Daddy

Weekend Family Fest

Posted on by Amy

It was cold and rainy here all weekend. But our house was full of warmth and sunshine.

We took full advantage of being home together for a full weekend. We played, and made music, and colored Halloween cookies.

Yes, that’s a tear on her cheek. She had been very upset about something just before climbing in her seat to color her cookies. Probably that I made her take off her sister’s Snow White dress for the activity…

I had shown her how I bit off my ghost’s arms. She laughed and showed me her ghost, “Mama, I bit off his butt!”

We hunkered down for some much needed home time. Lists and agendas went out the window as we spent time just enjoying each other. It. was. awesome.

We did puzzles and played games and watched football. The girls knew the appropriate teams to cheer for (mostly “GO BLUE!” of course, but a little bit of “Yay Hawkeyes!” in there as well so their Daddy wouldn’t feel bad).

We got out paints and went to town. My girls love to paint. I love seeing how they each have their own way of doing it.

Miss decided that finger painting was in order. When I told her I wasn’t going to get out the finger paints (not my fave activity), she improvised. Tricky girl.

So, they made some great handprint art. It was messy. I don’t love messy, but I went with it. It was fun and I survived and they loved it.

It was a lazy jammy weekend. The only reason any of us got dressed all weekend (other than hubby and me when we went on a date Saturday), was that the girls got paint all over their jammies from the finger painting.

Of course we couldn’t get through this weekend family fest without carving our pumpkins. The older girls each had a pumpkin to draw a face on.

Daddy carved them while the girls looked on excitedly.

I forgot to buy one of those little pumpkin carving sets, so he was working hard and having a bit of trouble with my relatively large knives. Then he got smart.

The girls chose to do Mad (Miss’s), Scared (Lass’s), and Sad (Miss’s choice for Sis) faces on their pumpkins. I love how they turned out. It was a fun ending to a wonderful weekend.

Making Memories

Posted on by Amy
We were in recovery mode today.  Yesterday we partied hard with our friends.  This statement takes on a whole new, yet still quite accurate meaning when you consider that “we” is in reference to four adults with our six children under five getting together for a fun evening of grilling, trampolining, swinging (on the swing set), running, sandbox-ing, exploring, chasing, and s’mores eating, with grown up conversation in between.  The three “little kids” (under 2) went to bed after s’mores and the three “big” kids (3 and 4) got in jammies and stayed up to watch Snow White while the adults visited around the fire pit.  My husband and my friend’s husband had spent what seemed like an hour getting that fire started.  They didn’t use a lighter or any matches.  Just some old-fashioned cave-man fire-starting stuff.  I was literally on my way to get the lighter (because it was way past time for s’mores!!) when I saw smoke finally rising from our fire pit.  The manly men prevailed, and it was good.
We had a wonderful time with friends.  The kids all got sufficiently sweaty and dirty and scraped up to consider it a true summertime playing extravaganza.  They explored our “woods” (treed area around the perimeter of our yard) and jumped themselves silly on our new trampoline.  My husband, hero of the evening, played a new game with them, which involved getting on his hands and feet under the trampoline and chasing the kids by pushing his butt up into the trampoline from the underside while running around bear-crawl style.  I wish I had seen this and gotten a photo.  I heard the laughter and screaming of the kids, but I was putting Sis to bed while this was going on.  So I, like you, have only a (very hilarious) mental image of these antics to go by.  Oh how I love that man. 
Needless to say, we were all feeling a little worn out today.  Incredibly, the girls only slept in a little bit past their usual wake up times, so they were pretty tired and crabby today.  We got lots of good down time in though.  Nothing like being pooped to bring a family together for some serious bonding.  The girls made breakfast with their Daddy.  
They love helping him cook eggs.  They work the pepper mill and really get into pinching and sprinkling the salt from my salt pig.
We read lots of books and just relaxed.

This afternoon we went outside for more backyard fun.  I love watching the big girls run and play in the yard.  They go on “adventures” and make up scenarios involving monsters and giants and castles and rescue missions.  We got them sufficiently tuckered out again this evening.  
This is the stuff of memories.  

