COUNTING OUR BLESSINGS

Caveman Communication 101

2012-01-26T01:02:00.007-05:00

I've heard many times that boys speak more slowly than girls. So I'm trying not to get impatient. I was spoiled with Mia, I know this now. By the time Anya and Bree were born she was weighing in on which grocery store she preferred to patronize that afternoon.
So here's Kael. 18 months. Two months younger than Mia was when she recognized the entire alphabet. He will repeat "Da" if I ask him to, and if he's in the mood. He used to do "Ma," but flat out ignores my requests for that one now. And he says something like "yes" at appropriate times. And that's it.
This morning he wanted more water, so he screeched and pointed at the water dispenser in the fridge. I held the cup in front of him and told him to say "more." His face lit up, he made a punching motion, and grunted "Uh!" to emphasize it. He was so proud of himself for communicating appropriately. Did the kids teach him that??
Today he was sick, so maybe that's why I noticed, but MAN he is getting frustrated! Every time I turned around he was making a mess or hitting someone. I kept putting him in time out (basically all I can do is set him outside the room and then he comes back in wailing. He doesn't really get it.) He points and wails and motions and screams all day long... I can't imagine how claustrophobic it must feel to be stuck in that little body that can't do anything, but can want to do everything.
(I never got around to posting this back in the whirlwhind of moves last summer- this was in our second apartment)

I know I just need to be patient. Soon his mouth will be running as fast as his legs are now. Meanwhile I have to decide whether or not to respond to his caveman-ese with "Ooh ooh aah aah!" or "Try again- say "moooooore."
I'm leaning toward caveman.

Piggy bank

2012-01-16T13:24:00.003-05:00

Yesterday as I was changing Kael he started teasing me with a quarter he had found. He doesn't usually put stuff in his mouth anymore, but he DOES like to get a rise out of me, so he was pretending he was going to put it in and laughing. I told him to knock it off and hurried and finished wiping him so I could make him hand it over. By the time I was done wiping he was making a gagging noise. I flipped him over and smacked his back, and *gulp!* down it went.
I ran downstairs and woke Zach up. He couldn't think of anyone to call, so he just took him down to the hospital. Luckily a doc that knew him was in the hall when he arrived and they got an X-ray done quickly. The doctors informed each other, "We've got a piggy bank!"

And there it is.

We fed him a bunch of stew when he got home an hour later... bulk food. ;) I was so relieved he didn't have to stay at the hospital for long. And now the real fun begins.
.....
Well it wasn't as big a deal as I worried it would be. First dirty diaper and I saw the edge of the quarter right away. There's no way he would have noticed.

Whew.

The Very Best Part of Christmastime

2011-12-27T19:56:00.004-05:00

We had our preschool nativity this month! I sound kind of sappy- I was trying to get our actors' attention away from the huge group of senior citizens they hadn't practiced with. ;D

October in Vegas

2011-11-14T22:06:00.016-05:00

I have to admit- the boiling hot summer was definitely worth it. We are enjoying walking around without jackets, and it was pretty fun to plan princess costumes knowing we wouldn't have to cover them up with coats!

We went to a pumpkin patch in short sleeves.
"What is IN this thing?!?"

We visited a farm named "The Farm," and went on a hayride.
The whole place was a money trap, but the kids had fun getting their faces painted, petting cats, feeding animals, and pretending to drive parked "tractors."

Mia's October history unit was on ancient Egypt, so we went to the King Tut exhibit at the natural history museum. She brought her book along and was excited to see her pictures in real life. (Everything was replicated, but whatever. ;D)

Yummy mummies

They requested this photo with the giraffe, and this was their pose idea:

We spent Zach's second day off since we moved here raking rocks and dirt. We're trying to plant lawn, but the birds keep eating the seeds and it's probably too chilly to germinate anyway. After spending hours digging one trench by hand, Zach broke down and rented a trencher. Worth every penny, he says. :) next we're going to break down and buy sod... haha.

Mia asked to be Rapunzel months ago, and I got it in my head for some reason that I could make her dress. I don't know how to work my hand-me-down sewing machine, and the last thing I sewed was a wind sock or something tubular in my middle school home-ec class. But we went to Wal-Mart and bought some purple and white material anyway. I found some free patterns online, and one that looked like Rapunzel's dress. There wasn't one for kids, but there was a little picture of what it's supposed to look like when you lay out the peices. So I printed that, cut out the little peices, and then held them close to my eye and kind of drew/traced them onto the material. Cutting everything out was pretty easy- I knew enough from watching my mom over the years that you can put the middle of things on the fold to make it perfectly symmetrical. Then I went and bought a needle and thread kit at Walmart and started sewing! It wasn't really hard- I think I spent less than three hours actually sewing. The really hard part was figuring out how in the heck to put stuff together before I sewed it so that it would end up right-side out and ugly-stuff in. And the sleeves- it was a good thing they had a drawing of how to sew the sleeves on, because at first I had no idea why the sleeves had those points coming out the top. For the hems I just used Liquid Stitch- there was no way I was going to figure out how to make lining for a dress that was going to be worn one night in the dark.And there we have it! My first sewing project! I'm so proud of it! But not proud enough to think I'll ever sew anything ever again. :)

Mia loved having long hair, and was so excited about her dress... it was all she talked about for weeks. I was so happy it actually worked, ha.

Anya and Bree kind of fell into their costume choices. They wanted to be princesses, and we had Aurora, Snow White and Cinderella left to choose from. They decided, we bought the wigs for 5 bucks at WalMart and ta-da!

Kael wore Mia's old lion costume that she never fit. Somehow we managed to cart it around through seven moves in-tact. He LOVES this thing. If he sees it, he must have it on. The first time we put it on, he wouldn't take it off. By Halloween, he would only wear it ten minutes at a time.

We had a Halloween party with our homeschooling group. My mother-in-law sent us a TON of awesome crafts from Oriental Trading Co. last year, and we only used a few things. So the kids all got to choose any project they wanted, and we had a little Halloween parade, decorated Halloween cupcakes, and went bobbing for apples. I love the moms in our group- they are so down-to-earth and nice.

We took graham-cracker owls to the neighbors again this year (benefit of moving- we can recycle ideas, ha.) It was fun to get to know people- there are a lot of nice families right on our street... something we missed in our Ohio subdivision. One family even brought us cookies the next day!

This was a busy month- but it was so nice to be busy doing something other than looking for a place to live, packing and unpacking, I'll take this kind of busy any time. :)

Craigshouse

2011-10-15T18:50:00.013-04:00

We've been in our new house for two weeks now! We're about 60% done unpacking and putting stuff away.

The sense of dread that has been underlying my every thought since March is finally starting to abate. It's a relief to see the negative effects of moving so much come to a halt, and to begin on damage control. We're finally catching Mia up on school, getting back into a routine.

I'm excited to have a place to put everything- take everything out of boxes (lots of it for the first time since we were married!) We keep wandering around in shock at all the space we've acquired, and the fact that we're paying almost $200 less per month than we did renting.

We won't be decorating much- right now we're spending all our extra dollars trying to get fully functional. And most of those extra dollars have been going to amazing deals from ads we've found on Craigslist.

Kenmore refrigerator: $100
It's kind of old, but it's huge, clean, and has a water-in-the-door thingy! The original owners were so kind to discount it $300 and then keep it in their garage for us for a couple of weeks until we moved- every time I open it, or the girls get themselves a drink, I feel a little splash of gratitude.

Buffet and hutch: $130
This was advertised on Craigslist by a guy who owns a little furniture store that buys store models with damage, fixes them and re-sells them. I couldn't find anything like this new for under $800, so I'm still not sure how he made a profit off it, but whatever. I think we've had this china in its box since our wedding in 2002- it was the first thing I unpacked. :)

Maytag Neptune Dryer: $150
A little old lady had a stroke right after she bought this. :/

I have only been able to do one load of laundry a day for the last few months because the apartment dryers were so bad. The last dryer took 300 minutes to do a normal load (prematurely aged a lot of clothes) and it squeaked like metal against a chalkboard the entire time. This puppy has a sensor, and only runs until the clothes are dry, which is usually as fast our washer cleans! Warms my clothes and my heart.

And my favorite Craiglsist story. Sectional with two ottomans and storage: $350

Our first night here the kids wanted to watch a show on our $80 Craigslist TV (we got that months ago because Zach left our old monster TV back in Ohio) but I had our couch up in the front room to avoid further damage to the new upholstery Grandma made us. So while the kids sat on the tile, I looked up sectionals for the hundredth time, not really hoping to find anything and bummed that we hadn't found one in time to move it with the U-haul truck we'd rented and taken back that morning. I saw one for a reasonable price in our part of town and called. I told her we had just moved and that my husband might be able to stop by to see it after work. She gave me her address and we realized she was right next door. I went over with the kids (Zach had already talked to them and knew they had four-year-old triplets- when she told me her address I asked if she had triplets and kind of freaked her out- haha) and she said "I guess it was time for us to meet!" They gave us $50 off the price because of some wear (and maybe because it was just going next door, ha) and we carried it over and had a place to watch tv that night!

Aside from our new stuff, I'm also loving being able to open cabinets in the kitchen that don't smell like the halitosis of a mummy, being able to take pictures without flash because of all the windows and light!!, walking into the house with groceries from a garage, and not around a building, past everyone and their dog, and up two flights of stairs calling for three kids to keep up.

I can't describe the change in my psyche. Everything seems more... possible.

So many ifs

2011-09-17T10:39:00.002-04:00

We're only three days away from our closing date. The seller is taking forever to fix a cracked window. Our lender is taking forever to decide if we have specific enough documentation about our student loan repayment plan.

We have no idea if we'll really end up living in this house. When I walked into the first house that fell through, I was convinced we'd be living there- I could picture us there and didn't even think it was possible we wouldn't. This house (and none of the others we looked at since the last one) has never had that same feeling. Neither Zach or I can picture ourselves actually living there.

The good thing is we really don't care what happens. If this house doesn't go through, we're just going to rent. Costs quite a bit more, but whatever- at least it's an option!

Hopefully we'll know in three days how and when this will end.

Wisdom worth sharing

2011-09-15T22:51:00.002-04:00

One of the lessons that stuck with me in seminary was on the same topic of this talk that is being shared by some of my fellow LDS blogger-moms. Our teacher asked us why we heard the same things in church every week... why can't you just learn the commandments and then go on living your life being obedient? We spend our whole lives reminding ourselves what's important because we are just forgetful like that. He said the key to salvation was simply to remember. Another thing he said was that we're always changing. If we aren't actively building our faith, then our mortality is actively diminishing it. I understood what he meant, but of course it means more now. I'm sure it will mean a lot more when I'm old. Like President Monson. :)

9/11 Destruction Allowed Us to Spiritually Rebuild
By Thomas S. Monson

The calamity of September 11th, 2001 has cast a long shadow. Ten years later, many of us are still haunted by its terrible tragedy of lost lives and broken hearts. It is an episode of anguish that has become a defining moment in the history of the American nation and the world. This week, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, along with Tom Brokaw, will pay its own homage to the unforgettable events of September 11, 2001.
There was, as many have noted, a remarkable surge of faith following the tragedy. People across the United States rediscovered the need for God and turned to Him for solace and understanding. Comfortable times were shattered. We felt the great unsteadiness of life and reached for the great steadiness of our Father in Heaven. And, as ever, we found it. Americans of all faiths came together in a remarkable way.
Sadly, it seems that much of that renewal of faith has waned in the years that have followed. Healing has come with time, but so has indifference. We forget how vulnerable and sorrowful we felt. Our sorrow moved us to remember the deep purposes of our lives. The darkness of our despair brought us a moment of enlightenment. But we are forgetful. When the depth of grief has passed, its lessons often pass from our minds and hearts as well.
Our Father’s commitment to us, His children, is unwavering. Indeed He softens the winters of our lives, but He also brightens our summers. Whether it is the best of times or the worst, He is with us. He has promised us that this will never change.
But we are less faithful than He is. By nature we are vain, frail, and foolish. We sometimes neglect God. Sometimes we fail to keep the commandments that He gives us to make us happy. Sometimes we fail to commune with Him in prayer. Sometimes we forget to succor the poor and the downtrodden who are also His children. And our forgetfulness is very much to our detriment.
If there is a spiritual lesson to be learned from our experience of that fateful day, it may be that we owe to God the same faithfulness that He gives to us. We should strive for steadiness, and for a commitment to God that does not ebb and flow with the years or the crises of our lives. It should not require tragedy for us to remember Him, and we should not be compelled to humility before giving Him our faith and trust. We too should be with Him in every season.
The way to be with God in every season is to strive to be near Him every week and each day. We truly “need Him every hour,” not just in hours of devastation. We must speak to Him, listen to Him, and serve Him. If we wish to serve Him, we should serve our fellow men. We will mourn the lives we lose, but we should also fix the lives that can be mended and heal the hearts that may yet be healed.
It is constancy that God would have from us. Tragedies are not merely opportunities to give Him a fleeting thought, or for momentary insight to His plan for our happiness. Destruction allows us to rebuild our lives in the way He teaches us, and to become something different than we were. We can make Him the center of our thoughts and His Son, Jesus Christ, the pattern for our behavior. We may not only find faith in God in our sorrow. We may also become faithful to Him in times of calm.

Thomas S. Monson is president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Mia's turn

2011-09-04T22:51:00.004-04:00

While we were in Utah for a wedding and Zach's vacation time, we celebrated Mia's birthday a few weeks early so her cousins could attend. Anya and Bree had their party at Chuck-E-Cheese in Ohio, and Mia has been reminding us ever since that she will have a Chuck-E-Cheese party when it's her birthday.

Watching patiently.
I can't tell if she's picking her nose in this shot, but I wanted to show her cute accidental hair-do.

She'd been waiting to see this mouse since April...

She'd been such a good sport during the twins' birthday- it was fun to see her finally enjoy her turn.

That night Mia decided, as I was putting them all to bed, to use her birthday money to go to Build-A-Bear. She could have gotten a spectacular animal with a ton of accessories had she decided to go alone. But she decided out loud- right in front of the twins- who, when they heard the name of the store, immediately assumed they were going, too. She told the twins they could decorate the new jewelry box she had been given. I knew she’d been very excited to do that and asked her if she really didn’t mind them doing it for her. She looked worried that I wouldn’t let them do it and said through mounting tears that it wasn’t fair if she got to do something fun and they were left home with nothing fun to do, too. Then she figured out that she had enough money for them all to get basic bears and at least one shirt. Her mind was set- they’d divide her birthday money equally and then they’d all be happy.

That's the second time she's paid for her sisters to go to Build-A-Bear... the last time she only had enough money for one bear and had decided to let Anya have it. We found some coupons that made it so she had enough for all three. ;)

There are a million reasons I'm proud of her, but her generosity has stood out to me this week. Love my girl.

Baby turns Toddler

2011-08-21T21:55:00.004-04:00

Well we've been living in one spot for five weeks now- we're feeling the itch to pack up and leave again.

I'm so kidding.

But we'll most likely be moving in September to our real house. We're nervous about the neighborhood- it seems more ghetto than the one where we lived in Columbus. But fewer and fewer houses are coming on the market, and interest rates aren't going to stay low much longer, and in our last two months of looking, we only saw one house that was in a better neighborhood. It was dirty and creaky, and Zach wasn't excited about painting it, so we're going to stick with this one. It's really pretty, and big enough... and has a built-in alarm system...

We've gone to the ward up there for the last three weeks. There are a ton of young families with little kids, so we're excited about that.

Kael has changed a lot since he turned one. He understands a lot of his favorite food words, and "no" and "go." So far the only words I think he really knows how to say are "Mom" and "Dad." He says them to get our attention, and uses the right one for the right parent. :) His favorite thing is to crawl under my legs and head-butt them while I'm working in the kitchen. It's not my favorite thing.

Also, he's pretty much done nursing. We're down to about two minutes at night before I put him to bed, and I don't think he'll be getting anything out of me much longer. It's been a good go- longer than I thought possible for me physically. It's been so nice to just take a few minutes out of each day to feed him in calmer settings. He stopped whacking me and stuffing his fist into my mouth at around 8 months and started softly patting my face and hair instead. When I finally stopped defending my face I started spending the time thinking about how sweet my babies have been, how fleeting their infancy. I'm glad I got to "finish" nursing one of my babies- it really bugged me that all three girls had stopped before I was ready- that my body had stopped before I was ready.

