Our Family Four

Mother's Day

2013-05-15T08:35:00.001-05:00

We celebrated the US Mother's Day this year.

This is partly because the UK Mother's Day was right after Hannah and I arrived home from our trip home in March. I was looking at something on the computer and turned to Chris.

Did you know that tomorrow is Mother's Day?

It is? No, I didn't…actually…Jayce made you a Mother's Day card at school this week and I told him it wasn't Mother's Day...

Then they told me they would take me to dinner, but since I was jet lagged I took a 3+ hour nap instead. So we delayed it.Also, and more importantly, this year I would actually be with my mom on Mother's Day, which I haven't been able to do for about 4 years, so it was due. And it was great.This is also why I have been MIA for about 2 weeks.

I meant to write briefly about that on here, but instead I was doing the "frantic scrub down of the house" that I do before company comes, despite the fact that, not only do my mom and sister not care if my house is clean, they would have helped me clean if I had just waited a few more days. Oh well.And now I have hundreds (literally-like 600) photos to sort through and share here. I promise I won't share all 600.

I need to get on it because there is a big birthday party this weekend as well. Wish me luck.

Freeze

2013-05-01T06:37:00.001-05:00

Hannah. You should know that right now, at this exact age, (22-ish months), is where your dad and I would like to freeze you.You are SO fun. So so fun.

You are chattering all the time. Walking around the house, being pushed in your stroller, riding the bus, playing with your toys-it doesn't matter. You are narrating what you see, reacting to it, telling us about it, and engaging in it, and with your ever expanding vocabulary and baby pronunciation, it is often a joy to listen.

Oh! A cat!! Hi cat!! Meow. Mommy, a cat go? Where gone cat? Ca-at! Where are you cat?! Oh, flower!! Mom, flower! Bu-ful flower. Smell flower? Delicious. (Yes she thinks flowers smell delicious.)

As I'm typing this out, I realize that it sounds a little crazy and maybe a bit much. And sometimes it is. But it is so funny too. More and more of the baby babble are actual words and it is a delight to hear you actually speaking in little fragmented sentences.
Daddy! A chocolate cookie! Come on!
Listening to the joy in your voice as you react to the things around you makes it almost impossible not get excited with you.

You are hugging us with tight squeezes around the neck. You often decide that it is time for squeezes or kisses and won't sit down until everyone in the house has received them, at least once. But you normally reserve multiple hugs for Jayce, who is the least excited to receive them.

You are repeating what you hear in hilariously appropriate times. It just makes me laugh how spot on you normally are.

Yesterday I loudly exclaimed "Oh no!" to myself when I realized that I had forgotten something. You came running over with a concerned face, and said, "A wrong mommy? You okay?"

If we sneeze or cough, you'll say bless you, "Besh you. Besh you mommy. A cough."

You say "yes sir" now, even to me. I remember Jayce going through the phase of saying "yes sir" to me as well, though he was much older. But it sounds so funny though in your little voice and pronunciation, which sounds like "ye-shu." I smile every time.

I think you have a little crush on one of the tv presenters on the kids channel, Andy. I don't really know why he stands out to you, he isn't on a favorite show or anything. But I noticed last week that when he's on, you yell "Andy!," run over in front of the tv, and smile and dance around a little bit. True, he is a part of a duet that dances and sings about a different number every day, but you seem to like him in between as well. This morning you were playing on your phone and I heard you saying, "Wha doin' Andy? Okay. Buh bye. See you soon." So I guess now we have to deal with you pretend talking on the phone with boys. You still just LOVE your bear. Whenever you first grab it, you give it a bit hug between your cheek and shoulder and say "Awwww!!" like you are in the picture above. It is so precious. I have no intention of taking that thing away from you. The paci, however, it's days are numbered.
Your favorite other thing right now is a show (and the characters) called In the Night Garden, but you call it Iggle Piggle, who is the main character. Whoever made it has obviously cracked into the minds of 1 and 2 year olds everywhere, because little kids are crazy over it and you are no exception. Even though I can barely pronounce the names of the characters and their things (the Ninky Nonk, Macka Packa, The Tombleyboos, etc.) you declare all of their names as soon as they pop up onto the screen and just adore the whole thing.
There is a live show coming to Richmond this summer, and though your dad isn't happy about it, I think we'll be taking you. You are absolutely delighted every time that it comes on, so I can't wait to see how you'd respond to seeing it in person.

There are a million other things that you do every day that just kill me and try as I may, I just can't get pictures of them all or remember each thing to record here. So if you could just freeze at this age for a little bit, that would be great.

Soccer

2013-04-28T17:02:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago Jayce started soccer. For some reason it was kind of a big deal to us.
I've written before a bit about how Jayce had a rough start at the beginning of the school year. He also had a kind of rough experience at a basketball camp that we took him to.

Chris' school was holding a basketball camp one night a week for various ages starting at age 6. Chris had talked to one of the coaches and they had thought that it would be fine to bring Jayce along and see how he liked it, so we did. We thought it might be a fun distraction for him, but it didn't really work out.

First off, he was a young 4, and there is very big difference between 4 and 6 year olds.

Second, Chris stayed to watch, but at one point had shifted where he was sitting to a spot closer to Jayce. But even though he was closer to Jayce, Jayce hadn't seen Chris move. He glanced up at one point, didn't see Chris where he had been sitting, and kind of freaked out. (Nothing crazy, he just got upset and wanted to leave.) So we decided not to go back.

That was months ago and in the midst of an unsettled time for him.