Braving the Pool

Posted on by Amy
I took the girls to the pool this afternoon for the first time this summer.  It’s pretty hot here, so I figured it would be a good way to get some outside time after naps (or non-nap in the case of Miss).  My husband had a meeting, so I braved the pool on my own.  Through having the girls in the water at my sister-in-law’s in the past few weeks, we have learned that Lass is fearless when it comes to the water, so I was a bit nervous.  I figured we’d be okay though since the pool has zero-entry and I put a floatie on her.  At first it was super easy, and I wondered what I had even been nervous about.  Sis sat in her car
seat in the shade and Miss and Lass splashed around harmlessly in less that one foot of water, pretty much right by my feet.  Then a friend, who is about two months older than Miss showed up.  It was great for the girls to be able to play with her, but her arrival disrupted our little peaceful, safe, easy playing.  She and Miss immediately headed for deeper water (“deeper” in this case meaning one to two feet) and of course Lass went right along with them.  They were playing “horsey” on some of those pool noodles.  That, in addition to the slightly deeper water, was enough to throw Lass off her balance a bit, and twice I went running though the water and hauled her up after she lost her footing and went face first into the water.  With the noodle under her she couldn’t quite get her feet back under herself.  After the second time, I had to call it quits for Lass for today.  I think I’m going to get a more substantial life jacket and maybe we’ll try it again in a few days.  That girl freaks me out.  She’s my little dare devil.  
I really would love to have some photos of our pool time to post, since it was mostly lots of fun and the girls were, naturally, oh so cute splashing around.  But between hawk-watching Miss and Lass, trying to keep the sun off Sis (she was perfectly shaded in her car seat, but then got fussy, so I put her in the Ergo), and making life-saving dives for my middle child, the camera never made it out of my bag.  So instead, I’ll share with you a few of the photos from last week at the farm.
Of course my husband did tons of fishing and the girls were very excited to see some of the larger fish he caught.  No filleting this time, though.
Foos-ball-room for the princesses to dance in.
We had a very big and somewhat scary storm the last night we were at the Farm.  It blew up right around snack time, so we took our stuff to the basement for a picnic.  The girls seemed unfazed in spite of all the thunder and lightning, the 40-50 MPH winds, sideways-falling rain and hail. 
Of course we celebrated Father’s Day morning at the Farm before heading home.  During the week prior to our trip, I had the girls make Father’s Day paintings.  They painted canvases for their Daddy.

Then Miss did paintings on paper for my Grandpa, my Dad, and my Father-in-law (Lass lost interest after her canvas was done).  At the end as she was finishing up the painting for my Father-in-law, her Papa, she decided it would be funny to stick her face in the still-wet paint.

She seems to be our little budding artist.  She really loves to paint anything.  She got really into painting some gourds with my Mother-in-law when we were at the farm.  She seems to understand the power of art to make people smile too.  When she created her painting for my Grandpa she said, “I think this will make Great-grandpa happy.”  Yes, I think so too.

Fashion Shows and Fishing

Posted on by Amy
The title of this post really sums up the variety of things the girls have to do when we go to the farm.  The last post showed a good selection of their activities, as well.  It just seems never-ending.  One day early in the week I came out of our room after feeding and changing Sis to find this:

 You can’t see much of them here, but she paraded around in these big gold flats calling them her “dancing shoes.”

The girls and their “Baba” (my mother-in-law) had gotten into the dress up basket and they were in heaven.  Miss switched between several different outfits, but Lass found the one she liked and didn’t vary from it. They were both princesses ready to go to the ball.  We all got dressed up and danced and twirled.  They selected my outfit.

Yes, we all got dressed up.

Sis gave her opinions on our outfits and dancing techniques.

She is very chatty these days.

I think it was Tuesday that the girls discovered the dress up clothes, and from that point on, each morning when they woke up the first thing Lass did was ask for “dress up!” and “pincy!” (princess).  She spent much of the rest of our time there in that pink leotard.  In fact she often had a mini fit when I took it off her to change her diaper of get her dressed.  The one thing she was always willing to take it off for though was to go and play outside.  We had lots of fun exploring the Farm on the Ranger.

We took a long ride one day and ended up on a dirt road where there were two very old houses that had mostly collapsed.  I pointed them out to Miss and she was fascinated by them.  She kept talking about the houses that had fallen down and how someone should have taken better care of them and maybe we should go and fix them.

 Stopping for a snack in the shade.  

Of course after our ride it was time to go fishing.  Miss had been talking about fishing with her Daddy for weeks before this trip.  She caught some bluegills, which she called “blue jays” when I asked her what kind she had caught.  

Lass loved to sit by the pond and throw rocks in the water while her sister was fishing.

We had a jammy day one day when it was cold and rainy out.  The weather was great for fishing so my husband and two nephews went out on the boat and ended up bringing home dinner.  Lots of walleye.  The girls were quite intrigued by the process of filleting the fish.

Notice Lass’s outfit.

The girls’ cousin showed him the walleye’s teeth.