And the biggest change has happened this week: walking!

Okay- more like... stepping. He stands up on his own, but has only taken four steps at a time so far, so we're going to rig up our fruit-snack-dangling-from-the-ceiling tomorrow and see if we can't get him to do more.

Here's the video we took of his first four-stepper. Zach and I are yelling at Anya who had just been told not to bonk Kael on the head with her chicken puppet, so you get some good "reality" in there, too. :b

One boy, One year

2011-07-29T21:35:00.010-04:00

Amidst our last few turbulent months there was one event more significant and pleasant than others. Kael turned one!

In his first year here, he has won over the hearts of many girls, but none as completely as his sisters...

and, of course his photographer mom who thinks he is the best subject she has ever had...

He's made a best friend...

and been about the happiest baby anyone who has met him has ever known. For instance: I shot this just before putting him to bed tonight after he started rubbing his eyes and yawning and getting his version of cranky.

We celebrated at Chuck-E-Cheese again- the twins' birthday party was there, and Mia wants hers to be there in September... (oh boy.) We had just found and moved into this apartment that morning, (we had thought we'd be moved into a house, but that fell through a couple of weeks before, and thought we'd have a townhouse to rent, but that fell through the week before,) so I didn't have time to find my kitchen and bake the cake I'd been planning. (Pretty much nothing has gone as we planned since about the time we had the twins... so no sweat, right?)

We got him a Cookie Monster Cake at Albertson's.
Cooookie! Oh-boy-oh-boy-oh-boy.

You sure this is okay, Mom??

"Yes, dear. Blue sugar is a great thing to give a baby. Why don't I throw a plastic knife in for good measure?"

Kael felt SO lucky to have a party at Chuck-E-Cheese... he was just too overwhelmed to show it.

This was the only shot I got of him on his actual birthday. I figured I'd post it since he's wearing the appropriate birthday attire. Those are goggles in the tub there, not... something else. Which something else would have been blue if it were in the picture a few days after the party.
FYI.

In the tunnel

2011-07-10T13:04:00.002-04:00

My brother Dallin drove down in my dad's van with a bunch of our stuff, while I drove in ours with the kids. We left in the evening so the kids would sleep on the way, since Kael has a hard time staying in his seat after about an hour. The trip took over 7 hours because we stopped for dinner in Payson and a couple other times. Kael never got too fussy and fell asleep, and the girls fell asleep just in time for Mia to not get car-sick in the canyon... around 11. The canyon was a freaky little stretch because it was dark, rainy and there was construction. But we made it at about 12:30 our time.

I thought I'd be able to make the trip alone, but it would have been awful. I'm so grateful he came. While I tried to get a bunch of cranky kids to bed, he unloaded all of our heavy boxes in the muggy heat, expecting to turn around and head home as soon as he finished charging his cell phone. I tried to convince him to stay one more day- the kids don't get to see him much and were calling him Uncle Tyson. He's going into the army and won't be back 'til next year, so I told him I hoped he'd stick around longer, and went to bed.

Dallin stayed the next day and that afternoon we all went to see the house. It was so big! I thought I'd be turned off by the gross carpet and messed up paint, but it was easy to imagine how nice it would be once we got it cleaned up. The girls had picked their rooms out from the video a couple of months ago, so it was fun to see them claim them again in real life. When we left, the twins were confused... they've been moved out of their home in Ohio to two different grandma's houses and into an apartment, so when they were told THIS was going to be their house they wondered where all their stuff was and why we were leaving it.

The next morning our realtor called to tell me the bank decided not to sell the house because of repair costs. (Which they don't have a correct estimate of- our underwriter pounded out a sloppy list of repairs that he said needed to be done based off the appraisal, and a few of the more expensive fixes weren't even needed... he just didn't look closely enough at the appraisal to see what was actually needed. So the bids that should have been coming back at around 4 or 5K are coming back at 15K.)

I asked the guy we're currently renting from if we could stay longer, like we'd talked about. I told him we'd be willing to sign a three month lease and we'd probably be longer than that. He had a lady lined up to see the apartment on Saturday who was wanting to stay for two or three years, so he said he'd like to rent it to her if he could.

We cleaned the place up to show her and she seemed really interested.

So after she left we went looking for apartments. As we left the house, we told the girls where we were going. They looked panicked and thought we were leaving to move right then without their things. It's kind of funny, but it kind of breaks my heart how much stress they are going through. I can't believe I have to move them two more times within the next six months.

Zach is on night shift this month so we're trying to keep quiet during the day... it is too hot to run around outside during most of it, but we've had some awesome rain and went out to play for that. After we looked at apartments Zach took the girls swimming. We're looking at a three bedroom house for rent later, and I think the hardest part of the decision will be to have our own house with a garage and enough space for all our furniture, or an apartment with a pool.

The girls keep saying things like "I don't want to live here anymore." And "I want to open the trailer." (They know where all their stuff is being stored, and we've been living out of our suitcases for five weeks. I can't make a lot of the things they ask to eat now because we have very limited kitchen tools and ingredients.) "When we make friends can we go swimming with them?"

I'm ready for this "camping trip" to be over, and it doesn't help that right now we have no idea how or when it will end.

Goodbye Bear Lake, Hellllooooooo Daddy!

2011-06-29T15:53:00.015-04:00

Our last day in Bear Lake! We headed back to Sandy this morning.

We stayed at my mom's second house- it was big enough that I could put Kael in the master bath and close the door between us. It was really nice to be able to roll over without waking him up from the sound of the sheets just inches from his pack-n-play... ;D

Our last trip to the beach (on our last day) was pretty miraculous. All day long the wind blew so that the windows screeched and the trees bent almost sideways. The girls ran around all morning in their swimsuits contented with the promise that we'd head to the beach when Kael woke from his nap. I was banking on a typical Bear Lake storm that howls all day until about 4 or 5 when the sun always seems to come out. We left at about 3:30 in the pouring rain. If you look closely you can see the back window is being pounded with water.
We drove around in the rain for a few minutes to see the different places to eat, and then as we headed back toward the beach, saw a clear patch of sky blowing nearer. We drove to the same piece of beach we'd been to on a couple of other days, and the sky above us cleared completely for about 45 minutes.

Then, as dinner time loomed nearer, so did some ominous rain clouds. I love it when I'm not the bad guy for ending the fun... the girls took one look at the clouds coming and agreed it was time to leave.

It started to rain just as we drove away from the beach, and kept raining as we ate dinner. Then when we went to get some famous Bear Lake shakes, the sky cleared up just long enough for the girls to play on the playground at Merlin's. But when it was time to head back and get ready for bed, the sky played bad guy for me once again. We got back into the car just before getting soaked, outdrove the storm and got into the house before the drops could catch us there, either.

So, as you might have heard from my Facebook posts, our new closing date is the 15th. Exactly one month later than our original close date. Zach is thinking even that is an unrealistic goal based on the timeframes they've given us for the things that still need to be done, but we've got our fingers crossed.

Zach has already been down there for a couple of weeks, so we've been looking for a place for all of us to rent short-term, but with no success. People are charging an arm and a leg for rent down there because they can get away with it. So many people are losing their homes...

When we found out the new closing date, I put an ad up in the Craigslist wanted section explaining that we need to rent a place for July. That worked a lot better- we got three responses and decided to go with a two bedroom apartment on Summerlin (west side of the valley.) The owner had to move unexpectedly to the east coast and couldn't get out of his lease. He hadn't found anyone to rent for July, so we're a perfect option, it seems. He left a couple of beds and the bare necessities, so we'll be good for a few weeks.

Vegas here we come! We get to see Daddy (and the new house in person) when we head down on the 5th. Wooooooot!

In case you're wondering how those crazy Vans are faring

2011-06-17T00:11:00.003-04:00

Well, here we are at Grandma's house- coming up on week two of our camp-out. Our gracious parents have told us we can stay as long as we need. Their eyes looked a little glassy when they repeated that for the eighth through tenth times in response to our plans H-K regarding this house closing and the second half of our move. At the moment, the date has officially been pushed back to the 30th. Of June.

Luckily, my parents' family has a place up in Bear Lake which was going to be empty this week, and which will now be occupied by us homeless people. Unluckily, Zach has to be in Vegas by the 23rd. So we'll be up there daddy-less. Luckily, a sweet family has offered to let Zach stay with them until the house closes.

All our stuff is being stored in an ABF truck. If the house closes by this new date, we won't have to pay for extended storage time.

If the house closes by this new date, we'll have exactly one day to unpack before Zach has to start his night float shift. (Work all night, sleep all day for a month. Which might be a blessing in disguise, Zach says. If he needs to take care of house stuff, all he has to do is lose sleep! ;b)

If this house closes by the 30th, we've got plenty of awesome family members to help us with the drive down and settling in. (Yay for close-ish proximity!!!)

We miss home. But things are going good.

Entropy

2011-05-09T21:02:00.003-04:00

This has been quite the month. Two months, actually.

I can't even...

Here.

Last Easter:

This Easter:

That's all.

Two Little Four-year-olds

2011-04-23T23:51:00.001-04:00

These girls. I just can't believe they've been in my life for four years now.

Their infanthood is kind of a big blank. Their toddler years are kind of a blur. Their preschool years have been overshadowed by Kael's infancy. Honestly, and we hate to admit it, but it is only recently that Zach and I have felt we are really getting to know them. Mia got ALL our attention, and Kael gets EVERYONE's attention. These two not are not only suffering from the deficient "middle child" attention, but in a lot of ways it has been divided by two.

They have shared absolutely everything from the day they ended up in my belly. I used to feed them with the same spoon from the same babyfood jars (they've also shared many colds...) They've shared the bathtub with two sisters their entire lives. They share the bottom bunk of the bunk bed. If we go to McDonalds, they get one water for both of them, and split their chicken nuggets. Birthday parties, presents, cards. This post. Everything. And they have never minded, because it's all they've known.

Every morning for the last six or so months, I've been spending about one hour doing reading lessons with Anya and Bree seperately. It has been the most one-on-one time I've ever had with them, and I'm so glad we did it. Just like my experience with Mia, there were some really rough times when neither of us really wanted to spend the effort that day, and we really had to struggle to keep it up. And there were times (sometimes on the same day as the rough spots,) when they were so proud of themselves and we got some good laughs in. My sweet giggly Bree and my earnest, hard-working Anya. I didn't realize I had no idea who these little girls were until we did this together- just me and Anya, just me and Bree.

Slowly, but surely, they are growing into little individuals, just like any other sisters. I'm trying to enjoy this time while sharing so much is okay... I feel they're on the verge of a change. I know there will come a time when they will start wanting different things, wanting their own different ways, and I'll have a little more to keep track of. ;) 4 years old. I will appreciate their "four-ness" more than any other age, I think.

I love them. As much as they love each other. :)

Gummy Boy Banana Saga

2011-03-24T19:51:00.008-04:00

I swear I saw some teeth bumps the other day. I got all excited and took some "before" shots for his baby book. And then I downloaded them and zoomed in. Nothing. I see no bumps. Zach thought he saw them, too. Do you?

Nyah nyah- had us fooled. Little stinker with no teeth.
Not that I'm complaining.
We still love him.

THE BANANA SAGA
Once there was a baby who tried to feed himself for the first time.

He was stoked.

Until he realized...

his fine motor skills were severely underdeveloped.

"What are you laughing at?"

"Woe is me. Those things sure look yummy."

The End

Our Lucky Day

2011-03-17T15:35:00.004-04:00

Mia:
Last night we set a trap to catch a leprechaun. It was just tall enough so that he couldn't climb out. We put in gold and chocolate to make him go in there. It turned out that the chocolate wasn't such good idea, since his hands got sticky enough to help him climb right out.
He left a note, and his teeny handprint is on there! He left the wrappers on the floor with chocolate on them. He gave us kites. Mine is a butterfly, Anya's is Tinkerbell, and Bree's is a dragon. (They chose these when they were on sale for Christmas at Costco. Zach was worried we'd come downstairs and find them fighting over which kite was whose, but so far they've never had a problem with that. So far... ;D)

Green shamrock pancakes! (They decided not to put on the green mint jelly I bought especially for them. Wonder why...)

Grandma sent a fun St. Patty's Day packages with lots of green and lots of sugar!!

The girls with their kites and the little leprechaun on the floor.

Match day was also today! We got there at 11 this morning and found out our new city at noon. We got our first choice, and we're thrilled!! We had Utah ranked first for a while, but realized our housing would be pretty bad since you have to live fifteen minutes from the U, and the program there isn't really a good fit. Ever since the interview, neither of us felt good about it, but we went ahead and ranked it second because being close to family has been such a priority. We don't think six hours is too bad, though. :)

Coming out of the closet

2011-03-15T12:02:00.005-04:00

So I have a confession to make.

We've been using our closet as a nursery for the last 8 months.

He can get his arms out of his swaddler, and sitting up is right around the corner, so last night, for the 8th anniversary of Kael's birthday, we decided it was time to get him out of his bassinett.

The reason we were using our closet?
We were trying to avoid this:

We were planning on putting him in with the girls, but he wakes up sometimes at 5am, which is just late enough to wake them up, too. He just eats for a few minutes and goes back to sleep, but at that hour- there's no way they would go back to sleep. So our toyroom is now the nursery/toyroom until we can get this kid to sleep longer.

Circumstance

2011-02-25T20:12:00.009-05:00

So as you probably have heard, Zach and I are ALMOST on tenterhooks wondering where "The Computer" will decide to send us for residency this year. We find out on St. Patrick's Day in a ceremony at the school. They'll hand out a bunch of envelopes containing all the 4th year students' precious info, and we all open them together. Like a mass mission call! ;)

All this waiting for our fate to be decided has gotten me thinking. How much of my present situation is my doing? How did I get to where I am today?

I never thought growing up, that I would go on a mission. Was sure that I wouldn't once I had grown up. I met a guy prepping to go on a mission and thought- "I could totally do that." So I ended up in Italy. I met people, learned a language- but the country wasn't my decision.

I thought, in 2002, that I was marrying someone who wanted to be a musician. We met doing a musical, started dating after he wrote me a song, courted while participating in two choirs, and took voice lessons from the same teacher. I foresaw duets, serenades, and guitar lessons. A couple of years later, I found out I married someone who wanted to be a doctor. Two whole duets and seven years later cut to a husband at the kitchen table practicing stitches on a pig foot.

About ten months after Mia was born, we realized that if we started on our next baby right then, he/she would arrive before we moved to med school (then, like now, we only knew the time frame, not the state.) Yeah- Mia would still be young, but we'd have family around for support, I'd be familiar with my doctor, and our first two kids would be from our home state and really good buddies growing up. Six months later, cut to Zach and I half laughing half crying as the ultrasound tech started the session by saying "Weeellll, over here's the head of the first baby..."

We didn't choose Ohio either. When it came down to it, there was one option for med school, and it was OSU.

Kind of feels like I've been part of a tossed salad, bouncing around and landing in random places. Yet, here we are. Healthy. Happy. Hopeful. I've met some friends who I don't know how I ever could have done without, and who will now be a part of my life forever.

Where would I be if I'd been able to plan everything?

Lately Anya and Bree have been running around exclaiming "It's my lucky day! Hey- it's your lucky day!"

I kind of believe them.

V-dub's V-Day

2011-02-21T21:04:00.005-05:00

It's been a whole week since Valentine's Day, but one of my roses is still hanging on. Our Valentine boxes still get a daily rummaging. I think Mia's box from last year hung around for two months. We really hate losing our holidays around here. :)

The girls got some cute packages from Grandmas, filled with Valentine clothes and treats. Those things are so much fun- like a little party in a box. After those arrived, they were super excited to go to our homeschooling group's Valentine party to exchange V-day cards.

This year we learned from our experience and made bigger boxes with bigger holes. We dismantled Grandma's singing V-day card and rigged Mia's box to play when the flap over her mail slot was opened and closed. Bree and Anya hadn't seemed too excited about our invention, but then Bree asked me the night before the party if she could have a singing box like Mia's. :( Next year... Every year I find something I want to remember to do for the next, ha. There were 32 kids participating this time, so we were definitely feelin' the love.

When we got home we went "Valentining." It has become the favorite part of holidays for these kids- dressing up and handing goodies to our neighbors.
Now we just need more neighbors who are home on holidays..

The day after Valentine's Kael turned seven months old.

