Sunday, March 31, 2013

He is risen!

happy easter!




Thursday, March 21, 2013

march madness.

i've always loved filling out a bracket, and thanks to a friend's suggestion i decided to have eliza fill one out this year.

well, when i asked "louisville or round 1 winner?" and she said "round round round win" and then "colorado state or missouri?" and the answer was "minsery" and on down the line. i knew for all 32 match ups she was going to pick the second team i named.

being a boilermaker, my one fear was she was going to recognize "indiana" and pick them, but she stayed true to her repeating ways.

we filled out the entire thing and the only one she strayed from the pattern for was temple, and that's because they have a time at MOPS called "temple talk" everything was "temple talk! temple talk! temple!" after that.

not much fun filling it out when it was so predictable.

so then i decided to use the teams nicknames. i assumed picking between "rams or tigers" "cowboys or ducks" and "bluejays or bearcats" would be more fun for her.

wrong, for the most part she stayed with the same routine. although, she did really enjoy anytime "aggies" was brought up "my friend aggie! i have a friend aggie!"

maybe next year she will put more thought into it!

for now we'll see if iona or temple make it to the finals. (yes, iona is the bottom team on the left side.) and i'll stick to following my bracket.

maybe your kid is less apt to repeat, if so and you still have time, here is the more kid friendly nickname bracket i made...(it should get bigger if you click it.)

oh, and the next day she asked me if i wanted to play her game. she took a crayon, and her bracket "mama, do you want flowers or burp rags? necklaces or blankets?" and so on, taking notes as we went. ha!

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

two months of hattie!

another one down!

things she likes...
vibrating and bouncing in the bouncy chair.
snuggling.
sleeping next to me.
being swaddled super tight, arms in.
baths.
sitting/laying upright against us.
daddy swinging her.
sleeping.
smiling!

that last one is the best of course! this month brought us first smiles, big ones, silly ones, random ones, ones with little coos to accompany. they are such a joy. especially since this bear of ours can sometimes be a real bear. she's a bit fussy still, but also sleeping a lot. she's treating us real well through the night!

i told james i feel like we are always just trying to get her to sleep so she's not crying.

he said "that's fine. i don't care if she sleeps all the time. she can be awake when she can handle it."

i told him most days, even at 30, i don't feel i can handle being awake! :)

Friday, March 15, 2013

around here...


hattie got to go on her first wagon ride.
and of course eliza had to come!
we've been working on getting used to not being held every hour of the day!
eliza is into reading, especially her peter rabbit books. she's also really enjoys telling people that these are daddy's. (the bigger ones were his when he was little, and he bought her a set of the smaller ones) the original peter rabbit is her favorite.
hattie is sleeping great at night, except she wants to stay up late and sleep in. sounds like me!
hattie bear got her buddy. eliza, more than any buddy, is attached to her blanket. we'll see if this becomes hattie's thing!
hattie has been working on smiling. not just the sleepy ones anymore!

random story - eliza was cleaning up this game and put the pieces together and said they were mushrooms for me and hattie. she asked if i would take a picture of them and then she pretended to click away too. after the pictures she told me to eat mine and she held hattie's up to her mouth. the imaginative play is in full force around here!

i took a break from paper lullaby right before hattie was born, i've been thinking about starting it back up soon. for now though, i'm enjoying watching these babies grow and learn.
within the last couple of weeks i have heard this saying at least 3 times. beginning to think i was meant to take it to heart. i try to remember that on the really rough days. sometimes it's easier to remember than others though!

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

life documented.

if you know me at all you know i almost always have a camera (or two!) within arms reach of me quite often.

i've always loved taking pictures. just documenting everything.

i also love looking through old pictures, coming up with stories, and just imagining or remembering the way things were.

i was super hesitant to get a digital camera until i figured out a good system for printing and keeping them. i wasn't about to let my memories sit on a computer or memory card, and if i did print them there was no way i'd leave them all pile up in a box. (ahem! ma!)

so back in 2005, while working at camp, i was introduced to archiver's and my world (and wallet) would never be the same.

as a single girl i didn't mind paying to get my pictures printed, for me it was just part of my monthly spending. as soon as they were printed i'd crop them down and slap them in a scrapbook. i was the laziest scrapbooker. rarely would i add embellishments or even journaling. it worked, and from 2005-2007 that was the way i documented the every day.

then i got married...and husbands don't really see the value in capturing all of life's moments. as a stay at home wife i felt guilty spending his our money on pictures and scrapbook stuff.

so 2008 i went digital and made books. that whole year is done in mini photobooks from mypublisher. and i like it, but it just wasn't the same as having prints to flip through.

so back to printing it was, except in 2009 we had a baby and there were many pictures snapped, and less extra money, and even less time to spend putting them in books.

so i became my mom...and they sat in boxes. gasp! i was so ashamed.

slowly i printed more and more from shutterfly, and the piles and boxes multiplied.

until one day i posted this picture on facebook.

