Figuring It Out As We Go

Ice Fesitval

2012-01-24T23:42:00.003-05:00

We love city festivals, but most are in the Summer. That's why I love the Plymouth Ice Festival - all the fun and none of the heat. Everyone knows I do much better in the cold, so this festival is perfect for me. It also involves power tools and men hacking away at large blocks of ice, so it's perfect for Benjamin. And they even have a petting farm every year, so it's perfect for Bella and Christian. It doesn't get any better. Lots of yummy food to buy, cool ice sculptures and ice sculptures-in-progress to look at, animals to pet, and a mini cross country ski course for kids. We had a great time, despite the horrific crowds and my oh-so-terrible attempt at parallel parking on the overly-crowded city streets. (It was so bad that I heard people laughing at me as I was parking and saw people pointing and laughing at my van as we returned later.)

Benjamin and Bella fell in love with this little goat and wouldn't leave it alone. Benjamin started making goat noises to it and the goat began answering. He and Benjamin honestly sounded like they were conversing back and forth at one point. People actually stopped and watched for a while because it was so entertaining. I was also happy to see that Christian had gotten over his fear of fluffy animals and seemed to enjoy being around them.

Simple Fun

2012-01-24T23:38:00.002-05:00

Christian and I have 4 hours a week of one-on-one time while the other two are at school. I try to make the very most of those precious moments, but that doesn't mean we always do fancy things. For this day I decided he might like to play with the pom-poms we had in a jar since last year when we spent the year earning "warm fuzzies" for good deeds. He loved it. Dump the jar, fill it back up, put the lid on, take the lid off, dump it out, etc. etc. There was also the occasional throwing and scattering and shrieking with laughter. So entertaining and so simple. I love this age.

Staying Sane At Home

2012-01-18T22:17:00.008-05:00

I'm feeling obligated to update my blog since it's been quite a while, but there's so little new going on around here. Mostly we've stayed at home more lately. For some reason the kids have shown less interest in going out, which is very unusual for them. Maybe it's the weather. In looking through my pictures on my camera, here's the highlights:

Bella got her hair cut fixed and she looks really cute. She still hates to have me brush it, though, so it's hard to get a picture of how cute it really is. Had to take this picture, though. She loves to play pretend with me while Benjamin's at school and it's always the same thing: she's the mom and I'm the child. She takes me to swim lessons, where she becomes the teacher. Then she becomes mom again, takes me home, and puts me to bed, complete with goodnight story and songs.

This is Bella as swim teacher (sorry it's so blurry): gymnastic leotard pulled over the dress she was wearing that day, carrying the other "kids" in the swim class in the pool (Benjamin's bed - because he has the blue comforter). Note the animals all have their leotards/swimsuits on too. I forget what the backpack was for...oh! it was because we were going camping after swim lessons and that night we'd be sleeping in the tent. Her sleeping bag is in the backpack. She's truly a mom - prepared for every possibility!

Since we've been home more lately, I've tried to find fun things to do so that I don't have to just spend all day fighting ogres and taking swim lessons on the bed. We've made crystals. (They loved that, although waiting for them to form was hard.)

We've microwaved ivory soap. (Never done that? You should.)

We've made oobleck (corn starch and water - that trick never gets old.)

We've made puffy paint (the fun is also in the microwaving afterwards).

We've climbed trees in the backyard.

We made a light box. (Punch holes in the bottom of a box and stick christmas lights through them. So fun to crawl inside and close up.)

We made our own playdoh for the first time. (Never felt like making it when you can buy it for $.99, but it gave us something to do and we loved the result.)

We made a catapult out of popsicle sticks. (Great at launching food you don't like).

We made squish paint monsters. (Fold a paper in half, put paint along the fold and close. Reopen and embellish with eyes, arms, legs, etc.)

We also played a game where you draw something on half a piece of paper and then extend just a few of the lines from your drawing over to the other half of the paper. The other person sees only those extended lines and draws another picture off of them. We had some awesome results, such as an elephant with duck feet or a tree trunk with a ghost rising out of it.

And last, but not least, we've played "I'm stuck in the pot!" A lot. (Christian's favorite game.)

One day I took the pot to make some spaghetti and he was so upset. "Stuck!" he kept crying out, pointing to the pot on the stove, until I found another pot of suitable size so he could continue his game. (In case you're wondering, Bella had a stomach ache that day and wasn't up to much, as you can see.)

Today I took the kids to Millrace Historical Village for what they advertised as a "Fairy Class for 3-5 year olds." I figured it was going to be a tour of the village with some people dressed up as fairies doing fun stuff in the various houses. When we arrived, we discovered it was taking place in only one of the houses and they had a list of those who'd preregistered and wanted to know our names so they could check us off. Apparently I hadn't read the ad carefully enough. Luckily they were kind and added us and then proceeded to ask for a mere (ha!ha!) $15/kid. They'd conveniently failed to mention in the ad that there was a fee. I know I wouldn't have overlooked that. But now we were stuck, so I paid for Benjamin and Isabella and then had to leave. Didn't see in the ad that parents weren't included either. So I got some unexpected 1-on-1 time with Christian at the playground while the older two were transformed into a fairy and a troll and had a wonderful time. They had their faces painted, made magic wands and magic potions, had cupcakes and lemonade, colored pictures, dressed up, etc. etc. I guess it was $30 well spent.

One last cute picture: Christian loves his box of balls. Mostly he loves to climb in and throw them out. This day he'd also found Bella's crown, tore most of the letters off and put it on. Guess he wanted to claim it as his own.

Rites of Passage

2012-01-05T22:26:00.008-05:00

Bella passed through a classic rite of passage this week - she cut her own hair. I remember doing that as a kid and I'm sure many others do too. Grab the scissors, close the bathroom door, climb up on the sink, and hack away.

I was in the kitchen with Christian when I heard the sound of scissors cutting through something thick. I heard it two or three times and decided this needed investigating. I came into the bathroom to find this:

She was completely undeterred by my arrival and continued to cut long after I'd come in. She was so happy doing it and so proud of herself that I didn't stop her. I was curious to see how far she'd go. She ended up doing quite a hackjob on the sides but left the back mostly in tact so she now has a bit of a rat-tail look.

When she finally laid down the scissors, I asked, "Do you like what you did? Do you think you look pretty?" She beamed back at me in the mirror, nodded her head, flipped her hair with her hands, and said, "yes!" "We should probably go somewhere and have it fixed a little," I said. "Why??" she asked, truly puzzled. So we've decided to let it go for a week or two and then get a friend to clean it up a bit. "I wanted it short like Benjamin's because my hair grows so fast it's crazy!" she explained to Kelly that evening. If only that were true. It's taken us 2.5 years to fully recover from her hair ripping as a 1 year old. But alas, if she wanted short hair, she's definitely going to have it.

As for Benjamin, he didn't want to be left out of the action and cut his hair too, but he was so timid about it and cut so little that I couldn't even tell. He insisted he cut a lot and had me take pictures and asked me if I thought he looked good, but they aren't even worth posting - they look exactly the same. So funny. His rite of passage this week was his 5 and 1/2 birthday. He was so excited.

We made cupcakes - a rarity around here - and sang to him and I agreed to play whatever game he chose and so of course he chose to pretend that I'm his horse. I got to crawl around whinnying with all the kids on my back for an hour or so before I declared the 1/2 birthday celebration over.

We also, not as part of his birthday, did some fun snow and ice experiments this week, to make up for the lack of such things outside. We played with sodium polyacrylate (fake snow) and made frost develop on a can. (The frost experiment can be found here.) It's so great playing with snow in the warmth of the kitchen while still in pajamas! Benjamin decided his bugs would like to play in the snow too.

It was a lot of fun talking about the various scientific principles behind these things. Benjamin loves that kind of stuff. It is so cool to see his brain working to understand these things which he can't see. He's dying to have a microscope and a telescope - although he can never keep the terms straight! :) So funny how he's always asking for a microscope so he can look at the stars.

My Little Sunbeam

2012-01-01T22:06:00.005-05:00

The start of a new year always marks the start of new primary classes (Sunday school for ages 3-11). I was a bit more stressed then usual this year since it was my first January as Primary President, but we survived with little drama. The best part of today was seeing my little Isabella in the front row with all the Sunbeams (youngest class)! That was awesome. She was such a little cutie in her pigtails, barefoot, beaming up at me. All excited to be with the big kids. Church started at 1pm and all morning she kept saying, "I'm so excited to be a Sunbeam! I'll get to be with you again!" Ever since I left nursery 2 months ago, I've missed being with my little nursery kids, but there they all were again! They all did great. After church, she came running to me and said, "I love Sunbeams, but mommy, did you know, we don't get a snack!?" She was shocked and dismayed. I'd warned her but apparently she hadn't thought it possible. "I told my teacher I was hungry and she said we don't have snack!!" The harsh realities of the grown up world. She's still excited to do it again next week, though. :) Love that girl.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-24T21:44:00.005-05:00

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas!!

(We went to the Henry Ford Museum to see the holiday train display and the kids wanted to see Santa. So I reluctantly agreed, but Bella pooped in her pants while we waited in line and Christian started clawing at me and screaming as I attempted to place him on Santa's lap, so only Benjamin ended up in the picture.) (Oh...and the marked up face is Benjamin's artistic rendition of a Lamanite Cat. During scripture study that morning we'd talked about how the Lamanites marked their faces before going to war. Just prior to the museum, he and Bella wanted to pretend to be cats. He began to draw whiskers on his face and remembered the Lamanites - thus the Lamanite Cat was born. Don't you love how a 5 year old mind works? He was very proud to show is art work to Santa and refused to wash it off before the picture. I was okay with that. It's just so truly Benjamin.)

She'd Make A Lousy Spy

2011-12-16T22:37:00.002-05:00

I went shopping for Benjamin's Christmas presents this week. I had Bella along, assuming she'd be too busy looking at things for herself to notice what I was stuffing under the groceries. She noticed, though. Immediately. So I said, "These are for Benjamin. You can't tell him about them because they're for Christmas and they are secret so you don't want to ruin his surprise. Do you understand? Do you promise?" She dutifully nodded her head with a sneaky smile on her face showing her delight at being a part of this precious secret.

When we picked Benjamin up from school that day she managed to contain herself just long enough to get him home at which point she burst out with, "We bought you new footy pajamas for Christmas, Benjamin! And we got..." That's as far as she got before I tackled her to the floor, forcibly whispering through clenched teeth, "It's a secret! Remember!?!? Don't tell him!!" Again the smile and the head nod. She stood up and proudly called out, "It's a secret, so I'm not going to tell you that we bought you a ..." I couldn't believe my ears as she revealed yet more gifts!!! I threw my hand over her mouth, dragged her into her room and shut the door. Benjamin excitedly called after us, "Is it true? Is Bella right? Did you buy those things?!" "Bella has no idea what she's talking about! Just ignore her!" I yelled. Luckily he's young enough and naive enough that he believed me and after yet another discussion about not not not NOT telling ANYTHING about what we bought, she finally stopped spilling the beans.

Tomorrow I get to go Christmas shopping without her so I can have at least one item under the tree for him that he doesn't already know about!

A Picture Says a Thousand Words

2011-12-09T21:59:00.006-05:00

By pure chance, I caught a classic photo today. One of those that sums up the whole story in one image. I was outside with the kids reveling in the first real snow fall of the year. I decided to take a picture of them playing, but just as the camera went off, Benjamin nailed Bella right in the face with a monstrous snowball and my camera caught this:

Seeing this picture tonight made me laugh outloud. That look on Benjamin's face is priceless. It was really fun playing outside today...except for Bella's incessant crying after that.

He had plenty more where that came from, though. Not even the woman behind the camera was safe.

Although I really think Bella spends more time crying or whining than anything else lately. What is it with three year old girls and their whiny crying all day long?? She cries over every piddly little thing. Benjamin took my toy, I can't get my shoes on, I don't want to eat that, I want to watch a movie, I don't want to brush my hair....all while crying hysterically. Mostly, though, lately it's the cold. She is a total wimp about the cold but she refuses to dress appropriately because her snow clothes aren't as cute. (She complained non-stop about them as she put them on today.) We all wanted to go to the park yesterday and here she is after 5 minutes outside:

I told her to wear pants and better shoes because she was going to be cold, but she responded with, "I don't care," and left the house. I ended up taking off my jacket and letting her sit on it with it wrapped around her. Even wrapped up, she cried hysterically the entire time we were there until Benjamin said, "I don't like this park with all the crying," and we went home. Oh Bella, we love you, but you drive us crazy.

Other Christmas season happenings: Benjamin was a shepherd/inn keeper in our ward's nativity play. So cute. I was stage mom, so I couldn't take any other pictures of the play, but I got this one beforehand with his fellow inn keepers/shepherds.

It was my job to move the sheep and the inn, whisper lines to panicked actors, and keep a certain wiseman from taking a bathroom break 30 seconds before his cue. Benjamin was so excited to be in it. That morning the first thing he told me was, "I can't believe it's going to be ME on stage!" They all did great.

I also took Benjamin to see The Nutcracker ballet. I love the ballet and I really wanted to share that experience with Benjamin. I would have taken Bella too if I'd thought she'd last through it, but she's really not ready. In a few years. But the kids and I have watched lots of ballet performances online and he's always been very interested, so I took a chance on him. It went great. He loved it and had lots of great questions and comments and was perfectly behaved the whole time. Even got this cute little pic of him on stage with the nutcracker display. The ushers got mad at us for getting on stage, but I snapped the shot before they could shoo us off. :)

Another Christmas cuteness - this is the note Benjamin wrote for Santa and told me I needed to lay with the milk and cookies.

So cute! I've actually tried very hard to not perpetuate the Santa myth. It's been one of those things that makes me very uncomfortable - lying to my kids while they get punished for lying. Yet, despite the fact that I've never talked to them about Santa and even slipped in a few "Santa is really just pretend" comments, they get so bombarded with it everywhere that they still believe. I'm not going to ruin their fun. I will definitely put out a plate of cookies and this note.

We're getting very excited for Christmas. I had them video record their Christmas wishes. That was fun to see. Benjamin wants a remote control motorcycle, a lego submarine, a violin (no idea where that came from), a metal detector ("to find treasure!"), a real camera (because breaking mine each year apparently isn't enough), and that Bella will always be his sister (melted my heart). Bella wants headbands, dress up clothes, and a real cell phone ("Christian can have my play one.") We'll see how generous Santa is this year.

Long Silence

2011-11-27T22:32:00.005-05:00

I just looked at the date on my last post and realized it's been a while! I guess with all the days off school lately I've been busier than usual with kids these last few weeks. We've had a great month, though. Thanksgiving was great and time off from school was great too, although, I am glad to get back into a routine. Not that I didn't love not having to race to the bus stop in the mornings!

The Henry Ford museum has a temporary exhibit all about the Wizard of Oz so we had to go check that out. That was a lot of fun. It's all interactive and hands-on, so you rode the cow on the farm in Kansas, went into the house during the tornado, came into munchkin land on the yellow brick road (and could build an arch, but Benjamin would rather jump around on the blocks), got to dress the scarecrow, ride the witch's bicycle, climb around the wicked castle, man the controls to the Wizard's special effects, etc. Not the least of which time was spent on the couches watching the movie itself!

We also managed to find some other fun stuff this month during our time off:

Science/color experiments with shaving cream:

Got the idea from here.

Visits to the playgrounds:

Creating a mini city with painter's tape to practice reading and number recognition:

It was a lot of fun and sparked a lot of creative play in ways I hadn't expected - like when they pretended that a tornado tore through town and everyone had to be rushed to the emergency room. (Got the idea from here)

Painted with colored ice cubes:

First attempt used paper, but the kids just wanted to watch it all mix together, not so much create final works of art, so we ditched the paper and rubbed the colored ice around on the cookie sheets. Very messy (amazing how far colored water clapped vigorously between hands can spray) but very fun! See idea here. Oh, and that color on the glass - that's not from the ice - that's from our window crayons. We LOVE our window crayons.

Went on a long bike ride in Kensington Park:

That mostly means we played at playgrounds around the park with our bike gear on because we never rode for more than 5 minutes before we'd pass another area where the kids wanted to stop and play. However, I have to say that my favorite part of the day was the game of freeze tag at the end. Kelly played along too and he's just out of shape enough that he and I were well matched despite his long legs. It was super fun making him struggle to catch me.

And we of course, we ate our weight in turkey and yams on Thanksgiving, but we hosted so I was too busy with all of that to remember to take a picture! :( Should have given my camera to Benjamin. Then I'd at least have plenty of pictures of people's feet and rear ends to document the holiday. Alas, there's always next year. We did have some really fun families over and had a great time eating, racing RC cars, and making human tacos with the futon cushion. Ah the things that will entertain a group of kids. It's so fun.

Now school begins again and swim lessons and gymnastics and I just got made primary president today (in addition to Kelly being in the bishopric), so I'm in charge of all the kids at church 18 months to 11 years old, so we have plenty to keep us busy! Life is good.

First Solo Craft Attempt

2011-11-10T11:19:00.004-05:00

I've been excited for Bella to have preschool so I could have some time with Christian and do things on his level. Today we attempted painting for the first time. He's finger painted with us while the older kids have worked on harder things, but today I wanted to see what he'd do with a brush. It was a lot of fun. He didn't last long at the activity - 5 or 10 minutes - but that's what I expected. He did seem to enjoy it, though.

He tried out a couple different brushes and then used his hands too. Then he grabbed some other supplies from my craft bag - markers, googly eyes - and wanted to try them out too, so we did. We rolled some big googly eyes in the paint and we stirred them around in a box with our brush. I tried tracing his hand with the marker, but he didn't like me holding his hand still, so I just drew his hand instead. I just loved spending the time just letting him investigate and seeing what he'd do. Such a fun little boy!