Man-I thought he had me wrapped around my finger before? He started babbling "Mamamamamamama." I might as well now be his personal 6-foot marionette.
Could you resist that?
Well, I can't. :)

Going going gone

2011-01-24T19:05:00.006-05:00

We've had a few fun things going on lately! The twins started a dance class at the rec center. We signed Mia up, too and decided we'd stop paying $47 bucks a month to put her in Pinell Dance Studio. The free class is just as good for a five-year-old...

Mia lost her first tooth-
...............Going............................going......................... gone!
She put it in her princess bag, so the tooth fairy had a great place to put a certificate and a little tooth fairy note, a sucker (which Mia specifically hoped for, so good thing the tooth fairy heard her, huh) and a "silver dollar."

And she also made her first fairy crown. Aunt Kiley gave us a fun idea book for Christmas, and we're having a hard time choosing which ones to do first- they're all so cute.

We also started on Mim's first science project. She wants to find out which sense is the best for telling foods apart between taste, smell and touch. Her bet is on taste.

If anyone would like to participate, she needs more test subjects this week!

Birth order

2011-01-13T21:37:00.007-05:00

I heard that my grandma's motto about raising children was that we're simply supposed to work ourselves out of a job.
Zach and I can't help but notice how fast time is flying when we see how Mia ages five years whenever she dotes on her little brother. She's in such a hurry to be a good mommy.
Funny thing, I remember exactly how she feels. I remember more than one occasion when my mom had to remind me who the real parent of my sibings was, and so it's hard not to laugh as I watch Mia try to teach the twins how to do their dot-to-dots , and as she gives them "talking lessons."
"Say: MOOOmmy."
Two little voices repeat her.
The best is when she paraphrases something I tell the twins, and I know exactly how my mom must have felt dealing with a little echo voice. Good and bad, there's nothing like being the oldest, I tell 'ya.

I'm interested to see if the "middle child" role will affect the twins doubly or not at all, or what.

Here's the current youngest. I'm also interested to see if he ends up being the youngest, or if we decide we're crazy enough to do this again. ;)

You heard Mia say we should send this to Dad? He's been gone the last couple of weeks doing the last six of eleven interviews. The twelfth and very final one will be at OSU next month. We're collecting info on a bunch of states and a bunch of programs, so we can form a list that ranks our preferences. We'll find out where we've "matched" on St. Patrick's Day, it looks like. Luckily, there are good aspects to every program, so we know that wherever we're going next will be just fine. Meanwhile, I'm glad the interviewing part is over. I went from shoveling the walk to nursing the baby in .00006 seconds today. ;) We're so glad when Daddy comes home...

Better get in our monthly post

2010-12-28T20:17:00.005-05:00

I wanted to wait until either he was six months old or sitting up on his own, but Zach's worried his son is a lightweight and the pediatrician gave the green light, so Kael got something new for Christmas dinner.

He's actually loving it now, and Zach gets a kick out of helping to feed the baby finally.
We bought some of those new gingerbread graham crackers. They taste... like gingerbread graham crackers. Don't try and make s'mores with them, that's all I've got to say.

Mia wrote her name on hers with icing squeezed from a corner-cut Ziploc. I was pretty impressed.

We finally made use of our snow clothes last week, and went sledding with our friends.

We really need to get a sled.

Or not...

Steal-A-Bear

2010-11-15T14:58:00.007-05:00

Well, that's almost what it felt like.

Remember the Build-A-Bear birthday party? Well, we got $40 worth of gift certificates because of the points we got on our Stuff4Stuff card. Then we got e-mailed two coupons for $10 off when you spend $30, because both Zach and I have given them our e-mail addresses. There's also a promotion right now, if you spend $30 you get a free Christmas stocking.

We told the girls to each choose their favorite B.a B. animal and headed out to the store, which was empty, since it's Monday. (Zach has a day off school!!) The first thing they did was fix our ripped Mr. Monkey, and put tags on our animals so they would know they were already paid for.

After choosing what they wanted, we added up the total: $60 even. Anya chose an angel outfit, Bree chose a sparkly pink dress with sunglasses, (Mr. Monkey is now Mrs. Monkey,) and Mia got a new panda bear in a fabulous dress with some matching hairbows. And we each got a free stocking- which was handy, cause Kael needed one. Zach bought half and used his $10 off coupon and $20 worth of gift certificates, I bought the other half and used the same coupons of mine.

The old lady who rang Zach up was already shocked out of her mind just ringing up half of it, and asked if we had a birthday party there as she begrudgingly took the coupons from him. When I asked if we could choose two different colors of stockings, she tried to tell my cashier that Zach had already gotten one, so that was it. She didn't realize I was doing the same thing!

No Christmas experience is complete without Scrooge. It was a glorious day. :)

October

2010-11-01T22:09:00.010-04:00

Wow. I can't believe how freaking hard it is to post anymore. Okay- it's easy to post, but hard for me to put it high enough on my list of priorities to ever get to it. If this was something I could do with one hand, I'd probably have a post every day. But the only time I'm at the computer now is to nurse(which I can't do hands-free yet for some reason)or do school with the girls. So here's all of October in a nutshell full of pictures.

We went to the Creepside festival super early and were the second to get our free picture taken at Studio K. Bree is a cat in a dress, Mia is a witch, Anya is a crazy princess, and Kael is a jack-o-lantern. It is so nice to have another photographer around. I wish I could find another me in this town- someone who doesn't charge an arm and a leg, does a decent job, and lets you have your files. If you hear of anyone...

We went to DeMonye's greenhouse a couple of times again. It was just as fun as last year!

Grandma Cork sent some awesome crafts- we have enough to do more next year!

Grandma Gale sent everything we needed to make these owls. We gave them out to our neighbors with some cards Mia made (which I forgot to shoot- drrt.)
We delivered this one to our single neighbor, Dave. I tried to sneak out with just the one on the right, but Mia noticed that we "almost forgot!" hers and so I made sure she pointed out to him which one she helped with. He was so cute and complimented her on how nice a job she'd done with barely a chuckle... We were just looking at this post together, and I said "Look- Mia, there's your owl!" She just giggled and shook her head and said, "You didn't put a mouth on yours. Mine has a mouth."

Mia was the only one interested in helping with jack-o-lanterns this year, so we ended up with a Jasmine one.

And here's the center of attention every waking moment. None of us can get enough of this kid. I keep waiting for the girls to get sick of him, but they love to hold him and get him to laugh all day every day. Zach says he feels guilty he didn't enjoy any of the girls this much as infants. Mia threw us newbies for a loop, and the twins threw us for a loop-de-loop. We wonder if he smiles more than they did because he gets smiled at more than they did....

Build-A-Birthday

2010-09-24T08:08:00.006-04:00

Our five-year-old (FIVE!) celebrated her birthday at Build-A-Bear this year. I couldn't fathom trying to get together a party at home with Zach's crazy schedule, family in town, homeschooling, and living in three hour increments divided by a baby stuck to my chest. (I wish I could hand over a few feedings to the bottle, but I'm almost positive my body will take that as a signal to quit producing altogether, and don't want to mess with the first success I've ever had at breastfeeding.)

So I figured we'd suck it up and pay for another professional party. We were all set to schedule with the equestrian center we went to over the summer, when Mia decided she wanted to go to Build-A-Bear for her party. I didn't know if that was even possible, but after a quick look on their website, I was convinced it would be a great (less expensive) idea. Basically, the party is free, and all you pay for is the bears, which are discounted!

I thought at first that we'd be coralled into a corner to quietly play some party games, and then overtake the line to stuff everyone's bears, which would have to be the $10 cheap-o ones with limited shirt options.

When we arrived, we were told we could choose any animal up to $18, and any shirt in the entire place. We had a fun party host who encouraged the kids to yell, hop, run through the store, make silly faces, sing a boisterous Cha cha Happy Birthday song, and ring a loud bell! And we had one of the stuffing machines to ourselves. It was so much fun- Mia beamed the entire time.

Mia woke up the next day and asked her sisters "Guess how old I am!" When they found out she was a number higher they figured they must be four now. Anya keeps asking me every day how old she is.

Since the party, we've spent the last couple of weeks doing school at home. It has been surprisingly fun! Mia's favorite subject is Language Arts because she gets to act out the stories with her sisters. Anya and Bree were doing her Math courses for the first few weeks, while I had Mia do the workbook we'd been working on before school started. Her teacher finally did some one-on-one time with her and gave us some more appropriate curriculum for Language Arts and Math, so we're excitedly waiting for the materials to arrive FedEx today. Meanwhile we've been doing our own thing in those subjects. I've been surprised at what passes as acceptable supplemented curriculum. They say if she watches a science program, that can count as science! There is a limit to how many supplemental hours we can do per week, but we've never come close to the minimum, the curriculum they provide is so great.

Thank goodness for this K12 program- I know I couldn't have started homeschooling from scratch our first year, especially with the baby here and Zach always gone. It's the best of both worlds- because it is considered public education, it is entirely free. We have a teacher to work with, a new up-to-date computer, tons of awesome award-winning books, art supplies, science supplies... yet Mia gets to choose what she wants to learn that day, and it is perfectly tailored to her abilities. I've been relieved at how socializing isn't as big an issue as I thought it would be. Since we started school, we've had time to go out and meet half a classroom's worth of friends in just a few weeks. She still has her best friends to play with when it isn't school time. Between the park, dance, and tumbling classes, meet-ups with our homeschooling group, and playing with her sisters at home, she's getting plenty of interaction with people other than her mom. The biggest drawback is that housework has taken the backseat, and it's a really crowded car. We just do as much as we can on the weekend. I guess that will get better the older the kids get, though. Which is happening at an astonishing rate, by the way. Two months and BAM! this kid isn't a newborn anymore.

So, anyway. There we are. :)

Whatever you say

2010-09-15T12:34:00.007-04:00

"Dat one is milk, and dat one is juice!" Bree pointing to Kael's breastfeeding options.

I told the girls they needed to be quiet for a minute or Kael couldn't fall asleep. "Because he's a really good listener," Mia explained.

"He bless you'ed!" Bree exclaimed after Kael sneezed.

"What do snails eat?" Bree asked Zach while watching them scoot around our fish tank. Zach and Mia answered at the same time: "Algae" "Allergies!"

"Anya's bum bum coughed!" -Bree

I suctioned some googers out of baby's nose. Mia told him as he flinched, "Sorry, but we have to. It's like going to the nose dentist!"

Bree failed to get my attention while I was making dinner, so tried a new approach, "Honey!?" When I turned to look at her she asked "is your name Honey?" I asked her what she thought my name was. "Honey?" "And what's Daddy's name?" "Daddy!!!" I shook my head and smiled. She thought harder. "Honey?"

A lot.

2010-09-06T21:47:00.010-04:00

It has been a very eventful couple of weeks.

This kid started Kindergarten.

Kindergarten!

And, as you can see, is about to start dance classes.

Thanks for the hand-me-down leotards and shoes, Kiley!

We'll call these the "before shots."

All the kids (with teeth) went to the dentist for the first time.

They were all very brave.

And this kid

got his first blessing.

And refused to grin his huge baby grin for the camera all weekend long.
This was as close as I could get.

Stinker.

Thanks for the blessing outfit Grandma! She made it out of the leftover material from one of the twins dresses!

My sister and her family of yayhoos were here from Pittsburgh for the blessing, and my mom flew in again. I was surprised how much it meant to me to walk into the sacrament meeting room and realize that a whole row full of my family was there to see our boy get blessed. We were in Utah for the girls' blessings, and took for granted how wonderful it was to have so many loved ones around to witness those sweet occasions.

I'm really glad they could come. Even if they are a bunch of yayhoos.

And last but not least- today Zach and I turned eight.

To celebrate, we went to Wicked. I loved it! The music wasn't my favorite, but I loved the story and how wonderfully G-rated it was. Awesome! We've unconsciously made it a tradition to go to musicals on our anniversary. Which I think is appropriate, considering how we met:)

Happy Anniversary, bun.

Welcome home, Daddy!

2010-08-20T09:26:00.005-04:00

The last three days, when Zach got home and picked up the baby, he was rewarded with a huge gummy grin. When it happened the second time, we were pretty sure it wasn't a coincidence, so I had the camera ready when he came home last night. Sure enough- it took a minute of cooing to coax it out of him, but Kael is definitely smiling for real now. I love how his little tongue curls up when he smiles (or when he wails, come to think of it.) I just got another one out of him- ha! So fun. I wish I could take a picture of every one. :)

This time around

2010-08-15T18:11:00.007-04:00

Addicting little buggers.

And not just because they're full of sugar. There is something about the unpredictability- once you bite down, you never know what's going to happen next. Unfortunately, if you are nursing a baby, they make diaper changes just as unpredictable. Once the diaper is off, you never know...

Don't worry, I didn't take a picture of that.

Instead, I will grace you with another fun image:

Our little jaundiced kid soakin' up some rays. Yay for big sisters with style.

He's a month old today. When the twins hit this milestone, they were just reaching full gestation age, Mia wasn't two yet, and I was getting my gallbladder out. I can't believe how different everything is this time around. Even with Zach working 80-90 hours a week, this is hands down 10 times better. I have three little "helpers," one of which can actually help. I don't have to fight with this kid to keep him awake during feedings. My body is in tact. I'm not moving out of state any time soon. I've just got to remember all of this when the girls wake up at the butt-crack of dawn, and I've just finished a feeding that started at 4 and ended with an unpredictable S'more diaper explosion.

And just in case you forgot...

Mia didn't want to finish hers.

She actually wanted S'mLESS.

Whose child is this?

First Family Picture

2010-08-12T10:08:00.002-04:00

While we were at the hoedown activity for the twin group, a photographer was taking pictures, and we got the first shot of all of us with the new kid. :)

Outings

2010-08-11T13:55:00.009-04:00

Last week was Kael's first trip to the zoo. I had to wait for the rest of the family to go on the boat ride. A great remedy for baby blues- get him out in public where everyone wants to see him and ask about him and coo at him. 2-week-olds rival the greatest attraction at any zoo. ;)
First train ride!

Also that weekend was our first outing with the Columbus Mothers of Twins group. They had a cute hoedown at Friendship Park. I didn't look closely at my calendar and mixed this activity up with another party hosted by Mia's homeschooling group, so we dressed her up in the cowboy costume, and didn't bother trying to find anything for the twins. When we got there, I started up a conversation with the gal sitting at our table. "We have twins, too!" She looked at me funny and asked me if I came to many of these activities. I told her Mia was just starting Kindergarten, so we hadn't been to anything yet. Then I looked around and realized there were a bunch of twins all over. Drrt! Not just a coincidence...

Our friends who just had twin boys in May were there- Mia loves their daughters to peices!

And we love the hand-me-downs they gave us!

He's getting bigger! This morning he slept from 4:20 to 9:10- his first 5 hour stretch! Mine, too... bliss. He does really well at night- just eats and goes right back to sleep. We've asked the girls to go downstairs in the mornings without waking up Mom. Most mornings it works: we set out cereal bowls and put some milk in a little pouring cup that Mia can handle. They just watch some Mickey Mouse and wait for me to come down. Usually we're up and about by 7:30- but I got to sleep in this morning!

Admirers

2010-07-25T12:23:00.003-04:00

This kid has his family wrapped around his week-old finger. Which finger is a lot more mobile now that he's not tethered to a glo belt. His first outing: Bob Evans for dinner last night. He did really well!

AB vs. O

2010-07-20T21:48:00.004-04:00

Well, crap.

Turns out the reason the twins ended up under bili lights wasn't just 'cause they were preemies. They were also the product of incompatible parents. HAha! Okay- so even though Zach and I get along fine, our blood doesn't mix so well. Kael tested Coombs positive. He's got hemolytic anemia, which basically means my body fought against his, and now he's got antibodies against himself, courtesy Mom.
"Why, Mom? Why?"

Which means.... the WALLABY! And also.... SUPPLEMENTING WITH FORMULA!!!! Grr.

Oh well. On the spectrum of crap you can go through with having kids, I've always been at the easy end, so I'm not complaining. And it gives family a rare (hopefully rare, anyway) chance to help feed baby. :)

Ya' like Anya's shirt? Ahhh, the irony.

What a difference a day makes

2010-07-18T14:07:00.004-04:00

And experience. Experience makes a difference. I had mega trouble breastfeeding with Mia and the twins. I let the hospital nursery take them so I could sleep, but never got them back in time for feedings and didn't build my milk supply quickly enough to avoid having to supplement, which slowed building a milk supply further. I spent so many hours pumping and fiddling with SNS tubes and going to lactation specialists...

