William is now two years old. I can hardly believe it. We were lucky enough to have my folks visiting for his actual birthday so we got to have cake with lots of people. William's new favorite song, unsurprisingly, is Happy Birthday. He mimes blowing out the candles each time we sing.
When thinking about the things he likes right now, it's a tough call between playing with his big sisters, taking care of his baby (especially changing diapers), and all things garbage. Throwing the baby diapers in the garbage, helping us take the garbage out, wheeling the garbage can to the curb, and the almighty garbage truck. He is just fixated. It's hilarious.
So, we decided to make him his own garbage truck this year for his birthday present. It's really just three old diaper boxes spraypainted green with a bit of green duct tape. Tony had the genius idea to make the back part dump. There's a small garbage can with a yellow top (looks like our recycling can sort of), and he has been getting lots of play time with it. Good stuff.
Here's the link to a little video of him playing so you can hear how he says "garbage", it's precious and I know it's one of those words I'll think back on with adorable memories as he gets older. Love this little guy.
Fruit is nature's convenience food. And I definitely need convenienence! It's so easy to grab some grapes, apples, blueberries, whatever and head out the door knowing the kids will eat and not have total junk. I've been lucky to have two kids who would happily eat fruit whenever offered and in fact, Emma would happily eat fruit to the exclusion of everything else!
This is a video of her chomping on raspberries last summer. At the end she proclaims, "Thanks bees!" I am in love.
Then there is William. He tends to have a bit of a texture issue with most fruit unless it's cooked (taking the convience factor out), so this morning I was delighted when he wanted a banana! I think it was just because big sister had one and the thrill of cutting up his own was too good to pass up.
He had so much fun and I'm just happy he ate a banana!
This morning we hosted a little impromptu party for a couple of kids the girls go to school with. Loads of people are traveling now, which meant it was a very manageable-sized group! ;) We did a few games that we got from Pinterest. Yes, the girls will look at it with me and help choose things to do- pretty fun.
Here's what we did:
Necklaces made from beads and cut paper straws.
Made little Flag paddles with paper plates and bounced baloons around with them. They were used in other playing too.
Made USA themed shakers using paper plates and dried beans.
Painting. Because painting.
Attempted a relay race using small american flags propped in sand. We tried having the kids line up and relay but they really just wanted to make mudpies at that moment. Oh well.
Then the kids just played and had treats that were mostly red,white, and blue and it was great fun for all.
Hope you all have a Happy and safe Fourth! Happy Birthday, America!
It's been a busy year and overall I'm not sure I'll be able to keep this blog up going forward but right now in the trows of minimal scheduling, I thought I would add a little update. We are enjoying the beautiful weather of Minnesota in June and looking forward to just spending time together this summer.
A few little highlights of the week.
William is a total love. Totally. He is so sweet with his sisters and immediately runs over with concerned voice, tilted head, hugs and taps if they are upset. He adores our new cat Lucy and she is very patient with him.
Artwork is a daily activity over here and takes many forms.
We have been encouraging milkweed to grow in our side garden. We had a few plants last year and this year have a whole patch. We added some other pollinator plants too and are waiting for them to bloom. To our delight, we discovered several monarch caterpillars on the milkweed and Ada decided to draw one.
She came in and went to one of the insect identification books to write it's name, on her own. Love it. The little circle above the caterpillar in her picture is a hole where it had nibbled.
We are only a week into summer and already the girls have created a "school". They busily set up the roof and equipment they needed including a table, books, and writing supplies. Ada came and got a bike bell and attached it to the rope with a screwdriver (with minimal assistance;), and they labeled the school with the ages allowed to attend. "4 to 36" Their form of payment is a hug per day and the name of the school is "Learning Day". I just love it.
They decided to eat lunch together as if they were teachers and packed up a lunch and ate up top. The kids eat down below I'm told ;) I plan to bring my payment to the school soon in order to see what I can learn!
And the mud. Yes the kids love to play with mud. I like to think of it as an outdoor version of dress up, and if you have ever been to our house you know how popular that is around here!
First thing this morning. Ada wanted to be a butterfly and made some antennae. I'm pretty sure Emma is a queen, as usual.