Things I Like To Do

2011-11-10T11:05:00.003-05:00

Benjamin came upstairs yesterday with a stapled pack of papers in his hand and proudly showed me his latest masterpiece. He's been in love with writing lately and wants to write signs, letters, and books all the time. I thought his latest creation was so cute. It's "Things I Like To Do." Here it is in all it's crazy phonetic glory. For those of you who aren't as adept at deciphering his phonics, the translation follows the pictures.

Translation: "Things I like to do: swimming, gymnastics, school, and playing pretend, and eating, AND looking at the stars." (That's him looking at the stars in the illustration). I never tire of these little creations because I think it's so fun to see how he will write the various words. Like eding = eating. Makes sense, doesn't it? We don't really say it like a T, we are lazy and say it like a D. I struggle a bit in balancing praise with spelling correction, but usually I lean more to the praise because the spelling will come with time, but for now I love to see that he enjoys writing. And let's not forget Mark Twain's words, "He must have little genius who can’t spell a word in more than one way."

Beautiful Fall Weather

2011-11-06T22:36:00.004-05:00

It was so beautiful a few days ago that we couldn't resist spending nearly the whole day at the park. We played at the playground

found various muddy water puddles (when don't they find muddy water puddles?)

went on a walk in the woods and around the pond

and collected some late-blooming wild flowers and interesting nuts.

It was a wonderful day exploring and reveling in nature. No one wanted to go home! So now the little bouquet of wild flowers sits (in a sippy cup) on my kitchen table to remind me of our day. Fall goes by way too quickly.

Happy Halloween! and Happy Birthday to Me!

2011-10-31T21:08:00.010-04:00

What a fun day Halloween is! Parties, birthdays, trick-or-treating...so much fun.
I woke up to the smell of pumpkin bread and quiche for breakfast. That was lovely. No cracked wheat today. :)

Then Benjamin had a Halloween party at school which he said went great. While he was there, a wonderful friend offered to watch my other kids so I could have some time to myself on my birthday to spend my birthday money! Such a thoughtful gesture! Friends who understand what life with small kids is like are great.

Then I picked everyone up and we had "dinner" because I knew with all the craziness this evening, it wouldn't happen. We spent the rest of the afternoon playing around until it was time for Benjamin's swim lesson and then trick-or-treating!!

Everyone looked sooo adorable! Bella wasn't in the picture taking mood, so we made many attempts to get a decent shot. Here are the closest ones we got of Iron Man, Rapunzel (and her chameleon Pascal), and G.I. Joe...oh and me, the Hippie - a term which had my kids asking, "a WHAT?" I think even after trying to explain, they still didn't really get it, but Bella told me, "I like your headband." Good enough.

And Christian had so much fun on his first time trick-or-treating! He carried his jack-o-lantern with a huge grin on his face (wish I'd taken my camera along!!) and muscled his way past the big kids to the door. He'd carefully select a candy and proudly hold it up for me to see before putting it in his stash. Then he'd try to go in to the peoples' homes. :) Guess he figured if they're giving this stuff at the door, what must be inside?! He also loved all the dogs that came to the door! I think we can say his first word is "dog." He perks up immediately if he hears barking and every time he'll say a word that sounds just like dog, so I'm guessing it is.

Of course, the best part of trick-or-treating is afterwards when you pour out your buckets and examine (and eat) the loot. Christian made sure to sit on everything to test it. :) I don't think he realized it was food. He was having too much fun squashing it and throwing it around. Works for me.

Just a couple cute pictures from this past week that I wanted to share.

Bella had a preschool Halloween party. She was so giddy excited the whole time. She had the biggest grin on her face of anyone in the class. (She's on the far right side middle row). So cute. She thinks she's such a big girl now. She tells everyone she meets, "I'm three! I'm already in preschool!!"

We went to Greenfield Village one last time for this year before they close. We had the whole place to ourselves almost! We saw 3 other small families/couples the entire time we were there. Guess that's what going on a cold October day will get you. So we rode the carousel three times in a row by ourselves, the horse carriage driver allowed Benjamin and Bella to hold the reigns and drive the horses, and the model T ride had no line whatsoever, which has never happened to me there. So nice not having to wait while huffing that exhaust! It was a wonderful day.

We also went to a friend's 5th birthday party on Saturday which was a lot of fun but ridiculously far away (she lives close but her party location was 45 minutes away), so we broke up the drive home with a stop at a favorite playground which we don't get to very often (because it's so far away!) So much fun! and I think it's so funny when the kids pose and say, "Take a picture of us!" Makes it so easy! Just wish I were a better photographer.

I hope you've all had as fun a Halloween season as we have!

A Video for the Grandparents

2011-10-23T22:21:00.001-04:00

I know not everyone will love this as much as I do, but I had to post it to share with the grandparents. Christian's newest love is the piano. All day long he climbs onto the seat and bangs around to his heart's content. Recently he also started singing while he plays. So incredibly adorable, I had to get a video of it. Enjoy.

Almost Halloween!

2011-10-22T22:25:00.003-04:00

I love Halloween. It's my birthday for one thing, that always makes me happy. But also I love the excitement it brings. Kids get so excited about their costumes, and the candy, and the running around at night. It's really such a happy holiday.

As soon as we got back from Utah, I wanted to get into the Halloween mood. We bought our costumes and carved our pumpkins. Benjamin wanted a scary one and Bella wanted a happy one. Shade was cool with either, so was had no tie-breaker. So we made both! It was a lot of fun and what a stroke of genius to do it outside! :) Wonderful sunny weather, whoever got bored just went and ran around the yard a bit, and all the mess was washed away by the rain the next day.

The results weren't award winning, but the kids were proud and that's all that matters. So excited for Halloween! :)

New and Improved

2011-10-22T22:13:00.004-04:00

We've been to the Detroit Children's Museum 4 times. The first time I went with Benjamin when he was only about 18 months old. It was a complete and total dump. Dark and dingy building, broken toys, and no staff other than the woman at the entrance. I vowed never to return. They apparently got the vibe, because they shut down for quite a while for repairs and improvements. When they reopened, I was pleasantly surprised and the next time I went, it was even better! So then, when they closed down again, citing financial troubles, I was really sad. We have two museums for children in Detroit. They work in conjunction with one another and they both shut down. However, then last week the smaller of the two reopened temporarily - the one I'm describing - so we hurried on over to show our support. It was so much fun! It was even better than the last time and the kids had a blast. They have lots of pretend play type toys and Bella spent nearly all afternoon at the grocery store. Benjamin spent his time setting up an entire city, train track, and countryside (before becoming the Evil Ogre and knocking it all down in a vicious tirade.) Christian crawled through the tunnel a hundred times and had a blast with the colorful foam toys. I wish it were a little closer, because that place really is fun.

It's Certainly Fall!

2011-10-22T22:03:00.007-04:00

I always know Summer is officially over when the pine trees in our backyard (the ones which I thought would spare us from endless leaf raking) dump all their pine needles. Dump and dump and dump. Every year. And although we have no deciduous trees in our yard, our neighbors all do, so we get their leaves too. It's fair, though, cause they also get our pine needles. :) When I got back from Utah it had dumped so much you could barely see the grass. We've got a pretty good system going, though. We take our blue swimming pool, scoop up as many needles as will fit in it, and drag it under the pine trees (into what the kids call "the forest") and pour it out. No bagging, less time, and the needles decompose naturally back there, just as they should. The upside for the kids is that they get to ride in the pool as I, poor soul, get to do the dragging. It makes for fun afternoons, outside, though, and it's become something they look forward to all Summer. The simple pleasures, right? Christian got in on the action this year too. That was a lot of fun to see. He can spread those leaf piles with the best of them, the little stinker.

Oh, and in case you're wondering why Bella's not in the pictures. She was having a girly moment in which the leaves were just too dirty for the dainty miss, so she asked that I take a picture of her standing away from everything. She makes me laugh.

Utah

2011-10-22T21:28:00.011-04:00

This post is long overdue. In an attempt to get more sleep, I've put off blogging and now my trip is a week and a half in the past and still no pictures! So, here's a bit of a photo barrage.

I took the kids to Utah for a week long trip to visit friends and family. It was so much fun! We stayed at my mom's house, which meant lots of time with "Mimi" which they loved,

picking lots of apples from the apple trees,

and playing my old school original Nintendo.

We also got out my old toys and dolls and Christian fell in love with the doll which was my favorite as a little child. He carried her around everywhere, no matter how cumbersome it was. So cute!

We also got to spend some great time with Kelly's family playing in the swimming pool, playing in the backyard, and going out to dinner. We were so busy I hardly remembered to take any pictures! It is so much fun having grandparents and cousins around! Benjamin's prayer on the last day was, "Please help me not miss my cousins too much."

I also couldn't pass up the opportunity to take the kids to temple square. In fact, Benjamin asked to go there before I'd even suggested it. Sadly, Bella didn't want to go, so she stayed home and played tea party with Mimi and I took the boys to the temple. The thing Benjamin most wanted to do was see the Christus. It's been two years since he's seen it, but he remembered it vividly and asked the we please, please, please go there! So went there, and downstairs to the displays on the prophets, which he loved looking at, and then we had a picnic on the lawn overlooking the temple. We also got to see a family taking pictures after their sealing and Benjamin was so interested in them - all the family members in white, even the little kids in white shoes, and what they were doing. It was a great time all throughout that afternoon together to talk about Jesus and how wonderful it is to have temples so that we can be together forever as a family thanks to Him. We finished off the trip with a visit to Deseret Book to buy a couple quiet books for sacrament meeting because that's what it's all about right now really. :) I used to have such high ideals about sacrament meeting but being alone with three little kids every Sunday has lowered my expectations a great deal. Haven't stooped to bribery with candy yet, though. I do have some small standards left. :)

I also wanted to see the aquarium while we were there, since we don't have one in this area. It was a small place, but just right for kids and we got to go with my best friend and her daughter so it really doesn't get much better than that. I hate that the picture of them on the frog is a bit blurry because it was so cute - I was facing away and I hear, "Mom, take a picture of us!" and they'd all piled on the frog to pose. They had some really cool stuff there, such as penguins, a sting ray tank in which you could pet the sting ray and a pretend motor boat which you could "drive" while watching a video of local areas as if you were going through them. They also had a lady holding a tarantula who spent a long time showing the kids and answering their questions. That fascinated Benjamin. Seeing a woman hold one of those and not freak out was new to him. :)

All in all, it was a great trip and it flew by in a flash. Now we're back at school and back in the swing of things and the kids are already asking, "When are we going to go live with Mimi again?"

Good and Bad at the Apple Orchard

2011-09-30T22:21:00.007-04:00

Fall is the season of the apple orchards here in Michigan. There are countless ones to go to, but by far, my favorite is Three Cedars Farm. They have the best stuff for kids I've found and we love going there. We went there on Wednesday and luckily managed to make it right before a big storm. I was most excited to show Christian all the little animals - the pigs, goats, sheep, chickens, and especially the bunnies.

Each is in a pen decorated according to a nursery rhyme and you can press a button and hear the story told. I assumed he'd love them. Proved me wrong. This is what every picture of Christian with the animals looks like:

Apparently these guys are terrifying!!

Heaven help us when he walked passed the lamb and it baaa'd at him! He about jumped out of his skin. His little legs couldn't carry him away fast enough. Even seeing his sibs petting the animals didn't help, so I gave up and found him some things more up his alley.

Then he was fine. :) I've never seen this kind of thing anywhere else - a sandbox full of corn. He loved it.

I also had to take pictures of Benjamin's love of jumping on hay bales. He does that every year, since back when he was so little that people would gasp when they'd see him and say, "Doesn't that terrify you!?" It just makes him so happy!

And I had to take a picture of them both on it

to compare to this one:

What a difference a couple years makes!!

Then it was Bella's turn to have trouble. I saw this funny little bench and asked them to all sit on it for a picture. Everyone was sitting and I was snapping the shot when Bella suddenly jumped sky high. So this was the picture I got of Bella getting stung by a wasp.

I love the perplexed look on Benjamin's face like, "What's up with her?!" I felt so bad for her. It bled like crazy, which surprised me. I didn't think stings bleed. But I guess when your hand is that small, that stinger can go quite deep. She cried for 20 minutes and her hand got red, hot, and swollen. We decided to call it day. Soon thereafter she stared to shiver and developed a fever of 101.7. I thought the fever was a sign she got the strep that Benjamin had had, but she didn't develop any of the other symptoms of strep, so I think it was the sting. I kept an eye on her, but luckily by the next day, everything was back to normal and her hand looked fine. She got lots of mileage out of that story in preschool the next day, though. :)

Overall it was a great day at the orchard. Funny thing - we never ate or drank a single apple product. Between the sting and the storm that started just at the same time, we went home empty handed. We'll definitely go back again.

Our Weekend

2011-09-25T22:06:00.004-04:00

This weekend was a bit of a bummer. We'd planned to go swimming, to the park, to have a playdate with friends, and to be in the primary program. In the end, we got to spend our time at home alone and at the doctor's office. Friday afternoon Benjamin complained that he was cold. No one else felt cold, so I told him to put on a sweatshirt and come cuddle with me on the couch. That's when I noticed that he was burning up. Fever of 102.6. I checked him over to find his lymph nodes were swollen in his neck and he had white puss on his tonsils. Strep Throat. Called the pediatrician, but of course, it's Friday afternoon at 4pm, so they've all gone home. Off to the Urgent Care. They did a quick strep test but the test was flawed because Benjamin couldn't hold still and it ended up coming back negative. They put him on antibiotics anyway. So we were home bound for the next 24 hours until he was no longer contagious. After a couple doses he started to feel better and his fever started to go down. I hoped to still let him be in the primary program because he's learned his part by heart and was so excited for it. But Sunday morning he woke up at 3am crying that his throat hurt and his fever was sky high again. So we spent Sunday at home all day too while he slept most of the day away. Bella and I entertained ourselves by making the princess train - the way in which you entice a girly girl to play trains with you - tape the princesses on the train cars.

Then she started to get super whiny and snotty so I left her alone and next thing I know, I find this:

Benjamin finally ate his first bite of food at 3:30 and actually seemed to be feeling a little better. Still in his spider man pjs.

Christian joined us for our snack, but lost his food somewhere. Can you help him find it? :) He stuck it up there to be funny and then honestly couldn't get it back. He kept rubbing his hands around on his head with a perplexed look on his face. It ended up staying up there for 15 minutes or so before I stopped laughing enough to take it off. In the meantime he was thrilled because he'd gotten mommy to laugh. What a crazy kid.

By bed time tonight Benjamin started feeling much better and his fever was down. We'll see how he feels tomorrow morning.

Photo Essay By Benjamin

2011-09-24T17:31:00.005-04:00

This is probably one of those things that only a mother could enjoy but Benjamin took my camera yesterday and when I got it back, I couldn't help but laugh at what he'd photographed. I would title it, "Death of the Toys."

Then came my favorite. The socks were in nearly every picture, so it seemed only fitting to have a death of the socks photo too. What can I say, I'm easily entertained.

The Zoo

2011-09-22T22:24:00.007-04:00

We went to the zoo a few days ao (my kids and Shade, the boy I tend a few days/week). I don't love the zoo for the sake of the animals, but I love, love, love taking the kids out on a beautiful fall day, spending time together, having fun, playing on the playround, riding the train, and marveling at the beauty of nature. It was a wonderful day and the kids seemed to love it too.

The first thing Benjamin wanted to do was see the butterflies. He's obsessed with monarch butterflies since they raised some in his classroom last year. He was so thrilled to find this one. So sweet to see how careful and gentle the kids were around them.

Loved this picture the best - the sign next to them says, "Please keep off the fence." That is sooo hard when you're so small! I'm bad but I never tell them to keep off. They want to see too!

Isabella was in an uncharacterically good mood too, so much so that she set aside her usual disdain for Christian and held his hand to help him down the curb. So sweet.

The zoo really is a happy place...for those outside of the cages, anyway.

Our Days in a Nutshell

2011-09-13T22:44:00.006-04:00

It's been Groundhog Day around here lately. My kids have established a routine:

Wake Up
Go to School
Dig in Mud
Go to Bed

For three days they have spent every free minute in the mud. We have (should I say had?) a beautiful forsythia bush in the backyard. Every spring it bursts forth in vibrant yellow and every summer is provides us shade and privacy from our neighbors on that side. A week ago Benjamin decided to start digging around it to create a pit which he called his swimming pool. Ever since then it's a muddy, jumbled mess back there. Mud and torn up tree roots everywhere, piles of dirt thrown in all directions. Our neighbor came into our yard yesterday while they were digging and asked, astonished, "Where did you get all that dirt?" "From under our grass!" I replied. "Maybe you should buy them a sandbox," she replied, wide-eyed. All attempts to stop him have failed and partly I'm to blame. He's just having so gosh darn much fun! How do you stop a boy who's so delightedly playing at something which is ultimately so simple and carefree? In any case, he (and thus of course, the other two) spend their days digging, scraping, and watering their dirt patch. I've started requiring them to dress in only one article of clothing to save on laundry. I am torn between frustraton at the disaster they are making and delight at their creativity and fun. Unless they do ultimately kill the bush, I'm going to chalk this one up to "snips and snails" kind of boy fun and just let it go.

She's in Preschool!

