Now Updating…
In an effort to simplify my life a bit, I’ve decided to move posting about my kiddos to my primary blog, TheArtisticMom.com. I’ll no longer be posting on this blog. So, come & see the updates there, now! Much love! xoxo
Finally Swimsuit Weather (or so they hope)
The past two weeks have been really busy as I’ve spent 5 full days (spread throughout) out of our home working on a big commercial food photography shoot. Honestly, it couldn’t have gone any better. The kids spent all the time I was working at my mom’s house with her and they LOVED having so much Oma time. It’s such a relief to know that they’re happy and doing well when I have to be gone from them. Thanks, Mom, for taking such great care of them!
A few weeks ago, my local business review/promo group, SassyScoops, got to review a photographer named Emily Clark who has a project called “Mommy Models.” Emily loves to take “ordinary” moms and give them a glamorous photo shoot, bringing out their true beauty. It was really fun! She really wanted to get some lovely pregnancy shots during my shoot, even though my belly isn’t very big, still. She kept saying, “ok, now push out your belly as much as you can for this shot.” It took a lot of concentration, lol! But, I’m really happy with the results. I’m really excited to have such nice shots to document this pregnancy and Emily was completely adorable to work with.
Here’s a few other pics from that day (I was 16-17 weeks along when these were taken; now I’m 18-19 weeks along):
Yesterday was SUCH a beautiful day outside! The kids were ecstatic and begging Randy to let them run through the sprinklers in the yard. It wasn’t even that hot, but they have been waiting MONTHS and months to have swimsuit weather. So, we put their swimsuits on and let them play for a few hours in the sprinklers in our backyard. We had a backyard picnic, eating hot dogs cooked on the grill (sooooo yummy!) and then the kids played a little more in the water. Then, they got too cold and wanted to come inside for a warm bath.
Claire is by far the most excited about swimsuit weather. If we let her, I’m sure she’d wear nothing but a swimsuit all day, every day. She was hoping we’d let her take her bath in her swimsuit, too, but I insisted that we needed to get her all the way clean and made her take it off. I washed the kids’ hair and bodies and they played in the tub for awhile until they wanted to get out. I got them all dressed in nice, comfy play clothes and then.. lo and behold… they saw Randy was still in the backyard working and they had to be out there with him. It wasn’t long after they were begging for swimsuits again.
Randy, being the amazing dad he is, gave them a real treat. He cleaned out their sandbox/pool (we’d been using it as a sandbox, but it can also be a pool) and set up this cool area under our back patio stairs. He put down lots of bark around it and set their little picnic table up by it. Then, he opened the nearby basement window and hooked the hose up to the water heater and filled their pool with warm water! (Spoiled them rotten, huh?). The kids were in heaven, especially with their swimsuits on again.
We’re trying to get the kids back on their normal bedtime routine time (asleep by 8pm – daylight savings totally threw us for a loop this time, messing up the routine), so yesterday we just let all three kids play all day long with no naps. After their “hot tub” pool play was over, we brought them in for dinner and put them in their pajamas. Norah was eating frozen peas (she loves those) happily in her highchair one minute and then was asleep with her head on the counter the next. We tried to revive her, but she was out and she slept over 14 hours last night!! I don’t know if she’s ever been that exhausted! Tate and Claire went to bed really well, too, which was nice and they all got a great night of sleep.
Warm weather really is nice for the kids; they just love playing outside all day and it’s so much more interesting than when it’s cold weather and they’re stuck indoors. Yay for the sunshine!!!
Sisters and Brother
Tate is getting more and more anxious about having a brother in our family. Yesterday he told us, “I will be MUCH ANGRY if I have more sisters.” Yikes…. hoping this baby is a brother for him… wouldn’t want to have him be “much angry” (lol!). This morning Claire was talking about sisters and Tate asked her “Claire, please, please, please, may I have a brother?!!” to which she said “yes.” So, since Claire is in charge of whether we have a boy or girl baby, looks like we’ll be okay (even though she keeps insisting – when Tate’s not around – that our new baby will be a girl named “Charlie.”). Whether it’s a boy or a girl, though, I’m sure we’ll be thrilled and everyone will love them no matter what (thank goodness!).
