Thursday, December 1, 2011

birthday requests and favorites

emma had several specific birthday requests for yesterday. the first? cupcakes. second, that she wear her one tough cookie shirt from auntie jenn. later in the day (after preschool and evening church) she asked that georgie not be allowed to open her presents, because she is a big girl and can do it herself. love that little girl. and now, here is a little bit about her, from her mouth.

1. What is your favorite color? yellow
2. What is your favorite toy? my new toy (little people carnival set)
3. What is your favorite fruit? mango
4. What is your favorite tv show? piglet (we happen to be watching her new winnie the pooh movie)
5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? cheese
6. What is your favorite outfit? a pink dress (i have no clue.)
7. What is your favorite game? the one i like to play with my daddy (a giant floor puzzle)
8. What is your favorite snack? cheese, hanmburgers
9. What is your favorite animal? kangaroos, big kangaroos
10. What is your favorite song? abc
11. What is your favorite book? the boat book (little golden book about the tug boat)
12. Who is your best friend? cheese. cheese is my friend. (i asked again.) claire!
13. What is your favorite cereal? smarshmello mladies (love that!)
14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? paint
15. What is your favorite drink? juice
16. What is your favorite holiday? my birthday
17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? my ni-nis
18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? cheese
19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday? pancakes
20. What do you want to be when you grow up? i dont know. (quickly followed by) a mommy. i want to take care of babies. (like me?) yeah. yes, like you. like you.
(AW! melt. what a sweet three year old i have. also, apparently the girl loves cheese. mark that down as another trait she gets from her daddy.)


pumpkin cupcakes for breakfast

 birthday party, opening presents
 balloon games

 and for dinner: cheese. 
i just love her.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

three

tomorrow is emmas birthday.

im almost lost for words at what else to say.

at bedtime tonight georgie was asleep in my arms from exhaustion. she had played and kept him awake all of nap time and at 545 tonight he was just done. so bedtime came early at 6. i sat beside her bed and we talked about tomorrow. her eyes got wide, her voice went low and breathy- her birthday? it was like, well, it was like i told her tomorrow is her birthday. i could see her brain searching for all birthday related information and the first two things she told me were that auntie jenn has a present for her, and there will be cupcakes.

the present she gets to open in the morning is from aunt katie, and i guess i need to get to figuring out a breakfast cupcake for her! im thinking something along the likes of this pumpkin cream cheese muffin with a little spiced cream cheese frosting. also, im planning to hang ribbon and a couple balloons from her door way to surprise her when she wakes up. i just wish she didnt wake so early so i could plan to be awake and catch her on camera.

so tomorrow, this sweet girl





turns three.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

first day of preschool!

this morning emma went to preschool. well, actually georgie and i took her and dropped her off. she walked in, they showed her where to put her back pack and she tossed it in the cubby and walked away. no good bye, no "i need a hug and a KISS!" like usual, just my big girl on a search for her friend claire.

(i dont have the picture for this, because my hard drive crashed just after i uploaded it.  i do though, have a photo from aug. 27th, one week before she started school, and it will have to do. maybe ill come across the picture of the kids on the stairs somewhere else.) 


Tuesday, August 16, 2011

georgie 14.5 months old

georgie has started to talk to us. my favorite story so far might just be from yesterday. the kids and i were driving home from shopping and george was crying "all done! all done! all done!" the whole way home. i accused jason of teaching him to do that whenever we were shopping.

his favorite and clearest words are:
jack
dog
rough
dada
mwah (kisses)
hi (with his hand phone held up to his ear)
hello
bye bye (with both hands waving)

he also knows:
car
cup
more
milk
all done
mama
emma
night night
up
please
thank you
cat

he loves to play with emma. especially blocks. but a close second would be to pull all the books off the shelf (like he is doing right now.)

night training

during family reunion emma woke up one morning with her first ever dry pull up. she had two or three in the month since then, but nothing regularly. i decided its time to try out some night training.

this week i have been waking her up before we go to bed (usually around 10 or 1030) to potty then putting her back in bed. she doesnt actually wake up, i just hold her up and she acts like a little puddle of a girl. she had one dry night. so the last two days i decided to add a second night time potty break- 2 am, and last night 4am. the 2 am morning was the first all night in panties, and she peed as soon as she woke up in the morning. last night i opted for 4 because it was after 11 when i woke her to potty the first time.

it worked out pretty perfect because she came to our room at 345 because she wanted to sleep with her daddy (aw!) so i was already awake to take her to the potty. she came in again at 5 and went again, and has stayed dry all morning! she was quite excited to be rewarded with hot chocolate at breakfast for staying dry all night long, and i am looking forward to trying again tonight! (fyi, pull ups are about 35 cents a piece. we cut our use in half because she doesnt nap anymore, and the few days she does, she stays in panties. but thats still 10$ a month on pull ups that i dont have to spend anymore!)