2011-09-13T22:32:00.004-04:00

Today was the much anticipated first day of preschool for Isabella. Since I've been taking Benjamin to this school for 2 years already, I wasn't such a stress case and I was able to remember to take plenty of pictures. Bella was soooo excited! She changed her clothes 3 times in the 30 minutes prior to leaving, finally settling on what she calls "her favorite pants" - the pants that she outgrew months ago but won't let me stash away - and her ladybug socks. She was grinning as she walked up to the building and was so proud to be the student now and not just the little sib. She had a great time and was completely unconcerned when I left. I'm so happy for her.

And finally - a picture of Benjamin getting on the bus. Mom wasn't worth a backwards glance, so I just got his back, but hey, it's better than nothing. He told me the first week that he never even thinks about me while he's at school, but today he admitted that "sometimes I miss you a little." I'm just happy he likes it so much.

He's in Kindergarten!

2011-09-11T23:06:00.004-04:00

Benjamin officially started school last week. Would have blogged earlier, but was still struggling with MAC vs PC issues. Have solved them by sending the Mac back to it's home at Amazon. Bye bye Mac. Our relationship was a brief but educational one. You may have way funny commercials, but sadly you are not for me.

Anyway, back to Benjamin. He loves school and his teacher and the bus. He couldn't be happier. I, on the other hand, have needed a little more adjustment time. The night before school started, he slept like a rock and I was up until 3:30am stressing over catching the bus on time, remembering to make a snack in the morning, and a thousand other things which now seem really silly but seemed tantamount in the middle of the night. Then this whole week I've been struggling to remember that school is EVERY day now. You mean I have to drag all the kids to the bus stop EVERY morning? You mean I have to pack snacks and organize a backpack EVERY day now?? I got way too used to the M,W,F schedule of preschool.

That first morning, I sent him on the bus (so stressed and sleep deprived that I forgot to take a picture of him getting on the bus!!!), and then jumped in the van with the other kids and followed it to school. Wasn't until I was driving that I remembered the camera, so this is the picture I got of the bus that day! :)

Wanted to take a pic of him getting off, but the parking lot was so crammed crazy that I never found a spot. He got off the bus and I was still driving around. I finally parked up the street a 1/2 block and ran with with stroller and the other two all the way back. By then he was completely lost, wandering around the building with the look of a kid about to lose emotional control. I hurried up to him and led him to where he needed to go (why weren't any teachers helping poor little Kindergarterners who were getting off the bus for the first time in their lives?!!?!) and noticed he didn't have his backpack. He'd forgotten it on the bus! So we raced back to where the buses were, but it was gone. His nerves got to him and he started clinging to my leg and sucking his fingers like a toddler. I pried him free and assured him that he was going to be okay. After that we snapped a quick picture sans backpack and made it to his classroom.

Once his teacher started class, he seemed better. Still a bit dazed and shell-shocked, but fine with me leaving.

After the first day, things improved. He got his backpack back, he never left it on the bus again, he learned how to get to class on his own, he went to music class and the library, had snack, etc. He has made a couple friends and has found that he likes the "cozy area where you can sit and read books" the best. I'm excited for him. I'm still floored that they have 26 kids and 1 teacher in there. You can barely even identify him in the swarm on the carpet! But don't get me started on the problems with public school. It's what we're doing for now and we'll make the best of it. He's very happy and his teacher seems really great. We're excited for a wonderful year.

As for my darling preschooler - Isabella has been so much fun lately. The older she gets, the more of a fun personality she develops. I don't know how to explain the transformation, but she's simply less of a snotty two-year old and more of a mature, fun, witty preschooler. (She starts in 2 days!) I love hanging out with her. This past week she started ballet lessons. She's been waiting anxiously for months. On the way to class a conversation that so perfectly illustrates my kids' personalities occurred.

Benjamin: Are you nervous or excited for your ballet class?
Isabella: I'm excited!! (as she bounces in her seat, barely able to contain said excitement)
Benjamin: I'd be nervous.
Isabella: Why?? I LOVE ballet!

I have never seen Bella so happy as she was in that class. She didn't stop grinning the entire time. She was absolutely in her element amongst all the girly girls in pink, twirling around. Her teacher is one of those pure ballet beauties whose every move seems fluid and choreographed. Bella was smitten. She stared at her teacher in rapt amazement and followed her every move. I could have watched her all day too. She was fabulous with the kids too - clearly the teacher, but also really girly along with them, giggling over their new tutus, etc. The hardest part for Bella is waiting a whole week to have another class. Hopefully next week I'll be able to get better pictures. Took a lot, but none really turned out well.

Some other funny Bella pics:Bella after she snuck into my private stash of non-washable markers, but before she realized they were non-washable. (So sad I didn't get a pic of her reaction when the purple on her face didn't wash off!! Two days of purple mustash and tatooed arm.)

Bella enjoying the last few warm days of Summer, using the slip and slide in her own way.

Bella in the boat in her daddy's hat because she forgot her sunglasses.

Can't wait to get some pics of Bella on HER first day of school this week!

Let Me Hear an "Opa!"

2011-08-30T21:50:00.003-04:00

Every year the local Greek Orthodox church puts on a "Taste of Greece" festival. I'd never gone, but this year they had 7 different bounce houses viewable from the road so my kids begged me to take them. $10/per kid to jump almost made me turn back, but it's a fundraiser, so it's a good cause, right? Anyway, there was really no turning back at that point - my kids had already run off and started jumping while I stood agog in front of the ticket booth. The lady saw my expression and offered to let Christian in for free. I thought she was making a joke to diffuse the tension, like "Well at least the baby's free!" kind of thing. But she was serious! She really expected me to pay $30 for bounce houses but was taking pity on me! I managed a "thank you" for her generosity, took my tickets, and left. But they had a great time. I ended up doing one with them where you are attached to a bungee cord and you run out and stretch it as far as possible before it snaps you back and whoever went farthest wins. I had a great time on that one and Benjamin did it multiple times. Afterwards we went into the main tent area and listened to a wonderful Greek band and watched some really fun Greek dances. Benjamin loved it the most. He absolutely loves music. He sat riveted for 5 songs by the band, commenting on various elements in the music, the unfamiliar language, and the unique instruments. When the dancers performed, Bella moaned, slumped in her seat, and whined, "Can we goooo now?!" I leaned over and asked Benjamin, "Are you bored?" "No! I'm not bored. I want to stay!" was his excited response. So we stayed while Bella nearly fell out of her seat in an effort to display how unhappy she was. It was fun for me too. I loved the music and I loved all the atmosphere. I couldn't bare to give out even more money on food so I didn't buy their $10 bite-size items. However, I loved the solidarity I felt among the people. They were so proud of their culture and heritage. They ate the food, sang the songs, did the dances, and spoke the language - people of all ages so far from Greece had held on to the traditions and celebrated them together. The excitement was truly contagious.

Yesterday we enjoyed the beautiful cool weather and spent the afternoon at the playground together. My kids have grips of steel. Most likely perfected by grasping toys as the others attempt to yank it away. In any case, Christian is following suit. His favorite activity was hanging from the bar.

Followed closely by eating rocks. The oral fixation is a common theme for them all too. Here we see the brothers sharing a snack of rocks. (You can see each of them currently has some in their mouth).

This week we also went mini golfing at the course across the street from the Greek fesitval. Not the greatest course. I remember mini golfing when I was younger on courses where every hole was a work of art - the ball goes into a crocodile mouth or under a windmill as the blades spin, or gets taken up in a rotating bucket and dropped elsewhere, etc. I haven't been mini golfing in years and assumed that all courses were like that. This lame-o course proved me wrong. Not one hole had anything on it but astroturf, fake rocks, and a hole. Some curved left, some curved right, some had a hill. Zero points for creativity. However, I was able to talk the man at the counter down 50% in price (from $17 to $8 for our group) and the kids had a great time regardless. Made me feel better about the bounce house cost. :) Benjamin was so cocky the whole time, "I'm a pro at golf. This is so easy!" He got tired of waiting for the rest of us, so he went from hole to hole alone, each time calling out how few swings it took him. Isabella and Shade (a boy I tend a few days a week) had fun just doing the holes that looked like the most fun to them and ignoring the rest. When they found one they particularly liked, they played it over and over again, or backwards even, if they wanted. Bella started gathering real rocks and creating obstacles in the path of the ball because she liked watching the ball richochet and fly into the air. Shade was a purist, though, and would always run up and remove the rocks declaring that one shouldn't put rocks on the grass. It was really fun to watch them all.

School starts a week from today. Where has this Summer gone? It's been a lot of fun. Can't believe Benjamin will be in school every day soon. He still seems so little to me. Just the other night a cousin of mine and his wife were over for a visit and Benjamin came out in his PJs - Spiderman shirt, Batman pants - and my cousin asked him about the combination. "So I can have both sets of powers!" he declared. "Batman can only come out at night, like a bat, but Spider man can come out in the day. And they do different things too. This way I can be out and powerful all the time!" Such a cute little boy.

Technical Difficulties

2011-08-29T23:40:00.002-04:00

I had fully intended to update my blog tonight but I'm having major Mac issues again. I thought I'd figured it out but it's still not working. I've now squandered my evening trying to solve my problems and I'm giving up and going to bed. Hopefully I'll be able to make this all work again very soon.

Look Who's Walking!!

2011-08-23T22:38:00.005-04:00

The day after he turned 1, while I was reading bedtime books to the older two, Christian stood up on his own and walked over to me. Just out of the blue, up and over he comes. I thought I'd imagined it at first, but once he'd experienced it, he couldn't be held back any longer. He has steadily been getting better and better and has made it from 2-3 steps at a time to entire lengths of the house. He still crawls if he needs to get somewhere fast, but he clearly loves to practice walking and it is so fun to watch him. Both hands up in the air for balance and off he goes. So adorable. I've put together a few clips to share the joy.

By the way, I'm the new owner of a MacBook and this is my first movie editing project on my new mac. As a result, it's VERY rough. Please bear with me. I'm struggling making the move from a PC to a Mac. It took me 3 hours to get what I've done so far and I refuse to spend another minute, no matter how unfinished the result. Oh learning curve, thou art a steep one.

Happy Birthday Christian!!

2011-08-14T21:43:00.014-04:00

Our little man is 1 today! What a wonderful year it's been with him. Although we now have to share our wedding anniversary with him (we've been married 10 years today!!) we are happy to do it. As a joint anniversary/birthday trip, we decided to go to Michigan's Adventure - an amusement park 3 hours west of here in Muskegon, Michigan. It's got a water park and a traditional amusement park portion. So we decided to spend one day in each and spend the night in a hotel in between. I really thought my kids would spend most of their time in the water park and was super excited to see their reaction. However, the weather didn't fully cooperate and it wasn't terribly hot that day. Only high 70s/low 80s and when they were soaking wet and the wind hit them, they got really cold. Then the kiss of death for the outing was the wave pool. Benjamin had loved the lazy river and was totally gung ho about the idea of a wave pool...until the first wave hit him and he went down and cut up his knee on the bottom of the pool. Happy feelings gone. His confidence was shattered and he never recovered.

He tried to be a good sport and go on a few little water slides with me, but he never wanted to play in the water or try any larger slides and after an hour of "let's go now," we aquiesced. So we ended up spending the rest of the day on the rides, which luckily went way better. They were both little dare devils and had so much fun on rides I never would have thought they'd go on. Bella loved the roller coaster so much she asked to go on it again and again. Benjamin loved the Falling Star Ride which I know better as the Magic Carpet. He just kept running around and getting in line again and again until he told me his stomach felt squeezy. They loved the go carts too. Such serious, intense faces! But he did manage to smile once he got the hang of it!

We had a great time and because we ended up doing everything in one day, we saved ourselves the cost of the second days' tickets and went to a children's museum in Grand Rapids the next day instead. That was a lot of fun too. Some really fun tables and even a free live dance performance from an international dance school in the area happened to be going on while we were there. The kids sat in the front row riveted as they watched the Indian and Middle Eastern dances.

We also went down to the river in town. Benjamin wanted to go down to the water's edge, but Bella had other ideas. Soon everyone decided that Bella's idea was a good one.

How every successful trip ends:

Although Benjamin never admits to sleeping in the car. He slept like that for an hour and when he awoke, I asked, "Did you sleep well?" "I wasn't sleeping. I just had my eyes closed to trick you." He says this every time. It's hilarious. Just resting my eyes, boss. That's all. :)

Today on Christian's actual birthday we went to church. I dressed Christian in the same outfit Benjamin wore on his 1st birthday. So cute!! Can you tell who's who?

Afterwards the kids and I made blueberry banana muffins and gave Christian one with a #1 candle on it as we sang to him. The moment we started singing he bounced in his seat and started clapping his hands. Kelly helped him blow out his candle and then Christian devoured every bit of his muffin.

The kids wanted to play play-doh afterwards so we tried again to see if Christian could play without eating it. The verdict? No.

But he also just enjoyed playing with the plastic pieces and being one of the big kids. So there's progress.

He was very happy the entire time until he got it in his head that he wanted to climb onto the table. He has started to be a real stubborn little kid! When he wants something that he shouldn't have and you keep him from it or take it away, he will throw a fit! He will try again and again and again to accomplish his desire and will scream and throw himself around to make his point. I think he's learned with two older siblings he has to be forceful to get his way. He's also sooo active lately! He can't stand to be strapped in or sitting still. He's got to be on the go! He especially loves to climb. He's still not walking independently (so surprised, I thought for sure he would by now!) but he LOVES to climb. Anything he can find, he'll climb into or on top of. You have to really watch out. Especially because he also knows how to push the stool over to what he wants and then climb onto it. He also knows how to open cupboard doors and lift the toilet cover. So many times I've heard splash, splash and know exactly what's going on! This kid's going to be trouble!

He topped off his birthday by screaming himself to sleep for over 2 hours. I thought we were over that!! Maybe he just wasn't ready for the day to be over.

We love you Christian. You have a delightful sense of humor, a friendly, happy disposition, a love of music, a constant desire to be on the go, a vibrant curiosity about everything around you, and terrific appetite! We hope you have a wonderful next year.

He's Got it Down

2011-07-27T22:49:00.002-04:00

I absolutely love watching my kids learn new things. Their excitement is contagious and their smiles at that moment are so adorable. This week something clicked for Christian and he has figured out how to go down the stairs. He's been going up for weeks and could go down if I got him started, but he'd always try to go head first if I didn't turn him around. This week, without any prompting, he went to the stairs, turned around and went down without trouble. He was so proud of himself! You could see it in his face. I was so happy for him. I finally managed to catch it on video today. Of course, I forgot to button his outfit so he looks a bit funny, but just ignore that part.

I'm so proud of my little boy. He is growing so fast. He wants to walk so badly. He never wants me to set him down on his bottom. Whenever I try to set him down, he straightens his legs so I have to hold his hands and walk him around the room. He will often try to let go of something and turn to something else without falling, but independent steps haven't come yet. He is so close, though. I'm sure he'll be walking very soon. I can't wait to see it. He is so incredibly cute, I could stare at him all day. What a blessing he is. He eats great, sleeps great (no longer screams himself to sleep), and is almost always happy. What more can you ask for in a baby?

Sleeping Beauty

2011-07-27T22:12:00.003-04:00

She may have officially stopped napping, but as we learned with Benjamin, that doesn't mean there aren't days when she really could use one. We restarted gymnastics today and it wore her out. There was only one other kid in her class so she didn't have much down time watching other people and she worked very hard to impress her new teacher. When we got home she was clearly exhausted but refused to take a nap now that she's a big girl who no longer naps. So, not 30 minutes later, I came out of my room to find this:

She'd put on her princess dress and laid down by my door to wait for me to come out. I hadn't been in there 2 minutes, but it was long enough. She slept peacefully there for an hour until Christian woke up from his nap and the darn creaky floor woke her up as I tried to step past her to get him. It brought back memories of those days when Benjamin crashed in nearly the exact same spot (and on the stairs, and on the floor of his room, etc. etc.) Such funny kids. Why do my kids fight sleep so hard?!

Busy and Fun

2011-07-24T22:18:00.007-04:00

Yesterday was so full of fun things that I didn't know which to pick, so we just did them all. The first was a concert at the Scarab Club in downtown Detroit. It was a chamber music concert for children 5 and under. I've wanted the chance to expose my kids to live orchestral music but most symphonies are not places for small children. So I was excited for the chance to take them somewhere that would understand if they got fidgety and noisy. This performance was a lot like Peter and Wolf, in that they told a story and the instruments were the voices of the characters - the old man was a bassoon, the bird was a flute, etc. The narrator would tell a part of the story and then the musicians would play a piece illustrating it or sometimes play as the narrator spoke. It was wonderful and my kids loved it. Benjamin leaned over to me a few times and made comments like, "The old man is sad, so now they're using the low instruments," when the cello and the bassoon did a duet. After the concert was over, the kids were allowed to meet the musicians and play their instruments. Benjamin wanted to try the violin and Bella was most interested in the flute. They both stood in line repeatedly to get a chance to play. Everyone was very friendly and complimentary and made my kids feel like musical prodigies. It was a wonderful experience that I hope we get to have again soon. And next time I'll remember to take pictures! I was so mad after we left and I realized I had forgotten to take a single one!

After that, we went right next door to the Detroit Science Center - the science museum for kids - and went to the planetarium and the museum in general. It was their first time in a planetarium and it was so fun to see their reaction as the sky rotated overhead and they both thought the room was spinning. "Why are we turning, mommy?" Bella also loved the young kids' area and was absolutely giddy about the animal print feather boa vests and butterfly wings.

