Jackston Dean Aplanalp

Our little angel joined our family on Friday July 15. We were so excited to meet him. Mom especially because she was tired of being pregnant. He had to come out through cesarian because the doctors thought he would be too big but he turned out to only be 9lb 2 oz which is small since Raegan and Logan were 9lbs 7oz. But both mom and baby are doing well. Amy is having a harder time with recovery but things get better each day. He is a great little guy, always sleeping, willing to be mauled by the other 3 crazies in the house. He is very content and lets you know when he need to be burped or changed. Other than that he just hangs out and enjoys his surroundings. Just a few pictures of the day. Getting ready to go and be sliced ;)

Where is that warm dark place I was enjoying?

Sooo happy to be here ;)

My little balding man ;)

Raegan has had the most fun with him. She gets very stressed the minute he makes and sound and tries to make sure he always has something red, black or white to look at. She doesn't like poopy diaper or cleaing his belly button. Those are saved for mom and dad.

4 kids????? Brielle is always bringing mom one of her stuffed animals when mom doesn't have the baby. She told Amy "here, you can have my baby since dad took yours away" So thoughtful!

Staycation

We took an overnight trip to...Orlando over the 4th of July weekend. We cashed in some Marriott points, and stayed at a resort down by Disney. They had a fun pool, and staying in a hotel is always fun for the kids (it's one of the most frequent requests for fun we get at our house). Raegan and Dad attempting toe-touch jumps into the pool, with Logan and Brielle observing our form.

Brielle's subsequent toe-touch.

Logan's valiant attempt.

The three kids having fun with a pudgy, really white-skinned guy.

Raegan and Logan jumping through a waterfall.

Brielle showing off her goggles. Heaven only knows how she sees out of them, as this is how they always look when she puts them on. And, coincidentally, we're not sure how she hears either since she pulls them so low on her head that they actually fold her ears over on themselves - pretty funny.

In the pool...

Celebrations

Father's Day

My Birthday~and I had to speak in church~dang I look tired!

Girls night out baby shower~Yes, I ordered two pieces of cake~I am eating for two right? Great bunch of friends who take such good care of me. (Didn't realize my belly stuck out that much) They say pictures add 10 lbs right?

Summer fun

Summer seems to have just started and we have been busy! The heat hasn't kept us indoors unfortunately for me who wants to die the minute we walk outside. Just a few pictures of the thing the kids have been up to. Logan got his face painted at a birthday party and thought the shark was the coolest thing, especially because it matched his shark pj's he had on.

Jake's work has a picnic every year and there was more face painting and playing outside. They had a raffle and Jake was dead set on winning the flat screen TV. Too bad for him, we won a camera (we already have 2) so we sold it on ebay and made a small profit! It's the little things that make you so happy ;)

The kids have wanted to have a lemonade stand for the last few weeks so we finally had one. We started in our driveway and after an hour of no customers, they moved their business to the corner and finally got some customers. They made a whopping $4! Again, the little things that make you so happy!

Recovering my car seat and stroller

I got a crazy itch to recover the car seat and stroller that we have had since Raegan....what was I thinking?! I was thinking Raegan is now 7 and 3 kids later, it is time for an upgrade. But I didn't want to buy a new one, so I saw a post online about recovering the carseat and enlisted the help of my mom and grandma when they were here. What a great help they were!! It was easy with them and it turned out great! They left and I had to do the stroller on my own (scary)....it wasn't too bad. I did have a friend come and help me unpick and just make sure I was doing it correctly so I didn't have an unneccessary unpicking to do. Sometimes my sewing foot gets ahead of reason and functionalitity ;(


The stroller was going great until my machine broke (boo!) and it would cost more to fix it then buy another one~ So in an effort to save all this money of buying a new stroller, I ended up buying a new sewing machine. I upgraded a little and this one seems fun. So I did finally finish and everything seems to work correctly. I am proud of myself for doing it, but also exhausted from having to put it back together~Good night!

Before

(Look how dirty and gross it is!) That is after it was washedAfter~

I do have to say I liked the fabric better when it was on the bolt and when I finished it wasn't my favorite, but I wasn't going to start over and it was better than when I started ;)))

Space Shuttle and Jellyfish at the Beach!

Here are some pictures from our trip to Canaveral National Seashore today, which is actually part of the nature preserve portion of Kennedy Space Center. Although you can barely see it in the background of the family picture, Space Shuttle Atlantis has been rolled out to the launch pad (that's it, just to the left of Brielle's head). We had hoped to get closer, but the presence of an armed guard on a watchtower indicated to us this was close enough. Pretty cool, since this is the last launch of the shuttle program.

Lot's of Jellyfish in the water today, so we had to be careful. They're very small (see in Brielle's bucket below), but still sting - Logan was stung on the ankle but was no worse for the wear.

During our relaxing day, this NASA helicopter flew overhead. Can't really see in the pictures, but they had men manning huge machine guns hanging out each open side door. Heaven forbid someone should try to steal the shuttle...

Fun on the boogey boards in these next few pictures.

Walking along the beach looking for shells and jellyfish. The kids are so compassionate - took forever on this walk because they stopped for every stranded jellyfish (many wash ashore, most dead) and tried to scrape them back into the water with shells and sticks so the jellyfish would have a fighting chance back in the water...

Pretty fun day.

Logan's graduation

Logan has his VPK gradution. The way they planned it you think they were graduation from high school! It was very cute though. Each class sang a song and then they all sang some more songs. He got to walk across the stage and get his certificate. I have loved his preschool and hope he has the same experience in the years ahead. His friend Ione

Getting his certificate from his teacher, Ms Azar. Sweetest lady on the planet to still love all these crazy 5 year olds after a whole year ;)

Singing their songs. Logan is in the middle next to the boy and girl with long hair.

Getting ready to walk across the stage.

Mother's day

Raegan and Dad made me breakfast in bed. Raegan was so excited to do this. She was so sweet and made pictures to put all over my room. She also made me a plethera of cards at school and a play dough covered pot to put 'stuff' in. Brielle came and taste tested everything which was fine because they gave me so much food!

Logan's little school had a "Muffins with Mom" morning and we got to do a little date and on the table was a cute plate he decorated with pictures of me he drew. It was so nice and I enjoyed the time he and I got to spend together. Even though I often want to sell them on Ebay, I LOVE being their mom ;)