Teeth!

Check out those pearly whites!
(you can click the pic to make it bigger)

ok, now show me your fishy face :)

Oh My, I love these kids :)

What Was It?

Well, you never did guess what Claire's drawing was so I'll let her tell you in her own words:

Quite obviously in fact when you really look at it.
And since no one guessed correctly we chose the most interesting and creative guess to win.
So...

Drum Roll

Sarah Wins! with her guess of a Capybara. Seeing as we had never heard of such an animal we thought it might be a typo. But when we googled it, Ha HA! what fun!

And in case you were unfamiliar with the world's largest rodent as well. They eat water plants, fruits, and vegetables, including wild melons and squashes, and engage in coprophagy. (look that one up yourself)

Sarah, keep an eye on your mailbox, your prize will arrive soon, Congratulations!

Sisters+Cupcakes=Perfect World

Stasi has been with us for a week. I fear our constant pestering about staying forever made her fly the coup sooner than if we had kept our mouth's shut. Oh well, there's always October 3!! (YAY ami, I'm SO excited!) It was good to have her. Mostly she was working, working, working but we found time to do some playing. We both (Stasi and I) got our hairs cut and then after her haircut we went to the cupcake store and got cupcakes. yumm. :) It's good to have sisters who come to visit.

From a Child's View

Claire and Jimmy went camping this weekend up to TMR. They had a great time... I think... I asked Claire about her trip and she told me that she didn't eat the entire time, she didn't sleep at camp, she did not boat... Good thing I sent her camera with her so I could see what she did.

She went with Grandma Mary and Grandpa Bill

They went to the lake

I think she had fun. :) What kid doesn't love camp?
Even her pictures are vague and limited. Does this begin the phase where she doesn't tell me everything? Sad. She grows so fast.
Good thing I also send Jimmy who told me they had a great campfire, good food, comfortable beds and a great boat trip :)

Ever Have A Plan?

Jimmy was off work on Thursday for his company picnic. The day before I got my hair cut, figured out what I would wear to impress his colleagues and bathed both my children. That morning Claire and Nick were playing in the playroom while I did dishes and Jim fiddled around on the computer with work stuffs. Then we heard a BANG, or a THUD and then a scream. Nick had fallen/been pushed into our wooden toy storage unit. He split the skin just below his lip pretty badly. So instead of looking fabulous for the picnic we rushed to the pediatrician, then to the ER for stitches.

(us in the ER waiting. which is what we did mostly)

(2 inside his mouth, and about 5 outside under his lip). They didn't have to tie him down. We had to hold him down, Jim had his head and I had the rest of him. And boy is he strong! They numbed him and after that he fussed a bit and fell asleep for the rest of the stitches. (so precious) Then we went to the picnic. I did not have time to shower and fix my newly cut hair, and Nick looked like this:

Sometimes even the best plans are changed. Everyone is fine here. Nick is again able to feel his lip and is thankfully leaving his stitches alone (for the most part). They will dissolve in about 2 weeks. We go to the plastic surgeon in 10 days to have them checked for infections and such.

OO Baby!

Dear 'technologically advanced' people in my life,
Please stop touching the settings on my point and click camera. I like them the way they are. Yes, sometimes my pictures are washed out or fuzzy but they do not look antique all the time which is your newest trick. For the sake of my children whoes home videos are all in antique tones. Stop. Touching. My. Settings. or at least put them back when you are done. I know how to fix it but I am a mom of two little ones, so when I want to take a picture I want to pick my my point and click camera and Point it - and - Click it and take a picture that looks like it was taken this century. I do not have time to change the white balance or exposure settings. The kids won't be cute any longer once I have fiddled with every button on the camera except the one that takes the picture! Thank you for your cooperation and all your good intentions.
Love- Me

Happy Guessing

To those of you still holding onto your brilliant ideas for the guessing game; guess them soon. The answer has not yet been guessed and the polls will close at midnight on Friday. In the event no one can correctly guess; I will realize that my daughter is not the budding artist I once thought her to be and will give the prize away to the most creative guess. So guess away; multiple entries allowed.

ps

does it help to know that the 'head' is toward the bottom of the picture? Some good guesses. But not quite it. :)

A Guessing Game

Nick recently broke in his first tooth, three more are following suit and should arrive any day now. It is so strange to see him with teeth. I knew the day would come. I encouraged and awaited it but now that he has them he looks so strange. Like a different kid. I remember feeling the same way with Claire.
Claire was an early bloomer. Early walking, early teeth and early talking. That last one created many great memories; of 'time on the wall', 'I don't mind it' and a multitude of other cute and sometimes difficult to understand phrases. Fast forward and we understand almost everything of what she says but have entered the drawing phase. I say it like that because I am hoping that other parents go through it too. It goes like this:

Child: Look mommy... (holds up drawing proudly)
Parent: That's wonderful honey (hopes to get off that easy)
Child: Will you draw it something to eat
Parent: (begins to sweat because she doesn't know what 'it' is and certainly doesn't know what 'it' would like to eat and doesn't want to insult her budding artist by asking.) What would it like to eat.
Child has thankfully lost interest in the drawing game and moved on to feed "Dan no hands the one time one eyed wonder horse" some plastic pizza.

