Art and Monsters Under the Bed

Sometimes the art geek side of me gets a little giddy.  Maybe 6 months ago I found that Lily had snuck my Georgia O'Keefe book into her bed and hid it under her pillow.  I was smiling so wide that I put her pillow back on top and let her think it was still secret.  It was definitely a proud moment for me.  I still catch her walking around with it every now and then.

 

A picture of Skyler's room.  At 10:30 PM.  Wait a second...

So before I talked about how he likes to build "nests."  Well this he called his "tent."

 

Finding a monster under the bed all of a sudden has a whole new meaning.

 

 

Quotes of the Week

 

My visiting teachers talking to Lily after meeting her:  "You look just like a princess!"
Lily *giving them a really weird look*:  "I am a princess."

Well dang, y'all.  Don't go stepping on her princess gown or anything because Lily gave them the look.  The awkwardness in the room after that was priceless.



I was holding Ella as she was drinking a sippy of milk and I asked, "How did you get to be so cute?"  She took the sippy out of her mouth with a huge milky grin and shouted, "Dada!"

True story.  But she didn't have to be so blunt about it.  I can't help it that all my kids seem to go for Macbeth-only genes.



When we left the zoo, I had horrible contractions for the rest of the day.  Braxton hicks are a daily part of life for me and so the kids knew the drill: during scripture study, sit as still as possible on Mommy and Daddy's bed -- absolutely no bouncing.  So when Skyler started getting a little rough I had to hold on to my stomach as more contractions started and I told him to calm down through gritted teeth.  Well that day, we're guessing that Lily ended up with shin splints because she kept wobbling and talking about how much her shins hurt.  So when Skyler started bouncing around I was surprised when I wasn't the only one telling him to sit still.  Lily started acting just like me when I'm having contractions -- heavy breathing and all.  Now I know what I look like to her.  I remember having Braxton hicks when I was pregnant with Ella and Lily asked me, "Mommy?  Are you.... dying?"  I just about died laughing.  But it is really sweet when I hear my kids praying on a daily basis for "Mommy's tummy to stop hurting."



First Day

 

She didn't cry.

 

I didn't cry.

 

Both of us are looking forward to next week when Kindergarten starts at 9:15 and gets out at 3:45.

 

She's ready.

 

And I think I am now that I've been able to talk to the principal personally, interact with other parents, see the teachers, and walk around the school.

 

So this whole moving-to-a-new-house-to-be-in-a-better-school business really was right.  We're supposed to be here.

 

We're all feeling good right now.

 

(Except for Skyler, possibly.  But I think that with a few days of him getting extra attention, that should dissolve). 

 

Cheers!

A Half Second

Lily was a baby a half second ago.

 

So why on Earth does she have a My Little Pony backpack and Tinker Bell lunch box hanging up by the back door? 

 

To all these people who are just becoming first time parents I want to wave my arms in their faces and be like those overbearing strangers in the grocery store who tell you that your time with them will go by so fast.

 

I'm not ready.  But Lily is.  And that makes me happy.  And Ben is truly excited for her.

 

I'm working on it and faking it for Lily.

 

It didn't help when she told me that she'd miss me because I'm her best friend.

 

Nor when she brushed Skyler's cheek with her hand and told him that she'd still love him even though she wouldn't be with him all the time.

 



And then Ben gave her a father's blessing tonight and it's almost like that made it official.

 



I told him that I've already cried about this so there's a chance that I won't do it again.  In return he failed to stifle his laugh in the other room.  Meh.  He's right.

 

So I'm trying to be positive.  And by positive, I mean I'm trying to see this as a blessing.

 

I'm blessed that I had the ability to spend every day with her for 5 years.  Not all moms do.  Now is the time when I realize that, yes, staying home and not having a career has serious blessings.  I may not bring home a paycheck or have something that proves my skill or intellect.  But I get something better:  time.

 

Tomorrow is the big day.  And I know I won't be the only one to miss her.  Skyler will lose his twin/playmate and Ella will lose her big sister/best friend.  I'll miss my little helper and Ben will miss his little Princess.