(sadly, that was just a portion of the pictures i had.)

then a friend commented and asked if i had heard of project life.

i had not, but after watching that video i sure was intrigued. after all, i am a lazy scrapbooker.

looking around, i was immediately hooked. the products all looked so fresh and fun, and easy to use!

so i invested in my first pack of pages, and used a smaller 3 ring binder to hold them together (while i waited for the beautiful seafoam line to be released) and got to work.

first thing i did was organize all the pics i had printed into photo boxes. that way i could just grab a stack and work little by little.
i started with september of 2009, after all, that's when our life really began with eliza's birth!

i loved seeing the pages come together so easy.
i was giddy when a page had a theme, like this one with enola and eliza's first meeting...
(space left for journal cards)

and eliza gets so excited to see herself and enola as babies. that's what all of this is about, sharing the memories!
i went back and rounded the corners and added some journal cards i found at archiver's. they sell sheets of them you can cut down, and they fit perfectly!

i finished off 2009 pretty quickly. just in time for 2013 to begin. so i made a choice.

i will go back and work on the past little by little, but starting with this year i will not let myself get behind.

i decided that i wanted to take less pictures, but better ones. documenting a year so far removed there were many pictures i omitted and realized i didn't really need to keep. not everything had to be captured. (crazy, i know!) i wanted to be in the moment more, but still get the pretty great parts down. plus it would save money not having so many pictures to print!

i also found an awesome small business that prints in the two sizes needed for project life, AND they will round the corners! the quality and customer service is awesome. (persnickety prints) they also print instagram photos!
the day these arrived in the mail i was overjoyed!

the seafoam edition was also finally released so i got my binder and journal cards all ready. at the end of january i had my first month printed, and by the first week in february they were all in the album. pretty impressive with a newborn!

i cannot tell you how great it feels to have a system that works.

i try and drop the pictures to my computer at least once a week. then i start a folder for the ones that are ready to be printed. i go over them a few times and make sure i pick the best shots, and narrow them down, and down and down.

then i have a notebook so i can plan the layouts ahead of time. that way i know which pictures need to be what size. ordering is a breeze once i consider portrait or landscape and have a slot for each shot.

and facebook and the blog help me remember the dates for certain things so it's easy to fill in the details after the fact.

for now you have to order through amazon, but i cannot wait until may! archiver's will be carrying them in store. excited to look over it all in person.

there are so many inspiring blogs out there for project life. a lot of people do a layout a week. i like to fill mine with pictures. maybe one day i will have more time for the fun stuff, but then again...i'm lazy!
i'm just happy to have our life documented and the pictures under control!

(no i was not given anything to write about any of this...i've had a few people ask, so i just thought i'd share!)

Friday, March 8, 2013

tell me...

this phase passes quickly.

today the couch is a boat.

all the junk?

"just getting things ready for the party. the balentine (valentine) party on my boat. it's balentine's day on my boat!"

she has "parties" every day, in our bed, her bed, the couch.
here is the thing though, she spends all morning pulling stuff out, rearranging, and setting up, but no actual party.

she will say over and over, "you coming to my party. it will be great!"

she wraps things up in blankets. they are surprises and occasionally you will get to open one as she watches in anticipation. 
(the rare occurrence that we actually partied.)

she just piles...all day long, and i let her because it keeps her busy, but then it takes the other half of the day cleaning up.
this pile of books was carried back one by one. after an hour and a half we had to leave for church.
it drives me crazy, but is also quite entertaining. especially when she whispers the whole time because hattie is sleeping.
 (inviting friends)

this girl and her social life...should we be scared?!
never mind...don't answer that!

Saturday, March 2, 2013

three sisters.

i like to call eliza and hattie "first and third"

hard to think about what life would be like with three girls around here.

sad to know hattie won't know her second big sister. not in this life anyway.

i tell eliza we need to tell hattie about delia. keep the reminders there and the stories fresh. i have plans for a delia book for hattie too, my big sister. i want hattie to know all about her.

a year and a half later and eliza still talks about delia often. makes this mama's heart smile, and ache. suppose it will always be this way, but there are bright spots.


me - she (hattie) is a good sister huh?!

eliza - yep! but i like delia too.