This camp is for kids in Reception and Year 1, (basically ages 4-6), and we found out about it through a flyer that came home with him from school. So it was his age group and there was a good chance that there might be someone there that he knew. It turns out that it didn't matter.
He was really excited about his soccer gear. I had bought it for him a few weeks before, gave it to him during spring break and he tried most of it on nearly every day. On the way to the camp we passed our neighbors who were walking home, and Jayce informed them, "I'm going to soccer and I have all of the stuff. Shin guards, soccer socks, soccer pants, soccer shirt, water bottle and ball. Everything!" He was so ready. But he was also a little hesitant. He had mentioned to Chris and I each that he kind of didn't want to go. We didn't push it.But when we arrived he saw all of the kids kicking their balls around and ran excitedly onto the field. He was fine. He ran and kicked and smiled, went up to the coach and asked if he wanted to see his "cool move" and then showed the guy before he could even respond. The camp was an hour long, and he would occasionally look over at Chris and I, smile, and give us a thumbs up. It was a total success.Strangely, or maybe not, Chris and I both felt a strong sense of success while we were there and afterwards. Not just that Jayce had a great time, although we were delighted by that. But it just felt like the type of thing that you do when you are settling in somewhere and feeling at home-enrolling your kid in an after school sport.

I don't know why this gave us more of a sense of settling in than, say, enrolling him in a 32 hours a week, 42 weeks a year school? Or signing a year lease on our flat? Maybe it was because those were things that we had to do but this was something additional that we elected to do? Regardless of why, it was really satisfying to watch him run around so happily and walk home together knowing that we have 11 more Monday afternoons of this. I mentioned this camp to a new friend who has recently moved to the area with a little boy Jayce's age. I said that it might help that Jayce was there if he was feeling nervous about being around all new kids. She said about her son, "Oh no, he never gets nervous around other kids, even new ones."

I immediately thought, "Yeah, neither did Jayce. Until he suddenly did."

It's such a relief for us that this fear about new people and us leaving him seems to have been conquered. It's a relief to just watch him being himself, feeling confident, feeling comfortable, and having a great time.

The second week of camp we were happily surprised to discover that one of his friends from his class was also in the camp. It's nice that he has one of his friends there with him. But I'm a little glad that the kid wasn't there for the first week, and that Jayce's level of comfort hadn't just come from a familiar face.Also, and maybe this should go without saying, but Hannah loved it. We could hardly keep her off the field even though she had her own little ball. Only two more years until she can join a soccer camp of her own, but in the meantime she ran onto the field, antagonized Jayce by drinking from his water bottle against his wishes, and yelled for him from the sidelines. She was quite the little cheerleader. And my basketball-bred husband was such a proud dad watching from the sidelines.

It was a good day for all.

Let's Decorate: In the Living Room

2013-04-25T16:30:00.001-05:00

My goal for March was to decorate. We've been here long enough now that most things place, and I haven't rearranged the living room in 4 months, which means that I've finally found a layout that works best. So now for the fun part, the sprinkling in of details and personality. The bummer is that by the end of the month I felt like I had barely scratched the surface. But I DID get some things in place. And to make me feel better about it, I'm numbering them. Numbers make me feel like progress has happened. :)1.) Cushion for my desk chair.

2.) Kids seating solution/Rollie Pollie.

3.) Add mood lighting.

4.) Hate the new lamp's shade and re-cover it.

5.) Hang peg board in my little office nook. (Notice on the blue paper Jayce drew a picture of me with my hair in a high ponytail and my bangs! The details he takes into account are so funny sometimes, and I love it. My Mother's Day card says "I love my mommy because she always kisses me." Sweetie.)6.) New pillows!! I love these so much, yes, I made them and yes, those are zippers! Questionably installed or not, they are zippers.7.) Conceal the monstrous eye sore/air conditioner that you can see here.8.) Wall art above the piano.

(Plan A didn't really turn out, and I hate to be a one-trick pony, but a big chalkboard in a semi glitzy frame, in the middle of a light-colored wall just looks cool to me.)

9.) Add color.

10.) Add plants.

Run out of cash to buy plants, so clip pretty branches with budding white flowers and stick them in vases around the house.
11.) Add some sort of Easter decor. (Remember, this was in March.)

That's that for the living room, but I think that 11 things in one month in one room isn't too bad.

The kitchen got lightly decked out as well, but that is for another day.

Like tomorrow.

Hannah Says

2013-04-24T08:47:00.001-05:00

She has started using some more adult phrases instead of kid phrases for things, like announcing that her food is delicious instead of yummy (pronounced "ye-yi-shous"), or instead of buh-bye when we leave, will call out "Bye Dad! See you soon!"

She has been conditioned to respond to U of L gear with Go Cards! If one of us is wearing a U of L shirt or hat, or she sees a shirt drying or the mascot on a computer, she immediately yells "Go Cards," and it sounds like "Gee cowds!" It's funny.

She gets a little bit British on me when she loses something or someone.

She'll say "Mom?" and then, "Where's she gone?!" instead of "Where'd she go?" Then she starts calling "Mom!! Are are you?!" with a hand (or two) beside her mouth to help her call just a little more loudly.

She has just finally started saying "I love you." She has hundreds of words in her vocabulary it seems, but those ones have just finally caught on and we're glad.
When she wakes up in the morning she calls for Chris, but has started occasionally calling for me about an hour or so after she goes to bed out of no where. She hasn't been fussing or crying or anything, but will just suddenly yell, "Mom! Mom! Mom!" Last night she did this about an hour and a half after I'd put her to bed, and Chris said, "It's like she's been sitting up there just playing solitaire or something." She didn't want anything in particular, she wasn't sad or dirty, just hadn't fallen asleep yet and decided to shout for me. Our little rascal.