This time I brought the pump to the hospital and did some precautionary pumping after feedings. It worked! I can't believe what a difference it makes not having to rely on a can of formula, a bunch of bottles, and that freaking pump every three hours. We got up three times last night, and all I needed was a baby and me. Ta da! I got almost eight hours of sleep last night! I can't believe it. I know not every night will be this good. But I also know I've never seen a newborn night like it before, and I'm grateful and sure there will be more. What a relief!

He's here!

2010-07-17T16:29:00.005-04:00

Kael Dean Van Wagoner was born on July 15th at 4:34 in the afternoon. We were originally scheduled to be induced Monday, but I chickened out, citing the fact that my mother-in-law wouldn't be in town until the next day. Really, I was just not keen on the idea that I couldn't eat breakfast because of the C-section risk. But at my next appointment my doctor asked if I'd like to reschedule for Thursday. For some reason I said yes. (Probably had something to do with the waddle/limp I'd acquired, and that I was 5 centimeters all week...)

At 3:30 Thursday morning, I hadn't slept more than an hour when the hospital called to postpone my 5:30 am induction. "Go back to sleep! We'll call you when it's time to come- sometime after 7." At 9:00 I called to ask if I could eat some breakfast.
"Sure! Eat a light breakfast, and be here around 10." Uh- okay.

I was super nervous on the way to the hospital. Still wasn't convinced I made the right decision.

We broke my water around noon, and an hour later I got an epidural. We were planning on starting pitocin at 3, but contractions kicked in on their own. About an hour into labor my blood pressure dropped a few times (reaction to the epidural)and I started to faint, (awful feeling!!!) but they gave me something that got me back to good each time. Then it was baby's turn. Every other contraction brought a drop in his heart rate, and I kept turning to help it back up. At one point it stayed down really low for four minutes, the first two of which were spent with me asking why I needed an oxygen mask, and trying to decipher the weird look on my nurse and Zach's faces, the last two were spent trying to ignore the look on the faces of the ten people that ran into the room, then rolling onto my hands and knees, and then crying when all I could think was "This is what I get for being impatient and forcing my kid out of the womb." Zach said later that the few times he saw that happen on his OBGYN rotation, a crash C-section followed. They gave me a shot to stop contractions, and we waited an hour for them to come back, all the while wondering if the same drop would happen again.

It didn't.

Zach got to deliver. After five minutes of pushing, 8 pounds and five ounces of Kael came out into the world. They unwrapped his cord twice from around his arm, his leg, and his neck, and then exclaimed at the figure-eight knot tied in the middle of it. He gave a good cry and I experienced more relief at seeing him placed on my chest than I'd ever felt.

Zach helped me feel better about our decision to induce. Had he been left to grow in that mess another few days, there would have been even less room for that cord to go. And the heart rate drops that we monitored so closely and remedied with turning might have gone unnoticed had I labored in the car on the way to the hospital. I know a lot of people have been praying for me and this baby for a long time- even Mia would mention us in her unassisted prayers, which always left me feeling gently impressed. I know those efforts were noticed.

Here's Kael in the fouth Grandma Gale edition of Van Wagoner baby quilts.

Grandma Coralee is here helping with the girls and housework.
I'm having better luck with nursing this time around.
Baby is getting used to us, and we're getting used to him.

Anya and Bree were both claiming him as "my baby, Anya." "No- that's MY baby, Bree." "No that's MOMmy's baby, Anya." And Bree keeps demanding that I put baby in this or that chair and give him this or that toy or food. We've got some precious video of them with Kael during his first moments home- I'll post a little later.

Mia is extremely helpful and I'm trying to figure out a way to reward that sweet girl appropriately for the amazing attitude she has about the needs of her family.

We're doing good! Thanks to everyone for their well-wishes and prayers!

Git 'er done

2010-07-15T12:16:00.002-04:00

Warning: motherhood post.
So I'm sitting here in labor and delivery waiting to go into labor. We figured since I've been at a five for over a week I might as well get induced and avoid a freaky rush to the hospital. So far we've just broken water and nothing is happening. :b

BUT no matter what- today's the day.

Vacation Bible School

2010-07-10T17:48:00.010-04:00

On the 3rd we went to the twins' first real firework show at the church where we meet with a bunch of Gahanna moms regularly. The gal who heads up our group goes to the church, and invited us all to the show. While we waited for dusk, the girls had a fun time getting their faces painted and bouncing in a bounce house, while I played Connect 4 with some young women. Zach spent the whole time following the girls from the bounce house, to the coolers, to the bathroom, to the various cookie-covered tables, and back to the bounce house. Mia sporting her new fake smile...

While we were there, a super nice lady introduced herself and invited us to sign up for Vacation Bible School. They had a cute ad posted, and I'd been invited by our meet-up group, but didn't know how welcome a bunch of Mormon kids would be at a Methodist version of youth conference. This lady was so persistent and encouraging, I asked how much it cost. "It's free!"

Sold!

So my girls have spent every evening the last week rocking out and learning about Joseph in Egypt, ancient Egyptian culture, and the One True God! It was really well produced- I think it is nationwide for the church, so their lessons and music were really professional and cute. Zach dropped them off in the main hall and spent the time studying for boards in the designated "quiet room" in the back. After an opening excerise of sorts, they got to go to stations throughout the building that were set up with different crafts and games.
Every night they came home and showed me their Egyptian crafts, and I asked them if they had fun, what they learned. Mia's eyes lit up one night when she actually remembered the lesson of the day: "I know! God is all around us!" Amen sister! I asked if she knew how God pulls that off. She had no idea. I reminded her about the Holy Ghost. "Oh- yeaaah!" So- okay, the band didn't do a lot of singing about the still, small voice. But it was a really fun activity, and they came home quite entertained. If they start clapping during the hymns in sacrament meeting tomorrow... well- blame me. :)

Cutting it close

2010-06-27T21:11:00.008-04:00

With the last two pregnancies, I had everything ready to go a few weeks in advance- everything. This time around- not so much. We're getting a bassinet tomorrow morning, and Zach should have the crib put back together sometime this week. I've organized all of our newborn through 3 month outfits in a little tupperware dresser in the girls' room. Other than that, we haven't really prepared anything. It's so weird- like it hasn't sunk in yet that we're actually going to have a baby around... really soon.

It seems the twins finally believe there's a baby on the way. I'm not sure they understand that he'll ever be a baby on the outside of Mom, though.

Mia, on the other hand, knows a change is coming. She's excited to hold her brother.
We keep trying to get her to name him for us. I stuck her on the computer and had her look at a baby name site. She has a much more open mind than I do- and asked about some names that I would have passed over without a second glance. She got pretty attached to Hamish for a few minutes, but when she realized we were still going to have the final say, kind of lost interest in the search. Now when I ask her how she feels about a name, she says reassuringly, "You just name him what you want, and I will like it."

So we're still in name limbo. When we were expecting Mia, we were dead set on Samuel if she was a boy. Then my cousin used it, and now it has gotten a lot more common, which is less appealing to me. It's just annoying to hear some mom calling your kid's name in the park. I can't imagine how all the Emmas and Isabellas out there feel when that happens probably every day. Anyway. This time, we thought we had settled on Greyson, until I heard it in reference to about five different boys in one week. Seems that one is getting too popular, too. I'm already so sad that Mia's name jumped in popularity the year after we named her, and I'm worried that with the new Eclipse novella, Bree's name is going to start popping up more often, too. Lame. We still have about two and a half weeks to decide on this kid.

I realized we might miss our last chance to get belly pics, so we went out today and took some. Zach does a pretty decent job, no? :)

Spoiled!

2010-06-26T06:52:00.005-04:00

My sweet aunt did it again. When Mia was born, I was just overwhelmed by the gifts she presented at my shower- all color coordinated with a ballerina teddy bear theme. Then again, when the twins were born, she packed a million coordinated gifts into one gift bag, including my purse that became a conversation piece for strangers at grocery stores and parks for the next few years. We just got an authentic Aunt LuJean box in the mail- I should have known, but I was completely awestruck again. I have no idea how she manages to fit so much cute stuff into one package! It takes me back to the Christmas Eves we would spend at her house- when Santa blew our minds, and the holiday had a magical quality that was never quite duplicated anywhere else. I think I'm beginning to understand what made those years so special.
Everything had it's own coordinated, hand-drawn tag, cute ribbons, "Do the Blue" theme- it was like a complete baby shower in a box!

I felt the love in every mark of her blue pen, and almost wish I could leave the cute tags and ribbons on the outfits when this kid wears them- just so everyone knows how special my aunt is. Thank you Aunt LuJ!!!

Zach's on call tonight

2010-06-22T19:18:00.002-04:00

Ever notice how the words "Bed time!" magically get your children focused on brushing their teeth, getting their pajamas on, and climbing straight into bed?

Me neither.

Three weeks! Maybe less!

Fishies

2010-06-12T19:37:00.004-04:00

This morning Zach took the girls fishing. He was going to leave Anya with me because she threw up twice this morning and had a 105 fever yesterday when they checked at the pediatrician's. But as they were getting ready to leave this morning, Anya merrily obeyed when Daddy told everyone to get dressed (while Mia and Bree played in the toy room and needed to be asked a million times to go choose some clothes.) Then Anya came downstairs, found her sandals and waited happily while the other two got ready. When she found out she wasn't supposed to go, she crumbled, and we changed our minds pretty quick. If she's healthy enough to run around all morning with a smile on her face, she's probably okay to sit with a fishing pole.

They went up to Hoover reservoir and found a perfect spot with tons of little fish nearby. Mia's Barbie fishing pole did all the catching: four blue gills and a yellow perch. They threw back the blue gills, (apparently you're not supposed to keep them alive, and we didn't want to bother cleaning and eating them) and kept the perch thinking it could go in the spare tank for a while.

Mia called me from the car on their way home. (I didn't go- got the fever last night and still have the remaining sore throat and cough. Weird little virus.) I don't hear her little voice on the other end of the phone very often- I think the last time was while we were in Vegas. It sounded so small and exuberant! She was so excited about her accomplishments, she said she wanted to tell me right now, instead of waiting 'til they got home.

When they burst through the door, they were all talking to me at once. Bree was trying to get the words "Blue Gill" out, and Mia was repeating everything she'd said on the phone.

While they were jumping around telling me about their adventure, Zach was out getting the pool set up. It's one of those with the edge that stands on its own, and turned out to be too tall for them to get in and out. So he cut a little curve out so they could get in and out, and reinforced it with some rubber thing so they wouldn't cut themselves on the unfinished egde. As I write this, he's out getting our groceries for next week. He asked if I needed help getting the girls to bed, and I said no- I could get it. Kind of sad that that sending him to get groceries sounded like I was letting him off the hook, no?

He's been taking care of pretty much everything since we got back from our Vegas trip. I've been mostly immobile with a stupid back and messed up insides from carrying twins. I didn't realize that this pregnancy would start out the second trimester with the same discomfort level that ended the third trimester of the last pregnancy. This one kid just picked up where they left off! So chaos reigns at our house. But we're getting through it because of a wonderful father and husband who sacrifices not only any free time he might have had, but some studying time, too. His priorities are unquestionable: us, us, and us.

I'll have to admit, it's driving me nuts that I'm unable to run things my way. (If you want something done...) But he's even patient with me when I think things are going wrong.

I feel awful that his birthday and Father's Day both fall right smack in the middle of this crazy crunch time. He deserves so much more than we can give him right now! Time to get creative...

Horsies

2010-06-10T14:20:00.000-04:00

We went to the Field of Dreams Equine Education center today with some friends. When I told the girls they were going to ride a horse this morning, Mia was the only one who seemed excited at first. Then Bree realized what I meant and started telling me every half hour, "I want to ride a horse, Mommy!!" I wasn't sure Anya would be up to it. All of them, especially Anya, have always had a little trouble getting comfortable with new slides and all sorts of other normal kid stuff they have encountered over the years.

But when we got there, Anya raced over and was the first to put on a helmet and climb up the platform. Mia had ridden once at the zoo, but I was really suprised at how comfortable the twins were with these huge, live animals. Anya grinned her head off the entire time she rode! She and Bree took turns riding "Jane."

Bree couldn't contain her excitement, and ran out of patience before the horse got back. But she dried her tears as soon as I took the helmet off Anya and put it on her. She was giggling when she first mounted, and then started waving and yelling "HI!" to everyone.

Mia rode a horse named Miracle. She was lifted onto the horse at the zoo last year, but once she was on the platform, all I had to do was point to the stirrup and she got on by herself no problem. I had trouble mounting the first time when I was twice her age!

I think I've been just as enchanted with horses growing up as every girl- but seeing my girls so smitten really makes me hope we have a chance to let them ride more someday. :)

Arrrrrr-guh!

2010-06-08T16:05:00.002-04:00

WANTED: Translator fluent in Strangese.

About once every three hours, you will hear Bree tell Anya, "I be a pie-yut (pirate) and you be Jesus, k? AAARRRR-GUH!"

Then Anya will reply with "When I grow up, I be a ballerina, go in time out."

The conversation never varies. They don't laugh, but apparently it is just as interesting the tenth time as the first.

To Grandma Ella with love

2010-05-29T08:24:00.010-04:00

My Grandma Ella turned 96 on the 21st- she and Zach share a birthday. When I introduced them in 1999, her lips stamped his forehead with "Grandma approved," and she decided she would share him with me, since she was just a "widdow widow." Back then, she was still living in her condo, still doing hair in her salon/laundry room.

That condo was close to the studio where I worked before I was married, and I would go there for lunch sometimes. Some days she would be in the salon with a customer, and I would make myself a sandwich and listen to the little shaky voices of the ladies getting their hair done, and my grandma's strong alto voice responding. For decades, everyone has agreed she seemed about ten years younger than she really was. She chalked it up to oatmeal every morning, working, and keeping busy. I chalked it up to her signature hairstyle that started out with just one little wisp of white in the front which over the years gradually overtook her hairline until there was just one thick wisp of dark brown. That, and the occasional swearword and straightfaced joke about getting sloshed at keggers.

A while after my Grandpa died, she confided that she wouldn't mind if he came to get her any time. I told her that wasn't acceptable- I wanted her around another ten years so my future children could meet her. She just rolled her eyes and told me not to wish another ten years on her.

Ten years later happened anyway. During our trip to Utah last month, we went to visit her a couple of times at the rest home she moved to. After already having come close to losing her in the few weeks previous, we knew this would be goodbye. I was really glad my girls would have one more chance to see her, and maybe even remember her. She didn't exactly resemble the woman I will remember in the years to come, but I really hope my girls keep a memory of being with her.
We sat in her room and talked with her as she passed a bowl of DumDum suckers. The kids took turns hugging her, hearing her tell them how much she loves them. Fascinated, Anya pointed and said "Your hair is white and brown." I smiled- maybe our memories won't be that different after all.

In Memory of Ella Klara Marie Larsen Gale
May 21, 1914- May 29, 2010

When I pulled up these pictures, Anya came over and said, "Grandma Ella! I like Grandma Ella! I get suckers! She have white and brown hair."

Silly billies

2010-05-22T08:46:00.006-04:00

Anya browsing our videos trying to convince me it's okay to watch a movie: "Mom! I like TV's!"
"You mean movies?"
Pulls out the Emporer's New Groove: "I mean Groovies!"

Mia trying to stop Bree from taking her stuffed dog: "Bree it's Tuesday. This dog only bites on Tuesday, so you better leave him alone."

Anya started refusing squash a couple months ago. I keep putting it in front of her though. Last time I set it on her tray, she yelled the usual, "I don't like squash!" And stupid me, I gave the same response I always give. "Yes, you do."
Usually a little Yes/No conversation happens for a minute. But this time, she said, "I do?"
"Yeah."
"Oh. I like squash!" She ate it all.

Mia: "So- Mom, how'd you sleep last night?"

Bree: "Where's Darling? I want Darling." She named a rag doll Darling- a word we don't use at our house, and so has us completely mystified. I'm actually still not convinced she hasn't named it Darleene. It sounds like "Darween," when she says it.

Anya is sitting on our new bounce horse in a Cinderella dress, and I'm reading on the couch next to her. We've been quiet for a while, and then she blurts, "I'm a genius!" Another word we don't use... and the way she pronounces it.. I hope it wasn't mean of me to laugh my head off.

Another surprise trip!!