 

So to make this less of a downer, I'm going to post a happy video because in a half second, Ella's going to be going to school too.

We Went to the Zoo

Back in March I purchased a Groupon deal for our local zoo.  With the move, we put off using it even though it expired at the end of August.  So when Lily, Ben, and I decided it was time for Lily to try to quit thumbsucking (again... this has been happening off and on for the last 2 years) I told her that if she could go a whole week without sucking her thumb that we would take her to the zoo.  So we ordered some thumb guards off of amazon, tried them out, decided that we could sew up more efficient ones (Ben sewed them, not me) and she tried so hard to quit.  She had tons of encouragement from everyone and the Tooth Fairy even talked to me on the phone and left Lily a fairy dust smothered letter telling us all about how she doesn't bring money to kids who still suck their thumbs.  Lily freaked out.

 

Lily's worked hard.  One of the rules was that if she sucked her thumb, she'd lose all of her days and she'd have to start over to get 7 days in a row of no thumbsucking.  We had to start over a few times and it absolutely crushed Lily.  She still doesn't trust herself to not wear her thumb guard, but I know it's only a matter of time when that instinct is behind her.  She's almost gone 2 weeks and we're so proud of her.  So today we went to the zoo.

 

The giraffes were first.  They were galloping around in circles and it was probably my favorite part of the day.  It was so cool.

The Lions were taking a nap.

 

 

The lioness woke up her hubby by smacking him on the head.  Bad move.  We saw quite the little lion fight complete with roaring.  It got my heartbeat going a little bit.  Needless to say, he was not pleased to be woken up.

 

Then she stuck out her tongue at him.

 

And they gave each other the silence treatment.

 

Ben told me that this is how I act when he tries waking me up.

 

 

 

 

 

Mama and baby.

 

Ben told me to kiss the chimp.  Lily, who likes to mother me more than my own mother, was completely disgusted by that idea and tried dragging me away and yelling, "Nooooo!  Eww!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

The kids' favorite part was probably the dinosaur exhibit.

 

To encourage Lily to stop sucking her thumb, I'd let her look at as many pictures of the zoo online as she wanted.  This included pictures of the animatronic dinosaurs.  Yesterday Lily told me that she didn't want to see the dinosaurs at the zoo because they might eat her.  So I told her all about how dinosaurs died a long long time ago and that they wouldn't be real.  She perked up and kept saying, "I can't wait to play with the dead dinosaurs!"

 

Okay.  Creeeeepy.

 

 

 

Proactive model

 

 

 

Through the whole exhibit my mom and I were talking about how much this made us want to watch Jurassic Park.  My mom kept joking, "Must go faster!"  Then at the exit, a jeep with this picture behind it was practically glowing with irony.  It was a perfect opportunity for my parents to reenact one of the scenes.  Although I did tell my dad that in order for it to be accurate he would need a broken leg and a torn open shirt...

 

 

 

The aviary just about killed me it was so warm and muggy.  But they had these huge fans in the floor that kept me alive.  Lily loved them too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Skyler pretending to be a dinosaur. 

One word:  ferocious.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once the carousel was done we decided that sugar was a must.  Ben knows the way to my heart and got me some cotton candy.  He got himself a frozen lemonade and my parents got the kids some ice cream.  Ella ate all of it.

 

Ella sadly didn't take her morning nap on the way to the zoo like I was hoping, but she was such a trooper.  The only time she cried today was when we ran out of ice cream.  She may not look like me, but she is SO me.

 

 

 

We only made it through half of the zoo, but the kids don't know that.  I'm glad that we were able to celebrate Lily's achievement and that my parents were able to last minute come with us since they were nervous that our zoo trip would be a repeat of IKEA.  But bless the NC zoo because it was mostly wooded and had tons of benches so that this 36 week pregnant girl survived.  Although all the day's walking started up horrible contractions that left me cursing every bump on the drive home. 