Spring Break

2013-04-21T08:46:00.001-05:00

I mentioned before that one of the reasons that I was falling behind with the catching up on blogging in April was that Jayce has a very long spring break. March 29 to April 16, wow! So what did we do in that time? As far as major trips, none. We are about to have a happy flurry of visitors over the summer and a trip to the US at the end of the summer, so we didn't go anywhere just now.

Hannah decided that she wanted to wear Jayce's under ware over top of her pajamas all day long. Even when I took them off, she tracked them down and put them back on. We played with the cutest set of plastic eggs that has ever been discovered from a second hand shop. Jayce slept with his Rescue Heroes in bed with him and his Cards hat got the pillow spot. We started enforcing that Hannah only use her pacifier at bed times, and often find her sadly standing next to her crib when it is just out of her reach.

We got together with friends at parks and at our flat. The kids found a few 10 minute slots to play together nicely. Jayce helped me make Easter decorations which we hung up. He set up his room/bed like a museum with his toys.

Jayce drew pictures, made play dough versions of us, and arranged his lunch into various shapes instead of eating it, helped me fold the laundry, and had his face painted like the Green Lantern at a party.And that was about it. Or at least all that I got photos of.

This Morning

2013-04-19T08:35:00.001-05:00

This morning before school I came downstairs and Jayce was decked out in his Cards gear. A new U of L hat, U of L t-shirt, and red pajama pants. He had changed into this as soon as he got up, thinking that it was a Saturday.

He called me into the living room as I was packing his lunch because he wanted to know why we don't have black lines around our bodies like people do on tv. He was holding his hand up, inspecting it to see if it had a black line around it. His mind obviously works differently than mine does before 8 am. I have no idea what I told him.

Hannah has taken to saying "Suggle me!" this week, meaning snuggle me. (Jayce used to say "Nuggle me" when he was her age, something that he thinks is so funny now.) She asks to be suggled when she's tired, a few times from her crib when she's not tired enough, yesterday when it was raining and I had forgotten the rain cover for her stroller (and my coat!), and when she's in trouble. Last night she poured a whole container of salt all over the table and her lap, and when Chris told her no and lifted her up out of it, she burst into tears and cried "Suggle me!!" which we did as we laughed.

This morning as we walked home from dropping Jayce off at school, she sang from her stroller, "Choc-o-late o choc-o-late, Eeee iiiiii eeee iiiii oooooooo!!"

I'm with her. Who needs a farm when you've got chocolate?

Sometimes I feel like I love these two so much that I'm going to burst from it.

Sometimes life is busy and there isn't time for a full on blog post. So here is a slice of the good stuff.

Easter

2013-04-15T08:22:00.001-05:00

Easter Sunday was freezing, but I felt like we had to get those "before church Easter Sunday" pictures. So we gathered a quick minute in the hallway on our way out and went with it.

Yep, this is us, right now. Happy Easter.

I Made Hannah A Dress

2013-04-14T15:04:00.001-05:00

Last weekend, I made Hannah a dress. On Friday I put the pattern together, cut it out, and started sewing. I sewed again on Saturday night, a late one, while we watched the Cards play in the Final Four. The weekend was good luck for us of all apparently. On Sunday I was finished. And happy.
I couldn't get a picture of the front of the dress because Hannah kept running away, as toddlers do. So I did what any sensible mom would do, I put her on a tiny little table. (I know, I know, I'm shaking my head at myself as I type, but I was right there and it was low and she thought it was cool.)

She did what any toddler would do when put on a "stage" like this. She danced. And sang. And stopped occasionally to sip on tea.

At one point she stood still for 2 seconds because she heard a noise outside and I got a picture of The Hannah Doll. Seriously, she looks like a doll, right?! :)
Then I gave her her bear to reward her for her 30 seconds of sweet dancing and concentration, and she excitedly squeezed it tight and said, "Ahhhhhhhhhhh!"

She was a little more subdued with her bear and a ponytail. This is her serious look apparently. She was triumphant with her bear at the beginning, but by the end she was over it. So I took her down and let her play.

The pattern is this zig zag dress pattern that I was lucky enough to be able to try just before it was released and I had so much fun with it.

I also screwed up a few things, cut my fabric wrong a few times, and spent a considerable amount of time with my seam ripper. BUT I still am really glad I did it, even though it stressed me out. I learned a lot, and now that I've done it I don't have to be so nervous about making another one. Sewing a dress from scratch just sounds so daunting, doesn't it? But it wasn't, it was just one step at a time, and eventually it was a dress! :) And that makes me happy. I also made button holes with my machine for the first time and I was really proud of myself afterwards.

Now I have all of these ideas for dresses and fabric I could use. Too bad my goal for this month isn't "make Hannah a wardrobe of dresses." Or maybe I can try to squeeze that in too.

Let's Decorate: The Rollie Pollie

2013-04-12T10:16:00.001-05:00

There is a slight problem in my house surrounding the kids table and chairs in my living room, namely, that my kids are forever getting injured on it. I would just move it, but they use it for normal "table things" on a daily basis. It's just that they are always rocking backwards in the chairs, climbing on top of the table, tipping the chairs over and then tripping over them, etc. But for some reason, that is often where they want to sit to watch tv or a movie-the couch and chair are only for jumping, it seems, and maybe too far away from the tv? I'm not sure.

One afternoon the stroller was in the flat and both kids just wanted to sit in it quietly and peacefully. I knew I needed a non-stroller option. I finally found one. It's a happy-maker.