Happy Summer everyone! Hope to add more updates....but don't hold me to it!
Ada just turned 6. Yes. SIX. ADA IS SIX YEARS OLD. It's still sinking in for me here. Here are a few photos from her Master Chef Junior inspired party. At Ada's party her friends made some pizza and salad and we played a few games. We did a version of "pin the tail on..." by doing Pin the Pepperoni on the Pizza and each kid had to try to get their pepperoni on the slice with their name on it. They were super sweet and helped each other by using "hot" and "cold" until everyone had gotten it. They also did a blind taste test that was really fun. Instead of goodie bags we had a bag full of little prizes and when they completed a game they got to pick a prize from a bag and trade it in if they didn't like it. I ran out of time to do a punch box so this worked out pretty well. The best part was that Gramma Deb was able to arrange her visit to be here for the party which made it so special for Ada.
The aprons for the little chefs to wear.
Pin the pepperoni on the pizza
Taste test
The Cake
Now that Ada is older, there are certainly new and more complicated challenges of parenting. The nice thing though is that she can entertain herself more and more on her own. We had the chance this week to go out just the two of us and decided to go swimming at the health club and have a dinner/ study date afterwards. It was glorious.
She wrote out her thank you notes for her party friends.
And played with her birthday present.
She is a stellar study partner.
Love this kid. She made me a mama. She is one of the most sensitive, kind and creative people I know. Happy Birthday Ada.
*It has been about a million years since I have posted anything so prepare yourself for a long one. *
As some of you know, I started back to school to get my M.S. last fall and this year has proven to be extremely challenging for me to manage everything I have on my plate. As a result... not much posting. Now that I'm on my winter break, I have a bit of breathing room and I thought I would do a bit of an update- in no particular order. We have had a few major things happen around here since my last post!
For starters there have been two birthdays since I last posted. William turned 1 and Emma turned 4. We were lucky enough to have my mom and Peg here over William's birthday. Emma had a low key party with a couple friends and all sorts of Frozen stuff. Very fun.
This is a video of some of William's first few steps. I love how mundane it seems to be compared with all the other activities of the day. Third kid.
Emma was able to give up her bubba (pacifier) and just like her big sister, she left them for The Bubba Fairy. The Bubba Fairy left her a present and as a result the girls got bunk beds (to be stacked after it's not so terrifying for Mama).
Ada lost her two front teeth. One got knocked out while tumbling on Halloween just before trick-or-treating but luckily she was still able to eat the candy...thank goodness! And luckily the tooth fairy found us even though we were in Massachusetts visiting family at the time. Halloween was incredibly fun this year since we were all together and in the neighborhood I grew up in.
Witch, Mouse, Lowly Worm, Super Rose, River otter
When Ada had her accident she knocked the other front tooth pretty good so we knew it was a matter of time before it fell out. Well, sure enough a few days before Christmas that one fell out too.
"Dear tooth fairy I had my tooth out from my tooth brush I love you from Ada"
We recently watched the Seinfeld episode, "The Strike" about Festivus as part of our traditional holiday media consumption. It is simply fabulous and for some reason this year I realized just how right Frank Costanza is - he realized there are no rules about the holidays and he could make it whatever he wanted it to be, aluminum pole and all. One of the things I love about our family is we try to do just that. Take the things we like and leave the things we don't. For me, I love baking cookies, sending and receiving paper holiday cards, decorating the tree while drinking egg nog and listening to Bing Crosby's Christmas album, and generally just hanging with my family and friends. Well this year was perhaps the best.
I must say that the awesomeness began at Thanksgiving which is easily my favorite holiday and has been the hardest for me to be away from family since moving to Minnesota. This year we were treated to a dear friend visiting. It seems strange to call her a friend since Julia is so much more than that to our family. We call her "Aunt Julia" and it has been interesting to talk to the kids (Ada especially) about what it means to be family. Being five, the idea that Aunt Julia and Aunt Alexa are not really my sisters and yet we call them "aunt" was not sitting well with her. It was nice to see her get it- that sometimes we choose our family. That when you have love it doesn't matter how you are related and that we are so, so, so lucky to have friends in our lives who love us and who share their lives with us and we get to share our lives with. Seriously good stuff. So, on that note, Aunt Julia (chosen family) was able to make a trip out to chilly Minnesota from Oregon to visit with us for Thanksgiving. It was blissful. We talked about the menu and cooked together like we used to when we were first developing our friendship (over 10 years ago).