Even though Tate wants a brother desperately, he is so sweet and thoughtful to his sisters (& loves them to pieces). This week he made everyone beds out of our laundry baskets. Norah thought it was completely fabulous. Claire didn’t want to play with them, though, so she had fun playing on her own. Tate thought of every tiny detail, including making sure everyone had their blankets, dogs and baby dolls. Norah loved it!
And then, of course, they had to pretend to sleep in their beds (accompanied by big, fake snoring noises).
It’s been so nice this week to finally have some warm spring weather. The kids have played a lot outside. It’s going to be so different this year with having all our kids be so mobile and mostly independent. Last year we had to watch Norah constantly to keep her from falling off her slide and stop her from eating dirt. This year, Norah is climbing up the ladder to our big slide all by herself and sliding down. She’s totally keeping up with her brother and sister. Norah also insists on swinging on the big swings, rather than her baby swing. It will be a fun summer, but I’m a little sad since the end of Norah’s baby years seems ever-lingering and present.
Claire is the BEST big sister to Norah. She’s always looking out for Norah (I hear she’s very overprotective in nursery, making sure Norah isn’t being bothered). Norah is so attached to Claire, too. The past few days Norah wants to give Claire giant bear hugs all the time. Claire goes a long with it for as long as she can and then has to push Norah away to regain her personal space and freedom. This generally breaks Norah’s heart and she cries, making Claire feel badly. Then Claire tells her, “only one more time, okay?” to which Norah quickly rushes over to hug her. It’s so sweet watching their sisterly bond. Claire loves to have Norah jump off things into her arms. Norah loves it too, even though it generally ends in both of them falling to the ground.
Such fun! We are so lucky to have these three darlings in our life! We love them each so much and can’t believe how fast they’re growing. This week I have a big commercial food photography shoot where I’ll have to be gone from them for two 8-hour days. While it’s a great opportunity and a real blessing to have this shoot happening, I will miss my kiddos a lot. I’m so grateful Randy is so committed to making it possible for me to be home with them so much. It’s not easy, but it’s SO worth it. We’re so blessed!
Happy Easter
What a beautiful Easter day! I feel so spoiled to celebrate our Savior’s life by spending today listening to the LDS General Conference and spending time with my family. It’s been completely wonderful. A weekend full of peace we’ve desperately looked forward to.
On Friday night our family dyed Easter eggs together. Tate and Claire really got into it and did very well at dying the eggs. Norah loved to dump the eggs into the colored water, especially to make a big splash (no matter how much we’d discourage her from it). Since this often led to them cracking, she then discovered how fun it was to feel the eggs. Needless to say, we ended up with lots of eggs to make into egg salad sandwiches that night.
Tate has been eagerly anticipating Easter morning (I think he thought it would be like Christmas morning all over again). The kids woke up to find their Easter baskets and Easter eggs filled with jelly beans. Norah went NUTS over all the jelly beans, opening eggs and stuffing her mouth full of jelly beans faster than we could stop her (she loves jelly beans and asks for them daily).
The candy was the BIGGEST hit of anything in their baskets. They’ve all been happily sugar-buzzed all morning from their over-indulgence.
But, at least they shared their candy with each other… yay!
I’ve been terrible at keeping this blog updated and am resolving to do better. Life has been beautiful and painful at the same time. I’m feeling drastically better with this pregnancy and the cyst. This past week has been really terrific as I’ve had energy and enthusiasm back to take care of our home and my sweet children.
Our kids have been confused, but happily going along with the bizarre, topsy-turvy weather changes. During the winter I spent time teaching them about seasons. It’s felt a little pointless at this point since the season of spring has been anything but predictable. Our kids have been so confused about whether or not it’s spring, but I keep reassuring them that it is still spring (even if there’s a few inches of snow outside)… and poor Claire is so sad that it’s still too cold to go to the splash pad and Cowabunga Bay (her favorite places). Some days she carries around her Little Mermaid swimsuit with her all day (like in the above picture).