I have wanted to get them some sort of soft chair/couch/bean bag type of thing, but space is an issue here. I don't want a bulky "kid's couch" taking up what little floor space we have in our living room. The search has been on, and I finally settled on something. This. I bought the pattern a month or so ago and just sat on it, there were a few obstacles, but in the end I made it work. Not in the Tim Gunn way, but, well…kind of in that way.

And it works. Can I just tell you how happy it makes me every time that I see my kids lounging in it?! SO happy. For the first week whenever they were sitting in it I would sit and smile at them for a second and mentally pat myself on the back that at that moment they were, 1.) not falling backwards in a wooden chair, 2.) more comfortable than they ever were in their wooden chair. And I MADE it. (It took lots of quality time with my sewing machine that weekend, but I just kept plugging at it, and eventually I was done.)

It was totally worth it. It is big and squish-able enough for two little ones to peacefully sit on it together, something they won't really even do on the couch, and that makes it worth it for me.

Now, as to the whole "decorate" thing. You might be thinking to yourself, "Erin, why did you choose to accessorize your cream-colored walls and carpet with a plain gray ball?" This is a valid point and one of my "make it work" things.

The pattern calls for you to make an insert, full of soft fluffy bits, and then an outer cover that you can zip off and wash when it gets dirty. This makes perfect sense. Also, it calls for the outer and inner fabric to be a canvas type of material for the sake of durability. I was a little bummed to read this because I have lots of fabric on hand, but not lots of canvas fabric, and canvas tends to be a bit expensive unless you have an Ikea trip in your near future. I didn't, so I sat on this for a bit.

Then I remembered that I used a canvas drop cloth for my stenciled pillow covers and those had turned out great! They were sturdy and soft, and you got a lot of fabric from one drop cloth. Chris was in the US at the time and had a small list of things to bring back from Walmart, so I asked him to add that to his list.

I was going to stamp a little pattern on them, but once I figured out a solution to my other problem I was itching to get sewing, so I decided to just leave them as is. I did the topstitch in black and it adds a fun little bit of detail. It kind of looks like when you are little and color a picture, and you go back and trace the lines in black to make them stand out. (Am I the only one who did that?)

Anyway, my other "problem" is that I couldn't figure out a good stuffing solution for this bad boy. The Rollie Pollie is big, and the amount of stuffing that I was going to need was making for a very pricey project. Then I had a lightening bolt moment and it was a good one. I already had stuffing. Want to see?

Yep, that's a spare duvet, a pillow, and a few different blankets that we keep downstairs for snuggling into on the couch. And keeping the blankets in here has freed up the basket that I had been storing them in. So I feel like this was win/win, the kids get a very soft seat and it is storage for my blankets! :) Ikea would be so proud.

Whenever I do make it to Ikea I will probably grab a few yards of a fun canvas print and this gray ball will turn into the insert because it will get pretty beat up if not. But in the meantime this is working really well and I'm happy with it. Plus it has a fun blue zipper….that I installed terribly. My 4th zipper, I've yet to do one just right. Oh well.

Back to pictures of my kids lounging in it. :)So cute, right? She was sitting so still that I just couldn't resist. :)

Let's Rearrange, Shall We?

2013-04-10T08:04:00.001-05:00

Yes, let's. Let's rearrange my monthly goals. I have a few reasons and I feel the need to hash them out here, so enjoy.

1.) April is my "Blog" month, and I was hoping to catch up, way up, all the way up. It just that blogging, at least for me, requires chunks of time to edit pictures, crank out my thoughts, edit them into coherent sentences, and occasionally weave them all together nicely. I can typically accomplish this while Hannah naps, but the thing is, Jayce is home now for spring break, and his spring break is half of the month.

Let me say that again. He is literally out of school for half of the month, not returning until April 16. So there have not been tons of large (or small) chunks of uninterrupted time during the days around here. This is fine, I adore my boy and I love having him home with me. But I'm just going to let myself off the hook because of this and say that I'm not going to get super caught up on blogging this month and that is okay. There was no reason in particular that I picked "Blog" for April, so it is fine to do a little switching. It works great because...

2.) I'm switching April to "Sew." There are tons of good reasons for this/I am justifying it, just roll with me here.

-I cannot blog in small chunks of time, but I can do little sewing things in that time, so my "goal time" is not wasted.

-I was contacted last week by a blogger to test a pattern and it was due yesterday. I sewed and sewed this weekend, (and cut and ripped and re-stitched), but now I'm done, which scratched off two of my sewing to do's: sew a buttonhole and make Hannah a dress from scratch.

-On Friday I finally got my new sewing machine! This is my belated birthday present and I'm so thrilled with it, but haven't tried it yet. It's sitting there staring at me in that, "I'm new and intimidating, go read your manual" sort of way that new electronic things do. But I'm excited about it and using my "spare" time to get acquainted with it seems more appealing than trying to crank a blog out of that time.

-I have a few bits left to finish from March's "Decorate" goal, and they are sewing-related. So I will kill two birds with one stone. That or my new goal will help me accomplish last month's goal. Something like that.

3.) So when will I actually catch up on my blogging? June. Mom and Chelsea are coming to visit in May and I'm not blogging while they're here, but I will want to blog about what we did once they've gone. So it will be June.

Sounds perfect, right? Right.

