Oh, Chelsea!

I'm actually really enjoying Chelsea at this stage. ;) 

She is 3 1/2 months old and chubby as ever. 

She gets lots of attention from all her siblings. 

I kiss her cheeks a million times a day. 

I love her smile and her coos and gurgles when she talks to me. 

She drinks about 6 oz of formula and spits up a lot.

She'll sleep anywhere from 7-9 hrs at night. She was sleeping through the night for a week, then waking up once, then sleeping through the night...what a tease. Now she's consistently waking up once. 

I love a sleeping baby. Her segmented arms are my favorite. Well so are her fat cheeks and double chin. haha! She rolls over from her front to her back. She sleeps on her tummy and I find her all the time on her back. That's good she can roll over, but not good because it wakes her up and so she'll have to learn to stay asleep when she rolls over. 

I love my view when pushing her in the stroller.

Lindsey grabbed her hand the other day and it was so cute. But I have to say right before this Lindsey put the bumbo right on Chelsea's face hurting her. Sisters...

This is Chelsea's raised eyebrow look we get often. She might need botox really early. just kidding!

And her cute smile we get often. She's a good baby. Thank goodness!

Time for a Makeover

Preston's room needed a makeover. It's been the same since he was born in 2007. I had been thinking about redoing his room so when I saw some cheap bedding at IKEA my Mom and sisters who were with me helped convince me to buy it.

This was how is dresser was before. I thought it was so cute with the cow spots. Kyle had traced them on and I painted it. 

Then the wall was this tan/brown color and we had those pictures up. I couldn't find a picture of his room with his twin bed in there. But I thought this one was cute of him as a baby. 

Here's the dresser now. I used craft paints to paint the drawers then sprayed them with a clear spray paint to  seal them. I loved how it turned out. I had painted the orange a different orange color, but it was too bright so I repainted it and I like this orange much better. The frames are from IKEA and I need to put some pictures in them. 

And here's his bed and curtains. I bought the curtains from Walmart. The bedding has a bunch of colors so I asked Preston what color he wanted his room and he said, "blue".  So blue it is. I need to finish decorating the white walls. They look boring and it kind of echos in the room without things on the wall.

Surprise Date

Last week had some busy nights for me. I was gone Tuesday night for Relief Society Meeting (I usually still call it Enrichment, shhh don't tell.) then Wednesday I had mutual (we did babysitting relay and talked about info they need to know and made mini blackberry tarts), and on Thursday night I went visiting teaching to 2 different places which, of course, took over 2 hours. So by Friday I was feeling pretty bad for Kyle. He had to give baths and do bedtime with all the kids for most of the week. I would get home and they'd all be in bed, well maybe not Chelsea. So I asked a young women to come babysit and surprised Kyle with a date on Friday night. He didn't know I got a babysitter so I was all excited to surprise him. (I like surprising other people.) He doesn't show too much emotion and the reaction I probably want is way more dramatic than he'll ever give me, but yeah he was excited. :) I had planned to go to a Par 3 golf course in North Seattle. Then, to dinner at a restaurant we haven't been to. Well, the golf course closed by 7pm and we left a little before 6pm so Kyle didn't think we'd have time to do all 9 holes in an hour. We decided to change plans and went miniature golfing, which I was excited to do. The course was kind of lame, but it was fun. We had Chelsea with us and she was good. She hung out in her car seat all night. For dinner, we went to eat at a new Thai place we haven't been to, Thai Rhapsody. It was yummy! When we got home the kids were in bed and we could just chill. It was great timing. :)

Matchy Matchy

When we moved in 7 yrs ago (we've been here a long time!) there was part of an existing fence in our backyard and it looked like this. 

Well we put up a fence soon after moving in and so part of it was gray and the rest was pretty and new. We even put a weather/waterproof stain on the fence we put up so it wouldn't turn gray. But I always wanted to pressure wash the gray section and make it all match. We finally did that. We borrowed our friend's pressure washer and it was like an eraser! It took off the old and made it look new again. I was just going to do the gray fence, but did our entire fence. Then I painted it all with the weather/waterproof stain to match. 

I think it turned out pretty! It looks much better. The fence to the left in the picture was the gray part. Now we need to work on that lawn...we hate dealing with moss!

Preston Starts Preschool!

Preston started all day preschool last Monday. He loves it! He asks, "after breakfast can I go on the bus to school?" Yesiree! He loves riding the bus and then comes home wanting milk and a snack. Then he usually wants to take a nap and says, "I'm so tired." He should be. The bus picks him up at 8:30am and drops him off at 3pm. He has the same teacher, Mrs. Christine, as last year and she's nice. (He was in her class during summer school 2 summers ago and she recruited him for her preschool class at a different school. His 1st preschool teacher was moving so we made the switch.) She really likes Preston so what more could you ask for in a teacher. The class he attends is called flex preschool where there are 4 developmentally delayed kids, 4 autistic kids and 4 typical kids (normal kids from the community). The last 2 years he was one of the DD kids, but since he was diagnosed with autism in April, he now qualifies for all day. He turns 5 in October so he's ready for it. Oh and his glasses broke the day before at Church so he didn't have them for the first day.

Showing off his new backpack he LOVES

And he doesn't want his new lunchbox in his backpack because he likes to carry it. :)

My sidekick wanted her picture taken. (We had just repainted the porch and railing so the table and chairs were off the porch. Doesn't it look nice?!)

His bus driver in the morning is Sid and he's nice. Kate wishes she could ride the bus. This bus doesn't have seat belts and he is doing good so far about staying in his seat. That was an issue before. His first year of preschool he started out in a harness seatbelt then graduated to a lap seat belt. One bus driver was super strict with him. So it's been a journey. He still loves the bus though.

