Tuesday, January 27, 2015

different mama.

it's no secret that i've changed since first becoming a mama. a lot changed after delia. a lot of me changed. some good, some bad. in a lot of ways my preferences are the same, but in so many ways i have switched to survival mode, what works, what is best for us, what makes them happy, what keeps me sane. especially now, going through these baby stages for the third time, i just have to stop and laugh. i am sure i will be adding to this list. here are just two from the last few days...


first child (that had very limited tv the first few years) sings her version of "angels we have heard on high"

third child hears the "glooooooooooooria" part and sings "ah ah my pony! my pony"

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first child gets cute outfits when visiting the doctor.

fourth child gets a onesie and babylegs because mama knows she can have baby dressed, they can get their thighs poked, and she can get out of there asap!

Monday, January 26, 2015

abner is (was) four months!

dude just keeps growing and growing.

he also gets cooler and cooler.

bonus picture this month. papa helped get some smiles out and abner really responded!

abner likes...
being a mellow baby.
sleeping.
smiling.
baths and showers.
being swaddled.
sucking on his hands.
sucking on his blanket.
cooing, gurgling and letting out little shrieks.
stealing hearts.
bow ties.
sleeping on his tummy.
being upright.

fun month with abner's first Christmas. the start to his (or my) bow tie obsession. his first story time that wasn't for his sisters. becoming more crunchy and sporting his amber necklace. can't start it soon enough, i'm sure he will have teeth before we know it! one not so fun thing, this month he got his first double ear infection. discovered that at his well baby check. :( abner continues to be awesome. his sisters may steal some of his time, but he is laid back enough that if i need to set him down he will either be content to "play" or fall asleep. (most of the time...he does have his needy moments) i told james he is the best of both worlds. one girl would not be held or rocked and the other couldn't be put down, if he gets snuggles, that's cool...if not, he is okay too! continuing to thank God for the blessing that abner is. we just eat him up daily, and love to love on our boy. he is just starting to really respond to the girls and it melts this mama's heart time and time again.

Friday, January 16, 2015

sometimes i wonder...

if eliza can read. words or minds.

seriously...it's freaky. it's happened many times before, but here are the latest ones.

she randomly asked me "what if you have a baby when abner is still a baby?"

a week later we were pulling on a wishbone and as we made our wishes i thought "i hope we have another baby...wait! no i don't...just give me peace one way or another."

we pull. i win. she asks "did you wish for a baby?"

my friend said she is so intuitive. many times i wonder if she is really 5, or one of my friends.

----

after that james emailed me a video of the app of anna giving birth (um. what?)

i told him i'd have to watch the video when she wasn't standing right over my shoulder.

then i told him about the whole wishbone thing.

as i was typing she asked "why hasn't your wish come true yet?"

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she always wants to make cards to send to friends.

yesterday, not long after i read about glitter bombs, she cut up some paper, brought me a card and said "can we put this in the card? so when enola opens it it will just fall out, and it will be really fun and funny."

----

stuff like this happens all the time. i am excited for her to learn to read, but not sure i am prepared for it.


:runs off to clear history:

also...get out of my head.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

peek-a-boo!

this little bear is getting ready to turn two!


Monday, January 12, 2015

these girls. these moments.

hattie has been fighting naps and bedtime lately.

it's been rough for all of us.

today i made sure all things that could get her in trouble were out of their room. then i pulled the whole "you don't have to nap, but you need to have some quiet time" trick.

she cried a little, but then was quiet, for over an hour.

then from the playroom eliza said "is quiet time over?"

"no."

"well, hattie just wants me to open the door."

"don't do it."

then through the vents i hear "ziza, hep pee" (eliza, help please) over and over.

"she's just sitting by the door mama!"

and this is why it will be okay if hattie never learns to open doors.

fast forward a bit. i go upstairs while they are watching frozen, to see what damage she did during quiet time.

hold my breath, walk into their room, not a thing is out of place. the covers on her bed aren't even messed up. everything is how i left it.

she really did just sit next to that door for over an hour.

fast forward even more. bedtime comes. bedtime screams come. i go. to try and enjoy a few minutes before abner gets mad.

eliza comes back out "can you lay with me mama?"

"is your sister asleep?"

"yep!"

i go up there and see this...

and i melt.
lay down with eliza and enjoy some time with my big bean. we chat, she listens, i listen, we just enjoy each other.

"why does sister bear throw fits at nap and bedtime?"

"i don't know mama."

"probably because she is almost two. have you heard of the terrible twos?"

"nope."

"she is still a baby in some ways, but she wants to be a big girl. she gets frustrated when we can't understand what she wants. she doesn't have all of her words yet. wouldn't that be frustrating if people didn't understand you?"

"mmmhmmm."

deep breaths, pats on my shoulder, some whispers, silence.

"eliza?"

"yes mama?"

"you are the best big sister."

"you are the best big mama."

"gee, thanks!"

"mama, sometimes, on tv, i just hear 'nationwide is on my side.'"

"aaaaand it's time for me to go."

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

rainbow stars!

over the summer i asked eliza what kind of birthday she wanted. i also informed her once she picked, that was it. no switching the day after i start buying things like last year! she probably would have switched after being introduced to ninja turtles at her cousin's birthday. girl became obsessed with them. but her first choice...