We look like kids here! This was taken on one of the nights we made a spread of food together to accompany some t.v. viewing of an old favorite.
If you were a fan of "Lost" you will get how awesome all of this is.
Julia made a pavlova decorated with a scene of the plane crash along with some meringue numbers...4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42. Just spectacular.
We have both improved with age I think and made a yummy Thanksgiving spread complete with some incredible gluten-free desserts.
And she was a wicked good sport with the cold MN weather.
We were fortunate to move on from our fantabulous Thanksgiving to land squarely in what has easily been the best holiday season we have had as a family. Each year we fine tune our family traditions and this year we kicked it off with picking up the tree. I love the smell of the fresh tree and the Christmas music we listen to while decorating reminds me of childhood. We all enjoy it. My mom found a bunch of ornaments and sent them to us last year, and the kids have made a few at school, including a rad woven star that Ada made in Spanish class that says Feliz Navidad which became our new topper.
Of course this is what you do with boxes.
The kids took a couple of trimmings, stood them up with playdoh and used them as "fairy Christmas trees". Ada is making little bobbles for her tree.
This year we were also able to see a performance of The Nutcracker and Frozen. One of Ada's friends performed with her ballet studio and it was so fun to get to see her on stage and the performance as a whole was great! The experience made a big impression on the girls and we even made a new station on Pandora just for Nutcracker music- they love to dance (even William is known to start spinning when it comes on). The Frozen performance was another local ballet studio and was an adaptation from the movie. I was so impressed with the girls at each show they were excellent audience members. William was not so patient with the idea of sitting for that long, but did very well running around in the hall.
William and I spent most of the time checking out the Christmas trees outside the performance hall and watching through a window, but it was still very fun.
The girls danced all the way back to the car.
We had a number of fairly normal/ non-Christmas-y days and here are a few of my favorite moments.
Using a glass for the first time.
Mini date with Tony. I'm kind of excited.
Sibling love
This was taken by one of our sitters- such happy kids:)
Okay, so back to my point... we had an amazing Christmas season this year from picking up the tree to the nonstop carols, to making cookies, being together, and seeing their faces when they realized Santa had come. It will be tough to beat next year. Here are the highlights.
GINGERBREAD HOUSES
HOLIDAY BOOKS
SANTA VISIT
We went to an event at a local nature center
BAKING FOR TEACHERS
(Continent cookies in Montessori colors- label says "Thank you for making my world sweeter")
DATE WITH ADA
(She wanted to go get hot chocolate and work on her present for Emma- so sweet)
ICE SKATING
Man this was harder than I remember! Mama needs more practice!!
WILLIAM!
VISIT FROM DANICA & JESSE
You have probably heard me rave on about Danica. We all miss her and it was so sweet to see William respond to her as if no time had passed. Felt so special to have them stop to see us on their trip back from their new home in California.
CHRISTMAS EVE
No time for baking = chocolate covered strawberries for Santa. This may become a new tradition around here.
Which brings me back around again. WE get to decide what our traditions will be. I love that. I love that we get to choose what we do as a family and make it our own. And with that...Christmas.
Note the cat siting under the tree.
Sleeves in her stocking
This was a huge hit for this little chatterbox.
The girls made shirts for each other. Emma painted "the night sky" for Ada and Ada embroidered a rose for Emma.
Santa brought Anna and Elsa dresses :)
Frozen backdrop from Mama & Poppa (designed by Poppa)
They love it!
"Do you want to build a snowman?"
And of course, trains.
And books.
If you're still reading, thanks for staying with me on this long and rambling post. While I may not find tinsel distracting, and do not need to air my grievances with my family, I am glad that we can make our own family holidays. And make them WICKED AWESOME!