My girls always seem to grow and learn so much after a week of travel, either to the farm or visiting my family, or wherever we go.  Lass’s vocabulary seems to triple and Miss’s use of subtleties of language improves noticeably.  She even learns things like, “I’m going to kick you in the weenie!” from her older boy cousins, which of course prompts a conversation about what a weenie is and why we don’t say that or do that.  But that could be another whole post, I suppose.

I love to watch my girls blossom at the farm.

An Anniversary Post

Posted on by Amy

I had a date night with my hubby tonight for our anniversary, which was yesterday, but he has been working nights this week and just finished up this morning.  So, date night tonight.  It was fabulous.  First night out since Sis’s arrival BTW, and all went perfectly (I will never again underestimate the beauty of having a baby who will drink from a bottle).  Four years of wedded bliss with my BFF, my soul mate, the man of my dreams…  It’s late and I have had a glass of wine, so I don’t really have it in me to do an original anniversary post tonight.  But I like the one from last year.  It sums up my feelings for my hubby nicely, so here you go.  Good night!
***********
Three years ago today, I married the man of my dreams. I know. Saying “the man of my dreams” is totally cliche. However, I think the reason many phrases become cliche is that they are so true. My husband really is the man of my dreams. Before I met him, if I thought of the kind of person I wanted to, or dreamed of, spending my life with, I would have described him. Handsome. Intelligent. Funny. Considerate. Hard-working. Sans piercings… You name it. If I once wished for a quality in a potential mate, he has it. And then some.

Another way I could describe my husband is to say that he is my soul mate. All right. Another cliche. But it’s true! The man could have been created especially for me. He gets me. We’re a great team. He completes me. Oops! There’s another one 🙂

Okay, how about this? My hubby is my best friend. My BFF. Cliche? Maybe. But also true. I would rather spend time with him than anyone else. I love to spend time chatting with him about all sorts of things. I also just love to be in the same room with him even if we’re not talking. He could be working on his computer and I might be reading, and I will always choose to read my book in the same room as him just to be near him.
He is the person I look forward to waking up with every morning. He is my partner in all things. He makes me laugh. He does the dishes while I put the girls to bed. He encourages me to pursue my interests, like book clubs and cooking classes. He lets me know in many ways how much he appreciates me. He does fun things with me like our “Chopped” at home adventure. We share the same values. He loves me and respects me and takes care of me. He is a wonderful dad to our girls.
Here’s to three years of wedded bliss, harmonious matrimony, living real life every day with the man of my dreams. My soul mate. My best friend. My husband is all these things. Truly. Cliche or not. He floats my boat. Lights my fire. Trips my trigger. Yep. I love him.

A Little Daddy Time

Posted on by Amy
I have written many times about how much my older girls love their time with their Daddy.  When he comes home from work, they shriek and run to him.  As soon as dinner is over they’re begging him to play “monster” with them or read to them or dance with them.  They are definitely Daddy’s girls.  
Baby Sis is following right in their footsteps.

Every night she has a little special time with her Daddy and seems to enjoy it thoroughly.

Daddy’s Girl.

One Wonderful Guy

Posted on by Amy
I’m enjoying having my husband home this week.  We have been relaxing and he’s helping me get as much rest as I can.  Other than the days Miss went to school, he’s been letting me sleep in, which is such a wonderful luxury.  I slept until 9:30 one day!  It was amazing.  He’s been outside with Miss and Lass a lot too, which they love.  They’re working on getting our garden planted.
The girls helped him plant some veggies in these boxes today.
Then he opened the sandbox for them.

Oh, how they enjoyed the sandbox.  This was Lass’s first experience with it.

I must admit, I’m usually not a great lover of the sandbox.  But I think my lack of enthusiasm comes from having Miss in it last year in the middle of summer when she was hot and sweaty and sunscreened and it was nearly impossible to get the sand unstuck from her.  Today, it was no prob. Brushed right off.

Miss found a worm.  She didn’t want anything to do with it.

But Lass thought it was pretty darned cool.

It was a great day for lots of playing outside.

I love looking out the window while cooking dinner and seeing my husband chasing my girls around the backyard, playing “Monster,” or teaching them to kick a ball.  Sometimes I glance up and see them all just lying in the grass chatting and snuggling.  It warms my heart.  He is such a great girl daddy.  He is so thoroughly outnumbered, and I think he loves it.

I’m taking advantage of having my husband home this week and trying to spend some good one on one time with each of my girls.  My older girls have been such troopers through the whole adjustment to having Baby Sis home.  Miss loves to help with her, but I’m trying to give her some special attention all of her own too.