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

getting dressed

i love watching emma choose her clothes and get herself dressed in the morning. she chooses panties for the pictures on them (today they are flowers, and pink) and a top and bottom based on weather or not they "are a match". she turns the shirt around several times, then pulls it on her head, pulling pulling to get it over her bump of a nose. them one arm goes in and the other goes in. same routine with her bottoms, today a skirt with sewn in shorts. several turns to get the front in the front and the back in the back, then one leg in, and then the other, and she stands up knees together to pull it up. some days there is a snap or a button that i need to do for her, but because it is summer, that doesnt happen much lately.

i love watching her little brain figure out all the different movements her body needs to make to get into her clothes the right way. i love that she takes after her daddy and always put her clothes on in the same order every time: panties, top, bottom.

its like watching moon plants bloom, watching her learn.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

quickie update

sorry, i dont have time to add in my photos right now, but i wanted to get in a quick update before 2 months pass by.

emmas uti is better, and the pee accidents went right away with the antibiotic. THANK GOD. also, i no longer ask her to use the bathroom unless it is time to leave the house or go to sleep. she is in control of when she goes the rest of the time. shes had two tiny pseudo accidents because shes waited too long, but thats it. good girl. also, while at family reunion she had a dry night! (her first EVER.) when she gets up in the morning, i have her change into panties and leave her pull up on the edge of the tub for me to put in the diaper genie, and this morning i found that it was dry! so thats two now, and she had a TON to drink last night, i was just sure it would be soaked. progress, progress!

when we got home from reunion and camping jason helped me move georgie into emmas room. we had a couple late late nights, but overall they have done really well. george doesnt sleep in anymore, and nap times are hard (especially since emma doesnt really need one every day anymore) but over all the kids enjoy it and i like having the extra space.

though, its not really extra, because this week i moved almost all our toys into the front bedroom. the closet is full of baby items and the stock of diapers, wipes and pull ups. there is my changing table, love seat, and bunk bed still in there, as well as the play kitchen, several bins of toys, and the papasan cushion on the floor. its kind of a full room, but the kids really love it, and i love that all those things are out of my living space.

jason is still in school until the beginning of august, then he has 3 weeks of summer break. i cant wait for break. and neither can he. poor guy.

my garden is growing, and over flowing. we dont have a lot of produce yet with the late summer this year, but i do enjoy looking out at all the squash, corn and tomatoes sticking up. (the green beans, strawberries, carrots, cucumbers and peppers are all too short to see over everything else.) cant wait until we actually get to eat some of it.

so, theres june and july in a nutshell for you!

Friday, July 15, 2011

heidi is fantastic.

we did family photos on georges birthday with jasons parents. as always, heidi took a bajillion great pictures. heres a handful of my favorites.





Wednesday, June 8, 2011

the potty monster

the potty training monster has a name. bladder infection.

i think it went something like this: early april emma finally learns to poop on the potty. late april she has a fit while on the potty at the old house and falls in. pooping on the potty stops. three weeks later she starts having pee accidents. first just at home, then in stores, and at church. a week later she is back to pooping on the potty, but accidents are just as frequent (or more so). yesterday she she peed on the potty she cried. "owie owie owie, my bottom hurts." the third time (before 11am) we went to the doctor.

and emma has a bladder infection. i think the fall caused the poop regression, and the poop regression caused the pee regression (because she wore a poopy pull up to sleep, it caused an infection) so even after i got her over pooping again she was still having pee issues (even more so some days.) but who wants to potty when it hurts? now we have medicine, and a check up next week and potty training should be back on track!

georgie is one

there are no more babies in my house.