Over a week or so ago we received a call from Larry’s (my father-in-law) hospice nurse telling us that Larry is now in the end of his days. We packed up our kids (above picture) and took them to say “goodbye” to their Grandpa. Since Larry is so young, he’s held on longer than anyone suspected but is not expected to remain with us here for much longer. It’s broken our hearts much more than we expected, since we’ve been anticipating the end for a few years now. However, we’ve felt the warm, protective care of angels and know our family is being strengthened and blessed at this time of mourning. We feel the greatest comfort in knowing that soon Larry’s health struggles will be over and he will be freed from his broken body. We rejoice for him that he has served his life so well and with so much love and know he will be reunited with many loved ones as he is welcomed home.
Life for our family has had many difficult moments over the past few years, but has had countless more beautiful moments and precious blessings that we will treasure forever. We love our little family so much and feel so blessed to be honored with receiving another sweet babe into our family this fall. Our family will most likely be growing by two this year as we are also continuing to prepare to receive our child from foster/adoptive care also. We receive time and again undeniable confirmation that this is God’s will for our family and are anxious to continue on this path He has designed for us. We know that God lives and that He loves us. It’s such an exciting time in our family’s life. We’re at the threshold of death, welcoming new life – what a miracle God’s plan is for us.
Happy Easter to all you beautiful, supportive loved ones who bring our family so much joy and love. You all mean so much to us! We wish you a peaceful, uplifting Easter day!
p.s. I took the opportunity today to update each of my kid’s scrapbook page links in the nav menu. I actually have been stealing a few seconds here and there to scrapbook, which is always so fabulous. Ahhhh..
Big News, Birthdays and the Everyday
First off, we have very BIG news…. we’re pregnant again! So far, everything is moving forward really well – baby is healthy and growing normally. When I miscarried last time I was 11 weeks pregnant and the baby had died around 9 weeks along. With this pregnancy, I’ve had two ultrasounds already and will have another done this week to confirm that everything is going alright. I’m 11 weeks along, so I am almost over the hump of when we lost the last baby. We’re VERY excited about this pregnancy and are hoping everything will continue to go really well.
All of the ultrasounds have been to also watch a large ovarian cyst I developed at the same time as getting pregnant. The cyst is as large as a golf ball, but seems to be fluid-filled and so is less dangerous than if it were solid. It’s been quite painful, though, as it’s been leaking fluid here and there, as well as the pain/discomfort from the baby continuing to grow and squish the cyst. Because of this, I’ve not been living at full potential as I’m needing to take it easy most of the time. I’ve also had bad insomnia and pregnancy fatigue with this pregnancy which has made life a little more interesting. Luckily, I have such a wonderful support network with Randy, my parents and friends helping me when they can. My doctor is hoping that I’ll start to feel a lot better in a few weeks after the placenta has fully developed and the baby has grown more out of my pelvic cavity. I’m hoping so, too. My kids have been soooo good and sweet with all of this, though. I’m especially grateful for that.
The kids enjoying clear weather by coloring with sidewalk chalk and playing with their toy strollers.
The kids have been watching a lot of movies, eating a lot of popcorn and we’ve been reading a lot of books. Norah is the most insistent about what show we watch. Right now her favorite movie is “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” (like Tate). She asks for it all the time, saying “moo-wee-sho” (movie show). We’ve been trying to have them all watch a lot more “educational” shows also, however, like “Little Einsteins,” “Signing Time” and “Super Why.”
This past Wednesday my mom took pity on us and took the kids and I to Free Zoo Day. We’ve gone every year for the past 5 years. This year it was snowing and all the cats were really wild and fun to see. Claire was freezing the whole time, however, so she didn’t enjoy it as much as Tate and Norah seemed to. All in all, though, it was a great outing and I’m so grateful for my mom taking us out. (On my pro-mom-blog, TheArtisticMom.com, I posted pics from every Free Zoo Day we’ve been to. Feel free to check out that post and watch how our family has grown over the past 5 years – so fun: Free Zoo Day: The Legacy.)
Yesterday was my Mom’s 50th Birthday!!! Can you believe it?! I can’t. We threw her a little party filled with chocolate (mom’s favorite treat) and good friends. It was a really nice night.
Mom opening a present of a new necklace (from us), cutting some chocolate cake and laughing during conversation and looking at an exotic chocolate birthday gift with a friend.
Tate’s chocolate face – enjoyed the chocolate from the chocolate fountain a bit too much.
Me & Claire (chocolate all over her shirt, but a smile on her face).