After that we picked up Kelly and Christian at home and headed to Maybury Park to go on a tractor ride to the beehives and learn about the honey harvest. Unfortunately we didn't get to assist. Kelly and I were so stoked at the idea of donning the beekeeper suits and getting in there, but we simply rode past the hives and then went back to the main barn for a demonstration. A bit of a letdown. We were shown a hive with the honey still in the comb and taught how it's made and how it's extracted. The kids got to wear a beekeeper's hat at least, and they had a great time.

After that we went to another nearby park for a potluck "Ancestor Party" - Pioneer Day party, Michigan style. We had great food and told stories about our ancestors, while the kids played super heroes in a huge sand pit and Bella took a dirt bath. A good time was had by all.

Such a full day and so much fun. Summer really is great, even if it's blazing hot. It's sad that Bella doesn't nap anymore, but I love having the extra time to do fun things and have a day like this.

One last thing I wanted to blog about - the kids were playing in the pool and Benjamin got a gallon-size ziploc bag, filled it with water and then tried to throw it on me. In an effort to convince him to use his energy for good, I suggested he try to throw the water into cool forms and we'll take pictures to see what they look like as they go through the air. He was immediately excited and we ended up throwing the bag about 20 times before he'd had enough. Here are some of the best results. I love how some of them look like giant water monsters chasing him.

Festival Fun

2011-07-17T22:18:00.007-04:00

I love summer festivals. This area has a ton of them. Founder's Day festival, Art Festival, the Spree, Ragtime Music Festival, etc. It has been a lot of fun to see the various artists and their work, the kids' rides, the bands and entertainers, etc. So far our favorite has been the Founder's Festival in Farmington this past weekend. They had a mini carnival for kids with rides (blow-up stuff, ferris wheel, mini train, etc), ponies, petting farm, face painting, balloon animals, free food, and entertainers. We spent all day and had a blast. The entertainer, "Amazing Clark," did 3 shows that day and did something a little different in each one. We watched the puppet show and the magic show. Bella was most amazed when he ate fire. He asked her to move away from the stage but she was so enamored that within moments she was back up front. She also loved the ponies. Although, her choice was really more of a horse. It was the biggest one they had and the lady was half way through saying, "Are you sure you want this one, honey, because we have that little one over there," but before she could finish, Bella was already climbing onto the biggest one, happy as a clam and excited to get going.

When we're not going to the festivals, we're at home in the water or riding bikes.

We've been trying to save gas this summer and enjoy the weather by riding our bikes anywhere we can. Not easy in a city built by the car industry. But if I know there will be a sidewalk the whole way somewhere, we'll take our bikes. It's been a blast and Benjamin has become a real bike riding pro - 8 miles in one day last week. Not bad on his little 12-inch wheel bike. Of course, his favorite thing is to go back and forth in front of our house showing off. His newest trick is the standing ride. He can do it on one leg too, but haven't gotten a picture of it. I know I wasn't doing stuff like that at just barely 5 years old! I remember the day I figured out how to ride without holding the handle bars! I was so proud! I think I was at least 10!

This is how Christian prefers to travel. :) The kids love dumping all the legos out of our container and then riding around in the kitchen, repeatedly crashing into my legs as I make dinner. Fun times.

I have spent these last few weeks doing incredible amounts of laundry. Couldn't figure out why until a few days ago when I realized that Benjamin has discovered a secret - it's much easier to throw your clothes into the laundry hamper than it is to fold them and put them in your drawer. Once they're in the hamper, your mom eventually folds them and puts them away for you! Smart boy. Smart, manipulative boy. "Ugh, these pants really stink!" he'll dramatically declare as he holds the nearly-new item at arm's length over to the hamper. So his entire outfit - pants, shirt, and pjs (rather than just underwear and socks, as it's has been in the past) have been going in the laundry every day. This may be normal for some, but I'm of the wear it until it's dirty or stinks school of thought, so this once wear business isn't working for me. This week, Benjamin is on laundry duty. We'll see how it goes.

Happy 5th Birthday!

2011-07-03T16:02:00.007-04:00

Five years old! I remember when he was a baby and I thought 5 year old boys seemed so huge and wild and well...stinky and messy and terribly unappealing. :) Now I have a 5 year old wild and often stinky boy and wow, do I love him!

He amazes me every day with his intelligence, humor, athletic ability, and generosity. He also drives me crazy with his violent temper that will flare in an instant and his perfectionism that leads him to give up on anything he can't master at first try. But it's not like I don't know where he gets that! For Benjamin's birthday he got his two wishes - an RC car and a two-wheel scooter. We also got him a slip-and-slide. Between those three gifts, the rest of the day was set.

Not to mention his race car birthday cake and design-a-face pancake dinner at IHOP (where they sang and gave him an ice cream - which he shared with Bella of his own volition - remember how I said he was generous?). He had a great day. Even tonight he prayed, "thank you for my birthday yesterday." That made me feel better because I had some mommy guilt about not throwing a party for him. I just didn't have it in me after our long trip these last two weeks and the BBQ with friends we're having for the 4th. Kelly says that's the only child in me - having had a party on every birthday - he says it's okay not to have one every time and I'm trying to listen to that. ;)

Benjamin will start Kindergarten this fall and he's so excited. He's met his teacher and likes her a lot already. He's going to do amazing things. Happy Birthday, Benjamin! We love you so much.

Family Trip 2011

2011-06-27T20:08:00.013-04:00

We just got back from a wonderful vacation. We spent nearly 2 weeks with family putting our new minivan to the test and doing so many different things that this post is total picture overload. It's just so rare that my kids get to play with their extended family, that we wanted lots of pictures and they all turned out so cute!

We started out with camping in a KOA near Davenport, Iowa. We went swimming, fishing, biking, marshmallow roasting, etc. We stayed in a cabin, Grandma and Grandpa stayed in a hotel (they're the smart ones!), and the cousins stayed in their motor home next door. The cousins are the same ages as my kids - complete with a little blonde baby boy. It was perfect. The kids loved having their cousins to play with and they loved their silly Uncle Z. They are still talking about how much fun he is.

After a few days of that, we went to Nauvoo, IL. It's a historical site for our church. When the mormon pioneers traveled west, they stopped for a few years in the area and built the city of Nauvoo. It grew to be the second largest city in Illinois, after Chicago. Then they were forced to move onto Salt Lake City. However, now you can go there and visit many historic homes, shops, etc. We rode in wagons and ox carts, dressed like the pioneers (although Bella was upset about the hat I wanted her to wear for the picture), watched them make candles, wagon wheels, and cloth, helped print a page of the local newspaper, attended a pioneer school, played pioneer games (like stick pull - even Christian tried it!), waded in the Mississippi river, visited the temple, and on and on. It was a wonderful few days. Benjamin was very nervous about the oxen and only petted one while standing as far back as possible but he later named that as his favorite thing!

Then we traveled on to Carthage, Illinois, another Mormon historical site. It's where the prophet Joseph Smith was killed. We visited Carthage jail and attempted a tour, but Christian was sooo fussy that we all had to take turns going outside with him and missing parts here and there. Alas, it was a touching place and even Benjamin seemed visibly moved by the events which occurred there.

Then we drove on to Hannibal, Missouri, the town in which Mark Twain wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The whole downtown area has signs telling you what role they played in the book - Becky Thatcher's house, the jail where Muff Potter was imprisoned during his trial, etc. The highlight of the trip, though, was the cave. In the book, Tom and Becky get lost in underground caverns in the cave. We toured the cave which the book describes and it was a lot of fun. Benjamin and Bella kept saying how "spooky" it was, but it was their first time in a cave and I think they really had fun. It was amazing how huge it was. The guide said kids in Mark Twain's day would go down in the cave and play around. I'm amazed they ever made it out!

Across from the caves, they had a children's play area with bumper boats. Benjamin loved it and Christian was just as thrilled to watch from the shore. Kelly passed out in the car for 30 minutes afterward from sea sickness and all that spinning in circles!

Then we were going to head up to Chicago, but that morning in the hotel in Bloomington (half way between Hannibal and Chicago), the waitress at breakfast asked, "Would you guys like free passes to the children's museum?" So we spent that day in Normal, Illinois at the Children's Discovery Museum. By far the funnest kids' museum I've been to. And at only $6 a person, it would be a killer deal even without the free passes. The kids had a blast playing with the water table, the grocery store, the pizza parlor, the dentist office, the theater, the farm, and the amazing two-story climber. It was unlike anything I'd ever seen. It was made of oddly shaped wood pieces, covered in industrial strength carpet, which were suspended by tons and tons of steel cables. They made a fantastic maze the extended from the second to the third floors. I also loved their painting room - glass enclosed with a drain, so the kids could paint, spray with water, squeegy off into the drain, and start all over again. Genius. I could go on and on about this place. I'm so sad Normal, Illinois has to be so far away.

Then we finally made it to Chicago. I LOVE Chicago. I'm a big city girl through and through and I got energized just getting close. I loved being there, but I have to say that being there with three little kids made the whole thing very different. Big cities are not my kids' favorite thing, I discovered. Pushing a large stroller though tight pedestrian traffic is also not an easy thing. But despite the whining and complaining, I loved being back.

We visited Navy Pier and rode some rides (like the ferris wheel), visited Mellenium Park and The Bean. I mostly went there to let the kids play in the fountain because I knew that would be the highlight of their trip. We visited the museum area on the lake (but didn't go in any because they're so freakishly expensive and we weren't there on a free day). We also happened to be there during Taste of Chicago. It's a huge party downtown with food vendors and live bands, etc. It was a lot of fun. It was adorable to see Christian clap and "dance" to the music of the latin band. The kids were completely wiped out by the end. But we had to make one last stop to visit some dear friends. We have lived together in two different places now and hope to one day be neighbors again. We'll see where life takes us. But it was wonderful to catch up with them and let our kids play. Their daughter Jane is the same age as Isabella and they were total bosom buddies from the moment they met. So cute! The kids all ran around together catching fireflies and playing tag. So sad they live so far away. And I'm so jealous they get to live so close to Chicago! :)

We also visited the Chicago temple on the way home, but my camera was dead and I couldn't take a picture. So there's our trip in a large nutshell. Super fun, super exhausting. Today Benjamin said, "I like going on vacation a lot better than staying home." Why? "Because on vacation you get to eat junk, stay up late, and watch lots and lots of movies in the car." So there you have the highlights from Benjamin's perspective. A good time was had by all.

A Classic

2011-06-11T23:06:00.003-04:00

My kids come up with some wild excuses to postpone bedtime. Besides the every night ones (thirsty, bathroom, monsters in room), I enjoy hearing what other craziness they invent. I think, however, tonight was the winner. Benjamin, after all the other excuses were exhausted and I thought he was finally asleep, reappeared with a very sheepish grin on his face and said, "My toe nail is too long on this foot (indicating the big toe on his right foot) and it scratches against the sheets. It's so noisy that it's keeping me awake." Ha! I have to hand it to him. That's a classic.

Rewrite

2011-06-10T22:13:00.003-04:00

Benjamin was looking at pictures of our zoo trip and continued onto some older pictures and found the picture I'd taken of the paper upon which he'd written, "I hate you." "Is that my mean paper?" he asked. "Yes," I said, "That was your mean paper. That was mean to write that." He got up and got out another piece of paper and wrote:

"Will you take a picture of this now? Because I love you." So sweet. You could tell he felt bad that he'd written that. I quickly got out the camera and took a picture.

First Zoo Trip of the Summer

2011-06-08T21:39:00.006-04:00

Summer vacation has begun and that means finding a lot more things to do during the day. A couple days ago we decided to visit the zoo. I'm not a fan of crowds so I didn't mind going when it was 93 degrees. Kind of like the day I took the kids to the zoo in the snow storm. Oh to what lengths I'll go to avoid searching a long time for a parking place. :)

Despite the official temperature, however, it really didn't feel very hot. The zoo is quite shady, there was a strong breeze, and they have tons of misting stations around the zoo to keep cool. It was a wonderful day. In fact, the first day ever at the zoo that we spent more time at the animals than at the playground! Our first stop was the dinosaurs. The zoo has a wonderful exhibit in which you walk through the woods and see incredibly realistic looking dinosaurs that move and make noise and even spit water at you on occasion. They have some attacking others, some in swamps, some with their babies hatching. It freaked Bella out and she spent the entire time either hiding behind or in the stroller. Benjamin, however, loved it. "Take a picture of me with this one!" was the favorite phrase of the day. It was really fun.

Bella's favorite place was the gift shop. I finally had to drag her out of there kicking and screaming.

We also got to see lots of other animals, including the warthogs which were next to the train which he rode back to the entrance. "Why doesn't anyone want to take a picture of the warthogs, mommy?" Benjamin wanted to know. They really are unappreciated, aren't they?

Us on the completely empty train:

We also stopped for lunch and while we ate, this guy came to visit:

He's apparently used to being fed because when he saw us eating, he had no fear. This peacock, the size of Benjamin, strutted over, squawking loudly, and jumped right onto the bench next to Benjamin, reaching out his beak for a bite of his sandwich. The kids freaked out. Bella jumped off the bench, overturning her container of strawberries, and Benjamin was frozen to his spot, screaming and crying. I yelled at Benjamin to give me his food and get off the bench and he scrambled off like his life depended on it. I tried to shoo the peacock away, but he's far too used to people to scare that easily. He only left us alone after I'd packed up all the food and made it very clear we weren't interested in sharing. This evening the kids named the dinosaurs as their favorite part of the zoo and the peacock as their least favorite. :)

In any case, it was a very nice day at the zoo and I'm so glad he have so many fun things to do around here. To finish up, just a cute picture of Christian. His new favorite thing is to pull himself up to the piano and bang around. It's so fun to watch.

Watch Out! Here He Comes!!

2011-06-03T21:04:00.005-04:00

Christian is on the move. I'm a little behind blogging about it, but starting about 2 weeks ago, just after he turned 9 months, Christian started to crawl. I was in the living room with him, trying to get him to move, with no sucess, when Kelly walked into the house from the garage and yelled hello. The moment that little Daddy's boy heard Kelly's voice, he was off and crawling to get to him. Thank goodness I had the camera nearby. It was adorable. So his crawling started out like this:

But after a few days, he was crawling so much that diapering had become nearly impossible and I gave up and filmed him instead:

It's amazing how quickly kids learn. He's now crawling, pulling himself to a stand (watch out if you're a man with hairy legs - he'll pull on anything in sight to get a boost up, as Kelly discovered), and cruising along anything he can find. It is sooo fun to see! I love it when my babies start to move. The world opens up to them and they get so excited to learn and explore. I've also made sure to teach him the stairs so he doesn't get hurt. We practice every day and he's a pro at going up. He goes down well too, if you get him started, but he always forgets to turn around and will go head first if you're not there to get him properly positioned. He'll get it eventually, though. He had his 9 month check up yesterday and he was 75% in height and 25% in weight, so he still growing right on track and doing great. We love our happy, smiley, one-tooth Christian.

My Little Graduate!!

2011-05-25T22:18:00.008-04:00

Benjamin has officially graduated from preschool. I scoffed when the teacher counseled us to bring tissues to the graduation ceremony. I should have listened. The whole thing was so adorable. They wore sashes, (rather than mortar boards which made the whole ceremony seem a bit beauty-pageant like, but were so much easier to deal with!) marched down the isle, sang a few songs, and received their diploma. Then came the part they all really wanted - punch and cookies. Benjamin did great. You could tell he was so happy and proud. My little boy is growing up.

I don't know how well you can hear his teacher in this video. As each child stood up to get their diploma, the teacher read off some of their favorite things and what they want to be when they grow up. For Benjamin she read, "Benjamin's favorite color is blue. His favorite book is The Little Groundhog. His favorite food is chocolate chip cookies. His favorite activity in preschool is the space shuttle. He wants to be a scuba diver when he grows up." Other occupational choices among his classmates included: ninja, king, bear hunter, crocodile hunter, and cash register girl. I really love the school he's attended. They are very loving and kind but run a tight ship and the kids really respond well. I also am amazed how well they learn the quirks of each individual and work so well with each child's needs. I hope he enjoys Kindergarten just as much.

We've Come A Long Way

2011-05-21T23:21:00.006-04:00

We've come a long way from this:

Check this kid out! He scored two goals last week and he's becoming such a determined soccer player. I'm so proud of him. It's really fun to watch.

In addition to soccer, we had a pretty fun last couple days. We decided to go to Nankin Mills Nature Center which we'd never been to before.

It was recommended by a friend and it's close, so we checked it out. It was pretty cool and it was free which is even better. It was formerly a mill on the Rouge River, owned by Henry Ford. Now it's a museum/nature center. They had Michigan native snakes and turtles and fish on the first floor, and tons of historical pictures and artifacts on the second and third.

The animals were cool, but we passed this guy on the way in, so seeing them behind glass was a bit anti-climatic.

It was very interesting to learn about Henry Ford some more. What an amazing man. He was friends with Thomas Edison and President Hoover and they had pictures of them sitting around on lawn chairs chatting. How cool would that be? They also had replicas of Native Americans that lived in the area long ago. They looked so real that I startled as I walked around the corner and saw them. The only bummer during the trip was that all the voice recordings that were supposed to describe the displays were broken. Benjamin wanted to show that fact in his picture.

Of course, what trip would be complete without water?!

So we spent forever at the bridge and later, as I was getting Christian in the car, they jumped a fence and sloshed through ankle-deep mud down to the river itself. Never go anywhere without a change of clothes (and shoes!) with my kids.

Today we went to the Passport to Safety put on by the local police and fire departments. It is a yearly event we always attend. The kids get to sit on police motorcycles, get in ambulances, fire trucks, swat cars, and get lots of free stuff.