Tuesday, May 31, 2011

dont use the zed word

emma has been a handful this week. we are working on re-potty training her because suddenly after 3 months, she isnt anymore. its been full of unexpected peeing and pooping in her pull up at sleep times. its stressful.

yesterday was memorial day and jason had the day off work. we had been staying up too late each night this weekend and monday morning we just wanted to sleep a little late. emma came in to chat/jump on the bed/snuggle/wake us every 15 minutes or so, but we stayed in bed. that is, until she came into our room with her hands out, palms up, covered in blood. or what looked very much like blood.

she wasnt crying. she said shed been painting. we were awake, and out of bed in an instant. i carefully washed her hands thinking still that it could be blood, but found nothing. she told me again she had been painting, so i asked her to show me. she took us upstairs and there jason found a bottle of orange fabric dye (rit liquid dye, if youre curious) with the cap smudged. orange on the floor, orange on a paintbrush on the floor, and then we noticed the walls. there were smudge marks going down the stairs... it looked like a little bloody massacre.

everything wiped up easily (and i am SO THANKFUL. also, she didnt get any on the carpet!) it seems she had been painting, and when she got some on her hands, she closed the lid, put everything back and came down stairs so we could clean up her hands. that will teach us to try and sleep in. and to remember to lock the gates!

before falling asleep i asked jason what time he thought zombie emma would come in to get us in the morning. then i mimicked emma walking in the room arms out, palms up covered in blood chanting "da-da... da-da..." in my best zombie baby voice.

Friday, May 6, 2011

my big little girl.

the little girl is growing up so fast.

this morning she is sitting in the living room playing with her little village of people. she just sang jesus loves you to the little girl.


then i overheard the first prayer i have ever heard her say on her own. it went something like this, "dear jesus, be with mommy and daddy and jonah and emma and george. help us get looooots of rest... and be patient."

Monday, April 4, 2011

today i miss having a dining room table. it might be time to figure out a new sewing solution.

Monday, March 14, 2011

family hair cuts

its been a week of hair cuts around here. first george got an inch trim all over his fuzzy ducky head, then we buzzed off jasons hair. i have been keeping emmas bangs trimmed while the rest of her hair evens out, but unfortunately it was starting to get a little mullet-y. ive been keeping it in piggie tails, but want to let her wear it down sometimes so last night i cut off almost three inches of her baby fine hair too. i need to snap a dry hair picture so you can see how short it really is, but for now, here is her before and after. (jason calls it her "flapper hair")

(ps, does this mean its my turn for a cut too?)






Friday, February 11, 2011

george's birth day

once in a while i thought to myself, did i write down georges birth day yet? but never got around to checking. tonight the house is quiet, kids are sleeping and jasons at mens retreat, and i started thinking about georges birth day again.

we all thought george was going to be a big baby. i measured 3-4 weeks ahead for several months, and i had more aches and pains when he moved as if there wasnt room for him in there. emma was 8 pounds 11 ounces. and george had to be bigger.

so i scheduled an induction. size, my very quick labor, and jason taking summer classes (that were to begin on my due date) convinced me to induce. i picked june 3rd as the day and we packed our bags.

several times i went to the hospital for monitoring hoping to be admitted. the most memorable i think was the night before heidis wedding. we took emma to jesse and sarahs and spent 5 hours at st lukes walking and checking and walking. the contractions were there, they werent going away, but they werent getting any stronger either. so at about 330am they sent us home to rest. we picked up emma in the morning and went to heidis wedding in the evening.

just a few days later, on june 2nd emma stayed the night with jesse and sarah so that we didnt have to drop her off early in the morning on the way to the hospital to be induced. june 3rd, we left home at 615am and headed to st lukes to have a baby.


my last pregnant picture

we went up to the 2nd floor, checked in and waited for our nurse to take us to a room. no triage when you are scheduled for induction. it was around 730 when i first got in my gown and in bed to be monitored for a few minutes while everything else was prepared. i hate those monitors that are strapped around your belly. emma and george both hated them too. they would kick and kick at them and try to wiggle away. so uncomfortable.

time for my iv. i told the nurse my horror story from emma (took longer to get the iv than any other part of labor, and 7 tries.) she went and got someone who was very good and she got it on the second try. well, first really, because the first time she pricked me i was laying in such a way that i got really dizzy really fast. i rolled onto my side, away from the arm she was using, and then she actually got to stick the needle in. the first time she had just barely pricked me and i just couldnt hold still and conscious any longer.

i had packed battleship, uno, and a deck of cards incase we had some time to kill while labor progressed. jason and i played uno for a while before they started my pitocin at 815. then we kept playing. dr anstine came in around 830. i was a 5 when she arrived. she was there to break my water. with emma, my water broke on the 2nd of the three pushes i had to get her out. it was a gush of warm that was so soothing to my aching bits. when dr anstine broke my water this time, i didnt feel anything. not a trickle.

