte eagerly shares with all the friends that come over and helps herself to it all the time, so her pack of gum is usually gone in 1-2 days.

The other day, Chase rationed out tiny pieces of his Bubble Tape gum to a couple of friends. When they complained about the tiny amount of gum he had given them, he calmly told them, “Life is not fair.” When I heard it from the other room, I just had to chuckle to myself.

Ranting

Video Games These Days

Post author By McAdmin
Post date February 24, 2012

Nathan hooked Casey and I up with Battlefield 3 from EA at a great price. We all thought it would be a bonding experience to cooperatively storm the castle together and rescue the princess. And it is, and it’s fun. The only problem? The game’s audio track was recorded in the a middle school sound room. There is swearing everywhere in the single player and occasionally in multiplayer.

Now Pace, what do you expect!? It’s a war game, it’s just like war. You should appreciate how life like it is. Let me tell you, if I was in a squad with guys who talked like this and they didn’t shut up, I would shoot them in the foot. But I can’t do that in the game. They just keep on swearing.

SO, what’s a guy to do!? Easy, change the games spoken language to spanish so I have no clue what they are saying and start a petition of course! As I would have the choice to tell people to stop swearing in real life, I’d like EA to add an option to turn off explicit language. If you think swearing in video games should be optional, please hit the mouse a few times and sign my petition and/or share it. Thanks!

Change.org|Start an Online Petition »

Family Fun

When Grandma Comes to Town

Post author By Joy
Post date February 19, 2012

There’s always a lot of fun when Grandma comes!

Here she & the kids are working on some Dot-to-Dot books. (This is usually the time when I battle with Chase to get his homework done. Somehow, Grandma motivated him to do all his homework in just a few minutes, so he had tons of time to just hang out! Grandmas are always full of tricks!)

Pausing to sing a little song

Grandma instilling a love of reading into the children

She showed me how to make a tasty minestrone soup. Very hearty & delicious.

We went to watch a Physics Show for kids at our alma mater, BYU. Chase & Charlotte liked checking out the statues & sculptures at BYU. We also got to discover where all the elevators & ramps are, since I’d brought the stroller!

I can’t even explain how ODD it felt to be walking around at BYU, toting three children along with me. It is so cliché, but honestly—WHERE DOES THE TIME GO?? I was just barely attending BYU as a single student! Could it really be that it was 10 years ago that I was starting school there (and meeting some of the best friends I’ve ever known)!?

On our way out, we stopped in at the Wilk for some bowling. It was enjoyable, but I think the munchkins would’ve been just fine having 3 turns instead of 10.

Chase was rather dramatic about it. He’d start really far back, run up, chuck the bowling ball, and fall flat onto the floor. No holding back there!

Intense focus. His expression here looks very Pace-ish!

My mom watched our kids so we could go out on Valentine’s Day. Pace surprised me by taking me out to a dinner & games night at the McGowans’ house. It was nice and relaxing.

Delicious food!

Pretty flowers from my Valentine

Charlotte Chase Family Fun

Can You Tell…

Post author By Joy
Post date February 18, 2012

… Which kids are Chase & Charlotte in this picture?? Haha!

Fair skin, blonde hair, & blue eyes all around! I guess that’s not too rare in this state of Utah. Winking smile The resemblances crack me up every time we get together with this brother & sister duo.

Tech

World Fair

Post author By McAdmin
Post date February 10, 2012

Isn’t it great how the internet acts like the world fair? Instead of having to wait for a convention, I can see what the future could be like whenever a company wants to release a marketing video. Here’s one that is really well done! What’s really crazy is that this tech was demonstrated at CES this year, so it might not be too far off.

Longer version explaining everything

Deals Family Fun

Free Hockey!

Post author By McAdmin
Post date February 10, 2012

If you are in the Utah County area, I wanted to let you know that Seven Peaks Ice Arena is having a play hockey free day to allow you to bring your kids and see that they love hockey or don’t love hockey. It will be next Saturday (the 18th) with two sessions. 8:30am and 10:30am. You kids don’t need anything! All gear is provided. Just come and check it out.

I’d recommend getting there a little early as it’s a first come first to get gear situation.

McVideos

Hockey Videos

Post author By McAdmin
Post date February 5, 2012

Did you know that these have been on YouTube for a while? We upload all our videos there, but we only post the interesting ones on the blog. You can even follow our uploads like you follow our blog so new ones show up in Google Reader (http://www.youtube.com/user/McPacer/feed) Here are 3 out of the 4 that are one youtube.

Practice before a game

His first 2 minute shift ever

Caroline Charlotte Family Fun

January Fun

Post author By Joy
Post date February 3, 2012

Charlotte is in love with this purple sparkly box from Uncle Gino. She carries it everywhere & puts all sorts of little things in it. She loves filling every purse/container she can with trinkets!!

Mmmm! Vanilla cupcakes, pudding + whipped cream-filled, frosted with strawberry buttercream frosting.

CTR pretzels from the Friend magazine that Chase wanted us to make. (Yes, we let them rise too long beforehand.)

We adore baby Caroline.

Chase likes to do Charlotte’s makeup sometimes. This time, he did more of a war paint type of job. It was cute. He took our pictures.

Close-up so you can see her pretty makeup!

I usually still have Charlotte do Quiet Time in her room, even though she doesn’t nap anymore. My kids seem to officially no longer nap by age 3 at the latest. But I’m so glad she still cooperates with having about 30 minutes of quiet time. She likes to listen to the Beauty & the Beast songs during this time.

Yes, she’s winking in this picture. She thinks it’s the coolest thing in the whole world that she can wink & GG can’t. She said, “These are my babies” about her little dolls/stuffed animals gathered around her.