Benjamin said he liked the ambulance best. He spent a good 20 minutes in there quizzing the paramedic on everything he saw. We also rode the shuttle golf cart around and around the parking lot. We'd gotten a great parking spot, so we didn't need the shuttle, but the kids wanted to ride it anyway, so we did. Benjamin was also insistent that he get his picture taken with Sparky the Fire Dog.

It was funny how excited he was about it! "Let's go see Sparky and say hi! I want to talk to him. Although, I bet he'll only bark since he's a dog." With the Easter Bunny he was totally onto the scam, but Sparky was a different story.

Throughout all these trips, this is Christian:

He's such an easy kid to have around. Just had to be careful to keep his little bald head in the shade because he refused to allow me to put a hat or sunglasses on him. But he loved the sights and smiled at everyone. So fun! So happy for nice weather and fun things to do.

Happy Birthday Isabella!

2011-05-09T22:17:00.002-04:00

Isabella turned 3 today! We celebrated with 3 days of festivities. Saturday we went to Greenfield Village to ride Thomas the Train.

They also had many other activities for the kids, like magic shows, tents with games and train tables, and a fun race track with pedal powered cars and tractors.

Of course, my kids always love the carousel and the horse drawn carriages.

Sunday was Mother's Day, so I got some recognition too, but we sang to Bella in Nursery and we spent the afternoon at the park. Then today we had cake and opened presents right when the kids woke up. They had been so excited about the birthday that they both went to bed with their outfits on so they'd be ready! She mostly got Disney princess stuff because she's crazy about "girly things" as she calls them. She also got a princess cake. I'd taken Bella to the store to pick out her birthday cake and she passed up the $40 Disney princess cake with all the princesses on it and chose the $6 Belle cake. Gotta love that girl.

Then we went to a farm and spent nearly the whole day there. Bella got to ride a horse, milk a cow, bottle feed pigs and goats, hold kittens, chicks, and ducklings, and go on a hay ride. She had a wonderful time. I was proud of her for being so brave. Some of those animals were very big but she showed no fear or hesitation. She's a tough girl.

Benjamin had a blast too.

For dinner, Bella chose to go to IHOP because she loves the pancake with the face made of fruit and the yogurt hair that she can design. It's where she wanted to go for her second birthday too. Look at how little she looked just one year go!

However, they'd run out of ice cream so they couldn't give her a birthday treat. When asked what she'd like to have instead, she decided on Mac'n Cheese! So they brought out a bowl of mac'n cheese and sang to her. She was all smiles.

Christian entertained himself by sucking on lemon wedges. We gave him one just as a joke to watch his reaction, but he loved it! He happily sucked on lemons throughout dinner. Even when Benjamin was messing around and one of those large coffee pitchers (which are behind him in the picutre) fell on Christian's head, we simply handed him another lemon and he instantly stopped crying, laughed, and happily went on sucking. I should always keep a lemon in my diaper bag!

This evening, as the birthday finale, Bella got a big girl bed with (what else?) princess sheets and her own room back. We'd had Benjamin and Bella share a room while Christian was little and waking up a lot at night. But now that they're all sleeping through, it made more sense to have a boy's and a girl's room. Mostly for the fact that Bella is a chatterbox and would keep Benjamin up every night with her incessant talking. He'd come out each night multiple times declaring, "Bella's STILL talking!!" So, tonight she chattered and sang to her heart's content while the boys snoozed. It worked out beautifully. She was also so excited to not have to share a closet with anyone. All the more room for beautiful dresses.

Happy Birthday Bella! You are a beautiful girl, inside and out. We love you so much.

I Love You Enough for Both of Us

2011-05-06T23:43:00.005-04:00

I've talked to enough moms of teenagers to know that likely, at some point, my children will tell me that they hate me. Not that they really do, but the tension of the moment would drive them to say it. I expected it. However, when it came today, I didn't expect it. Isn't 4 a bit early?

Benjamin wasn't a big fan of the dinner I'd made. So after he'd eaten only a small portion of it, he started to play with a balloon Bella had received as an early birthday present from a friend at church. I asked him to put it away and continue eating. He did, but within a few minutes, he was back at it. So I warned him that if he didn't put it away, I would take away his dinner and he wouldn't get dessert. Within moments the balloon was back, so away went his dinner and his hopes for something tastier down the line. He was livid! He started screaming and crying. He threw the balloon at me and then he went over to the coloring supplies and wrote this:

The arrow in the word hate is his way of tying the two parts together. He originally thought that another letter needed to go in there, so he left a space to be filled in later. However, I, not wanting to miss a lesson opportunity even in such a situation, reminded him of the rule that the silent E makes the A say "AY" and that no other letter was needed. So, he drew the arrow, to ease my eyes from one part of the evil word to the other and to facilitate my understanding of his venomous feelings towards me. ;) Then he read it out loud to me, crumpled up the paper, and threw it at me. That's when he ended up in his room until bed time.

So, I guess another milestone has been reached. A little early mother's day present to me. :)

This morning, as we sat at breakfast, I looked out the back window to see this, the reason why we can never get our garden to grow:

No amount of fencing can keep these guys out. We've decided to just forget it and go to farmer's markets instead. Although, I read an entry in a friend's blog who has the same problem, and I thought her daughters' idea was adorable. Maybe I'll get Benjamin to write a note for me....this time with some of that anger directed at the rabbits.

So Cute!

2011-05-04T21:32:00.004-04:00

Some moms may disagree with me, but I think there is no cuter baby than Christian. He is the smiliest, happiest baby I've ever known. Smiling his big one-tooth grin. He is laughing all day long and is so easy to entertain. I adore this little guy. We enjoyed the spring weather today and spent the afternoon at the playground. Christian sat happily on his blanket, playing with grass and leaves and Benjamin's sunglasses. When I picked him up and put him on the swing or took him down the slide, he laughed his adorable baby laugh and Benjamin said, "Our baby has the cutest laugh! There's no baby that's cuter." I fully agree, Benjamin.

The Beginning of a New Season

2011-04-30T23:23:00.006-04:00

I'm not talking about Spring, I'm talking about soccer season! :) I have been really excited about Benjamin getting involved in soccer again. He did a "Little Kickers" class when he was 2, but this is his first team. He and I play all the time and he's pretty good, so I was excited about this. He was too, until we arrived at the field. He took one look at the hoard of kids running around and he wanted to go back home. But he was a trooper. He found a friend from church and a friend from school on his team and he did pretty well.

He did all the drills and even part of the game. But as the designated positions disintegrated and the entire team moved as a pack around with the ball, his issue with crowds won out and he spent the rest of the game like this:

For his first time, though, I had to hand it to him. He did quite well. He just needs to get used to everything. He's not terribly shy, but big groups of people get to him and he's not one to mash himself in the middle of strangers. Once he gets the hang of things and gets to know the coaches better, I think things will get even better. And hopefully I'll remember to take my camera off the indoor light setting so my pictures will turn out better too! :)

Yesterday we had a playdate with a couple German friends of mine who had babies in the same month as Christian. The babies ate each other's socks and had backwards scooting races.

The older brothers played the Wii.

Poor Isabella didn't know quite where she fit in. However, she managed to have some fun too.

Happy Easter!

2011-04-25T23:07:00.005-04:00

I know, Easter is over, but this is the earliest I could get to posting these pictures. We had a great Easter. The day before, we went to the Zoo for their Easter day. Oh my, the crowds!! I really wanted Kelly to be able to come with us, so we braved it, but I will not do that again any time soon. Mid-week zoo trips are definitely where it's at. Although, I often joke that I don't have a zoo membership, I have a playground and fountains membership because that's really all my kids care about. Benjamin even asked before we left, "Will the frog fountain be turned on?" Not, will the giraffes be out or can we be sure to go see the tiger. He only cared about the fountain. He even made sure to remind me to bring his flip flops, just in case. Sadly the frogs were not squirting that day, but they still spent 95% of their time here:

and here:

Whatever makes them happy. We had a fun time as a family, regardless.

On Sunday we went to church first. Then afterwards, I gave the kids their Easter baskets and then sent them out into the back yard to search for the eggs which I'd hidden the night prior. Unbeknown to me, the backyard animals had been on their own easter egg hunt and had discovered the ones with chocolate inside! Thin plastic eggs hold no power against those sharp little teeth! Luckily, being me, only a few rare ones held edible items, so most eggs were spared. The kids had fun running around finding them and then rushing around playing with all their new loot. Then, we took advantage of the beautiful day and took a family bike ride to the playground and spent the afternoon enjoying the beautiful weather. Such a wonderful day. I hope everyone else had a great Easter too.

Here's the two oldest in their fancy Easter duds. Bella looks tired in that picture for some reason and Benjamin's hair hasn't been fully tamed. Not their best picture, but it's all I had time for in the rush to get to 9am church, and the idea is to see the clothes and they are adorable, don't you think?

Here's the youngest hanging out at the playground. He loved playing like the big kids.

Next big event: Bella's 3rd birthday in two weeks! I've gotten all her presents, but I've already forgotten where I hid some of them!! :)

Skating with the Easter Bunny

2011-04-20T23:41:00.005-04:00

A nearby skating rink had a special preschool easter skate activity today, so I decided to take the kids. It included skate rental, skate lesson, lunch, easter egg hunt, and pics with the easter bunny for $6/kid. Can't beat that. I remembered to keep my expectations low, though, after the last time I took Benjamin skating and he got two feet from the rental area, fell down hard, and refused to skate again for the rest of the afternoon. Luckily, he's older and stronger now and Bella is much more of an optimist, so things went better this time.

Not at first, though. I got their skates and Bella was upset because they weren't pink and also much heavier on her feet than she'd imagined.

Benjamin wasn't the slighest bit interested in skating because they had arcades and TV. He spent 30 minutes playing arcade games without inserting a single coin. I really started thinking that maybe my expectations were still set a bit too high - I had actually assumed we were going to skate!

However, Bella got over her dull tan skates and got excited when she saw the Easter Bunny. She agreed to skate over to him and have her picture taken and then she was willing to skate with me around the rink. She was so cute.

Then we found Benjamin (still at the arcades) and had lunch together. After lunch, he was willing to try to skate too and did a pretty good job. We went around the rink together and then we had the skating lesson. The teacher came over to him and tried to show him some moves, but after a couple of falls, Benjamin had had enough of this stranger telling him what to do. He agreed to skate over to the Bunny and have his picture taken with him, but then that was the end of it.

I was pleased. It was much better than I'd hoped for. Both kids showed quite a bit of patience and diligence with such a tricky new thing. The final activity was the egg hunt. They loved running around the place (since neither of them were wearing skates by this point, they were faster than the other little kids) and they went home gleeful with an armful of eggs. It was a very fun experience all around. At dinner time they both said it was their favorite part of the day.

What's Wrong With This Picure?

2011-04-19T22:32:00.003-04:00

It's the fact that it was taken on the first day of Spring Break! Snow during Spring Break!?! At least we had a lot of fun...well, at least for a while. Then Bella got too cold and went inside and you can see how Christian felt. But we did manage to make a cute little snow baby. May it please get warmer soon!

8 Months!

2011-04-17T22:17:00.002-04:00

Our little man is 8 months old now. What a sweetheart he is. He's a mix of the other two, it seems. He has the more calm disposition that Bella had as a baby (where did that go?!) and the lack of motivation to do a lot of moving (no scooting or crawling yet), but he has that same intense interest in the world around him that Benjamin had. Just try to feed him while the others are around. You'll see what I'm talking about. His head whips around so fast and furious trying to follow everything they do that feeding is out of the question. I often have to send them out of the room so that he'll eat.

He's by far the smiliest of the three. He loves to be the center of attention and loves to give big grins with his nearly toothless mouth. He's finally got one tooth on the bottom and possibly the start of one on the top. That's just like my others - late teethers. He also loves technology. I cannot text or talk on the phone or work on the computer with him anywhere nearby. He will pull them out of my hands or rip at the cords. Give him a cell phone and he'll be happy for as long as you need. Sorry if he accidentally calls any of you while I'm making dinner! :) We sure do love you little man!

A Rare Warm Day

2011-04-07T22:02:00.006-04:00

It rained all day yesterday and is supposed to rain tomorrow, so when the sun came out this afternoon, I grabbed my kids and out we went. It felt so good to play outside. We played in the yard for a while and then decided we needed more space, so we headed over to the playground nearby. We rode bikes and played baseball and spun on the merry-go-round. Bella has entered the phase where she will only wear a dress or skirt, regardless of the weather or activity. So, she was wearing a pretty spring dress when it was time to go outside. Her compromise with the cooler weather was this darling ensemble:

I think the renaissance princess crown from her Halloween costume just makes the outfit, don't you? What's great about Isabella is that although she's a diva and a princess, she's not too prissy to get dirty. She enjoyed the puddles and the mud pies to the fullest.

It wasn't until we'd been there a few hours and she got tired, that she realized she didn't like being wet and muddy. That's when she broke down and threw a fit of massive proportions all the way back to car where I got her cleaned up. The whole "If you don't like being wet and muddy, then you shouldn't play in water and mud" lecture was lost on her.

It was a great day, though. Benjamin hit multiple baseballs into the outfield and rode his two-wheeler bike all around the park without any help starting or stopping. Christian is on day 3 without a nap but was still pleasant and happy the whole time. Not sure what his deal is, other than he's one of my kids. (Bella went down to one short nap a day at 6 months.) Hopefully it's just a phase, though. 7 months is a bit young to stop napping, don't you think? Here's to hoping the weather forecast for tomorrow is wrong and we have another fun sunny day.

Oh, and as an afterthought, I mentioned a while ago that I played bank with my kids to help them understand money a bit better. To give you a variation on that game, I'll tell you that yesterday, Bella wanted to play bank again but Benjamin wanted to play astronaut, so we decided to combine. We pretended that we traveled from planet to planet and had to refuel at each stop at the bank, which doled out anti-matter particles in the shape of coins and dollar bills. To help Bella keep practicing her numbers, I gave her a control panel (remote control from the tv) and called out headings at each departure. "Ensign, set in a course for Jupiter, heading 2.5.9 mark 6!" Yes, I'm a trekkie. She was totally into it, though, so whatever works, right? In the end we finally reached Pluto, where we withdrew money and donated it to the "Gloomies" (Benjamin's invented name for the aliens there) so they could buy flowers and beautify their cold, dark planet. Benjamin played the President of the Gloomies and Bella and I were the ambassadors from earth who approached his complicatedly constructed throne (he used every cushion and chair in our house, it seemed) and presented our gift to his planet. Yes, at our house, Pluto is still a planet. It made for a great game. He'll find out the truth soon enough. :)

General Conference Weekend

2011-04-03T20:04:00.005-04:00

I love General Conference. Not the least reason being that I don't have to prepare a lesson for church or put on a dress or deal with squirmy toddlers by myself in sacrament meeting. However, I also LOVE listening to the prophets speak and feeling the spirit and hearing the choir sing. So we set up our living room like in King Benjamin times with our "tent" facing the prophet and tried to pay as close attention as possible with three little kids.

Between sessions we made sure to get outside and play. We shot off rockets (old film containers filled with water and alka-seltzer), played baseball, and went to the playground. The rocket was funny because we put the tablet in the water, put the lid on and then all backed away quickly. Uh-oh...who was supposed to grab Christian? Luckily the rocket shot in the opposite direction. :)

Baseball was fun because it was the first time Kelly played along and Isabella even tried to do a few things too. It almost felt like a real team, not just me playing 5 positions simultaneously.

On Friday before Conference, I took the kids to Kensington Farm to see the baby animals. I go every year around conference time because that's when the animals are born. We saw 5 lambs that had just been born the day before. So incredibly cute!

Benjamin wanted me to take a picture of him with the one sleeping.

Bella kept trying to pet this one, but it would never get close enough.

We also saw baby pigs (who were much more willing to come close),

chickens, and goats. And then Benjamin discovered something I'd never noticed before - a maple syrup production area right next to the farm! I had overlooked it every other time. We had fun walking through the forest and looking at the sap dripping into the buckets and the various machinery they use.

Of course, Benjamin's big thrills were wielding his gigantic stick ("Make sure you get the whole stick in the picture! Did you get it? The whole thing?")

and jumping around on fallen trees. ("Take a picture of me while I'm jumping! Did you get it?")

That's a boy for ya.

I hope everyone else had an enjoyable conference weekend, felt the spirit, and now has lots of new ideas for how to be better. Benjamin loved that one of the speaker's names was Benjamin. He got excited every time his name appeared on the screen. I loved several of the talks, but I will have to listen to them again without kids to understand them better. The kids tried really hard to be quiet and did way, way better than I ever remember doing at an even older age, but still, it was hard to focus. I love that I can view them again on the church's website already and don't have to wait a month for the Ensign (the church's monthly magazine which always publishes the talks from conference)! That's going to be my scripture study for the next week.

Last, but not least, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my dear sweet husband tomorrow!!! He'll never be as old as I am, but he's getting up there! :) Hope you have a great one...while at work all day! ;) So not fair. Everyone should get their birthday off automatically. I guess, another thing to add to my list for when I run the world.

Underpants!

2011-03-21T21:28:00.003-04:00

Guess who's been wearing underpants since Friday? This little girl has finally potty trained! The turning point came a week ago when in desperation I asked for the thousandth time, "Why won't you poop in the toilet?" Up to this point I'd always gotten such inane answers as, "I don't want to," "Because I like pooping in my diaper," or "I don't know." But on that day I got, "Because my potty seat hurts my legs." Finally, an answer I can work with! When I asked why she won't use Benjamin's former potty seat which is much softer than hers, she replied, "Benjamin's potty seat is soccer and I don't like soccer." She refused to sit on the soft seat because she objected to the soccer ball print. For someone who sits in her own excrement all day, she's quite particular. In any case, this was finally getting somewhere. That very night I ordered a pink princess potty seat which many users had commented was "very soft" and 48 hours later (even with no shipping costs!), we had the key to potty training success. From the moment it arrived, she was willing to start using the toilet and within 24 hours, she was out of diapers for good. Thank you Amazon.