*I am still planning to do my three posts per week pace so that I don't fall behind/further behind. There is plenty to share that is still current enough to not fall into the backlog. Stay tuned. :)

A Trip to Ham House

2013-04-08T08:58:00.001-05:00

This Easter weekend we made the short trip over to Ham House, which is only a few miles away from our flat. We did an Easter egg trail, but also had plenty of time to just roam the gardens a bit and check it all out.
We took the trail behind Marble Hill House, which is along the river…and grabbed the ferry across to the house.
It was a more direct way to get there and the kids were excited about our little boat ride.
There was a hungry horse on the other side to greet us. Jayce wasn't too sure about him, and it turns out that he only wanted to be fed and not petted, so we moved on quickly.
We didn't go into Ham House itself this time, just around the gardens, but apparently it is one of the best preserved 17th century mansions and is haunted by a variety of ghosts. Apparently it was also one of the locations in the dreadful movie John Carter, but I won't re-watch that movie to try to catch a glimpse of the house. It was beautiful on the outside though, and I would like to go back through it at some point.
The back garden was incredible and broken down into various smaller gardens, with cobblestone walls dividing them up. We ran through a few of them on the Easter hunt, but I didn't get photos of them all since I was helping Jayce with his clues.
After Jayce had his egg we let Hannah out of her stroller to run around and apparently peek into everything.

And photo bomb here and there.
She wouldn't stand still with all of that flat space around her to run. So we basically just let her roam all around and she loved it.
The kids both went to sleep great that night which is always part of the end goal of a trip like that anyway. But it was a beautiful location to be worn down in.

Ham House: The Easter Egg Trail

2013-04-05T06:11:00.001-05:00

Last weekend, we headed out on Saturday to Ham House to take the kids on an Easter trail. It started snowing as we were waiting to buy our tickets, but other than the cold, it was lovely. It is a bit different than the Easter egg hunts that we typically do, where there is a collection of brightly colored plastic egg scattered across a lawn. This is more of a scavenger hunt, with questions to answer and clues leading you all around a huge garden, and a large egg as your prize upon completion. This new set up was perfect for our eager little detective.

The setting was beautiful. I can't wait to come back in the spring when the trees are filled out and the gardens are covered in beautifully manicured blooms.I think the photos are pretty self-explanatory, so, then end. :)

Mama Said There'd Be Photo Shoots Like This...

2013-04-03T08:48:00.001-05:00

I just cannot seem to get a picture of my 2 kids together. I don't know what it is.

Actually, I do. Jayce is always over it, Hannah just wants to run away, and Chris can't/won't suppress how annoyed he is enough to make it work. After this round of bombs, they were all in trouble with me. Actually, not Hannah. The baby was the one who sat still and smiled at me. That a girl!Actually, now that I look at these in a series, I kind of like them. This is just my family at the "no normal photos together" stage.

Friends

2013-03-29T09:26:00.001-05:00

Jayce has just started his spring break today, which is a staggering 17 days long. Wha?! I know. Unfortunately, the kids don't play well together, as I've mentioned before. Jayce likes things just so, Hannah is a human wrecking ball, and it's not a good combination.

But I might have found a plan that is a winner. Take them on a walk, take the small stroller, let Jayce "stroll" Hannah, as he calls it. He ran behind the stroller and then stopped about every 20 seconds, peeked around at her and said, "Was that fun Hannah?" Then he started again. She even got a kiss one time.

But smiles from both? This is success.1 day down, 16 to go. I need all of the tricks that I can get.

If anyone has "happy sibling activity suggestions," I'll gladly welcome them! :)

The Shower and Mean Parents

2013-03-26T09:36:00.001-05:00

Hannah has this new thing that she loves, it's called our shower.

Actually, she hates to take a shower. Both kids do. They prefer baths, with their bubbles/boats/tea party capabilities, and that's fine with me.

But Hannah likes to climb into our shower, shut the door, sit down and hang out in there. She lines up the shampoo and soap bottles and then she rearranges them.She opens the door to peer out at us and then slams it shut, looking startled and delighted at the same time. Chris bikes home from work almost every day, so he often showers when he gets in. This means that the shower floor is almost always wet when Hannah climbs in, so she usually emerges with her lower half soaked. This day she started off in just her diaper, so it wasn't so bad.

Jayce noticed that Hannah was getting some attention in this "play the shower game," so he jumped in as well. Then Chris had a mean parent idea. And I went with it.

It didn't really work. But still, here is the video.

I think it's kind of funny that the whole time Hannah is just really excited to see Chris. I'm both glad and sad that it didn't work. :)

Knitting Wrap Up: THE SCARF

2013-03-20T11:17:00.002-05:00

So, yes, I finished Jayce's scarf and I have finished the "month of knitting" part of my resolutions. I had a marathon knitting session the last week of February where I worked on it almost every evening and I cranked that baby out.

I told Chris I felt like a human loom. First there was just a ball of yarn, and then Jayce had a scarf! It was like magic. Sometimes frustrating and forearm numbing, but still magic.

It's long-ish, I guess? I didn't really have a pattern so I just winged it. But it seemed to fit Jayce just right, and worked well with the little bits of yarn that I had. A local (beautiful) yarn shop had donated some yarn to the knitting group that I go to, so the green, blue, and creamy white came from there. The purple and light blue came from the stash of a sweet friend. It was overall a win-win: Jayce loved it, I practiced, and the price was right.

Jayce did like it. He was excited. He put it right on and wouldn't let Hannah touch it.

But we're seeing more and more that he is a collector, as I've said before. He wore the scarf around the house all morning on the day that I gave it to him. Then he folded it up neatly and settled it into front row spot on his dresser, among his other treasures. There was almost no room even though the dresser is massive, like 8 feet long, because he has so many of his favorite little things nestled up there. Now the scarf is one of them.After I took these pictures I informed Jayce that he doesn't have to walk with his chin down, pinching the scarf between his chin and chest.