i had been having contractions since before the pitocin was started, and they picked up regularity with the iv. i was told that having my water broken would make them stronger. dr anstine told our nurse that i could have my epidural whenever i wanted it. i told them both that i was pretty sure i didnt want it. at least, i didnt want it right then, and wanted to just see hoe it went. jason and i prepared for this labor knowing that many people experiance more diffucult labor when they are induced and have their membranes atrificially ruptured. but, i have babies quick. i was alrady dialted to a 4 before we began. i knew that the pain might be great, but it would be short lived. i could get through it. that was the game plan.

we played uno until i needed to get up to potty. on the toilet i did feel some amniotic fluid. this is probably way more detail than anyone wants to know, but its part of the story. i was sitting there to pee, but once i was finished, the liquid was still coming out. it really felt like i was wetting myself, but i knew what it was. i got back in bed, and my contractions did get a bit stronger. jason and i kept playing cards. we joked and every time i laughed a little more fluid came out. then i said to jason that i was leaking, and i knew what it felt like to wet the bed and on and on and we just kept giggling. he said things like "you say the sexiest things" and that he didnt care to know anymore about my wetting myself. the nurse checked me again and i was at a 7. im not sure what time that was, but we were still playing cards, and we played until around 930.

when the contractions were strong enough that i didnt want to use my rest time to think, we put them away. jason knew they were hurting by then. he encouraged me to play because he didnt know what else to do but i pushed the cards away and told him no more. so i sat, every one and a half to two minutes having a contraction and crawling like a pill bug inside of myself. then the break came and i tried to make conversation. i asked if it was raining, what jason could see out the window... then another contraction, and i closed my eyes and tucked my head and my arms and legs disappeared as i curled inside of my uterus to snuggle with george. then it was over again.

our nurse saw the intensity of my contractions, checked my cervix and saw i was at a nine. it was 945. she called dr anstine. when dr anstine arrived, she told me that when she got back to the office in the morning she told mattie she thought she would get called back before lunch. she had told me when she left at 830 that she would come see me again around lunch time to check on my progress. something made her think in the five minutes back to the office that it would be much quicker than that, and she was right. she got gloves on and i laid back for her to check me again. she felt as a contraction came and i went from a nine to a ten. i was still making conversation with jason, i needed to talk in the breaks. so i asked him if he thought george would have hair. its had been a big question all along. his guess was just a little fuzz. dr anstine said she didnt think she had felt any hair, but its hard to tell with the gloves on.

the room had several nurses now, i was scooted to the bottom of the bed and georges things were all prepared. a nurse started to raise the bed and set me back up but i was in the middle of a contraction and stopped her. the one thing i would change about this delivery would be at this point, once that contraction was over, i was raised back up to a semi sitting position. but i wasnt. and i couldnt reach around and do it myself, or find the words between contractions to ask someone to do it for me. laying down was great for contracting, but not comfortable for pushing, or for holding my baby afterward. but it was time to push. with emma, i had been afraid of the pain of pushing. that fear kind of got to me this time too. dr anstine asked me if i felt like i could push (i didnt have the urge to push like with emma, but who knows i how long i had been at a ten with her either.) i remember saying, someone needs to tell me i can do it, and being pacified by a couple people in the room saying yes, of course you can. so i pushed. the first one didnt feel very effective. oh the other thing i would change, i had my feet in the stirrups (which was fine) but because i was laying so far down, i couldnt hold them there while i was pushing. one leg kept coming free and that made it more difficult to push. probably why the first push didnt feel like it had done any good.

but i pushed again and there was the burning. no one told me to stop, or that i couldnt push. i had prepared myself for that this time, but it wasnt there. i pushed again, maybe twice, i dont remember, and there he was. my first though as a blanket was spread out to cover my gown was how sticky and bloody and leggy he was. he was still so wet it was strange to touch him. and such long and skinny arms and legs. not the chubby ones i had expected. and he had hair.


so much hair

he was alert. eyes open and taking in the world the first moment i saw him. he was born at 1017am. just two hours after my iv was started.


i held him for a while. delivered the placenta, and then it was time for stitches. i let the nursery staff have him to weigh and measure and send jason to that corner of the room for pictures while i cringed with dr anstine.



i shouted to jason when they put him on the scale, how much does he weigh? how big is he? because it was pretty obvious that he wasnt the chunky monkey we had all expected. he weighed 7 pounds 3 ounces and was 20 and a half inches long. my skinny little boy.

i had three or four stitches, i dont remember, but i do remember the second shot of local because again i could feel as i was being stitched up. after he was weighed and measured, foot printed and his eyes smudged, i got him back.



