Updates and Molly turns 4 months old!

Happy Father's Day, Dan, Gaylord, and Dave!

Hello all....

I was checking out a friend's blog tonight that I hadn't read in a while and saw her list of blogs she follows and mine was one of them. Mine said the last post was one month ago....oops!!! Life is even more crazy with three kids now and I can't seem to keep up with anything, at least well. I know that is okay and I am slowly coming to terms with it, but my normal inclination is to want things close to perfect and nothing can be that right now! I wanted to slowly get caught up from my last post (her birth 4 MONTHS ago!!), but I may just skip until the present and go back if I have time eventually.

Here are some updates on the Strahan Clan and some new pics of Miss Molly, who turned 4 months today!!

About a month ago, on Mother's Day to be exact, I had a terrible pain in my sternum and feelings like I was having a heart attack, with shortness of breath, pain that radiated outward and through my back. So I went to the ER and found that my gallbladder was full of gallstones and needed to come out. They didn't think that I had an infection so my surgery was scheduled 5 days later. So I had the surgery and everything went well. When the dr came to tell Dan I was in recovery he showed him the pictures of my gall bladder and it was not a pretty site. I had a terrible infection, it was very inflamed, and definitely was full of gall stones. He could not believe that I had not had more problems and that I wasn't in more pain. Thank you God for that protection!! The recovery was bad at first but I felt pretty much back to normal in a week or two.

Jacob finished up preschool the last week of May and I registered him for kindergarten a couple of weeks ago. He's growing up so quickly!! He will have full day kindergarten in the fall, which I have mixed feelings about. On one hand it will be a nice break, but on the other hand a full day is soooo long for a 5 year old and I will miss him, too. I signed up Zach for preschool, too. He will go 2 days a week to the same preschool that Jacob attended. He is sooo excited. When Jacob started last fall Zach cried every day we dropped him off for a month because he wanted to go to school, too. Now he'll finally get his chance.

I am a co-coordinator of our MOPS group (Mothers of Preschoolers) at our church and we had a wonderful year. It's such a great program and such an honor to help lead. We had our planning retreat for next year a couple weekends ago and it went really well. We planned all our speakers and creative activities for the year and it should be another awesome year! I am so blessed to be involved with such a great organization.

The boys are enjoying the start of the summer, which finally seems to have arrived. We had a rough spring of a lot of cool, rainy days, but the warmth and sun may stay now! I'm intentionally not planning a whole lot this summer, to leave room to do things on a whim and survive with 3 at home! We have Great America passes, we swim at Dan's parents pool, we go to kids concerts in the park, MOPS park days, play dates, etc. When I am feeling more adventerous to go out with 3 kids we'll head to the Milwaukee Zoo and maybe even downtown for some fun. :)

Molly is doing really well! She is a very smiley, happy girl most of the time. Just don't let the girl get hungry or she will show you her temper for sure! :) She's sleeping pretty well at night, with only getting up once, which lately has been around 5 am (nice!!). My only complaint is that she doesn't sleep well during the day yet and just takes little 20-30 minute cat naps. This is hard, especially when the boys aren't napping anymore. I'm hoping this will improve soon! She's starting to really grab for toys and get some hand eye coordination. She rolled over once in her crib from her belly to her back but hasn't done it since. She loves watching her brothers and Abby, our dog. They are great entertainment! Jacob loves playing with her and getting her to laugh! She loves her momma, which I love! But she's also a daddy's girl, too. They love to snuggle together at night. She's getting so much bigger. I think she's 16 pounds now but I'll know officially next week when we go in for her 4 mo. appt. She has the same chubby cheeks that the boys had and some cute leg rolls, too! Her belly laps over her pants, too, which makes me laugh. She had her first sick appt last week because she had the same cold for about 3 weeks and she ended up having an ear infection. Hopefully not the first of many, like her brothers had.

Here are some pictures from the last couple of days. Most are from Father's Day and then today at a kids concert and at home. I am still figuring out this blogging thing. I can't figure out how to move the pictures around, so unfortunately they are at the beginning instead of the end as planned. Oh well!

Hopefully my next blog won't be in another month!! :)