2010-05-21T16:15:00.008-04:00

Remember the little incident with the exploding tomatoes? Well, it turned out to be just the reason Soleil Moon Frye's Little Seed decided to send Zach and I on a vacation to Vegas.

Even though we found out about the trip back in August of 09, Zach's school schedule didn't allow for a break until just now. Which, actually, made for the most awesome birthdays ever. When I wrote my story to Little Seed last year, I didn't know that by vacation time, I'd also be starting my third trimester of pregnancy with a messed up back, and in dire need of a rest!

When we got to the baggage claim in the Las Vegas airport, we met our limo driver! I've only crouched in the front seat of one of those to photograph wedding couples on their way to receptions, so I was pretty pumped for my first ride as a passenger.

Aww. My first limo ride. It was very... limousine-y. :)

We were passed from him to our bell-hop, who took us to Diamond registration and then to our room. We started walking down the hall, expecting him to turn any second and show us the usual accomodations: a couple of queen sized beds, maybe a king, in a room with a cozy table in the corner and a bathroom off to the side. When we got to the double doors at the end of the hall, I did a double take. We had no idea what to expect, but it certainly wasn't this!

Our room was a Panorama suite with Roger Clemens memorabilia. It was AMAZING! We got a tour of the place that kept going...

and going...
For you geeks like me who need floorplans to truly appreciate a place you're trying to picture:

And last but NOT least... drumroll please...

Our view.

The Bellagio fountain and the Eiffel tower. We could even hear the music during the fountain shows!
It was easy to get comfortable there- and hard to leave. :)

Our first night there we ran in and out of resorts on the strip, trying to find the places we went on our honeymoon. We added a new favorite spot- the aquarium at Mandalay Bay. Wow. We got there just before they stopped selling tickets for the night.

All our food was paid for, and we had so much fun trying new stuff at almost every restaraunt in the resort.

We were also treated to two trips to the Mandara Spa. I went for mother-to-be massages two days in a row, (at 30 weeks- it was perfect timing for a massage!!) while Zach lounged in the spa and used the exercise equipment.
It was a wonderful trip right smack in the middle of mega stress time- and we'll never be able to thank Little Seed and Planet Hollywood enough!!

Okay- so that was the blog I wrote for the Little Seed people to publish on their site. (I even created a fake blog becasue I didn't want a ton of people linking to this blog. I'm not scared enough to go private- but I don't want people being directed to my family blog on purpose.) Not pictured: me in my freaking awesome electric wheelchair! I couldn't get around the hotel, let alone walk the mile or so it was to Mandalay Bay. They didn't have wheelchairs for people with long legs, and since my knees were up to my chest in the chairs they had, we got the electric one for the same price- woot! It was awesome- I love those things.

Visit to Utah

2010-05-08T17:02:00.004-04:00

The much anticipated trip to Grandmas' houses is already come and gone. The girls got thoroughly spoiled thanks to two and a half birthday parties!

One at Grandma Van's

with their own personal birthday cakes!

Grandpa set up a tent to sleep in! They figured out the zipper pretty quickly, darnit. ;D

One at Grandma Gale's

My mom's beanbag toss game, and rocket were both a huge hit.

Zach can make anything. Funky hats, giraffs, ducks, a monkey climbing a palm tree, doves in a heart... someone requested a parrot and he figured it out.
We had two sets of friends over, so the twins each got a turn being sung to and blowing out candles. Handy!

There were little friends running around all day- it was so fun!

My friend Tani and her four boys

Cousin Tiffany and her boys
On our way home Mia said she wished she could live at Grandma's house. Gee, I wonder why?!

2 are 3

2010-04-23T12:24:00.003-04:00

Happy Birthday Anya and Bree! Last year it was hard to believe they were two. The first year went so fast!

But things have started to slow down- we've stayed not only in the same state, but the same house for the last two years. This birthday is a lot easier for me to swallow.

We'll be celebrating for them in Utah, but the real day is definitely worth mentioning!

"Matches and lighters are tools, not toys!"

2010-04-20T17:02:00.006-04:00

Today we went with our homeschool group to the Central Ohio Fire Museum and had a great time!
Our guide was a real firefighter, and donned his gear in front of the children, explaining each step as he went.

By the time he got his mask on, he had been talking to them for about ten minutes. They weren't afraid at all.

Then Boots the Mouse made his appearance.

Boots and the fireman talked about the difference between toys and grown-up tools- specifically matches.

They LOVED the mouse! And paid attention!

We took a tour of the museum, and our guide rang a bunch of loud bells on different firetrucks.

Then they got to play on a firetruck, slide down a firepole, and dress up in firefighter gear. The twins didn't quite understand everything, but it was a real blast! I totally want to do this again next year.

"Chicken!!"

2010-04-08T23:14:00.003-04:00

Here's our Easter weekend in a nutshell:
Easter Sunday- If it weren't for a guideline we gave Mia on the indoor egg hunt, to leave the ones on the floor for the twins to find, Anya and Bree wouldn't have found more than one or two. Mia found most of the eggs outside so quickly, the twins started just pointing them out to her because they figured it was her job to clean them up. ;D
Didn't matter in the end- every egg got dumped into one big basket and put where only Mom and Dad could reach them. *burp* I love how they are all too young to worry about who gets what. Enjoying that while it lasts. ;D

We headed over to our friends' house for an Easter sitting with their new little chick. They think they're weird for getting chickens. Don't worry guys- I think raising chickens is actually in vogue right now. Yes, I just used "chickens" and "vogue" in a sentence.
I know Bree would love it if we could jump on that wagon. The girl wasn't just enamored- she was obsessed. She kept calling to little Aurora (the chick,) "Chicken? Chicken! Chicken!!" like she expected it to come peeping over to her. She would have loved, held, and squeezed the first egg out of Aurora had she been given the chance.
All three girls were really enchanted by the little ball of fuzz. Toward the end they seemed to understand that they couldn't squeeze her, and we trusted them to just touch her gently while we got some shots. When it was time for chicken to go to bed, Bree lost it.

Monday- We went to Slate Run Historical Living Farm and watched the first sheep shearing of the year. The girls got to pet a little lamb. Bree found another chicken to beckon.
Mia spent a lot of time patting horses. I caught a glimpse of her face as she finished patting a huge work horse they were returning to the stable. She turned away and sighed contentedly, looking positively radiant. I can't think of a better word to describe her expression. This is a girl who screams when house cats move toward her. Who hides behind me when she sees dogs approaching a hundred yards away. But she'll stand at the feet of this 1800 pounds of animal, and jump up to pat it's muzzle.

It was so fun for me to see my girls' unbridled affection for all these creatures- their yearning to nurture and adore. Even counting the General Conference we DVR'd, it was the most pagan of Easters I've ever experienced. Made me want to have a baby. Well, now- that's handy.

Happy Easter!

2010-04-04T20:27:00.004-04:00

This has been the most eventful month... not much of it good, a lot of it really bad. I'm so grateful for everything about this picture. This day and what it means, my children, good friends, husband near, beautiful spring, and the gifts of nature we have to enjoy. I needed this today.

Mia's first "performance"

2010-04-03T22:22:00.005-04:00

A few months ago, Mia started taking violin lessons from our awesome friend Maury Bevan. I thought it would be good incentive for her to practice if she knew she was going to perform a song for her friends, so I organized a little talent show with our homeschooling group. After hauling a bunch of stuff and kids to an unforseen hassle getting into the library meeting room, I didn't have time to plug in our battery-dead video camera, and hadn't brought my camera either. So I took a picture of her in our backyard when we got home to commemorate the event.
She played as well as you'd expect a four-year-old beginner to play I suppose- right up to the second to last note. Trying to figure out that missing note took as much time (it seemed) as the rest of the song had taken, but eventually, she got it. :)

This morning was the ward's Easter party. Such a fun time!! They had an Easter hunt for all the kids, divided into different age-groups (so thoughtful!) and a pancake breakfast that magically didn't involve the usual line-up of everyone in the ward. I'm not sure how they pulled that off- but it was awesome. Oh, wait- Zach got the food. My magic Zach. ;D

"Ring around the rosie!" with our buddy Abby!

Great violin lessons in Gahanna, Ohio!! Call Maury Bevan! I'll give you her number! ;D

There y'are

2010-04-03T13:14:00.011-04:00

With my first pregnancy, I was so excited about my belly growing, I had a pregnancy sitting done at around 36 weeks.

With the twins, there was the whole "two-kids-in-there" excitement factor, so I remembered to get a shot at 23 weeks or so. It was Feb 2, and they were due May 21. You do the math, I'm pregnant.

This time around- even though I was going to take some shots for this kid's baby book (gotta be fair,) I wasn't really excited to post them. It just doesn't seem as exciting the third time around. Maybe if it were tripets or something...

But I'm getting requests, so here's from today.
My friend took the one with the white shirt, which kind of hides my lumpy lump, so I took another without it when we got home.

Since we all know what everyone does when they see these shots, and before I get a bunch of hate mail: I'm SIX FEET TALL. If you are also six feet tall, go ahead and compare your prego belly.

Happy St. Patty's Zoo day!

2010-03-17T14:58:00.004-04:00

We're finally breaking in our zoo membership thanks to some beautiful spring weather and friends who think of things to do other than library storytime and the park.
Our green clothing and accessories from Grandma last year somehow managed not to get lost, so we got around pinch-free.

I'm trying to go easy on my back lately, so I brought our lightweight cheap-o Nikon instead of my monster Fuji. Better than nothing, I guess. Except I have no idea how to use the thing. Oh, well- better get used to it. Other than some Easter stuff, I'm planning on avoiding any major shooting for a while.

There are three new lion cubs! So cute!

The Togetherness Kids

2010-03-10T20:20:00.007-05:00

In case you were wondering why these guys always have bruises on their foreheads...
"Oooooooh! Oooooooh! I a ghooooost!"

"Gotsya!"

What's behind curtain #1?

Heck- I'll show you #1 and #2.

Their idea.

Guess there will be more room for baby than we thought...

Knowing what's coming

2010-03-07T21:25:00.010-05:00

Tonight, a friend of ours asked if it was just him, or has the twins' vocabulary grown exponentially in the last few weeks? I don't think he realized he hit on the very thing I've been thinking of most lately, and was glad to hear someone else had noticed.

I've been worried for the last few months about the twins' impending entrance into preschool. I figured I should start them when they turned three, but every time I tried including them with the whole group they didn't pay attention longer than a few minutes. It was hard to imagine they'd be ready by April. I've been doing a simple "practice" version of preschool with just the twins at home.

I've also been wondering about what to do with Mia once she finished preschool in May. How would she take it when I dropped the twins off to be with her friends and took her home with me for Kindergarten? Keeping her in the group would make the age disparity of the kids harder to teach, and I didn't think it would be fair to ask that of the other moms.

This week was my week to teach. Instead of doing the twins' usual "practice run" with a few stories and songs, I thought I'd see how much of my prepared lesson we could get through with Mia. About halfway through a rather long story, I realized they were all listening intently. They made it to the end, and we started to learn the song. Usually they kind of sway and hum when we sing anything but Twinkle and Child of God. But this day- they actually learned the whole song! We did the craft, and they were so proud of what they had accomplished. We got through the whole lesson, and for the first time, they actually got something out of it!

At first I didn't think anything of it. Chalked it up as a fun fluke. If Mia hadn't insisted that we "do preschool" again the next day, I might have not tried again for a month. Luckily, we did. It was just as fun as the day before. The twins learned another new song, listened and participated, and I realized- this is going to work! We've got a kind of Joy School/Montessouri/homeschooling thing going on. Unique, and perfect for us.

What has really surprised me are my feelings about teaching. The first thing everyone says when they hear I'm going to homeschool Mia, is that they'd go crazy if they tried that. There have been so many days lately, that I've felt the desire to just get a break from my kids. I've wondered if I'd ever have more of a desire to spend so much time on them in a teaching capacity, and what would happen if I continued to have these feelings of reluctance? Every five weeks for the last half year, I would think "Oh, man- it's my turn to teach," and I'd hop onto the curriculum site to do my part. I'd skim over the non-essential intro to get the gist of the theme, and slowly but surely get my lessons together over the course of a couple of weeks.

After our experience this week, I got onto the curriculum site to see what I'm in for preparation-wise. Am I really going to be able to prepare the other four weeks' lessons myself?

I started reading the introduction that I usually just skim through, and found myself engrossed to the point I was scrolling down hoping for more to read when I came to the end.

The next morning I woke up at 6:30 with a mini-epiphany. There's a reason we had so much fun this week. I've been so worried about getting "me-time," it was creeping into my feelings about "mom-time." And this week, I was so invested in "mom-time," I forgot to worry about myself. It was a lot more fun for everyone. I'm not worried anymore. I'm ready to give what I need to be happy.

Last night Mia and I went on a trip to pick up preschool supplies for the next two months. We got sidetracked in the baby section....
This year is really going to be different than the last. I love to finally be able to picture it, and plan for it. And look forward to it. :)

Ohhhhh boy.

2010-02-26T18:49:00.004-05:00

So. A lot of things we've never thought about have come up since we found out yesterday there's a boy on the way. And some stuff that we have thought about, but not really dared to ruminate on too long.

I found a dirt-cheap/high-quality little boy outfit in Italy and bought it in perfect confidence that someday soon I'd be putting it into good use. Not an inkling did I have that it would hang unworn amidst a closet full of fancy dresses for the next ten years! That will be fun to dust off.

Until we found out Mr. Boy is on the way, I'd never thought about participating in Boy Scouts. (Actually, I'd never thought about Girl Scouts!) Zach is playing guitar for a scout meeting tonight. Scouts. Huh.

We're having an ongoing circumcision/no circumcision discussion.

I'm glad that, just in case the next was a boy, we bought one of the twins' crib sets in green. And I'm glad that onesies are gender neutral.

I'm going to have to completely reconsider my modesty-in-the-home policies.

We've never really taken our boy name options seriously. We've been completely convinced about three different boy names during the last pregnancies, and later asked ourselves what the heck we were thinking. I really don't like boy names! Neither Zach nor I even like "Zachary" that much! Trouble. The name-himself option might actually be on the table. ;)

I'm going to be a son's mom, and Zach will be a son's dad. I've not even figured out the daughter's mom part yet.

What if this boy has straight hair? I'm okay cutting Zach's curly hair, my mistakes get covered up and grow out in a day or two. I can trim Anya's and Bree's straight long hair without too many obvious problems. But little-boy straight hair? We might become Cookie Cutter customers if I don't get a lot better at hair cutting.

These are just things that have come to mind in the last day. I'm sure we'll be plenty surprised by what we didn't think of once the kid is here.

The Results:

2010-02-25T13:50:00.001-05:00

Tick. Tock.

2010-02-20T11:05:00.004-05:00

I don't think I've ever been so anxious to find out the gender of a baby. I'm not sure if it's because I already have three girls running around, because I'm kind of bored with this snow and would like to get busy preparing, because my back is acting up more than the other pregnancies and knowing who's coming might make the wait feel a little more worth the pain?

The ultrasound is scheduled for Thursday. We're bringing Mia along- who seems just as excited as I am to find out what is in there exactly. Maybe her excitement is just rubbing off on me.

The other day she was trying to come up with names. When all she could think of were names of her siblings and friends, she said "maybe you'd better name it, mom."

Choosing a name, on the other hand, is something I'm not looking forward to at all. We spend so much time on it- and always realize that whether or not we like a name can vary depending on the day. Zach was completely against "Anya" when I first mentioned it. The next time I brought it up, he was all over it. And then, a few months after they were born, he kept wondering to me if we named them wrong- if Bree should really be Anya and vice-versa.

Sometimes I catch myself looking at them and wondering "Are you really a Mia? Did I choose right? How on earth was I supposed to know what you'd be like from day one?"

Maybe we'll be those weird parents who let their kid choose their own name when they're five. Just call it "baby" until it decides it wants to be called "Peek-a-boo." We'll just change the spelling so it seems more like a real name.

Food Block

2010-02-15T14:20:00.005-05:00

I have forgotten everything I've ever learned how to cook. There wasn't that much to begin with.
But I find it kind of disturbing that I know how long a plate of any number of chicken nuggets (CN) needs to be zapped, I can whip out four peanut butter (PB) sandwiches faster than it took me to write this paragraph, but when dinner time comes- my brain is full of CN and PB.

I am very uninspired to cook a full-on dinner. Zach may or may not be home to eat it, Mia is just as iffy, and the only variable about the twins is how loud they howl when I set something in front of them that isn't CN or PB.