It will just kind of stay around your neck. You don't have to do that, you can keep your head up like normal.

But I don't want it to fall off.

I guess getting used to wearing a scarf is a little strange.
I have liked doing a scarf as my first project because I can look at it and see exactly how much progress I made from my first day to my last day. The left/green end of the scarf leaves a lot to be desired. But by the time I made my way into the purple it was downright pretty. Even the edges! And I should hope so. I didn't count the stitches, but there are 27 in each row, so by the end I had literally done it a few thousands of times.

I took my finished scarf to my knitting group last week. I held it up and was like, "Look! I'm not a complete impostor! I knitted something!!"
And they smiled at me, looked at it, and all clapped sweetly for me. I know that they were all thinking that they could do this in their sleep, minus the wonky part, but it was still nice. And the sweet old lady who first taught me to knit said, "Good job. Now you KEEP knitting."

I told her I would, and I will. But for now, I'm taking a break.

Akron and Iphones

2013-03-19T09:19:00.001-05:00

When Hannah and I traveled to Akron last month, I couldn't take my camera with me. But it didn't matter, because mom and Chelsea and Mom had their "cameras." That week, Hannah was the primary subject of much iPhone photography.

I don't blame them though, and I was happy they had their phones, because there were many memorable moments.But eventually I got all bossy and was like, "Chelsea, you have to stop using your phone's camera and get a camera app to use instead."

Then I took her phone, bought my favorite one, downloaded it, and her pictures got significantly better. It was $1 well spent.

Right? I might be bossy on occasion, but sometimes I'm actually right.Many thanks to mom and Chelsea for taking this many photos x100 to document our week together. Not that they did it for me, but I still love it. :)

Let's Talk About Flying with a Baby

2013-03-15T17:19:00.001-05:00

A little over 2 weeks ago, I found out that my grandpa had a heart attack, which I'll write more about at another time. As the week went on, he went downhill fast, and we made a quick plan to fly home to say goodbye. By quick, I mean we bought tickets after Chris was home from work one night, and I left for the airport the next morning before Jayce was even up for school. Chris couldn't miss work and Jayce couldn't miss school, so it was Hannah and I who would be traveling.

Since she is not yet 2, we didn't buy her a seat, but planned for her to sit on my lap. AKA, I hoped desperately that the flight wasn't full and that there was an empty seat that I could put her in. Luckily, there was.

What did I pack to keep a 20 month old busy, on an 8 hour flight, without a trip to the store? Randomness. And things that she is normally interested in, but not allowed to play with.

Like markers. And post it notes. And the little notebook that I use to make lists. (Yeah, so I went through my desk drawers for options.)

And tape. And paperclips. (I don't know, I was desperate.) I went through my craft stuff and grabbed washi tape, pipe cleaners, and any interesting-looking writing utensils.

Then I went through my kitchen cupboards, grabbed everything edible that is smaller than a quarter, (goldfish, raisins, gummy things), and every single type of cracker. Then cookies. And the chocolate that I don't normally let her have, for when I was feeling desperate.

This is what I took.

Then, right before we boarded the flight, every single flight, between the time that they started the boarding process and when they called our group to start boarding, she pooped. EVERY time. Including the time that we boarded a plane, had a 2 hour delay on the runway, de-boarded, told to come back in 2 more hours, and when we were about to re-board, she did it again. And I said loudly, "Hannah you have GOT to be kidding me!" Not because I' was mad. But because she had to be kidding me. 5 out of 5 times, no joke.

But it was all worth it, because on the plane, she was a peach. An absolute peach. She wasn't easy, because it took a fair amount of finesse, and was a bit like I was orchestrating and starring in a 3 ring circus, for 8 hours, but it all worked.

Eventually we arrived in Ohio, and when I walked into the bedroom and turned out the lights, her little body immediately fell against mine in sleep. Because she'd been awake for 19.5 of the last 20 hours straight.

On the way home I was feeling a little confident. This time our bags were well stocked with thoughtfully selected Target goodies. But, this time, she was the opposite of a peach. (What is the opposite of a peach, anyway?)

She was a terror.

It turns out that, for the record, Hannah is the happiest, chattiest, and most charming little passenger during an 8 hour day flight.

But she is the most unhappy, unsettled, non-sleeping crier during an 8 hour night flight. She cannot sleep on my lap, and on the plane, (or on a train or in the rain. Sorry.) So she was a miserable little gus.

Or maybe it had something to do with that 9 hour layover in Chicago before we even started the 8 hour flight home. The one I mentioned earlier, where we were on the plane for 2 hours and never moved on the runway. That could be it.

But eventually we got home, I put her to sleep in her crib, and then I tried to catch up on sleep myself for days. I'm finally getting there.

I Made That, on Flickr

2013-03-14T09:00:00.001-05:00

Well, it's been 3 years since Tiffany, Patrice, and I started Lemon Tree Creations. I've written before about how good it was for me at the time, but the writing and blogging of weekly tutorials was not something we could do anymore, and it still isn't.

To be honest, it annoys me slightly that there are 100+ of my projects and photos on a site that is no longer active, though we still get 1,500+ hits per day thanks to Pinterest. I feel like I should claim them somehow: I should re-post them on this blog, and put links to them on my tutorials page or sidebar. But that's just a dag-gone lot of work:weeding out my posts, pulling off pictures, re-linking. Blah. I'd rather spend those hours doing something tangible, instead of organizing a backlog.