Crystal holding Norah. Norah spent the whole party going back and forth between Crystal, Devin and Opa (giving lots of snuggles and asking for candy).
Finally, a Chance to Get Outdoors!
This week the weather was a bit warmer and more clear, so the kids got the chance to go outside a bit. They LOVED it! Poor things have been cooped up indoors for soooo long. This winter is seeming to drag on a bit, so this week was a welcome break for everybody. The kids even played outside with sidewalk chalk (even drew on the crusty, frozen bits of snow), drawing pictures all over our driveway and sidewalk.
Yesterday Randy took the kids outside in the backyard where they played and played and played. They were sooo happy out there that I had to snap a few pictures:
Miss Claire Belle – can’t believe she’ll be 3 in a month!! Time has flown so fast! This week she’s especially enjoyed “reading” to Norah. She likes Norah to sit on her lap or next to her and then has Norah point to things she has her find in the books, “where’s the cat, Norah?” Norah absolutely LOVES reading with Claire. Claire is Norah’s big helper. It’s so fun to watch the magic of their “sisters” relationship unfold. Since I never had a sister, but always wanted one, I love watching their relationship blossom. Claire is especially looking forward to warmer weather. Almost daily she tells Randy that she wants to go to the “splash pad!!!” to which he reminds her that it’s too cold to go. Friday she started asking to wear her swimsuit. I think she’d be happy to wear a swimsuit every day if we let her.
Tate-o-bug has been the most enthusiastic to play outside. I have a feeling this summer he’ll want to be outdoors constantly. Tate’s favorite movie right now is “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.” He loves to watch it and thinks it’s the coolest movie ever. The only bad part of this love is that he “plays meatball movie” a lot by throwing food in the air to have it rain on everyone. I think he’s pretty surprised that no matter how many times he does it, no one thinks it’s quite as fun as he intends it to be. We had a playdate at our house on Friday and Tate kept running around humming the themesong from the movie while throwing food on everybody. It didn’t go over that well, sadly. ;)
Norah (“Mimi”) is getting so grown up and BUSY. I thought she was busy before but she just keeps getting busier and more into EVERYTHING. She loves playing with Tate and Claire and follows almost whatever they do, including trying to climb up to our big slide in our backyard. Norah’s vocabulary has just blossomed overnight, it seems. She now says sentences and things like “ooh-see” (oopsie), “ah wuv ooh” (I love you), “uh-kay” (okay) and “crry-see” (crazy). Luckily Norah is still just as cuddly as ever.
All three kiddos have been sick lately, so this week was the first week in awhile that they’ve felt well. Yay! We feel so blessed with our sweet little family. Our kids are the light of our lives.
Tutus and Silly Faces
The other day I had so much fun pulling out my camera while the kids were playing. Claire and Norah were dancing around in their tutus, playing with Tate. Here’s some of my favorite pics from that morning:
Claire twirling like a ballerina until she got too dizzy and would fall down.
Norah twirling and jumping on the little trampoline.
I discovered a clever trick to get a good smile out of Tate: have him give me a really funny face and then snap the picture right after he can’t hold the funny face anymore and starts to laugh. Worked like a charm!
Oh, I loved these pics of Claire! So many of the ones I took of her turned out so fun. She has the sweetest, most delightful expression on her face in these, like she’s experiencing PURE JOY.
Oh my goodness! Aren’t these the cutest kids EVER?! I completely adore them (of course) and am having even more fun with them every day.
Late Christmas Update
It’s official: I’m out of the habit of writing weekly in this blog. Dang it. I’ve got to get back in the habit as I really love to have a log of our weekly happenings. This is my journal of our family. So, I thought I better at least catch up and put in something about Christmas before writing about what’s happened lately.
We had a WONDERFUL Christmas! The kids were all so excited and “in” to it this year. They went nuts with anticipation of Santa coming. They have also really attached themselves to the story of Joseph, Mary and Baby Jesus. Tate and Claire pretend play all the time (even now) that they are Mary and Joseph and that one of their dolls is Baby Jesus. I’m glad the story stuck with them. ;)
Here’s some pictures from Christmas:
All 3 kids sitting on their new little sofa with their presents from Santa.