We have had a couple accidents, but only minor ones. Like on our walk on Saturday, for example. I wanted to revel in the arrival of spring and so I took the kids for a walk in the woods to look for the first signs of spring growth in the forest. Neglected to consider that someone potty training might not be excited about the idea of squatting in the woods. Thus the angry face in the picture. We changed pants, though, and still had a fun time on the playground afterwards while Christian slept in the stroller. That why he's crying in the picture. Really should have taken a picture at the beginning of our walk.

Despite this, though, she's even stopped watching tv and has come in from outside to use the toilet. Those are clear signs, in my opinion, that we are home free. So I took her to the store today and let her pick out a set of underpants. (She was wearing Gerber training pants these last few days.) Of course, no surprise, she picked the Disney Princess ones. She looks so incredibly cute running around in her little panties. What a wonderful thing to be back down to only one kid in diapers!

Baby Frustrations

2011-03-16T23:35:00.003-04:00

We think Christian might be teething because he was super cranky today. Wouldn't sleep, wouldn't eat very much, and cried A LOT. At one point Benjamin turned to me and said, "I just want to kick him in the head."

"I'm getting to that point too," I admitted. "The problem is, it wouldn't make him stop crying."

"Yeah, it would just make him cry more. I wish Christian were dead."

"Don't say horrible things like that." I scolded. "He can't talk. This is his only way of communicating. He can't help it. This is one reason why I'm not such a big fan of babies."

"Me neither," Benjamin commiserated, "But I am a big fan of chocolate!"

Ah, a child after my own heart.

The Water Obsession Resumes

2011-03-16T22:02:00.006-04:00

Oh I love that Spring is coming! It felt so wonderful today. Low 50s but felt like mid Summer. It was wonderful. As we left gymnastics today, I couldn't bare to return home despite the craft I'd planned for today. We ended up taking an impromptu trip to the playground to celebrate the first warm, sunny day and the first trip to the park in months without coats and boots. Of course, without fail, my kids are drawn to the puddles and before long, this was the result:

So it begins again. I guess the water obsession hasn't abated. Luckily, as always, I had a change of clothes with me. I know these kids too well. (Although Bella had the foresight to take off most of her clothes before going down in it.) They just can't resist. And judging by how intently Christian was watching them, I'm guessing he'll be joining them soon.

With Spring comes the need for new clothes too. Thanks to the generosity of friends, I've not bought clothes for Bella yet. Nearly 3 years and she's been fully taken care of. However, we've now hit a point where she needed some new shoes and so I took her shopping. I've known for a long time how different Bella and I are, but shoe shopping with her hit it home. I was looking for a shoe she could wear to church with any dress and so I'd pick up something cute and sensible, like this:

Princess Bella would frown, shake her head, and pick up something like this:

or perhaps this:

Again and again we exchanged shoe suggestions. Bella's love of all things glitzy and bedazzled knows no bounds. Alas, in the end, the one with the money made the final decision. Luckily she's also very fickle and by the time we'd bought my pair, she'd forgotten about hers and actually ended up liking my choice so much she wore them to bed. I think, when she's a teenager, to save myself unnecessary stress, I'm just going to find a comfy spot with a book and have her come to me when she's found what she wants to buy.

Let's Play Ball

2011-03-10T23:54:00.004-05:00

My kids have come up with some fun things to do these past couple days. Today Bella said, "Let's play ball!" I was shocked that she would suggest this since she's usually not a fan of ball games. But I wanted to encourage this in her and agreed. I quickly realized I misunderstood when she started prancing around the room in her dress-up outfit. Ball didn't mean base ball or soccer. She meant ball as they do in fairy tales - a grand ball, ie. a dance. I was somewhat disappointed, but this still seemed fun, so we pulled out the cd player, put on a primary songs cd and danced. She assigned me to be the queen, Benjamin the knight, and she was the princess. It was so much fun to be silly together. I danced with both the knight and the princess, with them taking turns coming over and asking, "May I cut in?" I insisted that royalty must be proper. :) Then when I got tired, I "became faint" and they had to call in the doctor to help me. After he did, they allowed me to rest as they performed various dances for me. Kids this age are so fun. No inhibitions. Just pure joy. It was a wonderful dance filled afternoon.

Some other things they've wanted to do was make soft pretzels. So we did that and they didn't turn out too bad. While they were baking, Bella decided to finger paint on the counter top with the egg wash. Not so happy about that but luckily she didn't eat it.

Another day Benjamin wanted to take his toys for a swim in the sink, so he got a big bowl and his animals and dolls and set them swimming, with a sponge boat to float on. They both had a blast with this and of course, got soaked head to toe. I think this was inspired by one of his favorite books, The Tub People by Pam Conrad. Very cute book.

I also wanted to see how much the kids understood about money. In Kindergarten Benjamin will be learning a lot about counting money and so I decided to play bank. I got out some pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters, as well as 1, 5, 10, and 20 dollar bills. Then we took turns being customer, banker, or security guard. The customer came into the bank, filled out a withdrawal slip (just a blank piece of paper with one line on where they'd write the amount), then took it to the banker who gave them that amount of money. Then the customer would steal from the banker, get run down and killed by the security guard (Benjamin's favorite part) and the money would be returned. I was impressed with them. Benjamin needed help counting out the money, but he knew what each coin was worth and that you can, for example, give 5 pennies or 1 nickel, etc. Even Bella did a great job. When she was customer, she wrote three circles on the paper, brought it to Benjamin, the banker, and said, "I'd like to have 79 cents please." It was so cute.

So we've had fun trying to survive what is hopefully the last of cold winter days.

Progress?

2011-03-07T22:11:00.003-05:00

I hate to blog about things too early because I tend to jinx myself, but we're making slow and steady progress around here and I have to share the joy. Bella has been the queen of stubborn regarding potty training. Besides the brief novelty of the new toilet, nothing has been able to get her interested. Sticker charts and bribery be damned. She couldn't care less. So we've started with small steps, just like we did with Benjamin. She can poop in her diaper, but she has to be in the bathroom. If nothing else, it gets her in the habit of going to the right location. She's been faithfully doing this for a few weeks now. However, if I don't come in there quickly after she's done, she starts causing trouble. I've cleaned up sunscreen, zit cream, and hydrocortisone cream from all surfaces in my bathroom at various times. Nothing like seeing your expensive zit cream smeared all over the shower curtain. So when she went in there yesterday, I quickly followed her in and asked (as I do every day), "Would you like to poop in the potty?" Usually I always get a "no" to this, but yesterday I got a "yes." And she did!! It was fabulous. A quick flush and done. So wonderful. Needless to say, today was back to old ways, but there was, for a brief moment, a glimmer of hope and I will cling to that. She may potty train after all! :)

Other note of progress - Christian slept through the night!!! And there was much rejoicing in the land. It was not without tears, mind you, but it happened! 7pm to 7am! He had started to seem uninterested in eating at night, but was still waking up. We decided it was time to put an end to the insanity. The first night he cried for 2 hours but finally went back to sleep. The second night it was 1 hour. The third night it was 30 minutes. Then success!! It is glorious. Finally I'm beginning to feel like a normal human being again. Of course, now I won't be able to blame any of my memory lapses or idiot-moments on sleep deprivation. ;)

Jack Sprat

2011-02-23T21:15:00.006-05:00

Benjamin and Isabella are like Jack Sprat and his wife in most ways.

Benjamin only likes strawberry cream cheese; Isabella only white.
Benjamin likes egg whites; Isabella likes the yokes.
Benjamin likes marinara sauce; Isabella calls it "too spicy" and only likes Alfredo.
Benjamin likes his ice cream without the cone; Isabella will dump the ice cream in the trash and only eat the cone.
Benjamin loves fruity yogurt; Isabella always chooses vanilla.
Benjamin hates most kinds of meat; Isabella will often eat the meat first.
Benjamin never wears a coat and is almost never cold; Isabella almost always cries if she's out in the cold for more than a few minutes.
Benjamin loves to give hugs and is very physically affectionate; Isabella screams if Benjamin hugs her.
Benjamin loves to draw pictures for me and often writes me little love notes; Bella likes to color on the chairs, table, or herself.
Isabella is incredibly verbal and has been since a very young age. Although Benjamin is now, his only word was "Da" until he was nearly 2 and 1/2.

Yet, despite these and a myriad of other differences, these two are best friends. Today they were cat and dog or prince and princess or alien and astronaut all day long. We also did our usual Wednesday craft time today. We painted and made alien headbands.

Then they requested we play their latest favorite game "musical numbers." I made this up one night while I was trying to figure out how to teach Benjamin higher numbers. He recognized 1-10 just fine, but when you started to combine them, such as in 67 or 98, he was unable to name it. So I wrote down about 30 different random numbers between 1 and 99 on pieces of paper about 2 inches square. I wrote the number 1-10 in one color and all higher ones in another. The next day I spread them out all over the floor and had the kids dance around to music. When I stopped the music, they were to be on a number of their color. (Bella got the numbers 1-10 and Benjamin all the higher ones). If they were on a number when the music stopped, they got a point. If they were able to correctly name the number, they got another point and the number was removed from the game. We played this about a month ago for the firs time and they loved it so much that they now want to play it every week after craft time. It's amazing how it's helped too! Benjamin now knows all the numbers 1-100 and Bella went from knowing no numbers to knowing all of them 1-10. Because they've learned it so well, next week I'm going to change it a bit and start on reading. I decided to do letters for Bella and sight words for Benjamin. He knows a lot of them already, but this is a great way for him to practice more.

One last update: I took Christian to his 6 month check up on Monday and he's grown into the 75 percentile in height now. Yay for my little peanut! I guess he's not so little anymore! That was a funny doctor's visit because it had snowed about 6 inches the night before, so the roads were a mess. But I purposely left early and drove carefully and made it fine. I was in the parking lot, just walking in, when my phone rang. It was the doctor's secretary telling me that he was stuck in the snow and awaiting a tow truck and I shouldn't come in. I told her that I was already in the parking lot and could I see someone else in the practice? She said no, that they were all too busy. Do not tell me that I just drove 40 minutes in the snow with three kids to be sent home! So I walked into the office and again asked to see a doctor. I guess it's easier to say no to someone on the phone then to someone who's standing in your office. We saw a doctor and were out in 30 minutes. :) Don't mess with Mama Bear.

Night Owl Christian and Flying Bella

2011-02-17T21:36:00.005-05:00

How can you not love this little guy? He is so stinkin' cute! I have to keep reminding myself of that when it's 1 and 3 and 5 in the morning and he's crying hysterically. It's at those times that I have to smell his head and hold his snuggly little body and remind myself that really I do love him, even if I'm so brain dead from sleep deprivation that I'm a hazard to myself and others. Case in point #1: Benjamin asked me yesterday what a national anthem is and when I told him it was a country's song, he asked me to sing ours. I couldn't remember it. I stood there staring at him and couldn't come up with "The Star Spangled Banner" or the lyrics or even the tune!! I finally had to go on Youtube and play it. Case in point #2: Took the kids shopping. Got them all in the car, drove to the store and what did I not bring? MONEY! Yes, I brought snacks, diapers, bottle for Christian, but not money. So much for our shopping trip. Case in point #3: I'm a member of a book club. Each month we choose a book to read. Sometimes we choose a few books in advance too. Apparently everyone else was clear on when we were reading each book. I, however, was not, and read next month's book. At least I'm prepared! Case in point #4: I decided to make lasagna for dinner, so I walked over to the freezer to thaw some beef. I have no memory of what happened next. Apparently I never thought of beef again because all I know is 3 hours later, I'm at the stove ready to start the lasagna and there's no thawed beef. I have no idea why I never made it to the freezer, but needless to say, we had vegetarian lasagna tonight. Case in point #5: I teach the nursery class at church (children 18 months to 2 years). There is one boy with a milk allergy. I remembered that when we started passing out snack (quesadillas) and made a point not to give him one. About 3 seconds later as I'm rounding the table and get to his place, I drop on one his plate. Next thing I know, one of the other teachers is saying, "That has milk in it!" and grabs the chewed up bite out of his mouth. I felt so incredibly terrible I wanted to walk out and never come back. Case in point #6: I was preparing a bottle for Christian. I'd already poured in 2 oz. of pumped milk, so I needed 4 oz. of formula. I thought, "I need 4 ounces" then I proceeded to pour in enough water and formula for 2 and shook the bottle and it wasn't until I saw that there was still some missing that I realized I'd only prepared 2 oz. How can I forget something I thought of only seconds before!? Need I go on with examples? Let's not forgot the stories I wrote about here. I'm a mess. But he sure is cute, isn't he? He makes the funniest pterodactyl-like sounds too. He cracks me up.

Bella seems to think he's cute too. Yesterday all day long she'd come up next to him and ask me to take their picture. Although, I'm not so sure it was really about Christian, because as soon as I got out the camera, she'd strike a model pose with head back, legs stretched out, arm posed just so. So hilarious. I was always laughing too hard to take a picture. She finally gave up and just smiled for the camera.

At Benjamin's request, I took the kids to the mall today to play on what a friend of mine once called "the giant germ." It's the kids' play area which is made up of colorful climbable structures in various shapes. Benjamin is actually above the height limit for the play area, but I told him he could play on it when there weren't too many little kids. He was really good about keeping that rule and so I offered to also let him go on the new bungee cord ride they have next to the play area. Of course, that means Bella gets to too. Sadly, I forgot to take pictures until Bella got on after Benjamin, but they were both so excited. This thing is a blast. If I didn't have to hold Christian, I would have gone on it. Benjamin was jumping so high on it I thought he'd hit the ceiling. Bella was more cautious, but they both laughed the whole time. I told Kelly that he's going to have to take Christian some time so I can go on it too.

Being a Mom is Being an Actress

2011-02-13T23:41:00.010-05:00

I recently came to the conclusion that being a mom is all about being a good actress. I love my kids dearly, but boy do they know how to drive me crazy!!! Yet, what kind of a mom would I be if I let that show? So at some point every day, I play the role of "Happy Chipper Mom." I understand being a 2 and 4 year old is tough. But the emotional drama that goes on in our house over nearly every little thing pushes me to the limit sometimes. Whether it's that the oatmeal is too hot, the gloves are hard to put on, or the desired book is missing, the reaction is the same: mass hysteria. Whining, screaming, crying. Many times I thought someone had been cut or burned based on the reaction and come to find out, it was something like their sunglasses had fallen on the ground. My gut reaction at these times is to scream, "Are you kidding me?!? That's all it was!? Are you out of your mind!? I ran all the way over here thinking you were dying! Stop crying over nothing!" But that's when my acting skills come out and I become Empathetic Mom! "I'm so sorry you can't find your other glove/dropped your spoon/are having trouble putting on your shoes. Let me drop everything and come help you. We'll fix it together!" And the Oscar goes to Michelle! I think this whole thing helps me understand God so much better too. How often does he likely think, "You're upset about that!? That's nothing!" Yet he shows empathy, sends comfort, answers prayers, and leads us along. And I'm guessing he's not just acting. I have a lot to learn.

When I find myself slipping and the volume of my voice rising, then I take the kids and flee to a place where there are sources of distraction. On Saturday this was Ikea. Man, I love that place. I just want to buy entire showrooms there. My kids love it too. Wanna know what we don't love? The fact that once you're ready to pay for your items, you get to walk another 10-15 minutes through the rest of their store to the checkout, even if you know all the shortcuts. Marketing genius but a mom's nightmare. But that aside, we had a great time playing and especially trying on hats and headbands.

Last week my choice of distraction was the zoo. Should have checked the weather. It snowed about 3 inches while we were there. We had a blast, though. Sure, you can forget about the tigers and the giraffes in that weather, but man are the seals, penguins, otters, arctic foxes, and polar bears in rare form. It was a real adventure. And no one complained of cold or whined once! A true success.

By the way, Happy Valentine's Day! We made Valentine mobiles for the kids' room last week. I wish I'd remembered to take a picture of the final product before Benjamin destroyed it while he was in time out yesterday. But here's a cute picture of Bella with part of hers.

Benjamin's class did a Valentine's program where they hid in boxes and then after we'd come into the room, they all jumped out and sang a song about mailing themselves to us. Very cute. Also, Kelly and I went to our ward's Valentine's dance on Saturday. That was a blast. I requested the Electric Slide and had so much fun dancing to it. Strangely, Kelly and I were the only ones who knew it! So we rocked the casbah all by ourselves. We're nerds and proud of it.

Oh, and Happy 1/2 Birthday to Christian! Little Man turns 6 months today. He's still waking up a lot at night, but he's learned how to roll and sit (with occassional falls), he's eating solid foods, and he's getting so big! He's a wonderful, happy baby and we love him.

The Great Escape

2011-02-03T23:18:00.004-05:00

We finally made it out of the house for our first big outing post sickness. We've done little things - grocery shopping, library story time, etc. but aside from mine and Bella's lingering consumption-like cough, we were better and ready to get away. It felt so good! We went to the Ann Arbor Hands on Museum and had a wonderful time. I love it there. It is a great museum for kids, but above that I love that they rotate the displays and are always bringing in new things and that everything is clean and well maintained. (Take note Detroit Science Center!) It makes it a continually fun, new experience.