In the meantime, I've started a Flickr page with the projects that I've done recently, all within the past 6 months. Because, honestly, I don't always want to write out a tutorial and give lots of details, but I almost always want to show off a few pictures. It was the creating and the pictures and the sharing and the community that I loved about LTC, so this will give me just a slice of that.

Anyway, here is the link, which I intend to update regularly as necessary, called I made that!, a set on Flickr.

Chelsea, Almost 2 Year Olds, and Me

2013-03-12T08:25:00.001-05:00

Chelsea just sent this adorable little picture of her with both kids at roughly the same age: Jayce 23 months, Hannah 21 months.

Hannah obviously has more hair, but Jayce was getting haircuts at that point, so it's hard to compare that. She does have substantially more in the cheek department though.

Random, but I love it.

Mom sent me these photos.
Top left is me, top right is mom, the bottom is Hannah.

Oh my gosh, Hannah looks just like my mom. :)

When My Kids Run Around in the London Science Museum

2013-02-27T08:17:00.004-06:00

I'm going to be honest here and just call this post what it is. I wish I could say that this is a post about the Science Museum, but it's not. (Well, kind of. I only kind of wish that.) The reality is that we went to this great museum a few weeks ago that was busy, but not completely packed like some London exhibits are, and we decided ahead of time that we were going to let the kids run around and explore without abandon. This basically meant that Chris and I didn't really get to look at much of anything ourselves, which was okay. But that's why this post isn't really much about the museum itself. Maybe another time.

We headed down on the tube, our first tube trip, and it was a breeze. I still cannot get over how easy it is to travel around London.

The end of this tube line is by 4 different museums. You walk through this (incredibly cool) underground tunnel, and when you come to the museum that you want, you just go up the stairs and go in. Really, it was so cool. Pictures of that next time, for sure.

Chris took Jayce duty and I took Hannah duty, which basically meant that I was the chaser.

But not in a bad way, like she was running away from me the whole time. I just let her run and made sure that I was a little bit behind her every step of the way. I couldn't take my eyes off of her so I couldn't stop for pictures of anything, and rarely got pictures of her that weren't her from this angle. But it was okay with me, really, because her unending enthusiasm paired with her pigtails and floral denim leggings, she was having a particularly adorable day.

The Science Museum was a real hit with her, because the first floor was entirely transportation-based, and she couldn't get enough. Her head was on a swivel and she would yell, "Airplane! Rocket! Vroom! (car)" over and over.

There was a space exhibit with an astronaut suit, among other things, and she saw it and yelled, "Oc-not!" (like the Octonauts) and then started humming the Octonauts theme song. She was loving it every step of the way: running, trying to touch things that were behind glass windows, and then turning in another direction and running again.

(Oh wait, here is a picture of something else. It was Apollo…something. There was a sign, but I didn't read it.)

We eventually headed down to the designated kids' area, which was fine, but just very "kids area-ish."

There was nothing in there that was cooler than what was going on on the other floors, but it's always nice to have a little area where the kids are supposed to be touching and climbing everything around them.

There was a little tray for the kids to build on and then turn a crank to simulate an earthquake that knocked everything down. Chris did it once, and then Hannah started building her towers outside of the tray where they were safe. Smart cookie.

The kids area was pretty congested so we didn't hang around in there for very long. Plus there were still 3 more floors to check out.

The best part about this museum was that it was so hands on. Even if the kids didn't really understand what they were doing or looking at, it was still very engaging and interesting.

The peanut didn't even make it to the end of the block once she was strapped into the stroller. Playing hard=sleeping hard, and that is half of the goal, right? We climbed onto a bus headed towards a barbecue restaurant and let Hannah sleep. Jayce fell asleep on my lap on the way to the restaurant, and again on the way home. It was a good and successful Saturday out.

Knitting and Things

2013-02-25T06:47:00.001-06:00

Well, February was my month of knitting, and so I have been knitting. This has been my little evening project for when I'm watching tv with Chris, or American Idol which they do show over here. (Speaking of, Keith Urban's presence this year has made me be all "Simon who?" to my previous favorite judge. Seriously, they need to keep Keith Urban, because we can't stand Mariah or Nicki. The end of my random AI rant.) But Idol and knitting do seem to be a perfect pair.

I was invited to a craft group at the beginning of the month that was doing knitting as it's first project. So, that week, I learned to cast on, and started knitting up this scarf for Jayce. He's been excited about it, and will periodically grab it and wrap it around his neck, even when it was only the size of a potholder.

I was advised, the day I learned to knit, not to make a scarf as my first project because they're boring. I would never finish it and I would end up giving up on knitting out of sheer boredom. But Jayce had been asking for a scarf, I hadn't bought him one yet, and I thought that a kids' scarf, particularly one that changed colors periodically, would keep my attention. And it has.

At the beginning I did think, "This is so boring, I hate this, I'm done knitting once this is done." But the different colors of yarn are also different types of yarn, so it's been interesting to test out a little variety, and weaving in the ends kept my attention when I was getting bored with the whole project.

Also, doing the same thing over and over has helped me to get much better at it. My blue stripes look so much nicer than the green stripes that I started with, and the edges, which I had been getting frustrated with, are much smoother and more uniform. So it's a nice way to measure the fact that I have been making progress and I am getting better.

And now I don't have to be such a "pretend knitter" at my weekly knitting group, where I typically go just to visit, chat with my friends, have some cake and a drink, and wrestle Hannah while people knit around me. I took my scarf a few weeks ago to show them all, and the lady who taught me how to knit months ago was like a proud mama bird. I was too. :)

That said, I have let myself be distracted by a few little projects here and there, as I do. I saw this and for some reason became immediately obsessed with making one for myself, and was sewing it by that evening. I didn't have any embroidery floss, so I just used a few strands of regular thread and I can't really tell the difference.

