Mr. Copycat

Tommy's latest thing is copying everything Vic or I do. This kid cracks me up all day long, but some things are just WAY funnier than others. My favorite this week was when he saw I diaper I just changed on Whitney & he picked it up and ran off with it. I chased after him & he hurried & threw it down the stairs. At first I wanted to tell him "no!", but then I realized he was just being "helpful"! Haha, I don't trust the diaper genie so whenever one of the kids are poopy & I don't want to haul them all downstairs to throw out a stinky diaper I throw it to the landing in the middle of our stairs so that it doesn't stink up the upstairs, but it is in the way so I don't forget to grab it on my way down. Anyway, funny how they are always watching & ready to copy whatever we do! The pictures below cracked me up so I just HAD to share! Here he is copying Vic/Daddy if you can't tell!
The title of this picture is:

"Excuse me while I text my people."

...make a few phone calls...
...and then do the booty dance because I just realized that mom & dad are laughing at me & I love to put on a show!

...and then later he decided to be like mommy so while I was trying to plant he came & pushed me out of the way so he could dig his own flower holes!

This one doesn't show anything,but Vic took it & I like the angle & pose :)

Whitney's Newborn Pictures

Here is my dear sweet Whitney's announcement. I wish I was organized enough to send them to everyone, but just the grandparents & aunts got them so here it is for everyone else! I was scarred to mess up her newborn pictures since you can't redo them later, but I think they all turned out pretty good & I saved myself lots of $$$! I put the rest of them on my photo blog: clickHERE to see them all :)

UPDATES!

Okay, I haven't posted on here for awhile so I thought I'd do 4 posts at once so be prepared to read, read, read!!!
I thought I'd start off with a few random shots around the house. Here is the sight that we see several times a day at our house. Tommy LOVES his baby sister & every time it gets quiet we know to run & see where Whitney is because Tommy is probably trying to give her loves, pick her up, or kiss her... which is usually smashing her & waking her up!

We have gotten lots of loving gifts for Miss Whitney. Tommy was tickled pink whenever someone gave us a gift for him too or a gift that will be for both of them. Here he is right after opening a book from my Aunt.

I thought I would only dress my girl in all pink all of the time, but after seeing her in this adorable sleep sack my sister-in-law Becky made us & another brown outfit, I've decided that BROWN of all colors is my favorite on her!!

Vic was of course the best husband on Mother's Day. I woke up to him giving me a massage, breakfast in bed, and when I came down to the kitchen this is what was waiting for me:

My card sang a song when you opened it and Tommy thought that was the greatest thing ever. Makes me want to find a singing book! Here he is so happily dancing to the song on top of his "stage" ...aka.. my new outdoor patio swing!

Easter Egg Hunt

HAPPY late EASTER!!! Easter is one of my favorite holidays for several reasons: Christ's sacrifice, spring & everything coming to life, gorgeous little girls dressed up like princesses, candy, chocolate covered rice crispy eggs, egg dying, family gatherings, egg hunts, and presents!
Here is my little Whitney dressed up. I LOVED all of the sweet ruffles on her dress, bloomers, & socks. I never thought I'd be one for so many ruffles, but they are so SWEET on a newborn :) Vic thinks she is making some weird pose, but it's all I got so here you go!
Look at Kara on the right, being a normal kid decorating her boiled egg. Now see what my son does:

He poked his little finger in as far as he could get it on 3 eggs in a row!!!

Then tore them up into shreds!!!

Tommy had a little practice with opening the eggs & finding treats so when he saw all of the eggs out in the yard he ran out there before we said go for all of the kids.

He was so distressed when we pulled him back so that we could get a picture of him & his cousins together! (Hence his happy smiling cousins & his mad little face) I have to add that these girls had absolutely gorgeous Easter dresses, but we had to celebrate a week late so that is why they are wearing jeans!

Since this was their 3rd hunt they were professional egg grabbers!

Here is Tommy & Evie finding their eggs in the "baby eggs" half of the yard. (I put freeze dried yogurt things & puffs in their eggs)

Here is Tommy & his egg bucket. He didn't want to put any eggs in there because he wanted to eat whatever was inside as soon as he found it!

I kept trying to put eggs in his basket & he would carry it for about 30 seconds before dumping it out & trying to open all of the eggs! Here is Tommy meeting his first set of golf clubs....