Kate wanted to show her new backpack. She saw this at Target before school, but it was waayyy too much money, more than I wanted to spend on a backpack. Plus, her other one was okay still, stuff was falling apart on the inside, but it still functioned. Well, I was at Target and saw they had backpacks on clearance (we got Preston's then too) so I couldn't resist buying it for her. And they only had 1 of them! It was meant to be. haha! She was SO excited when she came home from school and saw it. 

Coming home from the first day of school! Sherry is his bus driver that brings him home. She is nice and always says hi to Lindsey. It should be a good year Buddy!

2nd Grade Here She Comes!

Kate started 2nd grade TODAY!!! She is growing up! She was excited and nervous to start. Kyle gave them father's blessings last night. It was neat. Kate has the same teacher as last year because they do looping at her school so they have the same teacher for 1st/2nd and 3rd/4th then different one's for Kindergarten and 5th grade. It's actually really nice because she already knew who her teacher would be and her teacher already knows the kids. It was crazy getting ready this morning along with 4 kids and making breakfast (french toast, buttermilk syrup and fresh sliced peaches) and making Kate's lunch. Preston doesn't start school until next Monday so for a couple days I have to take them all to take her to school. At least I just drop her off in front, but today we all went inside to take pictures. (I forgot to take pictures at the Back to School Night last night). Then on Monday, Preston will catch the bus to his school (he goes to a different elementary school) before we leave to take Kate to her school, which is around the corner, so nice.

This picture is funny because in the background Preston came out wearing Kyle's hat saying, "Hey look, I'm Daddy!" 

Mrs. Pedersen and Kate

Mrs. Pederesen has the softest, nicest voice (unlike mine) and she's so nice. She also has a little 2yr old boy, Kasick, who Kate loves to hear about then tell me about. 

At her desk. She usually switches desks a few times throughout the year.

2012 Sabin Olympics

We had a Sabin Family Reunion over Labor Day Weekend with just our immediate family. The theme was the Olympics since we just enjoyed watching the London Olympics this year. My Mom did a good job planning it all. Each family was in charge of an activity or event for our Olympics. We had golf, shot-put, javelin, slip n slide, gymnastics, synchronized water swimming, triathlon (bike, swim, run- with couples), BB gun shooting and the basketball bump game. It was a lot of fun! The weekend went by fast and we all got along too. :)  

Friday evening everyone arrived (well Jeff and Sadie got there early Friday morning) and we had family pictures. Sarah Christensen took them and she was a good sport to work with our active bunch. My Mom wanted them done before Jared leaves in November for his mission. After we wrangled our kids and tried to bribe them to stand still we ate dinner and could relax. That night we had the opening ceremonies for our Olympic Games. 

Each family made their own flag for the opening ceremony. Kate drew our family and I loved it. 

Getting ready to walk our flags in the parade with the torch

Jared carrying the torch and the Olympic Flag my Mom made! The torch was a rag drenched in motor oil then set on fire. haha! It worked! I love the sunset in the background. 

The flag was put on the flag pole and Paige sang "God Bless America". It was darling.

The kids in our uniforms for the Olympics. These t-shirts turned out cute.

 Cute Baylor with his onesie and black eyes...he's serious about these games!

These two 2 yr olds were funny to watch. Mainly Lindsey wanted whatever Reagan had and Reagan would back away. Lindsey thought she owned everything at "mama's" house.  Sadie did the girls' hair in the morning to match. And Lindsey was perfectly still for her too! That doesn't happen for me. Too cute!

One hot prego Sara with the cute toddlers! ;)

Learning some golfing skills

Just a random picture of most of us in our uniforms

Gymnastics- balance beam routine

Funny!

Chelsea and Baylor chilling. They are only like a little over 2 weeks apart. We thought it was funny how Chelsea was in the boy bouncy (the one my Mom has at her house) and Baylor in the girl bouncy (used to be Reagan's). 

A giant slip n slide. It was fun and the kids loved it too. The guys ended up putting big tubes underneath to make a jump and so we all tried it. The guys could fly over the jump and my Mom got some pretty cool pictures of Jared and Derek.

Our family did this event- BB gun target shooting. You had to shoot from standing, kneeling and laying on the ground. 

We went to Church on Sunday, ate, rested, then all the guys shared their experiences on their missions. They came prepared with souvenirs and pictures to show. It went along with the Olympics and learning about places around the World. Dad- New Zealand, Chris (Marci's boyfriend)- Missouri, Kyle- New York City, Kevin- Puerto Rico, Jeff- Indianapolis, Indiana, Derek- Tijuana, Mexico. Then we had the closing ceremonies where we got our gold medals and we were ALL winners. :) Once all the kiddos were in bed we played Guesstures. Fun times!

 We decided to go into Tri-Cities to see my Grandma Joyce who is in a rehab center. Jeff and Sadie came too and then left for Idaho after that. My Grandma has Parkinson's and it's taken a toll on her lately. My grandpa is so good to sit with her every day from 8am-8pm and keep her company. I wanted her to see Chelsea again. We then met up with Dee Ann. She's been out of the hospital for a couple weeks now and is doing better. We went to Red Robin to eat then went to Melanie's to see her and the kids. It was Dane's birthday so we gave him his gifts. Then we took Dee Ann to her sisters house where she is staying until she moves in a couple weeks to her new rental house. Then we headed on the road. Kyle and I were so tired on the way home. The kids crashed and I got some cat naps in. Kyle usually does fine staying awake while driving home but this time he was exhausted. We made it home around 12:30am. Going into Tri-Cities tacked on an extra 2 hours to our drive time, but it was worth it to see everyone.