Monroe City Power Picnic

Our family made it out to the town's annual Power Picnic. Scott and I debated how we would be able to do it with all seven of us. One double stroller, an infant car seat, and a wait in a line later--we did it! The kids loved being at the picnic with friends, and Mom liked not having to cook dinner that night! :)

Lucy's First Week!

Macey brought this home from school right after Lucy was born, and I thought it was so cute!

Quinn slowly warmed up to Lucy! In these pictures he waddled over to us, climbed on the table, and started reading her his favorite book.

Lucy is such a wonderful fifth child! It is like she knows she is the fifth, and she takes it so easy on us. The first week we had a hard time with tummy issues. She was fussy and gassy, and she was trying to figure out her nights and days. You know, she was a newborn baby! :) We finally found the perfect formula, and Lucy sleeps most days and nights. She sleeps for 3 hours at a time, wakes up to eat, and then goes back to sleep. She really is perfect!

We slept whenever we could! Scott and I would switch off feedings. We tag-teamed parent duties that first week. Jemma and Cooper both started preschool during his paternity leave, so days were filled with getting them where they needed to be and catching up on sleep. Oh, and watching a lot of Netflix (aka survival)!

I love Jemma's little hands on this bottle. She is such a good, loving, little second mom!

The three middle kiddos are such good kids. They had their fights, but they were so good about being quiet when we asked! They looked at a lot of different books. I got this picture of the two brothers quietly chatting and reading.

Lucy is our first child to really WEAR newborn sized clothes. Most of the kiddos were too big or long to wear newborn clothes longer than a week. Lucy held out strong for about 3 weeks! She wore clothes that Macey and Jemma were never able to!

After Lucy's struggle the first week, she lost some birth weight. That first week she threw up quite a bit and had lots of tummy problems. At her two week appointment, she hadn't quite gained it back yet, but I think we are there now!

Macey and Jemma's First Day of Dance!

Macey and Jemma are both taking dance classes this year! They are in different classes, but they were still so excited that they were dancing together! Jemma has class and then Macey has class right after, on Fridays.

I dropped off Jemma for dance class first. She was SO excited and danced the whole way into the studio. I barely got these pictures of her!

When I dropped off Macey and picked up Jemma, they were more excited to see each other than to go to dance class or see me! I'm glad I was there to capture these moments!

Our First Outing!

It felt a bit crazy to try to have an outing with Lucy a week after she was born, but it also felt so good to get out and have a bit of normalcy. She stayed covered in her car seat the whole time, and we got the kids got out of the house! 

On Scott's last day of paternity leave, we went to Subway for lunch. The kids were SO excited to get out of the house. Quinn had a high chair, but he decided he was a big boy and refused to sit in his chair. He did SO well sitting on the bench. With his hair cut, and his new baby sister, it hit me like a ton of bricks that he is growing up on me too quickly. My mom heart melted (like it always does) and I had to take pictures of this big boy!

Before we left:

We told our kids to smile for pictures with us...this is what we got!