after all the important things were taken care of, and i had george back in my arms, dr anstine chatted with us a few minutes. then all of a sudden as they are cleaning up medical supplies behind her she asks jason and i if we want to see the placenta. we said sure, neither of us had seem one before, and she seemed eager to show us. a nurse had already packaged it up, but dr anstine got the bin it was in back off the cart and opened it up. she pulled out what looked like a dinner plate sized tenderized steak with a filmy stretchy hanging bag thing on the back of it. she explained that we were see the side that was connected to me, but that the sack george grew in actually delivers inside out. when the babys cord pulls, it tugs the placenta from the inside to the outside of the bag. she turned the filmy bag on itself and we could see what george saw for the last nine months, a large smooth placenta and attached cord. it was gross, but also kind of cool to see what had helped george grow all those months.

i changed gowns, we went upstairs to our room and settled in all before lunch. when i packed our bags, and packed georges things, i brought a crochet hat for him. the babies in the hospital are always wearing hats, but they are those pink and blue and white knit ones and really not very cute. i had made emma a blanket to come home in and to have as her first mommy made treasure, and wanted george to have something too. but in june, a home made blanket to come home in didnt seem as good an idea. (and he does have his blanket. its the blue and brown one. it was waiting for him at home.) what i didnt know was how famous he would be because of that little beanie. all the nursery staff talked about him, and other people peeking in the nursery windows commented. even waiting for the elevator to go down to the lobby and go home a woman came out as we were going in and said to me and to her friend, thats the baby with that adorable hat! and he was pretty cute in it if you ask me.



in the afternoon jesse came by with emma (and jesse jay and toby) to meet george. he took lots of first family pictures for me when we introduced emma to her brand new little brother.



we stayed overnight and came home the afternoon of the 4th. on the way home from the hospital we stopped by jasons office to pick up his tennis shoes. he had been in his boots the last two days because he had forgotten them at work after his run. and, we showed off the baby, tucked into his car seat after his very first trip.



when we got home that evening, jason was exhausted. (so was i, but i wasnt the one snoozing with the baby.)



and thats how my little boy came from my tummy, back to our home.

Monday, January 10, 2011

our january 2011

we are only a week and a half in, but so far january has left its gloomy mark. jason and i have been sick (sick enough that we have made three separate purchases of day quill.) and cranky. we are on the home stretch of the awful, and looking forward to his last week of break being a little brighter.

last week we also started a new phase with emma. the attempted potty training. in a solid week, we had three pees on the potty two pees on the floor, one poo on the floor, two poos in training pants, three pees in training pants, six diapers off (in a single nap time) three pees in bed, and three poos in bed. and i didnt even count the pees and poos in the diapers. so, im going to say that emma is not quite ready for potty training, but i gave it a healthy try. i will still have her sit on the potty at bath time and bed time, and talk to her about where her pees and poos need to go (the potty) when i change her, but i will not spend days watching her bare or training pant covered bum each moment to see if shes gone and asking every fifteen to thirty minutes if she would please sit and try to go pee pee on the potty. we will try again in february.

jason has one week of break left, and we are going to try to squeeze every bit of productivity out of it possible. on saturday i purged the kitchen cabinets (not the pantry yet, im getting there) of everything that we do not need/want/use and have over filled a diaper box for good will. jason took care of the christmas lights, and cleaning up jacks poo outside. yesterday we started on the laundry, two loads folded. today i will get two more finished, and two more through the wash/dryer. saturday jason plans to tackle the desk in our room and get his paperwork in order. once that is finished our room will be clean! (i already went through the closet a second time, organizing clothes, pulling out a couple more good will items and several more shirts that are now too-big enough to go into the maternity bag upstairs.)

less productive, more sentimental note, seven days until the six year mark for jason and i. we first met january 17 2005. thats exciting. also, i ordered my anniversary present on friday and it should arrive any day now. i told jason i wanted a new bible for our fifth anniversary. the traditional gift is wood, so we are calling the paper, made from trees, the wood. i chose the NLT Sanctuary Devotional Bible out of all of them i looked at. i think i will enjoy it very much.

on the sewing front, i really want to make some of these hanging storage baskets for the kids toys/book/what-not but i havent quite settled down on where they would be most useful. in the living room, under the window where my recliner sits, or against the wall that the love seat backs up to seem like the best places, but are also places clearly being used for other things. so i will have to think on this for a while still. (just writing that makes me want to start rearranging furniture. if i had a new place for the couch, i could put all the kids toys under the bar against that wall, including their little kitchen! but then where do i put our largest piece of furniture? hmmm... :)