Who would have thought it would be his favorite gift! We bought these for $5 and a mini baby slide for $100 and what do you think he spends all of his time with?!?.... the $5 clubs of course!
He loves to hit anything around with his new clubs. He has quite the hacking swing, it is hilarious :)

Here is Evie (9 months old) trying to pick up a yogurt that dropped out of her egg. It took quite a bit of effort & eating some grass along with it to finally get it in her mouth!

Tommy was about this same age when he fell in love with suckers (he stole them from our Halloween bowl) so I thought Evie was ready for her first one. Here she is sticking the stick in her mouth....

...but she figured it out what to do with it pretty quick-sucking through the wrapper and all... and I was right-she loved it. (even though her mom & dad probably didn't love it as much!)
The Easter Bunny hid my basket on top of the patio so I made him, I mean Vic, get it down for me!!

Tommy finding one of his presents... my family goes pretty crazy on Easter & it's almost like Christmas!!

I thought Grandpa Miller would be proud to see that all of his grandkids knew exactly what to do with a tool set! ...even Tommy that had never held a screwdriver before!

Sutherland Easter

I thought I better add our Sutherland Easter on here too. You wouldn't think by my blog that we do much with them, but it's just that we see them so often that I never think to take my camera along to take pictures. Aunt Jessica (my sister-in-law) did an egg hunt for the kids & some of the eggs had puzzle pieces in them. Here they are putting the puzzle together. It was a picture of Christ & a kid on his lap. Vic & I both thought that it was a really cute idea we may take in the future :)

Afterwards, Vic did his own hunt with only a few eggs with a "grand prize" remote control robot thing or princess chess of bedroom decorations. Here is all of the kids lined up ready to go on the search.

It is always mass chaos with these kids so I just love pictures of them running all over the place. I also love that the 14-17 year olds ran around with just as much excitement & enthusiasm as the 5 year olds!

Here is a better picture of some of the younger ones:

Vic hid the egg that said grand prize a little too well so we had to give them a hint as to where it was so it was mass chaos of frantic looking in one spot at the end!

One look at these pictures & it gives you a good idea of the madness that always surrounds Sutherland get togethers... another reason I never get any pictures! He comes from a family of 8 kids that mostly live around here & my Whitney is the 26th grandkid... with plenty more still to come! (not from us, but other siblings :)

9 Months prego & swimming!

Here is a post I should have posted one month ago!:

I have been going a bit stir crazy lately & have been wanting to take Tommy swimming so we went up to 1000 springs. The drive was a bit long to the middle of nowhere, but it was really fun & we'll do it again :) Here is my friend Cara & our cute little swimmers:
I love this boys long lashes!

On the way home we stopped to see the alligators. They were very unimpressive lumps in the grass that you could barely see. Vic was quite dissapointed that he remembered it being so much cooler. It wasn't a complete waste of time though cuz I got this cute picture of him in this giant hand! (althought this is his cry/smile)

Normally I would get mad at Tommy for touching the computer as he is always trying to push buttons & be so helpful, but I don't even know how to open up this drawing program myself so I laughed when I came in the room to see this scene & had to run & get my camera before I pulled him away!

Baby Whitney is here!

Whitney Vanessa Sutherland

4.18.11

8lbs 6oz, 21in

Here we are right after she was born :)

Vic, of course, is once again the proudest, happiest daddy out there.

Tommy meeting Whitney. He was so funny- right when he crawled up into my lap he stuck his face across from hers with the biggest, silliest grin on his face.

Look at that proud brother!!

After looking, he thought he needed to give her a kiss & a hug. As you can see from the picture, he wasn't that worried about upsetting or smashing her :)

After all of his playfulness, he snuggled up next to her & decided he needed to study her face. It's hard to believe these two are siblings with their opposite hair colors!

Whitney & Grandma VanSickle (my mom)... luckily here for 3 days to help out with Tommy!

Whitney and Grandpa & Grandma Miller (my dad/stepmom)

Whitney, Uncle Darren, & Grandma & pa Sutherland (Vic's parents)

And now... THE LABOR STORY!

I'd have to say I was quite miserable going 5 days over, but it may have been very worth it as this labor was 100 times easier than the last! The last one was 23 hours, draining, & awful with an awful doctor I'd never met, & a grumpy nurse. This time...

