Afternoon Drive

Yesterday was one of those days that I was not inspired.  I just wanted to sit around and, well, sit around some more.  The morning was pretty lazy, then I took Lucy to preschool and in avoidance of being totally lazy (but still being kind of lazy at the same time), I buckled the kids down and went for a nice drive and took pictures.  This might have been a little dangerous as I didn't even get out of the car (pwd, photography while driving).  My goal was to find color and I found some, here's a few.  

These don't smell so good

I'm definitely welcoming spring and the blooming that is happening. However, I'm not so much into welcoming allergies and the smell of these flowers (what are they called?), that are everywhere. I've been wanting to bring color and flowers in, so I went and cut a few to put in a vase. I LOVED how they looked, but just couldn't bear the smell. So, I'll just enjoy them from a distance I guess.

Fast forward

Snow in forecast. Rainy outside. Heat turned up.  Fast forward to Florida in May.

More eggs

We've been an egg factory. I got some felt, sequence and buttons and we've been doing eggs. Yesterday I asked Nate if he wanted to do eggs and he joined in. I started glueing with Will and then Nate asked how to thread a needle. I went over and decided I would see how he would thread a needle- it was a very cute attempt. Then, he asked how to sew. I said,"do you not know how to sew?" He said, "I mean, I've heard the word before." So, we had a simple sewing lesson. After a couple inches of sewing he was done, and I finished his egg. Oh well.  Lucy on the other hand is loving sewing.  It's fun to do more projects with her as she gets older.  The only problem is that my sewing abilities are very limited, so I'll have to either hand her off to someone else once she surpasses my abilities, or I'll have to sharpen my skills.

Why post this? Just because Will is so darn cute in his chef hat, isn't that reason enough?

why?

Baths are quick with Ada because she does not like baths.  Quite honestly I don't like giving baths either.  Before babies come you think you'll give your kid a bath everyday and it will be a nice part of your routine- hmmm, well at least for me that's not the case.  And, the more kids we have the more difficult it is to bathe them.  So, when I actually get around to bathing a child it does not encourage me to continue with this practice when the first thing she does is barf all over herself.  (I also might mention that after the bath I put one of my favorite outfits on her and she barfed all over that too).  Maybe I'll just start rubbing lavender lotion all over her instead.

new doo

4 months

These last four months have gone by sooo fast.  When describing Ada Lucy says, "my mind just can't handle Ada's cuteness!"  Ditto that Lu!  She's just more and more of a joy every day.  She's officially weaned from mommy, not because this is what I wanted, but because my body is acting on cue (like with the other 2) and stopping milk production.   We're somewhat rested. Some nights I only wake up once, but between the 3 kids it seems that waking up in the night is somewhat normal.  It's quite odd actually, I hear Ada right when she wakes up, but Nate snoozes right through.  However, when Lucy or Will wakes up Nate hears them and I sleep through- I guess that's the natural distribution of responsibilities.   All this said, we're thankful and the Lord has been gracious to us in this transition from 2 to 3.  Yes, at times it's crazy, but the extra sweetness it brings is well worth it- children truly are a gift from the Lord, no doubt.

Diapers off

Well, we just applied to school for the kids for next year. However, Will can't go to preschool until he's potty trained. So, I was talking to WIll and explaining this to him. He said, "me go poop right now!" We went into the bathroom and kept his word. He then went again and then a third time. I decided it was time and rolled with it. We didn't have any boy underwear, so I put Lucy's purple underwear on, Nate took one look and said, "you have to get him some underwear tomorrow." He also insisted that I delete the picture that I took of him in Lucy's underwear from my camera and computer, he wanted no record of this event. So it's been about 24 hours and we're at about a 85% success rate- not bad. I actually can't believe how well it's going. He's quite proud of himself and his fancy briefs.

Easter Decorations

So, the kids had a legitimate concern, "no Easter decorations!" We kind of go wild on Christmas, but I've never been big on decorating with pastels and big fluffy bunnies- that's just me, so we haven't had many Easter decorations. So, we went out on a quest to make Easter decorations. After wandering around for a while I had an idea. We could sew little Easter eggs and hang them from some branches. We bought some beads, buttons and fun fabric and headed home. I told Nate about our grandiose plan and he said, "that's really hard". I looked at him and said, "I think it'll be fine."  He then started telling me about why it's mathematically difficult to change something from a flat surface to a shpere (at which point I started spacing out, not because my husband isn't interesting of course, but MATH, isn't interesting of course). So, I went to work and after a few attempts, my eggs weren't too eggy and I had to reevaluate the situation, yes, Nate was right. So, we decided to use plastic eggs and cover them in fabrics and buttons. The kids helped choose the buttons to put on. I hung them on twigs and not totally satisfied decided to spray paint the twigs white. I like the finished product, I don't love them, but we have Easter decorations nonetheless (most importantly) and I do think they're cute.  