When I first brought Sis home, I was worried that Lass might get lost in the shuffle.  Miss was so interested in Sis and wanted to hold her and help with her all the time, and Sis of course just needs lots of attention and time.  I felt nervous that Lass might get left out.  So I have made a special point of trying to make sure that doesn’t happen.  She’s such a little lover that it hasn’t been hard to get in lots of extra snuggles with her and give her some special time.

I am not going to make the mistake I made with Lass of not introducing her to a bottle until she was five or six weeks old, at which point she flat out refused it, and continued to do so until I gave up trying to get her to take one.  Sis isn’t necessarily loving the bottle yet, but she has done pretty well taking it both from her daddy and from me this week.  I’m trying out a few different bottles to see which one she likes best.  I have just about every type of bottle ever made from my attempts with Lass, so she has lots of choices.

She is such an amazingly easy baby so far.  I’m finding it so easy to just soak up the sweet moments with her.

Unfortunately my sweet littlest one has had a little tendency to scratch the heck out of her face.  Poor baby.

You would think, this being my third time doing this, that I would have mastered the art of cutting newborn fingernails by now.  No.  I suck at it.  I tried three times yesterday to get those suckers trimmed and she was so squirmy I couldn’t get them done.  I know.  I’m a total wuss.  Today I finally wised up and cut them while she was sleeping.  Mission accomplished.  Why didn’t I think of that before?

I’m loving having three precious girls.  And one wonderful guy.

The Little Photographer

Posted on by Amy
Quickie post tonight:
As foreshadowed yesterday, my girls got to get outside and play today.

And play they did.

They ran and ran around the yard, especially through the last patch of snow.

Lass fell and got snow on her hands.  She did not like that one bit, and Daddy warmed them up for her. 

They got beautifully wet and dirty and had fits when it was time to come in for lunch and naps.  Hopefully we will have more of the same tomorrow.

Miss got a little camera today.  She has been asking for one.  She was so excited and get right to taking photos of everything.

Her sister.

Herself.

Her Yo Gabba Friends.

And various other artistic subjects.

This one was quite puzzling to us until we realized she had taken a picture of the cover of her Daddy’s “Whitetail” magazine.

I love this one.  She took it while spinning around dancing.

I didn’t edit any of these photos other than to enhance the color on them a bit, as this kid’s camera doesn’t take the best quality photos.  No cropping or otherwise changing the pics.  I love them!  What a wonderful way to see the world through her eyes.  I’m so proud of my little photographer.

Lucky

Posted on by Amy
I have neglected my blog terribly the past few days.  Sorry.  I think I’m nesting.  Unfortunately (though fortunate for me, I suppose) nesting during this pregnancy has not taken the form of feeling the overwhelming urge to clean my grout with a toothbrush or take everything out and wash the insides of my cabinets or anything crazy like that.  Okay, let’s be honest here.  I’ve never actually felt an overwhelming urge to do either of those things, even during prior pregnancies (though for the record, I have cleaned my grout with a toothbrush when necessary, but not out of a huge desire to do so).  But back to the point.  Right now for me, nesting = crafting.  I’m going slightly nuts crafting and sewing stuff for my girls’ rooms.  Pinterest is partly to blame, because I’ve gotten some really cute and easy and cheap ideas from things I’ve seen there.  But I’ve run a little wild and have sort of ended up redoing each of my girls’ rooms.  I’ve gotten a lot done, but my craft area (aka dining room table) is a mess of partially finished projects and equipment/supplies just waiting for the next project to start.  I can’t stop myself.

Happily I will have lots of photos to show when it’s all said and done.  If it ever gets all said and done…

The crafting craze has taken place when girls are sleeping.  When they’re awake, I’ve been trying especially to spend as much quality time with my two big girls as possible as we await the arrival of Baby Sis.

I tried to take Miss out on Saturday for a special “date,” just the two of us.  We got all dressed, coats and boots on, ready to head out the door, and she decided she didn’t want to go.  She wanted to stay home with her Daddy and Lass.  I had even mentioned “ice cream” to her in trying to get her to understand that we were going to spend some special fun time together.  Apparently Daddy and Sister rate above Mom and ice cream.  Ouch.  After his past week at home, she is really into Daddy right now.  When we got out the Play Doh the other day she was very excited to make a special piece for him.  We took this picture and emailed it to him.  Then she made him another item that we put in a ziploc so she could give it to him when he got home from work.  She was so proud.

I think the girls are missing him now that he’s back at work this week.  They still love their Daddy time at night though.