However, Jayce has claimed it as his own. I was sewing it while we were all watching something one night, he looked over at it and said,

Wow Mom. That's some great knitting! Is that for me?

Umm…do you want it?

Yeah!

Sure buddy.

I kind of thought that he would forget about it, but he didn't. Actually, the day that I finished it, he carried it around in his pocket for the rest of the night, and then put it on his dresser with his many treasures. A few days later I brought it back downstairs to take a picture of it, and when he got home from school, saw it out, put it in his pocket again, and back into his room. He told Chris that he likes it because "Mom made it, and I love her." So yeah, he gets to keep it. He is good for my gift-giving soul. :)

I also let myself get distracted from my knitting by this fun little travel card holder. A friend, the one who loaned me the sewing machine, got a free kit to make it, thought it looked like me, (she was right), and passed it on to me at the beginning of the month as well. I love it. It is MUCH better than the plastic Ikea sleeve that my Oyster card came with. :)

And for now, that's it! I've been filling up my notebook with other projects that I want to take on, but I'm trying to pace myself with this whole "one thing a month" thing. I have realized that I have too many ideas flipping through my head at all times to just focus exclusively on one thing for a whole month, it just helps me to prioritize them all a little bit.

I have another little knitting project that I'm going to start with a friend later this week that I'm really excited about, and it should be a bit more exciting.

But I'm finishing the scarf this week, because Jayce needs it now, (it's cold here!), and I'm over it.

More soon. Happy Monday!

On Jayce: School, Signs, and Scribbles

2013-02-22T09:42:00.001-06:00

Our little buddy is just so full of personality and life these days. There is so much to say about him.

He's had a few rough moments this past week though. Last week he saw something on tv that shook him up a little bit. It was nothing, a strangely drawn number character on a little kids' show, but it freaked him out, and I think he had a nightmare about it. For the past week he's barely let me out of his sight, which was not amazing while Chris was away. Things like, he wouldn't even go into the bathroom unless I was with him, or wanted me to come upstairs with him if he needed something from his room, and forget about me leaving his room at night before he was asleep. It's getting a bit better this week though, and we're working on getting back to normal.

School is, as a whole, going very well.

I was surprised to learn that they would be doing phonics with the kids. Four just seems like a young age for this. But even though he's known his letters and sounds for a few years now, I have been amazed at how much he is taking in. He has learned how to sound out words and spell phonetically, including the "tricky" sounds. Last week he was explaining to me about ch and sh.

"Mom, the ch and sh sounds are a little tricky. It's not ck-huh, it's chu, and not ss-huh, it's shu."

The kids have books that they bring home each week to read, along with a new poem each week, and words to arrange into short sentences. This kills me. I just can't believe he is reading, like REALLY reading, even before kindergarden. He obviously still makes mistakes and certainly doesn't know all of the "rules" just yet. But the fact that he is constantly trying and often successfully reading and spelling seems pretty incredible.Last week, we were all sick, all on three-doses-per-day antibiotics, and often on ibuprofen/decongestants/inhalers. That was not the best week of my life. Each day I wrote out a little schedule so that I could help my cloudy mind keep track of who had which medicine and when. Each day, Jayce would sneak my pen away and add xo's for me at the bottom of our list of medications. This day he drew a picture of me as well.

He also drew multiple spots on the couch for some reason. After that, there were no pens laying around anywhere. Even I couldn't find them when I needed them.

Jayce REALLY missed Chris, and really wanted to make a big sign for when he got home. So one night after I put Hannah to bed, we painted, colored, cut and drew up a little display for Chris. I gave Jayce some white tack and he hung it all up by himself. (I was pretty pleased with the symmetry and even the little pieces of paper being so orderly.)
Jayce asked me to take a picture of his signs, and told me "I'm going to make this face mom," and posed in the above photo.

(Also the picture on the far right of all of the smiling faces are "dad's students.")

Chris loved his signs.

Jayce also told him, shortly after he arrived,

"Dad I really wanted you to snuggle me when you were in America. I drew on the couch and Mom was very angry, and she yelled at me and I cried and I wanted you to snuggle me."

I'm not really sure why I am the one who got "told on" in this instance? Chris was like, "Yeah, mom's mean sometimes, huh?" And I was like, "I'm going on vacation."

The little stinker.

Photo An Hour

2013-02-17T08:28:00.001-06:00

7:00. Snuggle.8:00. She thinks that if she shows me, we can pretend she's allowed to play with this.

9:00. A friend stops by with some "get well soon" goodies for me and the kids, including wine and chocolate.

10:00. Jayce steps away from the tv and I show him his surprise.

Sometimes he shares, sometimes he doesn't.

11:00. Stickers and activity books.

12:00. Living room chaos.

1:00. Hot lunch.

2:00. Chapstick attacks: Hannah-2, Chapstick-0.

3:00. Scissors and watching.

4:00. Hats!

5:00. Running. Rolling her arms like in "Pat A Cake" while she runs.6:00. Dinner. Genuinely excited about the salad.

7:00. Hanna finds my hat and the mirror.8:00. I suddenly feel terrible, skip the kids' baths, let Jayce lay on the couch with me and play Angry Birds, and eventually I put him to bed and fall asleep alongside him for the night.

Chris went home on Thursday to attend the funeral of his sweet sweet Grandma Louise. The kids were sick and I was super sick, so we had to send him alone.

These photos are from Saturday, home all day, bored but busy, playing, snuggling, resting, and eager for daddy to return.