Today they had a display on ship wrecks in lakes around Michigan that fascinated me and Benjamin. We could have spent all day there. He just might be another history buff like me...or maybe it was just the boats. Not sure. But the whole place was great. Bella's favorite part was the ambulance. She really makes a great little paramedic....when she's not busy sucking her thumb.

Funny stuff: Benjamin kept spontaneously hugging Bella today and she clearly didn't like it. She screamed bloody murder every time. He continued when we were home and also during dinner. "Why do you keep hugging her when she clearly doesn't like it? Please stop!" I finally demanded, exasperated. "But she's just so cute!" he responded. Can't argue with that. A very cute thing she did today was on the way to the museum. It's a 2 block walk from the parking garage to the museum and so as we were walking down the street, I heard Bella mumbling something about "beautiful." I stopped and asked her what she was saying and she said, "The sky is just so beautiful! It's so blue and sunny!" I looked up and truly, it was a gorgeous sunny day. We took a moment to admire it together and notice the white fluffy clouds and the way the sun sparkled on the snow. It was a really sweet moment.

Help! We're Trapped in our House!

2011-01-30T20:01:00.007-05:00

We've been sick since Wednesday. First me, then Benjamin, then Christian, now Kelly. Bella has luckily escaped the mess so far, but who knows, she may be next. For now she's trapped with the sick mess that we are. Coughing, vomiting, fever, headaches - we've all got our own sickness cocktails - everyone with a varying degree and variety of symptoms. Luckily the vomiting was me. Oh how I hate cleaning up kid vomit off couches and carpets. I luckily have enough experience to recognize when it's coming and make it to a safe location...well, the kitchen sink was the best I could do, but it beats the living room. So, we've been hanging out at home. Something I really hate doing. I know that sounds weird because hanging out at home should be loads of fun and all, but when you're sick and the kids are cranky, it's just not. No school, no church, no where to go, just sit at home and cough on each other. Ugh.

The one bright idea I had today was to pretend we were all germs and the basement was a giant which we were infecting. We each had names - I was "Snot", Benjamin was "Rash," Bella was "Scab," and Christian was "Pox." (Kelly was at church because his sickness didn't hit until half way through sacrament meeting. :) Now he's in bed too.) Although half way through Bella decided she didn't want to be Scab, she wanted to be Snot too, so we had the "But there can't be TWO Snots!" debate which was just so ridiculous that after all was said and done, I agreed to trade names with her. Anyway, we got our toy guns and started shooting the giant's cells (ie. walls, furniture, toys, etc.) declaring the vicious symptoms our host was developing. "Now he's coughing up brown phlem!" we'd scream. "Ooooh, he's got a killer headache!" "His nose is running so bad he's dripping on the floor and it's raw from blowing!" "Ah, he's got a fever...it's getting hot in here!" Our giant host finally succeeded in vomiting us out after debilitating us with the heat. Then we had a snack and went to bed. Another glorious day where all kids slept at the same time. Maybe there is something to be said for sickness.

So we've been doing lots of puzzles (Bella is doing 100 piece jigsaw puzzles! She's a puzzle rock star!), playing monster dog in the doll village, coloring pictures, and taking "time-outs" - the last one being Benjamin because he has the hardest time with staying home all day and tends to let it out on those smaller and weaker than he. Not cool. On that note, puzzles are like broken glass - when they get thrown around a room in anger, you're finding pieces for days to come.

In the end, we all had a big bowl of chicken soup for dinner and prayed for a speedy recovery. May our prayers be answered.

Side note: That's a headband on Bella's head and no, it's not falling down. That's the way she likes it. She won't wear it any other way. Don't even try to reason with her and tell her that her hair would stay out of her eyes better if she put it up. You'll get a headband flying at your face for advice like that. Best course of action is to consider it cute and move on. At least that's what works best for me.

The I Spy Table

2011-01-19T22:45:00.006-05:00

When I picked Benjamin up from school today, his teacher told me, "He seems really tired today." He really did. He'd been fine when I dropped him off, but he looked like he was going to fall over on the way to the car or fall asleep on the way home. When we got home, Bella and Christian took a nap and I was able to pretty easily convince Benjamin to take one too! All three kids asleep at the same time! It can be done!! A true modern miracle. Benjamin hasn't napped for me in nearly a year and a half. So, needless to say, when it was time to go to gymnastics 45 minutes later, I decided to bag it. No way was I waking 3 kids. I got out my book, made myself comfortable on the couch and relaxed! For a whole 20 minutes until Christian woke up. Once everyone was up, there was a lot of "why didn't you wake me?" and "why can't we go to gymnastics?" questions, but it was well worth it. He obviously needed the rest and so did I.

Despite the change of schedule, we kept with our usual Wednesday craft day tradition. We always do painting and crafts on Wednesdays after gymnastics. Not sure why, but it just started that way and it works. So we did that. It was a lot of fun.

We colored on the window again because it still had our Christmas drawings up and needed a change. Bella has started drawing people a lot lately. It's fun to see them. They always have huge ears and a circle for their tummies. Benjamin doesn't draw ears on his people and she's always coming to me saying, "Benjamin not draw ears on his man. He's silly!" By they way, that's Bella's gymnastics leotard that she loves because it's got sparkles. I bought her a more modest one (the sparkle one is a hand-me-down) but even though the one I bought has rhinestones on it, she won't wear it because she likes the sparkles. Women! They can drive ya nuts.

I'm working on letter recognition with Bella lately, so today we did the letter U. We made paper Umbrellas that they got to decorate with stickers and we did a painting of "Underground" where she got to cut strips and bits of green paper which she glued onto brown construction paper, to make the grass and the dirt underneath it and then we all drew things we find in the ground: ants, worms, earwigs, spiders, etc. The kids loved it. Bella also drew a groundhog and grasshoppers...and a boat. "It's a dirt boat!" I didn't pursue it. I labeled each thing with the letter with which it starts and drew a big U in the center. By the end of it all, I took a step back and looked at my table. It reminded me of Benjamin's "I Spy" books. A huge mass of stuff strewn all over and under the table. Plus the bottle, bib, and seat Christian used while he so patiently and sweetly watched us. I had to take a picture. I think it's a testament in itself of the fun we'd had. :) In the picture, Benjamin is "sewing" a paper that he made to look like ones he'd seen at school. He punched holes around his drawing and then wanted to string yarn through the holes. I thought that was pretty cool.

Finally, unrelated to anything prior, I'd like to say something to the person who stole Benjamin's swimsuit out of the gym shower over the weekend: Seriously? Did you think I hung it there because I didn't want it anymore but was too lazy to take it to good will or throw it in the trash?? Did you stop to think of the child who is now without a suit and how he'd feel? I hope you enjoy watching your son swim in the suit which you stole. I hope your son doesn't notice the missing seam or the sun bleached sleeves and wonder why a new suit would look like that. And I hope your son never wears that suit around me because I'm prepared to make a scene.

He Rolls!

2011-01-12T22:20:00.003-05:00

This little guy is rolling! He'll be 5 months on Friday. It's so fun to see him growing up and progressing. You could tell he was very proud of himself when he first figured it out. So happy and excited. We sure love this happy smiley guy! He's a total chick magnet too. Benjamin's question at Costco on Monday was, "Why is everyone always talking to Christian?" Because he's a total flirt. You'll love it when you're older.

Finally...Christmas!

2011-01-05T23:18:00.006-05:00

I'm finally getting around to posting about Christmas. Wow. Time goes so quickly lately! At least the productive hours. Last night I was up 3 times with Christian and 4 times with Benjamin over the course of 6 hours. I had that woozy drugged feeling for much of the morning as a result. Those hours dragged. No idea what was wrong with Benjamin. Each time he'd call me, his blankets would be in a hideous tangled mess and he'd be sitting up in bed asking for help to sort them out. 4 times in one night! What was going on?!? A 5th time he was up, but rather than call to me, he came into my room and talked to Kelly while I pretended to be asleep. He told him his toe hurt and asked if he could come into bed. I figured that might solve our blanket issues, but it certainly wouldn't help me sleep, so I was glad when Kelly denied the request. Alas, Christian still doesn't sleep through the night consistently. It's about 2-3 times/week. Not bad, but there's definite room for improvement.

Anyway...Christmas. Our first Christmas at our house without family visiting. It was a very fun experience. We acted out the nativty on Christmas eve. I have been wanting to do this for years! Being an only child, I never did this growing up. It's really hard to fill the roles with only one kid. But this year we had two kids and a baby Jesus, so we were set! I thought we'd only do it once, but the kids wanted a chance to play every role, so we did it over and over again. My favorite version was with Bella as Angel. There's nothing like little 2 year old Bella on the back of the couch, arms raised, belting, "Hello! A baby is born! Follow the star! Go find him!" To this day, she calls this "playing knock-knock." You know, where Mary and Joseph go "knock-knock" on the door and people say there's no room here? She asked me just yesterday if we could play knock-knock again. She also loved her stocking. Although she couldn't understand how they could be "stockings" but they don't go on your feet, so all Christmas eve, she walked around with everyone's stocking on her feet.

Then Christmas morning we opened presents. As a kid I never understood how people could say that it was more fun to give gifts than receive. I always assumed they were just saying that because it made them sound righteous. But now I think I get it. I loved giving my kids stuff that made them so happy. Although, not all their favorite gifts came from me. Our parents know how to give great gifts too. Benjamin's favorite gift was his magnifying glass from Mimi.

Bella's came from me, although anyone could have guessed what would make her happy - a frilly dress up skirt and matching plastic high heels. She has been wearing them every day since. My favorite gift was a three hour nap. I had intended to 'only lay down for a minute.' I awoke three hours later. Sleep deprivation is a killer. So grateful to Kelly for keeping the kids quiet and away during that time. It was wonderful. That and the chocolate. Kelly bought me 8 lbs of chocolate! That should last me at least until next week or so. :) Kelly's favorite gift was his new tent.

He wanted a tent that fit all of us and that he could stand up in. It's a monster. There will be no backpacking with this tent. The kids had blast with it, though. Everything they did for two days, they did in this tent. We finally had to pack it up before it got destroyed prior to ever making it outside.

Now life has returned to it's normal routine. Mondays are our grocery shopping day. As many know, my kids and I can spend hours at the grocery store. There's the helium balloons, the fish, the bikes, the lobsters, the toys, the books, etc. etc...oh yeah, and the food. I always make them wait until I've gotten all the food and then if they've been good, we go do what they want. So on Monday they were in the toy aisle and I couldn't help take a picture. They had both found bikes. Benjamin had his light saber inside his front-mounted Dora backpack and Bella had decked herself out, complete with Disney Princess Backpack. They were ready to browse the aisles.

Off she went in search of the perfect toys. So adorable.

4 Months Old

2010-12-23T22:33:00.004-05:00

Christian turned four months old last week and he's doing great. He's starting to sleep better at night, which has been a big, big blessing. We've had 3 nights this week where he's slept through until 5am. Yay for sleep!
,
As for the stats: Height - 24 3/4 in (50%), Weight - 14 lbs 2 oz (25-50%)

He's a very happy baby. Very smiley, very quick to laugh. He loves his siblings and would often rather watch them play than anything else, even eat. He started eating rice cereal this week and has done better with it than my other two did. Benjamin batted at everything and refused to let me put it in his mouth. Bella made the funniest disgusted faces when she started eating solids. Christian, however, just seemed intrigued and a bit confused about what I was doing to him. Most everything went in and poured right back out, but he did manage to swallow a few times. Definitely a good sign.

We are hoping for a white Christmas. We made snow paint the other day (water mixed with food coloring in a squirt bottle) and had a great time coloring the back yard. Yesterday we went to the playground and had a blast sliding down the snowy slides and slipping off the icy merry-go-round. What we need is some more snow so we can rebuild our sad snowman that collapsed when the snow melted a bit and now lies on his back in our yard.

Bella's early Christmas present from a friend of mine: her first dress-up dress. She wears it EVERY day. Benjamin's swim goggles are an occasional accessory only, but I couldn't pass up the chance for a picture.

We want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Oral Fixation and the Witching Hour

2010-12-16T00:06:00.006-05:00

Two things have been coming to my attention more and more lately. Just thought i'd share. First: my kids are horribly orally fixated and I'm not sure if it's normal or what. Nearly any time they're alone, they pop something inedible in their mouths - legos, polly pocket accesories, styrofoam packing chips, etc. The phrase, "Spit that out!" is one of our most common phrases around here. The other day Benjamin had a lego in his mouth and I demanded he spit it. The moment it hit the floor, Bella ran by, picked it up in mid-sprint and popped it in her mouth as she ran for safety. Ewwwww! What is wrong with my children?? I have an infant, but it's my four year old that can't keep the legos out of his mouth. What is wrong with this picture? I only hope they outgrow it.

Second: the horrid witching hours from 5-7pm can sometimes we as hard as the whole rest of the day combined. Case in point - last night. I sent the older 2 downstairs to watch an episode of Kipper while I made dinner. As soon as I started to cook, Christian started to cry. So I tried to feed him, but he was squirmy and fussy and wouldn't eat. So I set him back down and went back to cooking. He cried and cried the entire time. It took me just over 15 minutes to cook dinner and he cried so hard the entire time that he puked all over himself - and continued crying! Just as I finished dinner and tried to clean him up, Bella came up to me crying because she'd finished watching tv and wanted to put on her pajama but her pajama was inside out and it was the worst thing ever and she was never going to be able to wear that pajama ever again!! So I asked her to bring me her pajama and as she does, I hear "Bam! Waaaaaa!" and in runs Benjamin, who'd decided that spinning circles in the living room would be fun - except that he was really too tired and he lost his balance and slammed his head on the corner of the piano bench. Oh the blood!!! It went all over the floor, him, me, Christian's bouncer seat, etc. It was literally squirting in an arc at times. I grabbed a dishtowel and applied pressure for a minute or two to slow it down, the whole time thinking, "Who could I call to watch Christian and Bella while I run him to the ER?" However, once the bleeding slowed, I could see that the wound wasn't big enough to require stitches. All this withtin minutes and all within the witching hours, as I've come to call them. Those hours between 5pm and bedtime (about 7:30) are the worst! I try never to be out during those hours. I got an invitation today to a playdate with a child from Benjamin's school who wanted to meet at the play place at the mall at 6pm next week! I thought she was kidding at first. Start a playdate at 6pm? Am I the only one who thinks that sounds like a horrible idea? We have more meltdowns, tantrums, and crying at that time than any other time of day. And yet I see gymnastics classes offered at 5:30pm and storytimes at 7pm. I guess working parents have to be considered, but as for me and my house, we retire at 5pm and will not be seen later than that.

Okay, off to bed, just needed to get some things out.

Sleep vs. Blogging

2010-12-15T23:39:00.004-05:00

This is probably the longest I've gone without blogging, but I had a really good reason: chronic, debilitating sleep deprivation. Every day Bella's dolls are Mommy and Bella. Mommy is always sleeping and alternatingly screaming at Bella that "you woke me up! I'm still tired! Go away and let me sleep!" Although I don't think I've ever come off that harsh in real life, I'm definitely struggling. Being woken up 2-3 times a night by an infant, a few times during the week by the other two, and then having them jump on my bed at the crack of dawn demanding, "What are you going to make for breakfast? Will you play with me?" makes me place a much higher priority on getting to bed than posting some pictures on my blog.

Funny story some of you have already heard that illustrates how sleep deprivation affects the mind: I had a moment to myself while the kids were downstairs and I thought, "I'm hungry, I should eat something." Sidenote: studies show that people who are sleep deprived have decreased levels of chemicals that signal satiety, so they tend to be hungrier often and over eat much more than people who get enough sleep. Combine that with nursing and I'm pretty much hungry all the time. Anyway, so I'm hungry and I get some leftovers out of the fridge and pop them in the microwave. Hit the 30 second button and step away. Then I think, "I'm hungry, I should eat something." Open up the fridge again to get something and hear the microwave beep. "What's in the microwave?" I wonder. "Who put something in there?" I open it up and then I remember - the leftovers! The leftovers I'd put in there 30 seconds earlier! I'd forgotten them. This is just one of many examples I could share of how dumb I've become, but sadly I've forgotten the rest. ;)

However, setting short term memory loss, irritability, mood swings, and shortened attention span aside, I'm doing great, so I thought I'd take a quick moment and post some recent pictures.

We got a bumbo-type seat for Christian that's become our new best friend. On the floor in his bouncer seat he would cry and cry, but place him in his seat on the table (I know - don't lecture me on the dangers of falling - I never place him near the edge and he's never in it unless we're sitting at the table - I promise!) and he's happy as can be. So he's our centerpiece at every meal and pretty much any time we're doing anything there - play-doh, coloring, working on the computer, etc. He is so happy as long as he's part of the action.

Also, it snowed on Sunday and we made our first snowman and had our first snowball fight. So fun. It was amazing packing snow. It got too heavy and icy by the end of the day but thank goodness for afternoon church because it left us all morning to play. I love snow and cold.

Good News

2010-11-20T23:12:00.004-05:00

We finally had some camera luck this week. Our camera eventually did show up at Panasonic's repair facility and we finally got what we thought was our camera back. However, as we excitedly opened the package, we discovered that it wasn't our camera - it was a better one!! My first thought was "Oh no, we're going to have to send it back again, tell them they made a mistake, and wait even longer." However, after looking into it, it was on purpose. They couldn't fix ours, didn't have another like it, so they sent us an upgrade. And what an upgrade! This new camera is worth 3 times what our old one was worth. So nice! We are so happy. So here's a few pics I excitedly took today. I took a ton more but I'm still figuring this fancy thing out so most of them are blurry/too dark/otherwise flawed. Only downside to an expensive camera - I'm going to have to be EVEN more careful with this one!!