So thank you, Lily, for taking us to the zoo!  I think the Tooth Fairy might be leaving you another glittery note tonight under your pillow...

The Daily Grind Part II

 

Ella hugs are one of my new favorite things.  She crawls over to me when I'm cooking and pulls herself up until she's hugging one or both of my legs and buries her face.  And since Ben is her favorite person (or is it Lily?  Some days I can't tell) he gets lots of Ella hugs.  I think it's safe to say that Ben is a complete Ella pushover.

 

**Ella, if you're reading this when you're a teenager please be aware that Daddy and I will always love you, even when we say no to things you want.  Okay fine.  You want to go to Paris?  Let me find my credit card....**

 

I snapped this candid photo during lunch today.  When Ben is home this is what it typically looks like: having fun until we then remember that, Oh yeah, we're eating lunch and you kids should probably actually eat.

 

Around here I try to keep things healthy and on a budget (for the most part, anyway).  This means my kids have had very very few individually packaged foods.  But with Lily going to school (it's full day Kindergarten here) I knew that there would inevitably be packaged foods in her lunch box (i.e. tubes of yogurt).  So for the last week we've been pretending to eat lunch in the cafeteria and she has learned how to open all sorts of things, including her tupperware, and then she has had to figure out what to throw away and what to put back into her lunch box.  I'm so proud of her!  She's doing great!

 

I am a college drop out, and I have mixed feelings about it.  I know it was definitely the path that I was supposed to take, but I always imagined myself finishing school and it was sort of a bummer that I didn't.  BUT, majoring in Elementary Ed was one of the best things I think I could have done.  It has proven useful to me over and over again as a mom.  I've done a "sort of" preschool at home with the kids and have tried to keep them interested in learning, in all sorts of different ways.  So in a way, I really try to use my college experience as a mom since I know I'll never use it in a class room.  I'm hesitant to put my kids in preschool because I want to put what I actually learned in college to use.  Plus it saves us money -- another perk.

 

That being said, I spent a lot of time volunteering in Kindergarten, first grade, and second grade classrooms between my high school and college days.  I mostly worked with Kindergarteners and I can remember how annoyed teachers would get when it was time for recess and there would be a line of kids who needed to have their shoes tied or their coats zipped.  I kept that in the back of my mind all these years and so Ben and I have been working hard with Lily on being independent all around (hence the lunch box eating at home) and I'm really impressed with her progress.  She's wanting to grow up so quickly it's almost killing me. 

 

And in case you're wondering, yes, I have already cried about Lily starting Kindergarten on Monday.

 

Ugh.  WHY?????? 

 

 

 

 

 On top of her hugs, Ella has also learned how to give open-mouth-and-tongue-out-kisses.  Yum....

The Daily Grind

I've had a goal lately of taking pictures of the everyday things that make me smile.

 

 

This is how Skyler sleeps.  He likes to fall asleep with his light on now that he sleeps without Lily.  He builds what he calls his "bird nest" -- aka pile of stuffed animals -- and he usually sleeps smack dab in the middle of it.  He also likes to squish everything onto the bottom half of his bed and he always keeps a water cup on the edge of his bed.

 

Skyler likes to build "bird nests" wherever he goes.  He's made them at my parents' house and he keeps one in our master bedroom so he can chill in there while we do family scripture study.

 

Breakfast on the deck on a rainy morning.  I really love Lily and Skyler's bedhead and tired (or is it pirate?) smiles.

 

The excitement that comes when you open Ella's door when she wakes up from her nap.  Her curls bounce as she jumps up and down hyperventilating.  Oh chubby legged babyliciousness... When I posted on facebook about how excited I was that she was starting to pull herself into standing position on her own I loved what April said when I mentioned that Ella was behind physically:  "Of course she's behind. Her cheeks weigh more than any other kid's. It's hard work lifting all that adorableness!"  Truer words have never been spoken.