Bike saga

The saga continues. The bike was literally next to the garbage outside. Lu and Nate were outside and he decided to have one more go at it. Once again Lucy's on her bike... at least temporarily. We're holding onto this puppy as long as we can.

Happy St. Patrick's Day from Ada!

(who is rolling over and laughing by the way)

Bedtime story

What to read before bed is always quite the conversation. If it were up to Lucy, dad would read Narnia. If it were up to Will, dad would read the same train book every night. It seems that they often land on Beattrix Potter (as it's one of Nate's favorites and the kids favorites). The kids keep track of who's turn it is to lie on dad's back during the story, fair is fair- right?

Raccoon Ranch

We got to go out to Raccoon Ranch with our good friends for a few days- I love it there, and so do the kids.  Will especially loves the buggies below- he got to take a few rides while we were out there, dream come true.

I love this picture. The rain outside, beer in hand, and kids intently listening to Josh tell a story about the bear standing by his side.

Miss Little Hunts

Plain Sweetness

Before we stopped for ice cream we walked down to the river a bit and I snapped a couple pics.

Hiking

The weather was nice on Saturday and we had an itching to get outside. After a little investigating we found this perfect hike, a mile and a half up and half a mile down. It was awesome to be out with the kids and beautiful.

Chocolate Ice Cream

After our hike we stopped for some ice cream at a local spot. Will was a complete mess, but it didn't stop him ore bother him not one bit.

1 more blog

Yes, exactly what I need, 1 more blog, now I have 3 and it's starting to sound a little obsessive. However, this new blog is really practical and I hope it will come in handy.  In fact it is more of a blog to help me and it will probably be written in my own cooking language, however, you are welcome to check it out.  This is the thought.  I love to cook.  I love to eat.  I loathe recipes.  We love to have people over to cook for and eat with.  However, there are those times when I need to cook something and I seriously can't think anything to cook (and I loathe recipes).  I also often find it the case that I say, "we can't forget this one", and we often do.  So, given the fact that a huge part of Christ Church is going to be hospitality I wanted to try to make it easier for myself.  If you like recipes you might loathe this new blog as it will have many "abouts", "until it tastes right", "approximately" and "some" kind of words.  However, if you're like me and just need ideas of flavors to put together, you might like it.  Either way, it's really just to try to make my life easier- we'll see.  It is http://forconsuming.blogspot.com, right now there are only 2 recipes (one which I just copy and pasted from this blog), but hopefully it will grow.  If it doesn't, well, it's probably because I'll eat something and then it will occur to me I should have taken the picture before I ate the food.

shower

I got to have a little shower post Ada.  We had a fun girls night out- always fun to be with the ladies- thanks everyone (:

Zoo

We went outside today! This is always worthy of a celebration. The kids love the carousel at the zoo and we haven't been for a while- they were happy.

We went on the train for the first time today, Will was especially thrilled.  He kept looking up at me and saying, "me so happy mama."  They always look at it and drool, but I never want to pay the $$$ for the ride.   Today we went with Sarah and the girls and they had free passes- so they got to experience the train- made their day!  We were the only people on the train and made a racket.  Below is our view of the train- none to be seen.

Just cause it's cute

I found this and do declare that it is too cute (though it's blurry). This was a video of took of Lu before Maz and Papa were coming to visit. I think she was about 3, amazing to see how much she has changed in a year and a half.

Cooking Show

We have a few staple games in our household- one of these is "cooking show".  We set up all the wood food with pots, pans, and utensils and play chef.  The oven is under the bench and you squeak the giraffe when the food's ready to come out of the oven.  It is very entertaining and I must confess that I quite enjoy being the chef and look forward to my turn.  Will was really into it last time, he didn't want to stop, I finally had to cut him off.  

Here he is tasting the food to see if it's right... again.

Lucy's showing us the fine cheese imported from Africa.

I took some video and actually found some video of Lucy hosting a cooking show from a year ago.  I hope to post it soon, the file's too big right now so I need to shrink it.  Hopefully I can pop those up soon.