Benjamin loves holding Christian and loves playing with him. He's such a great big brother.

Watching his sibs play around.

Bella, in her beloved apron, sneaking some of Benjamin's waffle while she sets the table.

Don't Laugh at my Pickle Nose

2010-11-12T23:16:00.005-05:00

Now that Christian is able to hold his head up well and gives such cute smiles, I thought I'd take the kids for some professional photos. Haven't had any since Isabella was Christian's age. I also wanted some pics right now because we still don't have our camera back. (It seems to have been lost in the mail on its way to repair. Grrrrrrrr. We really have no luck with cameras.) The photographer, however, just really didn't click with my kids (ha! click! get it? I know. Not funny.) In my opinion, a HUGE part of being a good photographer at a studio where 99% of your clientele is under 10 years old, is being able to get kids to like you and laugh for you. When you see that something you're doing isn't working, you should have a huge repertoire of gimmicks and move on to something else. Our photographer had only one trick up her sleeve and that was the line, "Whatever you do, don't laugh at my pickle nose." I watched later and this line got other kids cracking up, but my kids took her at her word. She tells them not to laugh, so they don't. Stone faces all around. Instant cold shoulder. Slowly devolving into a complete refusal to even look in her direction. Yikes. I worried the session would be over before it began. Seeing that her line isn't working and that the kids are starting to get really annoyed by her, does she try something else? Does she call in someone else to help? No. She just kept saying it, over and over again, in an ever screechier, ever more obnoxious voice. You could almost hear the desperation in her voice as they stared her down. She finally came up with something new and tried the line, "Does mommy have stinky feet? Ew! Gross! Stinky feet!" Benjamin's response: "No, she doesn't." More stone faces. She momentarily left the room to grab a bean bag for Christian (and tear her hair out, I assume) and I jumped in to give them a pep talk. "I know she's annoying, but she's trying really hard to be nice and we really want these pictures to look good so we can hang them up at home. Please smile for her to make me happy, okay?" The rest of the pictures turned out better. Not great. Very few big happy smiles, but better. Thank heaven. I thought Miss Pickle Nose would doom us. Here are some of the results. My kids really are cute. Serious... but cute.

Another Year, Another Camera

2010-11-03T21:18:00.009-04:00

I turned 33 this past weekend. I love birthdays. I love getting older. I love having the day be all about me. :) It also happened to be Halloween, so we had lots going on.

It did start out a little rough, though. Saturday morning, the kids decide play around and take pictures. Benjamin takes a few and passes the camera to Bella. Bella doesn't seem too comfortable with it and I get nervous about how she's handling it so I tell her that I think she's too little for the camera and attempt to take it away. She will have none of that and whips it out of my reach. Out of her reach too. She whips it with such force that it flies out of her hand and onto the ground with the lens still extended. Good bye 4th camera in 2 years. The day before Halloween. Two hours before the Halloween party. The previous three cameras met their demise being dropped in a fountain (by me), being dropped on the floor (that time by Benjamin), and being sat on (by Kelly) We're hard on cameras! Big thanks to Tara for lending me her camera so I at least got a few pictures of my kids in costume this year.

The day improved after that. We attended my gym's Halloween party in lieu of the one at church because the church doesn't understand that sugaring up tiny children at the time when they're normally already in bed is a bad idea. Luckily my gym had their party at 11am, so we had options. I thought my kids looked so cute in their costumes.

And that party rocked. Blow up jump houses (and a blow up dragon!),

lots of games,

pumpkin patch, crafts, rock climbing, stick-on tattoos, food, music, and a trunk-or-treat.

And what Halloween party is complete without a petting zoo?? That was weird, but the kids liked it.

In the evening Kelly and I went out to dinner by ourselves! Yay! That was very nice. And on Sunday morning Kelly got up early and decorated the kitchen, baked a cake, made breakfast, wrapped my presents, and got the kids to make me cards. I got to sleep in a bit and woke up to find the place decked out. So fun. Again, center of attention, very nice. :) No pictures of that day, obviously, but probably for the best since short hair lends itself to some major bed-head! And Kelly got me a toilet for my birthday! Just what I always wanted. No, he's not that lousy of a husband, but he did install a new one this weekend. So exciting for the kids that it might just be the secret to potty training success with Bella! She sat on it twice today - first time in a long time. Maybe that's the secret-she didn't not like toilets, she just didn't like the old one! ;)

In any case, my birthday was a success, and many friends and family sent cards, emails, and gifts, which was wonderful. I am really very blessed. 33 and mother of 3. Amazing. Now I wait patiently for my new camera.

These pics were sitting on my camera and I hadn't posted them. Benjamin is in gymnastics and last week was "family day" when the sibs and parents were allowed to come play too. The place is really cool - the best part being the pit. Benjamin was determined to find the bottom and ended up getting himself and a classmate buried.

It never ceases to amaze me, though, to see how athletic he is. He jumped, climbed, and ran non-stop for an hour. And he's really getting good in his swim class too. So fun to see him excel and to see him so happy.

The Joy of Demolition

2010-10-14T21:36:00.004-04:00

I found this idea online and thought it looked fun - making your own wrecking ball. We created tupperware towers and destroyed them with our soccer ball wrecker. It was a bit trickier to maneuver than I'd anticipated, but Benjamin got the hang of it pretty quick and Bella did okay as long as I held the string and pulled it to the correct height and just let her swing the ball. I tried to make it educational by discussing momentum and pendulums and letting them analyze how much to pull up on the string according to where they wanted to hit the tower. In the end, though, the big fun was watching the tupperware containers scatter and then letting Bella use them as "ice skates" as she scooted across the floor with them on her feet. Yes, I washed them before the next use. ;)

We made another trip to Greenfield Village today. We were supposed to meet a friend there but her youngest took an extra long nap and she was never able to make it. (Doesn't that always happen - they nap best when you've got somewhere to go!?)

As we stood in the glass blower shop for nearly 30 minutes watching them make a pitcher, I was reminded of my experience with watching the wallpaper guy at the gym. Benjamin has a fascination with the methods and techniques of various jobs! I asked him every 10 minutes or so, "Do you want to go now?" "No! I want to stay longer!" he say, as he watched in rapt attention. "How can they DO that?!" he'd exclaim in amazement as the hot, soft glass emerged from the ovens. He could have stayed there all day. I finally couldn't stand it any longer and lured him away with the promise of a horse-drawn carriage ride. Even I have my limits.

As a sidenote, I adore the movie Doctor Dolittle - the original 1960s version with Rex Harrison, not the idiotic remake with Eddie Murphy. Somehow my kids and I got on the topic of talking to animals and I mentioned this movie. They were fascinated with the concept so I got it on Netflix and let them watch it. I thought they'd love the animals and the songs, but about 5 minutes into it (and I'd fast forwarded to the first best part), they said, "I don't like this, let's watch Diego." Stomp on my dream, why don't ya? It was my favorite movie as a kid. That and the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and Pete's Dragon, which they've also previously nixed because it was "too scary." So sad. I refused to give up on a classic though, in exchange for yet another episode of Diego, so I basically pulled a "you will watch it and you will enjoy it!" stance and we watched for about 20 minutes before I tired of the whining and turned it off. I'll try again in a few years. Maybe they're too young or maybe I'm the only one who can understand the British accents. Guess I'll have to wait until they're old enough to read subtitles.

Christian's Day

2010-10-01T22:22:00.003-04:00

Because this whole week was all about the older kids (as is every week), today I made it Christian's Day. Today we stayed home all day and allowed Christian to live on his own schedule for once. What an incredibly pleasant baby he is when he's not being woken up several times/day or being forced to wait for his milk while we sit in traffic on the freeway for an hour. I was able to feed him when he got hungry and immediately lay him down when he got drowsy and he never cried all day. He smiled and even laughed all throughout the day and we had a wonderful time giving him a bath, playing with him, and cuddling with him. Benjamin also wanted to take some pictures. This is my favorite, followed closely by his picture of Bella (actually smiling!) and his self-portrait.

School, gymnastics, swimming, etc all make a day like this impossible the other days of the week, but maybe Fridays will be Christian's day for a while. It was sorely needed.

Bella's New Look

2010-09-30T22:18:00.003-04:00

Bella's always been a little model when it comes to pictures. She loves to strike a pose and smile and say cheese. Today something changed. We went to one of my favorite places - Greenfield Village - and I tried to take some pictures of her. No matter what I said to try to get her to smile, this was the result:

I guess she has entered another phase in her life. She was cracking herself up. Apparently tongues are hilarious. So is spitting. She spit at the librarians earlier this week. Over and over again, each time laughing hysterically. The librarians weren't so amused. Gotta love two year olds.

Full Day

2010-09-29T21:26:00.005-04:00

It was a fun, busy day today. It wouldn't be fall in Michigan without a trip to the apple orchard. Benjamin's preschool class took a field trip there today and I brought Isabella and Christian along. It was so fun to see how excited they were about the tractor ride and picking out their own apple. Also, Isabella was convinced she was one of the class. Even when they said that only the preschoolers were to do a certain thing and siblings were to stay with parents, she was bound and determined to participate. As I'm wont to do, I ignored the rules, and let her join in. She sat with them during the presentation and followed her brother everywhere he went. If she'd ever disrupted, I would have taken her out, but she was a perfect little preschooler - even raising her hand to answer questions! :) At one point I overheard a grandma ask, "Is that little girl in the sunglasses in the class? She's so small." No, she just thinks she is.

Afterwards we rushed to Benjamin's gymnastics class and they gave out a coloring sheet at the end which Bella wanted to paint. So we came home and painted. I decided since we'd been to the orchard, we should do a painting related to that. So we made our own orchards by painting the trees and then glueing red tissue paper onto them as apples and apple blossoms. (We did that by wrapping small squares of tissue paper around a pencil eraser and dipping them in the glue.) While we did that, Benjamin asked to go play at McDonalds, so I made them promise not to demand we buy anything there, and we walked over. There were a ton of kids there and they had a blast playing together while I got a chance to rest and feed Christian. Poor neglected third child. This is the place I've found he likes best:

He's not a big fan of his bouncer seat, but he actually fell asleep in his jumperoo shortly after I took this picture. I was commenting to a friend today that with Benjamin I was too inexperienced to recognize his cues early on. Tired, hungry, gassy??? Who knows? My schedule was his schedule and I could have met his needs at all times had I had a clue what they were. Now I'm on the third and I can read him really well. But now I don't have the time to do anything about it! He gets tired and overstimulated while we're at the orchard or while we're at library story time and there's nothing I can do, short of dragging everyone else home. Poor kid.

We got home from McD's just in time to make some dinner and read books before bed. It was a fun day, though. Also, it was the first day that I sported this new look:

I finally did what I've wanted to do for years and years. I got to the point where I so hated my hair that I had nothing to lose. Even if I ended up hating it short, I couldn't possibly hate it more than I already did. Turns out I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE having short hair. I don't really like the way I look with it and I still feel like a total stranger is looking back at me in the mirror, but I LOVE the feel of it and I love the ease of it. I may never have long hair again.

Hobbies

2010-09-21T20:10:00.004-04:00

My kids each have their hobbies lately. Benjamin's is building. Whether that's with Jenga blocks, colored foam blocks, legos, or whatever else he finds. He is forever coming to me with his newest creation and describing to me in great detail how it "pooms the bad guys with fire!" or "blasts into space" or "sees when bad guys who shouldn't come in are coming in!" Yesterday during the other twos' naps, he asked me to play with him. So I started doing what I do best - create a perfectly symmetrical, completely non-functional structure. "That's cool! What's it do?" he asked excitedly. Do??? I thought. It does nothing. It just is. See how perfectly symmetrical and pretty it is?? But I looked into his excited and expectant face and I realized I couldn't just say that. So I came up with some grandiose explanation involving rockets, thrust, fire, explosion...you know, all the stuff boys love. "Wow! I want to help!" he shouted. It snowballed from there. Pretty soon we'd used all the blocks in the set and created an entire state-of-the-art defense system, complete with bunker, guard towers, rescue rope, secret passageway, flame thrower, control panels, etc. We both had a lot of fun, but I insisted on taking a picture before he got to kick it all down - the end result of all his creations.

Bella's hobby is cutting paper. She used to have a really hard time handling scissors but she finally got the technique down a few weeks ago and she has become a cutting fool. Every morning she tells me, "I want to cut, mommy!" (Thank heaven there's a comma in that sentence.) That's my cue to retrieve her scissors from the high shelf while she grabs a magazine or two or three from the pile. Then she'll happily sit at the table and cut the magazine to shreds while she waits for breakfast. I'm amazed how long it holds her attention. She really is so cute to watch. Although, beware - I found out that "safety" scissors can actually hurt quite a bit if you try to take the magazines away too early and your daughter isn't ready to quit.

Christian's hobbies are sleeping and eating, but I've also been trying to get him to smile more. The other day as I was getting this picture,

he suddenly pulled one of these:

I was so excited. He's done that more and more lately. I think it transforms his whole face from dazed newborn to charming baby. It's so fun.

And here's a picture I thought was funny. I was trying to get a cute pic of the three of them during tummy time but none quite turned out. However, this one amused me. Benjamin has really been so sweet with Christian from the very beginning. Often holding him or playing with him for long stretches of time. And from what I remember, really, at no time did Bella attempt to crush his head. :)

Now We Just Need to Figure Out How to Stop

2010-09-15T20:46:00.003-04:00

All Summer I've had an image in my mind - the image of me, letting go of the back of Benjamin's bike and then standing there cheering and clapping as he rides off sans training wheels. Sunday morning it finally happened. I always take the kids to a playground on Sunday morning before church to get all the extraneous energy out before they're expected to sit still for 3 hours. This week I encouraged Benjamin to bring his bike so we could practice in the big, empty parking lot there rather than our cracked, bumpy, and sloped driveway. After only a minute or two, I experienced the moment I'd been looking forward to. I was so excited! I think almost more than he was! He's been working on it off and on all Summer and this time he finally got all the pieces together and took off. I stood there cheering and photographing and then I heard, "Help! I can't stop!" I got to him just in time to grab his handlebars as he careened into the grass and toppled. I guess that's the next thing to work on! Funny the details you don't include into your dream image. :)

Also, Bella has gotten the hang of her bike. She careens around the neighborhood like a pro now. Before the processes of turning the pedals and steering in the desired direction were tricky, but she's doing great. She also started gymnastics this week. She looked so cute in her leotard that Benjamin insisted on taking a picture. I'm glad he thinks of these things when I don't! It was really fun to be in the class with her. I enjoy the chance for one-on-one time. It's the same mom and tot class I took with Benjamin and it's also interesting to see how different they are in their approaches and abilities. Her first attempt at a somersault involved her belly flopping on the ground and slamming her face into the mat. Not quite, sweetie! ;) She improved quickly, though, and she's a champ on the trampoline! Such fun to see her growing up.

As for Christian, he's spending more and more time awake lately and it's fun to get to know him better. He smiled yesterday for the first time what seemed to be a genuine smile and not just gas. That was fun. He's done it a few more times since too. What a cutie! He's also getting really good at putting weight on his legs and standing up if I hold his torso. He loves tummy time too, but he loves it so much and is so comfortable in that position, that this is often the end result:

So, those are my kids in a nutshell. As for me, I've become a vegetable. Sleep deprivation is hell. Whacky emotions, terrible memory, inability to concentrate or stay on task, falling asleep the moment I sit down, etc. And this is after only 4 weeks? Newborns are so adorable, but the cuteness comes with a price. May he please follow his sibling's examples and start sleeping through the night very soon. And I must say thank you to Kelly for his willingness to take over feedings when I'm too tired to continue. My husband is wonderful.

A Good Library for Kids

2010-09-09T21:51:00.004-04:00

What makes a good library for kids? What would you include in the children's section if you had a reasonable budget and a brand new facility? I would be sure to include lots of good books (that goes without saying), small wood puzzles, a large floor puzzle or two, some board games, a lego table, maybe a train table, some puppets with puppet stage, blocks, maybe large foam blocks too, a coloring/craft area, maybe a play kitchen with food/dishes, maybe even a crawling/play area for babies if money allowed. I could probably think of even more things if I took even more than a few seconds to consider. So, when Novi tore down their old library (which had a few of these things) and built a brand-spanking new one, I assumed (silly me!) that they might include some of these things too! The building is huge and gorgeous. The facility is high-tech and shiny in every way, so I expected good things as I took my kids there today for the first time. Yet, I wandered around the children's section twice, assuming I must just be missing the good stuff. No. Didn't miss anything. There's just nothing there! Well, more specificially, there's no toys there. They have 30 computers down the center aisle, all fully equipped with all the computer games a child could want. And believe me, they were being well-utilized. But nothing of any real educational value existed. Nothing that would foster creativity, imagination, or interactive play with their peers. Just the chance to spend more time with their faces glued to a screen, lost in their own digital world. Fabulous. I finally found a box of mangy and torn up puppets in the back corner and so we spent an hour playing with those. Also in the box were these two little gems:

So, we ran around in race car driver uniforms with bunnies/owls/dragons on our hands. Not a lost afternoon, but certainly not what I was expecting from a brand new facility. Am I the only one who would be disappointed with such a place? Am I the only one who seeks for more from a library than a place where I can dump my kids in front of a computer? I've got a computer at home! And I'm already fighting the battle over screen time every day. Why would I take them somewhere else to fight it again?? The good thing about today, though, was that now Benjamin has decided he wants to be a race car driver for Halloween. I wonder if the library would let me check out the costume. :)