I can't complain, though. They will eat from each of the four food groups. Anya is just basically down to non-syrupy fruit, mac and cheese, PB&J, plain rice, pureed mixed vegetables (pureed?!!! what is she, nuts?) some cereals, and pancakes. And I realize what a miracle it is that I was able to drive in a blizzard today and pick up fresh strawberries per request of the four-year-old. This isn't about desperation. It's about inspiration- or uh- the lack of it. ;D

I'm just realizing that this is the not-fun-to-cook phase in our family. What did you do when you were going through it? What are you doing if you're in it, too? Is it possible to be inspired to cook a healthy meal for yourself? Or is everyone just having CN and PB for dinner tonight?

Valentine exchange

2010-02-12T15:19:00.006-05:00

This morning we went to the Valentine party for our homeschooling group. About 47 kids were expected, and a good 35 or so showed with decorated boxes in tow. This group meets every Monday for an activity of some sort- usually the mom hosting just ends up bringing lots of sugar and all the kids run around like crazy people. We have had a couple of well-planned activities, though- so we keep going, hoping it will be a good one.

Today was another running screaming sugar-fest, but Mia had a fun time matching names on Valentines to the names on creatively decorated boxes. I recognized the monster boxes featured in Disney's Family Fun magazine- they turned out cute! Mia's was a cereal box wrapped in Christmas gift-wrap with the gift wrap cardboard center stuck through it like a mail box post. That was enough creativity for me- we just bought Valentines for the twins that included boxes. I'm wondering if this isn't kind of a micro-example of my future parenting...
It was a fun time over-all. Despite the chaos and inconsistency of our homeschooling group, lately I’m more assured than ever that my decision to have Mia do Kindergarten at home was the right one. I found K12's reading placement test online and had Mia take it a couple of days ago. She thought the first grade test was a fun game, and aced it. She slowed down on the second grade test because she didn't know the meaning of some of the words she was reading. If I told her what a word meant, she could answer correctly. She's nowhere near that advanced on her handwriting, and in math she's probably barely first grade level. What would a public Kindergarten do with her? I'm just glad we're living in a free country and I don't have to find out the answer to that. I really have no idea whether or not we'll keep going after Kindergarten.

Cross your fingers!

2010-02-08T21:35:00.005-05:00

When I was Mia's age I bit my nails compulsively. They were always little nubbins, and on occasion- little bleeding nubbins. Once I even started biting a nail from the nail bed up (don't ask me how- I didn't even know then.)

My grandma tried guilt trips. She ran a beauty salon in her basement, and would give Lara and I manicures. I still remember her "Tsk tsk!" and telling me that if I didn't bite my nails they wouldn't look so bad. Did that tactic ever work on anyone for anything? Maybe in her generation kids weren't as shameless as I was- but I didn't care one bite. I mean bit. My mom tried yicky tasting nail polish, rewards, and finally ignoring. Then when I was about 12 or so, she started learning how to do acrylic nails, and practiced on me. I didn't bite them, and it kicked my nail-biting habit for good. (I switched to cuticles.)

So now, my little four-year-old is entering her second year of nail biting. Luckily, she only bites them when they get too long, and hasn't started biting as a stress reliever. She leaves them alone once they get short enough, and hasn't bled yet. But I've been worried it would get worse.

About six months ago I painted my nails. She wanted so desperately to have her nails painted, too. I examined each finger carefully. "Hmm. Nope. Nope...nope," and told her there weren't any nails to paint. I said the second she had some white on top of her nails we could paint them. She didn't know when that would happen. I explained it would as soon as she stopped biting them off. She cheerily said "Oh! I'll just stop biting them then!" Every time I went to clip the twins nails, she would look at her own, mystified. "I bit my nails. Maybe next time I won't." I tried to sound as encouraging as possible, "Yeah! Maybe next week for church or something!"

I could tell she was getting more and more disappointed about never having nail polish, especially when she would wistfully compliment her little preschool friends' beautiful pink fingernails.

A few days ago, I noticed a teeeeeeeeny sliver of white on her ring finger. "Mia! Look! You didn't bite this nail! We can paint it!"
"Really?!! I get nail polish?!!!"
She was so pleased with her one painted nail that I felt awful and painted the one next to it.

Today, I noticed that she hadn't bit either one since!

So, during the twins' nap today (they get naps when they're sick- yaaaay!) we tried an experiment.

They're not acrylic, but I'm hoping the appearance will have the same affect. We'll know in a week or so!

Less Mom is More

2010-02-05T21:07:00.009-05:00

So what do you do when you and the kids have a trip to the library, a playdate at a friend's, and a quick trip to Giant Eagle planned all in one day?

You stay home and take no less than six baths and four naps!

Lots of snow + me pregnant= get nothing done.

Oh, who am I kidding. Me pregnant = get nothing done.

But I'm starting to think maybe that isn't such an awful thing! At least in some cases.

Every morning, the first thing I do is round up the three girls who just woke me up and plunk them in the tub. For some reason, there is always one bath toy prized above all others, and curiously, it is never the same toy the next day. I try to wash my entire face before the first argument breaks out and then sit on the toilet next to them to referee. At least two kids are always wailing, and from start to finish, bathtime is usually not as fun as it used to be.

Today, I had a chance to see what bathtime would be like without the ref. We forgot to drain the bathwater. After breakfast Mia went back upstairs and said she wanted to take another bath. The water was still warmish, so I added some hot water and in she went. The twins decided to get in, too. I was in the middle of ~~nothing~~ a project, and so I left them in there to play alone.

Not a whine.

Mia got out on her own, and then the twins continued to play quietly for a good half hour before I got them out for lunch.

They don't need me in there. Refereeing is one thing on my "to-do" list I think I will permanently cross off.

By the way- I wasn't exaggerating about the six baths. I noticed the water was still warm and hopped in while a couple of them were napping. Then Mia got in with me and stayed after so it didn't get drained again. I had added even more hot water before I left her in there, and so this evening while I was downstairs ~~getting nothing done~~ busily being pregnant, they snuck upstairs, announced they were climbing into a super-full, still warmish bath, and played happily for almost an hour before I got them out for bed. No, that's not gray Jell-O they're sitting in... it's sixth-bath water. Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to skip the soap and just use the film left on them from tonight.

Expensive Taste

2010-01-26T17:48:00.011-05:00

My mom bought us some really yummy meat from Omaha Steaks. We cooked up our Top Sirloins, and Mia decided she wanted to try some of mine. I cut really thin strips against the grain and let her dip it in Teryaki A1. She decided she really liked it.

We had our well check-ups the last few days. The office we go to won't let us bring all three on the same day, so the twins were Friday and Mia was on Monday. The first thing they did was prick Bree's finger and collect her blood drops in vials. To keep the wound from clotting, the nurse rubbed her finger- hard. Bree was in a ton of pain, and I knew it wasn't just from the prick on her finger. The nurse actually rubbed the skin right off her knuckle. Duh! I'm sorry- but squeeze her freaking arm, rub further up her hand... it isn't like her heart is located in her knuckle. And since that was the very first thing they chose to do, both Bree and Anya were terrified the rest of the time, and needed a ton of coaxing (Mia had to demonstrate half the procedures for them before they would cooperate) even to stand on the scale. I think the second most annoying part about all of it is that the blood "draw" was totally pointless. They are going to test it to make sure they are as healthy as they look, not tell us the results, and nothing is any different except now Bree has a huge black scab on her knuckle and is terrified of the doctor. Anya keeps looking at her sister's finger and saying "Dockuh huht huh!" Which is Anya-ese for "Doctor hurt her!" The most annoying part is that I should have spoken up. Nurse or not- she doesn't care about my kid as much as I do, and I should have remembered that.

Monday we went back for Mia, the twins extremely reluctant to let go of my legs. Somehow the conversation I'd had with the nurse last time left me with the impression that Mia wouldn't be getting any shots. Wrong. I guess it was kind of merciful, because the five minutes she spent crying over the impending doom was probably much less torturous than an entire weekend would have been.

I felt so guilty, though, for having mislead her, I asked her what she would like for a special treat.

"Can I have more of that meat?"

I told her I'd get some at the store tomorrow just for her.

"Tomorrow" turned out to be a lot more hectic than I'd planned, and my back went out (again.) I figured there was no way she would remember. Wrong again. When she learned that I hadn't bought steak for dinner, enough tears were shed that I called Zach to see if he would pick some up on the way home.

So here I am typing instead of cooking. We'll be eating late. Us and the four-year-old steak-eater.

Time to think

2010-01-15T21:43:00.003-05:00

The last couple of days I have been all caught up with my photography. Only one sitting on the books. No albums to work on, nothing to retouch. In other words- nothing nagging at the back of my mind when I'm putting the kids down... "hurry, hurry, you only have a few hours!"

Even when it was just Mia, I was doing albums and there was that nagging. I quit those when the twins were born, and then nursing and sleeping took over the nagging. There wasn't time to rock my babies to sleep at night.

And then, suddenly, there was no need. Don't get me wrong- I've always appreciated how well they've gone down without needing to be rocked. I guess that was really lucky.

But since their sleeping arrangements got all rearranged, they've needed some help getting down. At first, I had work to do and couldn't take the time they needed. Zach had to sit in their room and study, while we shushed them (sometimes in not so friendly tones)for a good hour while they whined and giggled and needed this or that.

I finished my work a few nights ago, and the last couple of nights have just stayed in their room. I've been rocking Mia to sleep, putting her in her bed, and then held Anya one night and Bree tonight. It's so blissful! Having nothing to worry about while I hold my babies. It's making me wonder about starting up photography again.

I'd feel... odd... refusing work when we literally have zero income. Being a Mormon family of five in med school is weird. Living off student loans is really weird. I guess six won't make it any more normal. That's all I have to say.

Little minds at work

2010-01-07T22:06:00.000-05:00

October:

Mom trying to decide which farm to pick pumpkins at: "Hmm- that farm is an hour away- we're not going there." Mia pipes up, "How 'bout we take two cars to get there faster?"

"Hey mom- my shirt is giving me a hot body!"

"Please bless the food, and please bless my mom to have a baby. I want a baby brother or a baby sister."

November:

Anya comes to check out Bree's progress on the toilet. "How doin?" Bree replies, "Is big poop." Anya takes a peek, "Ooh- pretty!"

December:

The Christmas elf delivers the gifts from grandma's house to ours each morning, as long as you're on good behavior the day before. One morning, he left a present for mom and dad. "Mom- you got a present! That's because you didn't yell at me yesterday!" "Gee- that's uh... great..."

Anya asks to be carried down the stairs. "I can't sweetie, my back is hurting right now." Puzzled look from the two-year-old. "It's um... broken today." She races down the stairs chanting something like "teep! teep!" We reach the computer desk and I see what she's referring to. "Tape? You want tape?" That's what she wants. I give her a peice and she puts it on my back. "Deh- fix it. Ah bedduh? Fee bedduh now?"

Come to Order

2010-01-03T20:45:00.004-05:00

I can honestly say we made the most of Zach's school break. Usually we get home from Utah and wish we had a whole other vacation to spend with just each other. This year we got just enough time together as a family, just enough time together as a couple. We were all sick a lot, too- and very grateful we didn't have to pack our coughing, runny-nosed, and runny-diapered kids anywhere. Is there anyone out there whose family didn't all get sick over the holidays? I don't know if it's just Facebook awareness, or if I've really been hearing about more sickness.

We made the most of our last vacation days by consolidating our kids.

They're all sleeping (very figurative term at this particular moment) in what used to be the twins' room. We moved Mia's bunk bed where Anya's crib used to be, and stuffed her dresser in there, too.

Then, we did what we've been dreaming of doing since we moved to our little house two years ago.

We moved all of the toys that have been camping out in our family/living/computer/exercise/dining/play room and put them in Mia's old room, which now serves as their play room! Now we have a very uncluttered and spacious family/living/computer/exercise/dining room and couldn't be happier. It's like we moved to a house with another 150 square feet!

The biggest plus is that their play seems more structured. Not only do they seem to understand better where everything needs to be put away when they're done playing, but when playtime ends. We leave the room, so clean-up time is way more obvious. It wasn't just the space that was cluttered, it was our schedule. It was as hard to differentiate play time and lunch time as it was to seperate the playing and eating areas. Impossible when the high chairs were between the toys and the play area.

Unfortunately, now we've subsituted day-time chaos for night. It seems I might have to make a habit of sitting in their room playing police-mom while they fall asleep. Off I go.

Christmas letter

2009-12-27T14:45:00.001-05:00

I think if you double click it will come up in a bigger, more legible window... ;)

The stockings are hung!

2009-12-24T20:41:00.003-05:00

The children were nestled all snug in their high chairs

and fell right asleep because we thought we'd skip their afternoon nap.
They usually stay up giggling every night until 10, so we figured...

Huh.

Well, anyway- Merry Christmas Eve! Thanks to Grandma for our Christmas pj's and SNUGGIES!! (Zach had- not an hour earlier- been lamenting the fact that he didn't get me a Snuggie for Christmas. Yeah, I'm one of THOooooose wives. Always messing with the thermostat. :)

We're so excited for our first Christmas at home! We'll miss everyone- but man it has been nice to not worry about packing up and shipping out.

Hope you have a wonderful day tomorrow!

Christmas all over the place

2009-12-16T21:38:00.003-05:00

So it's been a while since the last one. Everything seems to hit at once, doesn't it? My busiest shooting weekend was followed by a week of the family flu.

Anya started, Bree and Mia followed, and then, after they had spent all week inside doing nothing, they got healthy enough to be bored out of their minds while Mom and Dad sat incapacitated on the couch (between trips to the bathroom.)

I still haven't been sick from morning sickness- just kind of mnyeh.

We visited the Santa at Alum Creek Fantasy of Lights. I wondered if we would meet any surprise fears of bearded dudes in red suits. The girls waited so patiently, and when they finally got to go into Santa's "house" they weren't scared at all. Mia jumped up onto his lap and Anya followed suit. Bree got stuck on the reindeer next to him, but seemed happy as anything. I figured we wouldn't try and do them individually this year- seeing how Mia is the only one who can ask for anything. She asked for a Dora mermaid whose hair she can "do," and makeup on her face. We had already gotten her toy from Santa, and so I had to return it and get the Dora with the hair. It was pretty much exactly as she described- only not a mermaid. It's just a bust of Dora for the tub. I hope she isn't disappointed there's no body...

Our preschool put on a nativity program for a senior home nearby. Mia was the shepherd on the right.

And then performed again for our preschool Christmas party last night. Mia asked if she could be Joseph this time. Nobody in the preschool group wanted to be the angel (Hey! I made that costume! Is it that bad? SOMEbody'd better wear it!) Anya was begging to dress up, so she got to do it. Enjoy!

Update

2009-11-15T20:35:00.003-05:00

We finally got around to taking our family picture. It was so warm that day after having been chilly for weeks. I ran home after a sitting, we piled the kids into the car, and raced against the setting sun to get to the field behind Dairy Queen while there were still leaves and light.

We'll have to enjoy it while we can- it will be outdated in July.
Which is nine months from now. :)

Treated and Tricked

2009-10-31T22:15:00.012-04:00

Monday we called our landlord and told him our fridge was dying again.

Thursday he called to say that we would be delivered a new fridge on Saturday, because he wanted "to take care of you guys."

We didn't hear that Columbus celebrates Halloween on Thursdays when the 31st falls on the weekend, until Thursday around 6. Zach was knee-deep in homework, so we didn't go. We figured we could just go to the Trunk-or-Treat at the ward party the next day, and that would have to do.

The next night the girls didn't quite understand what they were supposed to do- so we worked on saying Trick-or-Treat, thank you, and polishing their bag-holding technique. After about fifteen minutes they were done, and on the way home Mia said from the backseat, "that wasn't very fun." Anyone from the ward reading this- don't worry, the activity was very fun. We just talked up the Trunk-or-Treat way too much.

The next day we waited for our fridge to be delivered. While we waited I read a comment on my Facebook page- Westerville still believes in Halloween on Saturday! We can go Trick-or-Treating after all!