The kids enjoying their Santa gifts. Norah LOVES to color. She was thrilled to get art supplies in her stocking and spent awhile drawing in her new notebook. Claire LOVES to pretend that random things are microphones so we bought her a real microphone for Christmas. She has so much fun with that. Claire had been telling us all December long that she wanted a “pink kitty and a fancy dolly.” Santa left her both and she just loves them. Santa left Tate a Thomas the Train pedal bike. He’s gotten so good at riding on his toddler balance bike that we felt it was time for him to try pedals. He’s looking forward to the snow melting so he can really work on learning to ride it. I’m sure this summer he’s going to just fly around on this bike.
Norah and Opa are really good buddies. Norah loved having Opa play with her and her new toys on Christmas morning. Oma and Opa gave the kids a really lovely bookshelf filled with lots of new books for Christmas. The kids have thoroughly enjoyed pulling out new books to read all the time. All 3 of my kids LOVE to read. This gift makes us feel like we have a library in our home! It’s so fun!
Claire really attached to Grandma on Christmas morning. She entrusted Grandma to watch over all of Claire’s presents. Claire was pretty over-protective of her gifts. I think it was hard for her to realize that they were all hers (Tate’s birthday had traumatized her a bit into thinking that gifts were for someone else and she’d have to wait for them to share the new toys with her). Grandma didn’t mind at all, though. Alan was really happy to receive a new, blank canvas to paint on. He tried to explain to the kids what it was, but I don’t think they understood at all. Maybe after he paints something on it they’ll understand better. All 3 kids had a lot of fun reading stories with Oma on Christmas morning.
I realized this holiday season that I rarely get pictures of Randy and I during holidays so I tried to take more of Randy this Christmas. This was one of my favorites. Love you, Randy!!!
Claire and Norah thought it was really fun to help open Devin and Crystal’s gifts. Devin and Crystal were so nice to let them help. All 3 kids couldn’t get enough of opening presents. They thought it was so much fun!
We were so blessed this year with such a wonderful family Christmas! On Christmas Eve I made a fancy dinner for our family (Randy, me, the kids and Alan) and we ate it up on our dining table by candlelight. The kids really loved it! Christmas Morning Tate and Norah were the first awake and they woke up Claire. Claire was under the misconception for awhile that Santa would be coming to our door, ringing the doorbell and then giving us their gifts. She was still pleasantly surprised to see all the gifts that he had just left there on Christmas Morning. My parents, Grandma, Devin and Crystal all came over on Christmas morning to have SCRUMPTIOUS Christmas Brunch with us. Then, that afternoon we all went over to my parents’ house and then had a YUMMY Christmas dinner with everyone. All in all we felt very blessed to have such a beautiful, happy Christmas.
Catching Up
Oh, my goodness!! Has the whole month of December really gone by and I’ve only written once?! Where does the time go? I’ve been a little burnt out on Sundays which is usually when I write, so I haven’t gotten around to keeping up on my weekly post. I’ve had some pics on my desktop, waiting to be blogged, so before doing today’s official post I thought I’d quickly post the pics from the past few weeks.
Randy and I celebrated our 6 year anniversary!! These were the flowers he surprised me with. Aren’t they lovely?! 6 years! Can you believe it? It was even more special for us, though, because this year marked 10 years of knowing each other. We met 10 years ago December and hooked up at our high school’s Christmas dance. We were fast friends and the rest is history. I wake up each day in awe that I really did marry Randy. He’s the man of my dreams and always will be. He surpasses my dreams, honestly. Each day, each month, each year gets even better than the last. Happy Anniversary, sweetheart!!
I had the kids paint with glue and then we sprinkled salt over it while it was still wet. They made some really fun creations and we had a great time.
Ann, my sweet friend, and I took our girls (Kennady and Claire) to see the Nutcracker Ballet. They both adore princesses, twirly dresses and dancing so we thought they’d love it. Ann was really smart and brought a big bag of treats for the girls to snack on through the performance; it saved them. They really did enjoy it, mostly. It was hard for them to sit still through the 2nd act, but other than that, we had a great time. I loved showing Claire the ballet and getting to have her all to myself for a rare few hours.