Somebody was hiding…

And now to the big news of the day…  I had my version this morning and it was successful!  I am still a little bit nervous that Sis could flip herself back to head up, but for now she is facing the right way and ready to come out any day now. Or in about 3 more weeks, if she’s anything like her sisters.  I have felt like she is getting wedged down into my pelvis, so hopefully that’s a good sign that she’s enjoying her new orientation and planning to remain head down.  I was fearful that I couldn’t be lucky enough to have two versions be successful, but I guess I am.  Of course, I’m lucky in so many wonderful ways, that’s just the tip of the ice berg.  Tonight, I’m remembering just how lucky I am.

Weekend Fun

Posted on by Amy
This weekend has been quiet.  It’s very cold here, and my husband had to work this weekend, so the girls and I mostly just stayed home and did lots of fun stay-home stuff.  We had more tea parties, this time with little sister joining in.

 

We played with baby dolls and did some gymnastics in the basement.  We made a little gift to give the other kids at Miss’s school for Valentine’s Day.  Miss and I even completed her first homework assignment from school this afternoon when she didn’t take a nap.  She was given a poster board heart at school and instructed to decorate it with the things she loves for Valentine’s Day.  So today we talked about what she loves.  We taped photos of Lass, Daddy, Mom (I’m now “Mom,” not Mama or Mommy), an ultrasound picture of Sis, and our dog Jonah to the heart.  Then she added photos of herself reading, doing gymnastics, eating ice cream at the pool, and picking a worm out of a carton while fishing with her Daddy.  She added a ballerina sticker, a picture of watermelon, which she said is her favorite food, and interestingly, a picture of her Papa’s tractor.  She was quite decisive about what she wanted and didn’t want, though I had to prompt her a bit by showing pictures and asking her if she wanted certain things.  I loved hearing the things she wanted to add, and was surprised by some things she didn’t care to include, like a picture of her Oopsie Bear Care Bear.  It makes me smile when she surprises me with things like that.

Also this weekend we did some work getting things ready for baby Sis.  I did some crafting during nap time, which I’ll post about when I have some finished projects to show.  Miss helped me fold clothes for Sis, which we transferred from the back of Miss’s closet into Sis’s.

She was so excited to help, and kept singing a little made-up song about the clothes and how her baby sister was going to love them.  She said, “Baby Sissy will be so happy that I helped fold her laundry.  She will love me so much and will give me a big hug.”  I can’t wait to see how wonderful these girls are going to be when their new sister arrives.  Miss was great with Lass, but she’s so much older now, it will be fun to watch how much more she can understand and help with her newest sister.  And I’m happy for Lass to have to chance to make the transition from Baby Sister to Big Sister.

And seriously, there is just something about the relationship these girls have that makes me smile every time I see them playing together and anticipate so happily the addition of another sister.  I love to watch them.  I’ll turn around and randomly see them snuggling together or playing a sweet little private game.

Lass’s language is really exploding, so they can talk to each other much more now, and I love to hear their little conversations.  Miss has a sweet little special voice that she uses for Lass when Lass is upset and Miss is trying to console her.

Usually, though certainly not always, they share pretty well too.  I bought a two-sided easel (which hasn’t been put together yet) so they could both use it at the same time more easily than the easel on their Learning Tower.

But when I witness moments like this one, I wonder why.

This weekend the sisters, as always, played lots of dress up.

Miss wanted to try to take a picture of her sister with my camera, and she did a pretty good job!

Miss also got her fingernails and toenails polished.  She has been very excited about this, and wanted to paint her Daddy’s fingernails when he got home from work today.  He was going to let her do it, until I told him that the only polish remover we have is the super non-toxic stuff that doesn’t really work very well.  He decided to go for a pedicure instead.  Both girls got a chance to paint his toenails.

Miss tried to finish up after Lass polished almost every part of his toes but his nails.

The finished product on the foot that Miss did by herself.

I’m sure this is the first of many nail polishings for this Daddy.  I love that he’s such a good sport about it.

This weekend wasn’t terribly productive.  I only crossed one thing off my extensive to-do list.  The stuff above about getting Sis’s clothes folded and moved into her room is misleading.  I started the project, but since I don’t have her dresser in her room yet or enough hangers for her clothes, I actually got very little done.  I hung some jammies, folded a few swaddle blankets, and moved two boxes, one with newborn cloth diapers and the other with newborn and size 3-month clothes, into Sis’s room.  I got a little bit done on some growth charts I’m making for Lass’s and Sis’s rooms, like the one I made for Miss a while ago.  And that’s about it.  Really though, I don’t care that I didn’t get much done.  When my husband is working the weekend and we are pretty much house-bound, I just do my best to have as much fun as possible and avoid meltdowns, either from my girls or myself.  This weekend, we did a pretty good job.