At 2:30 the appliance truck rolled up. We joked about how it would be a used fridge that was smaller. They rolled it in. Looooove at first sight. Huge, shiny and white with an ice dispenser in the door. A DIGITAL ice dispenser! On a side-by-side vertical door! My favorite! Zach and I joked- "wow, he really is trying to take care of us." We were planning on dropping off our rent check while we were across town for our friends' party. I wrote a thank you note that started with "John! Are you kidding me?! This is the best refrigerator we've ever seen!" All our food fit with plenty of room to spare! Zach went to Lowe's to get the parts to hook up the water hose, while I played with the digital controls in awe, thinking maybe the kids would start drinking more water now!

While we were at the party John the landlord called. The company delivered us the wrong fridge. Ours was supposed to be tan. Hmmm.

After the party our cell phone battery died. Hope John didn't mean tonight when he said he'd call us when he found out what he was going to do. We went to dinner.

And then we went Trick-or-Treating! We drove to a well-lit neighborhood, popped on their costumes and headed out. Mia led the way, said Twick-O-Tweet, and the twins followed giggling. By the end, they were saying "Ticka Tee!" and other variations of the beggar call. Anya polished her "Tank you!"
I was herding the twins when Mia ran up and said "Mom- that's my job! C'mon baby cows!" They were happy as clams until time ran out. On the way home Mia piped up from the back again. "That was really fun!!" We set out to have an enjoyable time with the kids, and they actually enjoyed it! And we did, too! Amazing.

When we pulled up we realized we had definitely missed a call. John was loading Shiny White onto his trailer.

Tan fridge with a top freezer was sitting in it's place.

We sad-faced, and Zach promised me someday we'll have a digital ice dispenser. Instead of a trick fridge.

Meanwhile though, we have cold food again.

And I was happy with our treat:

The BEST Halloween activity!

2009-10-22T12:29:00.011-04:00

We had a BLAST this morning! DeMonye's Greenhouse is providing fun-packed time for kids.

We started out by going through a "Haunted" house. It was a little on the scary side for Mia- she wouldn't go through at first, and when she finally did, she had to plug her ears to get to the end. But the twins were young enough not to know what some of the scary stuff was, and enjoyed petting the spiders and blow-up toys.

It takes about ten minutes to go through- just packed with Halloween stuff. There are some pretty scary masks and characters, but nothing startling and not full of gore.

At the end of the haunted house, there is a pumpkin patch where they each got to choose a pumpkin.

Next it was time to make a witch hand out of popcorn and candy corns

They got juice boxes, popcorn bags, and treat bags with little toys and bags of candy and an activity sheet...

Then they chose a gourd and some Indian corn

And planted some flowers!

And THEN it was game time!

Bean bag toss

Kid basketball

Umm- the Toss the ping pong ball into the eyeball man and knock him over on purpose and get put in time out game...

Digging for bones

You don't even have to dress warmly- it's about 75 degrees in there!

The staff there is SO friendly- we couldn't have had more fun. They let us stay as long as we liked and go through the maze as many times as we wanted. I guess they didn't have any appointments after us- we were there for two hours.

DeMonye's Greenhouse!! It's on 2500 Airport Drive in Columbus- right off the freeway by Gahanna. The activity is by appointment only, but it's easy to get one- (614) 252-6046. $5 per kid and they will be open until Halloween! I had no idea it was going to be such an involved, well-planned, kid-friendly activity- so glad we found out about it. :)

Punkin

2009-10-17T20:21:00.004-04:00

We went to pick our Jack-O-Lantern pumpkins from a farm today for the first time. I figured now that we have three kids who can say "punkin," this is the year to start. What was really funny- the lady at the front desk also called them "punkins."
We were the only ones in the field, and it was right off the road. Pretty convenient. And cold! Bree kept getting caught in vines on the ground, but somehow Anya and Mia were navigating the field just fine. We're pretty excited to carve these things. Mmm- okay- Mia's excited.

Poor Bree didn't get a hair clip this morning and looks like Wednesday's child.

Anya actually was more excited about the rocks- surprise, surprise.

Part-ay

2009-10-11T21:08:00.002-04:00

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5th Bite

2009-09-27T20:59:00.012-04:00

On our third day we had an easy time using the subway to get to our 9:30 reservation for the ferry from Battery Park to the Statue of Liberty.

We had opted out of spending money on the audio tour, so were pleasantly surprised to see free tour times posted- the first of which was only ten minutes away. Rangers who work for the National Park Service give them, and ours was very friendly and knowledgeable. Before the tour started we were the only ones waiting, and she told us some interesting things about Ellis Island. I hadn't thought about it until then, but talking with her reminded me that my grandma Ella went through when it was active.

We learned a lot about the statue- I recommend that tour to anyone. I was pretty eager to see if I could find my grandma's manifest, so we skipped the pedestal part of the tour (we were told there wasn't really much to see in there, but who knows) and headed over to Ellis Island. I bet my great grandparents were even more excited to see it.

We looked all over the building, watched a National Geographic movie they had playing, and then went to the Family Immigration History Center. We were met by an LDS missionary couple and learned that the church is largely responsible for the center.

I found my grandma! She was 5 when she went through. She is listed with her family, and there is information written on there, like how much money they were traveling with, the address they left and where they were headed, skills they possessed. I just sent the copies we printed to her, I hope she likes them.

When we got back to Battery Park, these guys were putting on a show. They could do ANYthing! Run up trees and flip off them, stand on any appendage- it was like gravity had given them the day off. Here is one guy jumping over a bunch of people.

Crazy!

Like I mentioned before, we went back to the Met. Here's one pic I forgot- the sculpture on the roof. Reminded me of "War of the Worlds."

After the Met, on our way to the subway, we passed a crowd watching the filming of something. We asked an excited-looking woman what it was and she said in a French accent, "Sex in zee Citeee Two! Just inside zat building is Seghah Jessica Pahgckeh! So exciteeeng, no?!" Actually, no. But I nodded enthusiastically for her as we left. Sorry- to all you Sarah Jessica fans...

I forgot to mention- somewhere in here, we got stopped by a news crew and were asked what we would do with a million dollars. We couldn't say anything practical like a house or school or anything. I said I would pay for a lifetime of massage. I guess my aching legs and feet were all I could think of. Zach said he would pay off student loans. Then they asked us to show our reation to winning a million dollars. Zach shook his long hair and screamed and I just stood still and looked like I was about to faint. Haha- I bet we didn't make the cut on the show, whatever it was.

We went down to Little Italy in search of arancini, my favorite snack when I was on my mission in Sicily- which I have never tried to replicate. It took some doing, but we found a place that had them.

They were cosi-cosi. ;) You can tell how enthusiastic I am...

Then we hopped over to the Brooklyn Bridge just after the sun set. It was quite a walk.

Our last night in New York.

A few blocks away was Ground Zero. We found walled-off construction, and advertisements for the building to come. There is a memorial in the church just west of the site (if I remember the orientation right,) but we were there way past the tour hours. A plaque informed us that George Washington had been in that church on the day of his inauguration.
So much has changed.

The next morning we took advantage of all our earlier window shopping and did the actual buying with exactly what we wanted in mind.

Back at the Hershey's Factory. No, they don't sell cheese. That was just us.

Saw some nice cops and horses- not exactly what you think of when someone mentions the NYPD, is it? I didn't expect to be petting a horse that morning, but there you go.

We boarded another shuttle, and met yet another interesting driver. This one had Superman paraphernelia plastered on every inch of his dash. It was through his windshield we waved a fond goodbye to the Big Apple. And prayed we'd make it to the airport. Those guys drive like maniacs.

The End.

4th Bite

2009-09-27T18:08:00.012-04:00

After we got our Poppins tickets we decided we would walk to the Met instead of taking the subway, because then we could sight-see 5th Avenue. If we had it to do over again, I think we would have done some more walking before we left for New York. We were pretty messed up by the time we got to the museum. Even though it put a damper on our walking the next two days, looking back, I'm glad we walked it, because we saw some great stuff.

The Ghostbusters library was under construction, so this was the only good shot I got of it. We didn't go in, because when we did ten years ago we thought it wasn't that exciting, and we really wanted as much time at the Met as possible. Maybe next time.

A few blocks north is St.Patricks Cathedral. Wow. I saw quite a few major duomos in Sicily, but without the Italian backdrop, this place really stood out.

They were holding mass when we came the last time, so we didn't get to see it as thoroughly. We didn't mind that we were losing Met time, the inside is even more wow.

On our way again, some of the sights right below Central Park:

I'd seen pictures of this building and thought the photographer was showing off a cool bendy lens. Nope- it's really a bendy building.

This baffled me. It's one of many many swanky condo/townouse buildings on 5th Avenue- I definitely wasn't picturing the people who lived in them as kind and loving neighbors. Then this popped up and made me wonder who put it there and why. I Googled it. It used to be an Jewish office or church building, was almost going to be a synagogue, but then it was sold and converted to posh housing. The engraving was almost removed when they re-did the buiding, but they kept it for some reason. Cool.

Finally we arrived at the museum. We found out they close early and we had less than an hour to look around. It wasn't long enough, so we ended up coming back the next day, too. These pics are from both visits.

My favorite room. Probably a lot of peoples' favorite.

Why is Cleopatra's boob exposed? You'd think someone would tell her, being so prominent a historical figure. Sure- that's just how artists portrayed women, always with one boob hanging out. Because it's much more realistic, I guess. Maybe I should be asking why nowadays we women don't lounge around with one boob hanging out. Looks so comfy...

Janet wasn't being slutty- she was being renaissancey!

I loved this one called "Nydia, the blind flower-girl of Pompeii." She's a character from a book, "The Last Days of Pompeii."

My absolute favorite sculpture there was called Ugolino and his Sons. The story is fascinatingly morbid. Yet another reason to read the Inferno (which I seriously doubt I'll have time or brain-power to do for another few years.) Meanwhile I will appreciate one of the creations it inspired. This foot gave me goosebumps, it looked so real. This is my favorite part of the statue.

Both Zach and I liked "Springtime," by Pierre-Auguste Cot. I was kind of surprised he liked such a sappy picture, but he is a pretty sensitive guy... ha.

But not too sensitive. ;) Special request for a shot of the cool little Samurai dudes.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art. During both visits we spent about four hours. For me, that was just right.

We hobbled to the subway, ate at the subway Subway, and then went to see the city from the Top of the Rock.

On the way up- you can see through the ceiling of the elevator- each floor is lit so you can tell exactly how far up you have to go. Freaky!!!

Last trip we did the Empire State Building, so we thought we'd mix it up a little.

We remembered from the Empire State Building, Central Park looked like a teeny patch of lawn and decided we liked the Rockefeller Center view better.

No Tina sightings- sorry.

We had some time to kill before our show, so we went back to Times Square. Earlier, while I was waiting in the ticket line I had gotten more and more curious about the people sitting and baking on the sun-drenched red steps. No one seemed to have a reason for sitting there, so I decided I'd go sit on them and see what the deal was.

Fun little "Where's Summer" game for ya...

It is a lot nicer than standing in the middle of rush-hour traffic trying to "experience Times Square."

Mary Poppins was surprisingly awesome! It turned out to be a great show for us- quite a lot different than the movie, and the woman who played Mary was just incredible.

#17 Cherry Tree Lane

So ended our first full day in the Big Apple. When we got our aching joints back to our hotel room we thought maybe we'd bit off more than we could chew. Yaaaaay Advil!

Update

2009-09-20T11:03:00.009-04:00

Thought I'd take a break from writing about our trip to put up some much anticipated photos of Mia's Unicorn/Butterfly/Bounce House/4th Birthday Party!

Since she said it was a Unicorn/Butterfly birthday, I did what I could, but had trouble finding anything. The super party store in Ohio only has themes like Dora, My Little Pony, and Disney movies. I think got the last unicorn pinata- they said they stopped selling them, but I spotted this guy high on a shelf.

She asked for a special princess hair-do.

And a unicorn cake. I just remembered she also asked for a yo-yo, which I still haven't gotten out of my purse. Oops.

About twenty cute little friends came and they bounced around for an hour. The place we went has six different bounce houses, with obstacle courses, slides, and some little bounce areas. It was so much fun I forgot to stage a good bouncing photo of Mia. It was next to impossible to get a candid one once we let her loose in there. The floor is padded, and there is a drinking fountain in the room. It is also really hot. They are planning on getting air-conditioning in the bounce area next year. So when the kids got nice and tired out...
they came into the air-conditioned party room.

We had cake and icecream and opened presents. The place is owned by a husband and wife, and she was our personal party planner. She served all the food, helped each kid into the throne with Mia while she opened their present, and wrote which gift was from whom. It was amazing to watch her keep track of everything. Mia had a blast.
Her friends were all so kind and patient- we didn't think about how long the unwrapping process would take with so many kids there! It didn't help that I was so busy taking photos and video, I didn't notice her trying to read all the birthday cards before she unwrapped each gift... it doesn't seem as polite when it adds ten minutes of everyone waiting to go play again.
Mia and her best bud

All around a very memorable party. We are so grateful to our sweet friends for coming. The party was almost a week ago.

Here is what has been keeping me occupied since: They are doing pretty well. They still have accidents if I put them in panties. If they are bare-bummed they remember every time. (#'s 1 and 2- yay!) I estimate we've already saved at least five dollars in diapers.

The night of the party Zach decided he was done with his nine-month-old ringlets. He had to go on call overnight the next day and didn't want to deal with it anymore. :( That was my face the whole time I was cutting.

3rd Bite

2009-09-11T22:06:00.010-04:00

The beginning of our trip is here.

One of the first things we heard on the radio in the shuttle from the airport to our hotel was an ad for a free Whitney Houston concert being held in Central Park to promote her new album. And one of the first things we saw when we walked into Times Square was a bunch of Whitney-sign-sporting dudes handing out tickets.
How convenient, we thought. We were planning on going to Central park that morning anyway!

We arrived about an hour early and saw this:

ONE THIRD of the line in this photo. Wow. I had no idea. Whitney. Huh.

Anyway- so we went back to Plan A: take pictures of oursleves in front of cool fountains.

The family on the right was taking advantage of the awesome acoustics under Terrace Bridge. This place is so gorgeous. The whole time we were there, I was wishing for a bride to shoot.

Do a 180 and this fountain called "The Angel of the Waters" is what you see, more or less (okay- less- but I love this part the best.)

A little further and I was drawn to this pretty spot. Isn't that cozy looking?

We went up.

Then down by the zoo we found jazz kids music. The sax/bass duo was performing "Head, Shoulders Knees and Toes" in this particular photo. We bought their $10 CD thinking we were in for more of the same. It's cute, but not jazz. Just some generic Latin guitar stuff. At least the Hokey Pokey is on it, though. Big hit with Mia when we got home. (Because when you're three the Hokey Pokey really IS what it's all about, tongue-in-cheek T-shirt or not.)

After a very enjoyable stroll, we made our way back to Times Square to hopefully buy tickets to a show for that night. On our way we stopped to buy me some flip-flops because my "good walking shoes" were giving me blisters on my pinkie toes of all places. Strawberry is the best store for starving students in New York, I tell ya! I finally replaced my Wal-Mart drill-sergeant hat!

And found a nice place to document my love for my new hat. Oh, and the guy next to me also had a little to do with this shot... you like the facefuzz he grew just for me so we wouldn't get mugged? Aww.

Another fun distraction on the way to the line...

We finally made it to the TKTS line around 1:00. I was the last one to get a seat on the cement divider they have between the red-steps and the sidewalk. The line grew quickly after me. During the two hours between arrival and booth opening, I got info about shows and prices while Zach went to see if there was a place that sold Crocs. I'm not a flip-flop girl, and I knew I'd pay a price if I tried to become one that day. You guys? Zach is such a cool husband. Especially when on vacation and he only has his wife to think about- woot!

My view from the TKTS line

Under extreme high pressure to make a decision once I reached the ticket booth, I settled on Mary Poppins because the other two we wanted to see were just too darned expensive, even at 40% off.

So we headed off to 5th Avenue, and said good-bye once more to Times Square. But not before we saw this guy running for mayor.
Zach tells me I missed the little muscle show he put on for me after I took this shot. I was already looking at something else. Oh darn.

Next leg: How not to get to the Met

2nd Bite

2009-09-07T22:13:00.006-04:00

In case you missed it, the beginning of our trip is right over here.

Finished up at TGIF's, back we went to explore Times Square.

Must have been fun getting that piano out there.

The first thing to catch our eyes was the huge ferris wheel inside the ToysRUs.

All Legos- down to the ape and torch.

This guy was life size. And growling at us!

Next stop: CHOCOLATE (cut to Heavenly choir...aaaaand action)

After a little break

We decided to look at more chocolate.

