May GBOMB

May was spent moving into our new house. Not much happened besides settling into our new place so this is going to be a short GBOMB and more of a photo dump from the month of May.

G O O D
+Before we left California, we wanted to do a fun Disney event that we hadn't done before - a character breakfast. We did Goofy's Breakfast and it was so much fun. It was also our last day spent in Disneyland as annual passholders. I'm thinking of writing up a post about our experience having an annual pass.
+Moving went as smoothly as moving can possibly go (so still stressful, but nothing went wrong). We actually unpacked and got things in order in our new house relatively quickly compared to some of our other moves.
+The kids are thrilled with the new house. Taylor and Olive love their new rooms and being outside in the desert and most of all, the chimney for Santa to come down. It's fun to see the silly things kids notice and get excited about. Everything is new and entertaining for them.
+We have plans to break ground on our backyard! It's going to be many, many, many years before we finish everything that we want (i.e. grass, pool, a chicken coop, sand volleyball, other grand schemes) because landscaping is pricey. But we will hopefully have our acre cleared, graded, and fenced by the end of this year.

B A D
+There actually isn't anything I can think of to put in the bad category. Maybe just the struggle of parenting three kids? It's hard when Olive is screaming in the other room while I'm trying to get Eliza down for a nap or when Taylor is begging me to cut up an apple for him, but I'm busy feeding Eliza. I don't have enough hands because my hands are always holding Eliza, but I still have two other children demanding help. It helps to know this is only a season and soon Eliza will be able to sit up on her own and won't need me 24/7. But then we'll run into our next challenge because parenting never ends. Haha.

O N  M Y  B R A I N
+Honestly, nothing is on my brain. My brain is barely hanging on. Newborns and lack of sleep really take a toll on my ability to think. See thoughts on mom brain in my March GBOMB post.

April GBOMB

G O O D
+Taylor turned 4! It was a lowkey event celebrated with pancakes and a giant cookie cake. Ready for the most cliche' saying? I can't believe Taylor is 4 years old! He is growing up so fast.
+Andrew and I celebrated 5 years of marriage! Well celebrated might be the wrong word since we didn't really do anything... because we have kids. Haha. I guess having a normal day is a celebration because our marriage has brought three beautiful children into the world. We wouldn't want anything else.
+I just remembered that we did do something for our anniversary. We all went to the LA Zoo. It was a little rough on me with a two month old, but the kids had fun. And it's always good to get out of the house because I hardly ever leave it except to pick up grocery orders at Walmart.
+We made a quick trip to Disneyland as a family which is something we haven't done in a while. We only did a few things, but made it on the new Jesse's Critter Carousel in California Adventures which is super adorable.
+The kids were really jazzed about Easter this year. We have the Easter Story Egg which is a nesting egg. Each day of the week leading up to Easter, you open an egg and read the story that coincides with that day of Holy Week. The kids looked forward to it each day and begged me to open eggs ahead of schedule. We dyed eggs a little last minute on Saturday night. I gave Taylor and Olive each four hard boiled eggs and they dyed them over and over again until the poor eggs were pretty smashed up. They were also super happy with their Easter baskets and searching for hidden eggs on Sunday.
+We closed on our house! We are home owners again! I'm so excited for our move and to be in a house we own.
+I went to Disneyland with six women I had never met before and it was the best time. I have a large group of what I call my internet friends. We interact with each other across social media and call ourselves the Twitter Moms. About 5 months back we started planning a trip to Disneyland and it finally came to fruition. I spent two days kid-free in Disneyland with these lovely ladies that have changed from just internet friends to real life friends. We're already discussing where our next mom trip will be to (and hopefully more Twitter Moms will be able to join us).

B A D
+We're going to be living on an acre of land which is fantastic. But it's unfenced and essentially the desert as there is nothing behind us. This makes for great views, but it also means our backyard is filled with rattlesnakes, scorpions, gila monsters, tarantulas, coyotes, javelinas, etc and so forth. That's something I could live with if it weren't for my itty bitty children running around. I want them to be able to run wild in the backyard without me having to worry about them receiving a life threatening snake bite. So we need to clear all the desert brush and put a fence around the yard to help keep the wildlife and the children separated. But man, is it expensive to fence an acre. And it's hard to arrange estimates to get the work started. And it's going to take a while once we get started. It's worth it for the land though.
+It seems like we're always struggling with something new when it comes to parenting (I'm sure this pattern will continue for the rest of our lives). Our usually smooth nighttime routine has been disrupted by a strong willed little boy who refuses to stay in bed. We're trying to figure out something that works for him before we go insane.

O N  M Y  B R A I N
+Moving logistics. We're lucky enough to be getting movers paid for by Andrew's work, but that doesn't mean I stress any less. I can't stop the list of things that need to get down for the move out of my head.
+How do you keep little babies from getting sick? Eliza hasn't caught anything terrible, but she always seems to get a runny nose which I then assume means her throat is sore from the snot drainage at night. We hardly leave the house (I've only taken her to church twice since I'm so paranoid after Olive's stint in the ICU as a baby) and her siblings haven't been sick, but she still manages to catch some sort of illness. I feel bad that she's had a runny nose for the majority of her life so far.

March GBOMB

G O O D
+We found out we're moving back to Arizona in May! We'll be in the Tucson area which is about two hours south of where our family lives.
+And with that news, we bought a house! It has tall ceilings, a beautiful kitchen, and it sits on almost an acre of land. We're hoping this is our forever home and I'm so excited to move in.
+Eliza smiles all the time now. It makes the fussing and whining a little more bearable when she's flashing smiles all the rest of the time.
+I think I forgot to mention this last month, but Taylor is potty trained! I was honestly afraid we'd never get to this point. Haha.

B A D
+We all got sick this month. Why is it that once you have kids, your home becomes a petri dish of illness?
+To find our house, we had to take a super fast trip to Arizona. We drove to Arizona on Friday night, house-hunted all of Saturday, then turned around on Sunday to drive home. The kids did great on the way there and the trip itself does not qualify for the "bad" category. The way back is what puts it here because it was so stressful. Our six hour drive turned into nine hours due to traffic, stopping frequently to get the newborn out of her carseat, and an unfortunate puking incident.
+Lately it has been a battle of the wills with Taylor. Overall Taylor is a great kid and has always been easy going. But he's been testing his limits recently to see what he can get away with and we haven't quite figured out what parenting techniques work for him.

O N  M Y  B R A I N
+How do I parent three kids? It's impossible to give them all the attention they need. Someone (mostly Eliza) always needs my focus. Hopefully as Eliza gets older and a little less needy I can balance everything better.
+Mom brain. I always thought it was a funny thing to say to explain away the effects of exhaustion on new moms, but there are actual studies that show a reduction in gray matter after pregnancy. I am feeling it so hard this time around. I will be in the middle of a conversation and stop mid-sentence because I can't remember a word. I will stand up to do something and immediately forget what I was headed to do. Sometimes I need to just stare off in the distance because my brain can't take anymore thinking. So if I ever look blanked face during a conversation, if I've ignored a text (or several), if I completely blown off something I told you I would do, take this as my blanket apology. I am slowly losing my mind and I blame it on my children. Haha.