Afterwards, we went to “Clara’s Candy Cane Caper” where the girls got to meet the ballerinas and have their picture taken with them. Claire was completely enchanted. While she doesn’t look very happy in any of the pictures, she was actually in heaven and didn’t want to ever leave. She loved Clara’s twirly pink dress and the Sugar Plum Fairy’s sparkly dress. It was such a lovely day with Claire; we always have a great time with Ann and Kennady. Claire and Kennady are such good buddies and love being together.
Tate’s Birthday
This year we had a great time with Tate’s birthday. He’s FOUR now… can you believe it? We can’t either.
He has been wanting the Cars GeoTrax MegaSet for his birthday for months. We should have bought it months ago, but, as we often do, we waited until the last minute. I started looking online for it on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. It had sold out of Toys R Us online, but said it was available at one Toys R Us location near our home. However, we I called the store, they couldn’t find any but said they expected some to come in a shipment that night. We called the next day, Wednesday, and they hadn’t received any during the night but expected them to come in a shipment that night again. The next day was Thanksgiving, so the next time Toys R Us would be open was Black Friday. Oh yes… we started to panic. They opened at midnight on Thanksgiving, so Randy (super-dad) went over at midnight and ended up waiting outside in the freezing cold in line for two hours. Then, when he finally got in the store, he couldn’t find the set anywhere. Finally, after some serious searching he found two sets hidden on a low shelf. He snagged one and ran to get into the crazy-long line. While in line, he noticed that some of the stickers were askew and coming off, so he hopped out of line and rushed back, hoping no one had taken the other set. Luckily, it was still there – phew! He got back in line and ended up waiting in line another two hours, finding a few other presents along the way to give the kids for Christmas. Randy finally got home around 5:30am. It was quite an adventure, but Randy certainly saved Tate’s birthday by going through all the trouble to find what Tate had wanted so badly.
We wanted Tate to open his gift, the Cars GeoTrax set, before his party because we knew it would be mayhem at the party and that Tate would never want to go to bed afterwards. Our plan was to wake Tate up a little before Randy went to work (around 6:15am) and have Tate open the present then. Luckily, however, Tate woke up to go to the bathroom around 5:30am and we just kept him up. It was perfect!
Tate opened the present and there was enough time that Randy could help him put it together and see him play with it for a bit before Randy went to work. When the girls woke up, they were VERY excited about Tate’s new toy, also. Claire immediately claimed the “Sally” car as hers and was very defensive about it the rest of the day (had some birthday envy that was a little tricky to deal with at times). Tate played with his new toy all day long.
That evening, we had Tate’s birthday party. I loved making his invitations this year (well, I guess I always love doing that, but these were my favorite). We tried to keep the invite list small, primarily inviting boys that are around his age whom he really enjoys playing with. We had the unique opportunity of having a friend of mine plan the party (she’s a party planner and I traded her for food/party photography). The theme was dinosaurs and the colors were gray, red and teal to give it kind of a vintage look.
She brought some really fun elements to the party. The balloon bouquet on the table was tied to a big bone (the giant red balloon was adored by everyone). All the cupcakes had little dinosaur pictures on sticks stuck into them (my mom made the cupcakes and they were YUMMY!!!).
Each child took home a “dinosaur egg” as their favor. It was made of a dirt/salt dough mixture and inside was a little toy dinosaur. The centerpiece was a big dinosaur which had been frozen in ice. It melted gradually the whole night; the kids were slightly disappointed that it didn’t melt all the way by the end, but it was a great conversation piece. She also made brushes for the kids to be “paleontologists” and find dinosaur bones in a sand pit in our garage.
The kids especially loved finding dinosaur bones. After finding them, they came back inside to put them together. Then, Tate opened presents (and got spoiled rotten, I might add, thanks to everyone’s generosity).
And then it was time for a dinner of dinosaur chicken nuggets, soup, muffins, rolls and fresh fruit. Afterwards we sang “Happy Birthday,” followed by cupcakes and ice cream.
We had all the kids sit on kid-size tables, which was a lot of fun (thanks to my dad for bringing theirs over and getting ours from outside).
Norah thoroughly enjoyed her cupcake, diving face-first right into it (over and over again – would have thought she was raised in a pig pen). It was adorable.
Overall, we just had a blast with Tate’s birthday. He’s been looking forward to it, talking about it and planning it for MONTHS. I think it actually exceeded his expectations – YAY!