"a star birthday!"

i had all these visions of pale pink, gold, shimmery stars. i thought oooh, this could be cute!

then she chimed in some more "RAINBOW stars."


well then. of course, we already had two rainbow parties this year, why not another?! she came with to hobby lobby and i held up two different rainbows in paper, and she picked the more muted one. i loved the shades.

this will probably be her last "big" birthday party, so i wanted to make it fun! i told her we'd do parties until 5, and from then on she could pick something fun to do, and invite a friend or two. we'll still have cake and presents, just at dinner on her birthday, and whatever family wants to be with her on her day, can be there. cannot believe my first baby turned FIVE!

like all her other birthdays, i made her invites thanks to my cricut. i just wrote the info on the back. 
of course the morning started off with pancakes. she picked green, because of ninja turtles. (although now she only picks the colors they are...for everything. "i want orange, cause that's a turgle color!" "no blue, that's like turgles!" and my former pink loving girl that always claimed "that's okay, red is kind of like pink" now switched to "that's okay, pink is kind of like red." obsessed i tell you. and if you ask her "well what about green?" she replies "no, that's not a turgle color" ummm...what?!)

 birthday serenade from nana and papa.
opening a couple presents at breakfast.

over the summer she had her first encounter with a pinata. she made sure to let me know she wanted one at her party, over and over again. figuring i wouldn't be able to find a rainbow star one, i decided she would get a mama made one. it was actually really easy, and fun to do! the hardest part was probably hushing up my perfectionist side, and not worrying about a perfect star shape. although, i did find a nice tip on how to make a huge star. make a pencil and string compass. draw a huge circle. then think of it like a clock, and mark the 12, 24, 36, 48, and 60 minutes. those are the points of your star.

since this party was for kids 5 and under, i made it a pull string pinata, but they all had to pull at the same time. i attached buttons on the inside and once everyone had a string we counted and they pulled.

i wanted to make a game out of it too. we just so happened to have 6 little party guests. eliza had decorated favor bags, and inside i placed one star, each bag had a different color. we let them randomly choose. then they gathered on the porch and that was the beginning of the rainbow path. before the party the grandmas had taken yarn and ran all over the yard with it. up and over, around and under, all over. each kid had a wooden star that i had painted in their color. james drilled a hole in it, and they were supposed to run it along their color string and find the pinata at the end. it didn't work as well as i had imagined. i needed to give better directions to the grandmas, but our internet was out all day, and i couldn't show them what sparked the idea. so instead of nicely sliding along, it was a slow, tangled mess. all except for enola, she was first and got through before the tangles occured! it was still fun though, and i am tempted to try it again, maybe on st. patrick's day?

also, funny side note, i warned my sister-in-law and friend about how this was going down. having girls too, we thought it would be a good idea to prepare them about not getting to pick a color. the whole "you get what you get and you don't throw a fit" thing. not everyone was going to get pink. and funny enough, reese, the only boy, was the one that ended up with pink. ha!



 i love their faces!

to keep it simple, and following the theme, it was filled with skittles and starburst. and a few other random things (bouncy balls, necklaces, bubbles)

it was such a clean break too, that my friend ended up using it the following month. she turned it into a snowflake for her daughter's frozen party. it broke clean there too, so it may have to become the traveling pinata!

 ready for cupcakes!
and gifts. decided to start a new tradition, and laid out the blanket that i took her monthly pictures on. she may roll her eyes later, but it was fun for me to see!
 james was driving home from fort wayne the day of her party, and i had him make a pit stop to pick up this desk. found it on craigslist for $5. it was already pink! he had just made a flip down desk (out of an old medicine cabinet we had in the garage) for the girls, and hattie busted it on day two. i was super excited to find this!
 this girl loves to help me craft. so every time she asked to make decorations i gave her a star punch and paper, and let her go to town. then i sewed them all up into garland. i love that she loves to craft!

 she got a new doll from nana and papa. she really wanted a baby "without wooden hair" she still loves dandra (her first bitty) the most though, because she has soon realized that the one with hair "just pokes me in the eye when i'm sleeping"
 peek-a-boo hattie!
grannie and grandpa...and hattie.

and of course, i had to do a birthday shoot with her. she kills me with how beautiful she is! she loves to pose and cheese it up. we love you eliza june! even if instead of buying online we had to go to the store to try dresses on to make sure they weren't itchy. ;)

i bought that ribbon in her hair when we lived in korea. held onto it, not knowing what i was going to use it for. this was perfect!










Tuesday, January 6, 2015

back to painting rainbows.

we like to remember delia on her birth/heaven day. eliza will ask to look at her box of things from the hospital at random. it's nice to keep the conversation flowing, i don't want them to ever forget, or not know her, and for us, this is what works. as a family, we eat pink pancakes, release balloons, visit her tree and just remember our time with her. 






delia's "thing" has always been rainbows. we like to think that God passed her the brushes as soon as she met Him. 

there were so many people that were there and supported us then, and continue to, so we like to get together and just have fun making our own rainbows...and a huge mess! nice to let go and be crazy! last year was the first year, and this year, we had just as much fun. we even added some fun new things to make it crazier! hello paint slide! 

the kids might think we've lost our minds, or may not understand why we do this, but the parents do. it is nice to see everyone smile and just paint away. it's not often you get to throw all cares away and act like a kid. it's funny to see the kids hopping in the pool while adults are still chasing each other around trying to squeeze more paint sponges, or attack someone with hugs!

 me with my parents at bug's first rainbow party!

 james built this slide right before the party. there was a sheet of plastic, and some moving pads under it. i thought it was going to be too steep, but the kids loved it! we added some coconut oil to it for even quicker slides!


 



 made some colored spaghetti for the baby pool. it didn't stay in there long though, it was flying everywhere!
 











 james also put together this sprinkler for some cleaner fun.



and last year i said i was going to make something out of the fabric we painted? well, i got around to that about the week before this party. cut out a bunch of flags and made two banners. one decorated the party, and the other i hung up in our play room. i love the brightness it adds, and the memories tied to it!
it is such a great way to end the summer, especially since the pool needs to be drained at the end of the party!

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