----

me - hattie didn't get to meet delia, so you will have to tell her about delia.

eliza processing... - hattie, you didn't see delia, but you will later!

----

after asking me to get delia's pictures down off the shelf i told eliza she should show them to hattie.

eliza - this is delia's book, this isn't your book hattie, it's just delia's.

----

eliza was having a "party" in our room. which means she piles a bunch of stuff on the bed, then arranges, rearranges, sets it all up, rearranges, moves things, then finally tells me the party is ready.

at one point she came out and said "i just covered delia's crib with blankets. it's a surprise when she comes here! after heaven, when she comes later. it's a present."

----

that last one was hard for me. after telling james about it he said "why do i smile and you frown?" i don't know what to say to her, how to explain that she isn't coming? he told me just to play along and say "do you think delia will love it?" so i tried it, and she got the biggest smile on her face. "she will!"

just another reason i love him.

her name.

here is the story of hattie jo's name...

let me start at the beginning though.

before we were married james and i each had a name picked out, his was a boy name, mine was a girl's.

so when we found out bean was a girl there was no discussion. she was eliza june.

james claims he doesn't make girls, so we didn't discuss names with newbean. we'd just use the boy's name we had on reserve, but then that ultrasound happened and we ended up finding out the sex. after a few days i smiled and we i started thinking of girl names and happened upon one we weren't going to share, but then did. i wanted to say (and hear) delia jean all day long...i still do!

then came this pregnancy, and i was finally getting my wish of not finding out the sex. so we had to discuss names. i told him if we didn't pick a name it would end up being hazel. he hates that name as much as i love it.

there was no pouring over baby books, or much talk at all, just a few "do you like..." or "what about..." from me, and a some "no." eye rolls and "it's okay" replies from him.

i don't even remember when i suggested hattie, or what his answer was, i just know that was her name.

where did i come up with it?

well, back in middle school every once in awhile i would walk to my best friends house after school. (this was a big deal, since i couldn't walk to my house in the country!) the path from the middle school to her house when right past evergreen park and the main cemetery in town.

many of my ancestors are buried there since my dad's side of the family never moved far.

one day a headstone right near the sidewalk caught my eye. hattie and albert vandercar (my maiden name)

hattie...i like that name.

file it away.

see it again and again, and ask ma "how are we related to hattie and albert vandercar?"

it wasn't until aunt nancy, our family memory keeper, wrote about them on her blog that i pieced it together.

there is our hattie.
there is me.
there is my dad.
there was my grandpa.
there was my great grandpa vandercar.
there was his mom...hattie.
so she is named after her great-great-great grandma!

and her middle name? well, for awhile it was going to be mae, after my grandma elser. then i got worried that we would have a june and a mae. people that didn't know we had another daughter with a middle name that wasn't a month, might think we were silly. 

so, i changed it and now she carries the middle name of two of my favorite aunts! my mom's twin sister (my second mom) and my dad's youngest sister (the memory keeper)

i just love it. didn't mean for all three girls to have "J" middle names, but i like it!

not sure what we will do if we have a 4th girl! running out of popular early 1880's names that aren't super popular now. (all three peaked around then) i told james it might have to be hazel.

which reminds me of a funny story from the hospital. one of his army buddies stopped by to visit, he's from the south and a good ol' country boy. we started talking about names and this happened...

dan - hattie jo, that's a great hill jack name. i actually have an aunt named hattie.

later in the conversation...

me - i REALLY love the name hazel and always wanted a hazel, but james HATES it.

dan - i have an aunt hazel too.

me - really?!

dan - yep, she's hattie's sister. 

----

too perfect!

also random - i saw a huge plaque at the hospital of a lady named hattie when we took her back for her 48 hour test. i wanted to stop and take a picture. james didn't get it.

we didn't share her name beforehand and i got worried that nancy was going to see multiple searches for "hattie" on her blog. 

then i posted this picture, and the guesses started flying!
while home for Christmas i had to keep a straight face while lying when my aunt guessed correctly. we just wanted it to be a surprise. i didn't think the one "H" was going to be a huge deal. mostly because i don't remember it being like that with eliza! 

all in all i am so glad we waited to share. it was fun to have eliza announce it and surprise everyone...especially since almost everyone was certain she was going to be a boy!

still got that name on reserve!

Friday, March 1, 2013

happy march!


testing out the new blog layout. almost five years on blogger, i was due for a change!

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