And we realized- we don't really need to actually GO anywhere but here! You gotcher statue...

Broadway show....

And museum of Art
All in one convenient location. Just look how convenient!

M&M store: I love you.

Our chocolate glands were salivating. But did we actually buy anything at either chocolate store? Ah- no. So we stopped at a little cafe touting this peice of yum:

We didn't think there was anything in Times Square that could top all that chocolate.

Next up: not Times Square

First Bite

2009-09-06T16:56:00.008-04:00

Ten years ago October, Zach and I took a very short trip to NY to see some broadway shows. We were accompanied by my cousin, met up with my sister, and stayed with relatives in NJ. Last week, to celebrate our seventh anniversary (which is TODAY!) we went all by our lonesomes. By ourselves.
With no kids!

Our wonderful friends watched not only our girls, but theirs too. Five girls three and under. They are supposed to go out of town now so we can return the favor. That'll be a fun post...

We rode a shuttle from the airport to our hotel, Fairfield by Marriot, near Times Square. Our driver was- you guessed it- crazy. He ran into the side of the toll booth on the freeway. And got out to talk to the car behind us while we were waiting at a red light. We weren't wearing seatbelts. Yee haw!

The first thing we did was drop our bags at the hotel and run around the corner to the Titanic exhibit. Very cool thing to see in NY- almost everyone on the ship had ties to the state in some way. Or would have, had they made it. We got cards with the name of random passengers and their reasons for traveling, who they were with, where they were from, name, age, and first, second, or third class passenger. At the end of the tour you could look up their name and see if they lived or not. Pretty awful list. The 21-year-old girl on my card lived, and amazingly, so did her new husband. But I was still teary toward the end. The tour started with the building of the ship, guided you through the different parts. Gave histories of some significant historical people. All throughout there were artifacts that had been rescued from the bottom of the ocean. There was a huge block of ice in the shape of an iceburg. Just touching it for five seconds made your hand ache. They said it was not as cold as the water the people were in. The whole experience was eerie, but educational.

Actual staircase from original ship

Replicated in the exhibit- we got to stand on it while they shot a pic of us, but we didn't buy it. Maybe we'll dress up and Photoshop ourselves in just to be creepy.

Wonder what he was thinking. Maybe he was just trying to watch someone behind him without looking obvious.

We went to dinner at the TGIF's in Times Square.

Our view got more fun the longer we looked.

You think I'm trigger happy? Check out this guy. Shooting his food for a class or something.

More in a bit...

Senior shoot

2009-09-05T13:38:00.004-04:00

Check out my first Ohio senior shoot here- hope it is the first of many. Spread the word!

Congratulations from Soleil and The Little Seed!!

2009-08-20T16:25:00.003-04:00

Okay, so the cat's out of the bag.

I'm on Twitter.

And I've only been following about 4 people, and one of them is Soleil Moon Frye.

I can't remember how I encountered her account, but I thought- "How sweet! She actually replies to her fans!" I grew up absolutely smitten with Punky Brewster. I wished Henry would adopt me too, and I could grow up sisters with Punky, and friends with Cherry and Alan, and even that snotty Margo. I'm remembering these names without referencing- so maybe they're misspelled...

Anyway.

A few days after the tomato incident I happened to see this tweet from Soleil: Need great get away.U still have chance 2 win b-day gift from me to you @phvegas is giving 2 nights+fun. http://www.thelittleseed.com/blog/

It read:

Its a birthday present from me to you. You guys have been so amazing and supportive. Here’s a chance to win a fun get away similar to my B-day celebration. We will fly you to Las Vegas, where the wonderful Planet Hollywood is going to be giving an amazing 2 night stay, limo transpo from the airport to the hotel , 1 spa treatment, 2 buffets of choice at Spice Market and 2 meals of choice at Planet Dailies.
Share your stories on why this get away is perfect for you and much needed!!!

I hadn't decided to write a post on here about the accident yet (still felt too embarassed) so I thought I'd vent to Soleil Moon Frye. Naturally.

Summer Says:

August 7th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
I could tell you my reasons, but you probably won’t believe me.

I’ll start with the basic reason- outnumbered by kiddies! They are 3, 2 and 2 years old. All girls (Yes, the 2-year-olds are twins, no I’m not crazy enough to actually plan two toddlers at once.) My husband is a full-time student and we are livin’ on love. Okay, AND student loans.

The sob-story reason I need a little R&R: Tuesday afternoon the tomatoes I was canning exploded on me and I got 2cd degree burns, and 8 stitches on my hand where I landed on a jar remnant. Luckily, I got all taken care of with a nice ambulance ride to the ER. Unluckily, my husband and friend both had to work all week (we don’t live by family) and I’ve been taking care of three sick kids (fevers, runs, and one of those weird all-over baby rashes) with one throbbing unuseable hand and a burned arm and face. Okay AND armpit.

The Aww-cute reason we would love Vegas: We went there on our honeymoon, nad our anniversary is September 6th.

Maybe this would all be more convincing with pictures… but- ew.

Guess what I found in my inbox last night!

Hi Summer,

You recently shared with us your reasons for needing a trip to Las Vegas with your husband and we agree, a weekend in the desert is just what the doctor ordered...and we're gonna send you! We could only pick one winner for this give-away. It just seemed really perfect for you. We fell in love with the fact that you hurt yourself doing something as fantastic as jarring organic tomatoes.
Please send me your contact information so that I may send it on to Planet Hollywood.
You can set the dates at your convenience.

Congratulations Summer!!!

Fondly,

Soliel and The Little Seed Staff

By golly.

Duck

2009-08-17T22:55:00.004-04:00

Have you ever played the version of "Duck, Duck, Goose" where three little girls run around you patting your head- all saying "Duck," and you sit there thinking maybe you'll do just that, but you don't because they're all giggling their little heads off?

Imagery

2009-08-13T20:28:00.004-04:00

I've been trying to picture the benefits of socialized medicine. Trying to be objective- understand and weigh the benefits vs. the drawbacks.

But now all I can picture is a stethoscope on my grumpy post office worker- standing behind a counter and a line of twenty other grumpy people. Oh look- they just put up a sign: "Next window please." Yeah- I'd jet if it was my lunchbreak. Crappy government jobs.

So @#$%&^! Stupid

2009-08-09T21:52:00.006-04:00

I always knew I was a ditz, but I proved to myself this week that I'm a lot stupider than I've been giving myself credit for.

Bree had a fever and was puking, so we were having some down time indoors. Good time to get going on preserving the tomatoes I'd been putting off.
I still haven't bought a canner, so I thought I would can them the same way I did my jam- in my deep pot. I figured it was the same thing, just longer boiling time, right? 40 minutes, great! Just enough time to get my laundry folded.

So half the people reading this already know what happened now, right?

40 minutes later I smell something burning. I tell the gal on the phone to hang on while I check the stove. There is NO water left. The stove is making it's freaky "click click-I'm getting-hotter-and-hotter" sound. I remember something similar to this happening to my mom growing up, but we were told to get out of the kitchen quick! Why didn't I inherit the common sense gene? So I'm not sure what went through my head at this point, for some reason I thought it wouldn't be safe to leave that on the stove. So I put it on the sink and thought I'd keep it from getting any hotter. I kind of remembered it wouldn't be safe to get it cool fast, so I got some hot water and poured it on the outside. But that was enough. A little stream leaked over the top as I went around the back of the pot, and the second it hit the bottom of the jars, two of them exploded.

I'll just pause here to tell you I'm fine, and it could have been way worse.

So I was pretty surprised at this point. I sat down hard and ripped my shirt off because it was burning me. After I got it off I noticed my hand was on a big chunk of jar. Zach was an hour away for his family practice rotation, and I didn't know how bad the cut and burns were so all I could think was 911.

Unfortunately, I'd left the caller waiting on the line, so I had to go upstairs to hang up. When I walked in the room, Mia screamed at my bleeding hand and my red face, and I tried to tell her I just needed a bandaid, but I needed to call to get one. She bought that for about five seconds, and then ran into my closet with the twins. Which was fine with me, because I wasn't able to keep my cool much longer. I blubbered to the person on the emergency line and asked them to come get me. She said to put a damp cloth on the burn, and I was like- "It's all over- can't I just splash water on myself? Is that bad?" Finally they hung up and I called my friend Maury and asked if she could come.

She arrived at the same time as the paramedics. I walked out with a towel for a shirt, telling poor Maury the kids hadn't eaten yet, and Bree's last Ibuprofin dose. Thank goodness her husband had just gotten home and she was able to come take care of them. She cleaned up the entire expolsion. I didn't see it, but from the looks of the one spot she missed about 10 feet away, it was really bad. Glass all over the floor, tomatoes everywhere. It's amazing I didn't get more than one cut.

In the ambulance they put wet cloths on me and got me an IV full of morphine. The morphine was worthless, the saline was bliss. ;) OSU emergency is a pretty crappy place- I don't recommend it. I was on my own most of the time- for a while with the water out of my reach, so I sat and burned and called until someone decided they'd condescend to enter my room and push it closer. Other than that, I had a very entertaining crazy nurse, a nice doctor who gave me eight stitches, and Zach got there an hour later and helped me change the sheets from hot to cool every two minutes. My sweet hometeacher brought me some clothes and picked up my pain prescription and aloe so I wouldn't burn in the car on the way home. (We ended up taking a wet sheet with us, though.. gotta get that back.)

This was Tuesday afternoon. Zach took Wednesday off. Luckily, that was the day Anya entered the vomiting phase of the virus. He was gone all day Thursday and Friday- Thursday was Mia's vomiting day. It was kind of okay, though, because we all just sat around and watched TV. No one had an appetite, really- so my hardest task was getting the dang child-proof caps off the Ibuprofin and Tylenol (or in my case, Vicodin- yeehaw!) every three hours.

The burning never hurt that bad after that first evening. I've got lots of blisters on my arm, and my face has been peeling. Could have been so much worse. Which is the part that keeps me cringing. How &*^%$#@!-ing stupid!

The girls seem to have taken it okay.

I'll put it small here for those of you like me who would rather not see it. For those of you like Zach, go ahead and double-click.

So That's what Friends are for..

2009-07-31T20:20:00.003-04:00

Free stuff!

Okay- I'm just kidding, I'm not just friends with Ally because she gave me free stuff. She's also super smart and creative and nice. So this post is dedicated to her new Etsy shop! I'm not sure what Etsy means, but her shop has the cutest baby blankets for $30. If I ever crocheted a baby blanket, I would have to sell it for much more, because miracles don't come at prices that low these days. So it kind of seems to me that it's a miracle store. And maybe that's what Etsy stands for. Ets y miracle.

Okay, sorry for the very corny post, Ally. I did my best.

Our Biggest Kid- up to date

2009-07-10T23:24:00.008-04:00

We've been pretty entertained watching Mia soak up literacy with relative speed for her age. Now that reading isn't quite such a hurdle we're working on handwriting. In our efforts to keep from overwhelming her and having to backtrack again, we are taking smaller steps. When it looked like writing actual letters was frustrating for her, we switched to dot-to-dots. So. As promised, here is the picture of Mia and her first finished workbook with her long awaited award sticker carefully placed on her favorite shirt.

But I have to admit, observing her academic progress isn't nearly as entertaining as hearing her unique brand of "cleverness" that make us grateful her IQ is still as underdeveloped as she is.

Mia sits down to her snack: "Mmm! Bananas with peanut butter! That'll keep me busy for awhile!"

"Mim, that's not going to taste the same as when you put it in your V8."
She takes a drink after demanding to put salt in her juice, "Actually, that's delicious, blink, blink buuuuut, uh, I'm not thirsty anymore."

Wraps the measuring tape over one arm, around her torso and under her leg, looks very closely at the numbers and declares, "I am 25 degrees, exactly."

Stands next to our computer chair, "I'm so big mom. Look, I'm as tall as this chair! This is a big chair! I'm really big!"

"Please eat your meat too, Mim."
She takes a bite, realizes it's kind of hard to chew, and spits it back out. "I don't like it, Mom."
"Well, what if you hide it under your potatoes and carrots?" I say almost rhetorically- there's no way she'd ever go for th-
"Okay!"
Piles some potatoes on top and eats it.

Usually tricks like that only work once. But I had to try it again the next day when she announced she wouldn't eat her zucchini.
"Hey, Mim- why don't you close your eyes so you can't see it? I'll feed it to you, k?"
"Okay!"
Closes her eyes, opens wide, and eats every bite.

I'd always been a little cautious while adding water to her juice cup (doin' that half water, half juice thing.) My friend does the 50-50, too and was pouring juice for the kids- but started with the juice. Her daughter reached for it and she said "Wait, I still need to add the water." My ears perked up to hear what Mia would think. Did she know I always put water in her cup? Was this the end of our juice/water?
"It's okay Abby!" she piped up as her little friend grew impatient, "That way you get more!"

Everytime she sees landscapers on the job: "Look Mom! They're lawning today!"

Playing with the twins: "It sure is nice to have two sisters named Anya and one named Bree."

The best things in life

2009-07-10T21:11:00.007-04:00

We have really lucked out this summer finding awesome things for the kids to do that don't cost anything! Today was a free kids concert at the Village Green park in Powell, right next to the coolest splash pad. Maybe we'll go back when it's not so crowded and I can get some photos. There's a man-made beach about 40 minutes away that we didn't know about until this year. The art museum decided (right after we bought our membership) to open free to the public for the summer. There are incredibly cute parties and storytimes at the libraries (the government is currently deciding how much funding to pull from them-grrrr.) And- I have to mention it again- our yard! (I thought I was grateful for it LAST summer- ha!)

And, when we got to the zoo last Wednesday, they told us to wait 15 minutes and they were going to start admitting for free. Their director just passed away suddenly, and we think that might have had something to do with it. So instead of spending 20+ bucks on admission, we did some fun things we have been passing up!

Also- rocks are free. Anya's fascination with rocks became apparent again while we were there. She can find rocks anywhere she goes and wants to carry them with her, sit on them, put them in her purse, or at the zoo- pat them reverently.

They have some fun inflatables on family nights over by the aquarium- a bounce house, a huge slide, and an obstacle course.

Mia waiting excitedly to freak herself out on the slide.

Check out the face! And she kept going again and again with the same happy anticipation in line and inevitable look of horror on the slide.

I had no idea Mia was so competitive. Her expression as she waits for the obstacle course volunteer to say "Ready, Set, Go!"

In the Zone

But all the free activities really don't do justice to that saying "The best things in life are free." I think MasterCard has coined the right term. The best things in life are priceless.

Sharing the stroller

All three giggling as they humor mommy who said "Give your sister a kiss!"

New pics

2009-06-23T22:37:00.001-04:00

It's so fun to see babies on their really truly birthday!

Obama's FLY SWAT

2009-06-17T22:48:00.003-04:00

Next, the color of Obama's boogers. THE exclusive Kleenex close-up tonight at 9...

Nevermind the REAL story about what he did today. Smokescreen news- how annoying.

Oh, Sheet.

2009-06-02T15:33:00.006-04:00

One of my favorite things, especially now that I'm old and decrepit, (no, you can't convince me otherwise for at least another month when the shock wears off) is snuggling into our soft soft bed. When I was about six months pregnant with the twins and cursing a damaged back, my mom took pity on me and got us a Tempurpedic. Since then, I haven't had one day of being unable to walk because of back pain- I don't think that's a coincidence. Another thing she gave us was an old set of the softest sheets I've ever felt. Every time I put them through the wash I crossed my fingers that they'd make it through okay, but ultimately it wasn't the wash that took them down.

Our feet finally wore holes through the fitted bottom sheet, and when they got so gigantic I started getting stuck, (the holes- not our feet- although we do have some pretty huge feet) I decided we had to give it up. It became mummy wrappings for our Egypt theme in preschool. I've been on the lookout for a replacement set ever since. For at least two months now, I've been in the linen section of every supermarket of Columbus, but just haven't been able to bring myself to spend $40 on a 250 threadcount set of sheets.

Providence smiled and dropped a sheet vendor about three minutes from our house. They set up their tent and signs "Egyptian Cotton 1000 thread count sheets $38.00"

Now I have to admit- I have no way of verifying that these sheets I just bought are really Egyptian cotton or even if they're even 1000 thread count. They aren't as soft as the sheet I just turned into a mummy. But they are much softer and 10 times prettier than the sets I was seeing at the store for the same price, so I'm happy.