Back in the land of the living!

Ok, so seriously I was tired for a while. By that I mean wiped out hardly functioning. Factor out pregnancy insomnia and general inability to sleep while huge, I didn't sleep for six months. Add in the pregnancy and I think it was more like a year.

And really, it was no big deal, but that meant that some things had to take a back seat, and the blog was one of them.

Along with my general state of cleanliness.

There were things I did do. I read to my kids a ton, I grocery shopped and cooked, I ran, I snuggled with three fabulous kiddos, I traveled, I had playdates with friends, I worked. But if you only follow me here on the blog and not on fb or ig, then for all you know I dropped off the face of the earth (right grandpa?). 

But here we are!!!!

I have a renewed sense of commitment now because poor Emiline doesn't have much in the way of documentation.

First, let's get to the pictures. These are the pictures I found in my camera. My phone has a ton more that I will upload soon but these crack me up because they were so long ago.

From Hannah's first preschool field trip last September!

She's really cute, but luckily hasn't changed much since September.

I found angry baby from when she was three months old. She doesn't look much like that any more.

These were from February 23. So fairly recently. She still looks like this.

Blue eyes?

She also might end up with a red tint to her hair. Which I am hoping for. Really, I don't care at all what color her hair ends up being but it would be too cute if it were auburn/red/blonde.

So, as far as Emiline goes, she has been mobile since about December. She officially started crawling on February 13th.
She crawls like a mad woman now and pulls herself up onto everything. I found her in the toilet playing with poop the other day. We have always asked the girls to flush when they are done but I will now have to enforce that request:) She has pulled over trashcans, eaten who knows how much paper, opens drawers, empties out cabinets, pulls books off shelves, gets into the DVD's, eats remotes, cords, dirt and plants. I remember thinking my first two were so good about not getting into things and I wondered why. I still don't know why they didn't and Emiline does but I am enjoying this new experience!
In general, she is a motivated little girl. She stands independently for probably around 30 seconds at a time and cruises around furniture. I think she will walk by 10 months but I have been wrong about every single prediction I have ever made about my kids so who knows.
She loves her bottle. I stopped all nursing last week. It was a mutual decision. I loved it and I miss it but I am happy to be done. And Emiline is seriously obsessed with her bottle. She has even started a slight food strike because now she wants only a bottle and being the third child, I can't handle three shouting kiddos so I give in most of the time. I figure she won't take a bottle to preschool so who cares.
One of the ways the bottle has worked in our favor is nap and bedtime. We spent 8.5 months battling this sweet little child to sleep. She thought it was highly overrated and most of the time I dreaded naptime and bedtime because I knew the amount of crying it would cause and I was just plain tired of it.
Well, last Friday (the 14th) (see how huge of a deal this is? I know the date!) I put her down for her nap and just gave her her bottle in bed. I have never done that with a child but I didn't care at this point. Her pedi would NOT like that at all.
Anyway, she drank her bottle and went right to sleep and took a two hour nap.
Now, a week and a half later, all I do is give her her bottle in her crib for the morning nap, she will sleep about an hour, give her a bottle for her afternoon nap and she will sleep 2-3 hours and then a bottle at bedtime and she goes right to sleep. And sometimes (like this morning), when I hear her at 5am crying, I know I have two choices, let her cry until 7:30 when it's time to get up, or fix her four ounces and give it to her and she will go back to sleep until 7:30. That's a no brainer. For some reason I feel guilty for all of this but I keep reminding myself that a rested baby and a rested momma is a happy house:)
And you know what's great (and sad)? She doesn't even want me to hold her. She wants in her crib with her bottle. So essentially I haven't held her to feed her in a week. That's weird. I kind of miss her. Any nursing moms know that for the first six months (at least!), those babies are a 5th appendage. I feel like I'm missing something. So I make sure to hold her all the time when she is awake. Let me rephrase that. SHE makes sure I hold her all the time when she is awake:)
I am just now feeling like I am rested. I still feel like I could sleep 10 hours every single night for the next six months, but overall am feeling much much better than I have in a long time! Which is good timing because I have to start training for a half marathon race in a little less than six weeks with almost no base. Yikes. When I signed up for the race in the fall, I had no idea we would have the winter of all winters and I wouldn't be able to run outside.
I have spent about 20 years running outside even through the winter and I couldn't do it this winter. I can't tell if I am more of a sissy as I get older or I am just smarter (I'd like to think smarter) because I can't run in negative degree weather while it's sleeting and snowing (I used to do that.....). I have kids to care for and I can't do that very well if I get sick or get hit by a car and die.
I ran 10 miles yesterday, risking massive injury due to sudden and significant increase in mileage, and felt great! I didn't realize how much I missed those longer runs until I came home (with, literally, frozen hair because it was 15 degrees) with some major endorphins pumping through my system. I haven't run over 6 miles since August of 2012!
I am hoping for a 1:36 half, but that's awful aggressive and possibly pure wishful thinking. But I am going to give it my best and hope I don't get injured.
Ok, that's about it for Emiline and me. I now need to write some updates about Hannah and Olivia because they are seriously hilarious right now (ie Hannah thinks the movie is called Allison Wonderland and Matt and I didn't correct her). I can't tell you how many times they say something and Matt and I look at each other and die laughing.
I have three girls. It's pretty great.