Monday:

9:30am: I went in for doctor appt w/ my regular doctor & he said the hospital was open to induce me if I wanted to so of course I jumped all over that! Scrambled home to pack, get Tommy to a friend's, eat, & get back to the hospital by 12 to check in.

1:00pm: Doctor broke my water & told me that I was already at a 4 so I could get epidural right away. I was shocked cuz I remember how many hours of pain I had to go through last time before I could have the epidural. I was sorely tempted to do it right away, but I wanted to get this thing done with as soon as possible so I opted to walk until I felt I couldn't handle it any more.

4:00pm: I was doing just fine with only mild discomfort & suddenly within 5 minutes they got way harder & my eyes teared up on a contraction & just the memory of how painful it was last time made me panic & call for the epidural! Luckily, since it was during the day, the anesthesiologist was in house & came right up to give it to me. I was sitting pretty by 4:30. Prettyish I should say. Last time I had a spot it didn't work on the right side & this time both legs were totally numb, but right down the middle wasn't all the way numb! It made it much easier though & all I had to do was light breathing through each contraction.

6:00pm: My doctor had gotten off work & came to check on me before he went home & it was a good thing he did because I was already at a 9 1/2! He went & got dressed down, gathered up the needed staff, & by that time I was fully ready to push. I still pushed her out in 4 minutes just like last time, but this time I could feel it-- making it way harder to want to push! I hate that I could feel it, but glad to have the experience of knowing what it feels like to have a little HUMAN come out of me! Total time was just under 6 hours which was AMAZING. I can't believe how different having a baby can be! I can now understand why women can do it more than twice :) AND... even though epidurals never seem to work perfectly... thank goodness for that modern miracle!!

Naming this little girl was a challenge! Little Miss Whitney came out & I seriously would not believe she was mine if I hadn't seen her come out of me! When we went to the hospital we had the name Whitney Vanessa picked out because I thought this baby was going to look just like Tommy, but girly. So when I saw this little girl I had no idea what to call her! I kept going back & forth between names & really just felt weird naming a little girl that I was still having a hard time believing was mine! Finally I just decided that the name Whitney is cute & she is cute so they match :) I still am not sold on the name for her, but I'm sure it will grow on all of us. I picked out Whitney so Vic got to pick out Vanessa.

24 hours later & I'm really starting to feel the awful pain of healing and the rocky road to recovery, but it is all so worth it when I look at Whitney's sweet little face. She is so tiny and lovable & I can't wait to spend the next 6 weeks 100% at home with her :)

Here is one more shot of this little cutie with her sweet little feet poking out- you can't really see the blanket that well in this picture, but Vic's mom made her another one of her amazing blankets. We are so lucky she has such talent!

Tommy's Update

My little Whitney is refusing to come out (she is now 4 days late) & I haven't said much about Tommy lately so I thought I'd share this adorable kid of mine. He is now 16 months and constantly moving. I'm sure everyone thinks their kid has way too much energy, but Tommy really does! I have strangers constantly comment on how busy he is. Him always moving makes it easy for him to entertain himself while I get stuff done at least! My brother called him Tommy Tornado when we went to visit there & it has sort of stuck to him because we realized that is exactly what he is! If you see him coming, then watch out! It's not in a bad way, as he is the happiest, smiliest little guy... just a daredevil that is always testing his boundaries & getting bruises all over him :) He finally learned to dance & now does it all day long & loves it when I sing to him. (probably the only person that wants to hear that noise!) He is a 100% Daddy's boy. When Vic is around he doesn't want to go to anyone else. I love watching the two of them play together- it is nonstop giggles from Tommy which makes me laugh every time. He knows he can get what he wants without talking so he prefers to pull us to whatever he wants & point, but he signs & says "more" consistantly. Other words are: duck, bubbles, mama, dada, no, Carter, baa (for sheep), & grrr (for anything fuzzy), where'd it go, and Vic swears he said baseball today. I have a hard time believing that one! His favorite game is hide and seek whether it be him hiding behind the curtain, me sticking a blanket over my head, or hiding something & trying to find it. He is obsessed with any form of the game!

Summed up... a CUTE face that is impossible not to LOVE!!!