 

The kids constantly share food with Ella.  There's a reason why she's so chubby and it's not solely because of Ben and me.  Just tonight Lily was feeding her some frozen yogurt at Costco.  In this picture Lily is sharing her snowcone with Ella because our HOA hired an ice cream truck to give free ice cream to everyone in the neighborhood (I love this house!)  There are times when Lily and Skyler share food with Ella when it's not cute.  Like at dinner.  When it's green beans.  "But we're shaaaaaaaaring, Mom."  Riiiiiiight.

 

Adventures in the back yard.  Getting a bigger yard was pretty big on our wishlist when we were house hunting.  We had debated getting a nicer house with a yard the same size as our last one, but I'm so glad we went for the bigger yard now.  After just a couple of days in our house I told Ben that I had never seen their imaginations so alive before.  They would go back into the trees with a frisbee and make leaf soup and all sorts of other delicacies and come in covered in dirt.  To me, that's exactly what they should be doing at this age.

 

Playtime in the bonus room.  This was the very first house we looked at when we were starting to look into buying again.  The kids ran upstairs without us and we couldn't even hear them running around and playing because of how well the house is built.  Ben and I looked at each other and silently said, "SOLD!"

 

I'm going to keep taking pictures of the daily grind and I'll post a few here and there because sometime in the next few weeks our "normal" is about to be flipped upside down with Lily starting school and Thad making his first appearance. 

Kiddo-isms

Sadly I got this shot just seconds after the A/C turned off and Ella's dress was left deflated.  Just imagine it being all puffed up and I'll virtually fist bump you.  She loves that vent.  But let me tell you that that vent does not love her hair.  If you've ever wondered what a blond baby afro would look like you should check out Ella after she's done playing with the vent.

 

 

While we were getting into the car after church on Sunday:

Ben:  "So what did you learn about in Primary?"

Lily:  "Sharing.  And look!  I got a whole bag of candy!"

Ben:  "So are you going to share your candy?"

Lily:  *shrugs*  "Maybe."

(Despite her less than enthusiastic reaction, she actually gave Skyler about half her candy)

 

 

When it was Skyler's turn to pray Sunday night:

"Dear Heavenly Father, please bless this food (he still struggles to remember that you don't do that during family prayers).  And please bless us that we can live with Jesus again someday because when we get old we're going to die.  Name of Jesus Christ, amen."  He also told me tonight that since I'm old (25......riiiiiiight) I'm going to die soon. 

 

 

After Skyler's pooping incident, we had some pretty serious talks with him about how he needed to tell us anytime he needed to use the bathroom.  We must have stressed the subject a little too much because as we were leaving the pool on Monday night Skyler started announcing to everybody who would listen that he "DIDN'T POOP IN [HIS] SWIMSUIT!!!"  We would try to hush him and change the subject and then he would yell it again, so proud of himself. 

 

 

Lily sings all. day. long.  Sometimes it drives me completely crazy.  I'll ask her what she wants for lunch and she'll sing back (in total pop star fashion), "Peanut butter and je-eh-eh-eh-lllllly!"  Complete with a 5 year-old fake vibrato.  Anyway.  This week she was singing the Super Why theme song, and of course, she typically gets half the words wrong anytime she sings any song.  But she knows the Super Why song pretty well because I get it stuck in my head all the time and I sing it myself.  (Okay.  So she's a mini me.  No need to point fingers).  This was how Lily chose to sing it one day this week:  "Super Why!  Super Why!  He's the guy, he's --  SUP-AH FLY!"  Yep.  My daughter.

 

 

Also, since I'm super pregnant (not that that's my real reason but I like to make excuses for my weirdness) I pick up a lot of things with my toes rather than squat down and start up my Braxton hicks.  Lily and Skyler have learned over the years to pick up things with their toes rather than being normal and just bending over.  I sort of have this mixed sense of pride and shame in this.  Ella is really quick at mimicking.  So you guessed it.  My 12 month-old is now picking things up with her toes.  And when it gets too hard to pick up she'll jam the item in between her toes and then "hand" it to herself.  Yep.  That's my other daughter.