So maybe you could help. I have a prize for anyone who can correctly tell me what 'it' is or what it would like to eat:

I did ask later what it was so there is a correct answer. Happy guessing :)

All in the Family

Sorry to have been gone recently. Family has been in town. First sisters, then mothers then brothers and fathers. Above you see our whole family. (including in-laws and not quite in-laws) We are quite a crew. From all over; international to Western to Country folk to City slickers. Pastors to engineers to vagabonds. family of 4, family of 2, family of 11. It amazes me every time we get together just how different we are. And yet, when we are together, mostly we are the same. Fun loving, adventure seeking, newlywedded, God loving, Responsible, Respectful, Adults who moved out of our parent's homes. I couldn't ask for a better family.
We miss you all. Come anytime. Call ahead or just show up.
You are always welcome.

Peek-a-Boo

Eats, Shoots and Leaves

I have heard, often actually that you are able to eat dandelions... mostly people say you can eat the greens like a salad. But here is recipe that allows you to eat the fun flower part. I will put it here and hope that someone stumbles across it and makes them and lets me know how they actually are.
I have no dandelions. In fact I made a startling discovery today that I actually have no grass in my front patch. I have moss, feet and feet of moss covering the area I would like to someday be a 'yard'. For some reason this morning during nap time, instead of folding laundry, mopping floors, changing beds, or (insert other mundane household chore of choice here) I decided to garden. This urge has only come over me one other time. That's didn't go so well.
See, some people (my mother) are gifted gardeners. and some; like me are not. I am in good company with my upstairs neighbor who I share the 'yard' with. She decorated the front 'bed' with plastic plants. Sadly I am coming to accept that this is my fate as a gardener as well. I did however manage to kill three uninvited trees that were growing tall enough to cover the plastic foliage, and take out the pieces of concrete that have lived in the 'garden' since they cut a hole in my wall over a year ago.
And wait - I took out all the dead plantlike life that constituted most of the 'life' in the garden.
I am marking it as a success :)

A Note about Aunts

Ok as I mentioned we filled about 4 cards this past weekend taking pictures so you couldn't have possibly thought that you were done seeing some of the highlights....
We learned a lot about Aunts:

Aunts like to be woken early, and loudly
and with a camera in their face

They like hanging out, eating good food, reading book and swings.


Mostly we learned that Aunts and Uncles love us!

And we love them too!

A Year in a Moment

This is not pictures of the zoo, sorry. The sisters have them all really so haunt their blogs to see those soon.

Last week was Nick's first birthday. It seems hard to imagine that he was ever not able to communicate with us, not able to walk, not able to really even see us. He's grown and changed so much over the last year, and since we do not plan on any more babies any time soon every first has been bittersweet because it might be our last 'first' ever.

So since everyone was here, we made cupcakes and took a ton of pictures of him smashing his cake, and just celebrated the heck out of his first birthday!

He got really into the 'smash cake' using hands and feet :) He ate very little of it but enjoyed very much that he was 'allowed' to make such a mess.

Like all good 'big' sisters, Claire was less than thrilled that someone else was getting all the new toys and all the attention. In the end she helped blow out the candles.
And mommy and daddy helped take the pictures.

Our little family finally feels complete. We have made it through some rough times and we have come out a little bruised but all together and that's what matters. We know now that even if the road gets rough we can handle it. 'Cause if I was reminded of anything from being together with my sisters this weekend it is that family is forever and family is no matter what.

We celebrate Claire's 3rd birthday in about three months, I can't wait to celebrate her too and the many great things she has achieved and the wonderful things she has brought to our little family.

Clear your Camera Cards...

Stasi and Micah are HERE!!

Their arrival was much awaited and anticipated and we are enjoying them immensely. They arrived without a hitch on Friday evening.

They brought cookies, and a camera that takes amazing pictures.

SO... we may have filled three camera cards in two days :)

It is just good to be together. Did I mention that Ami is here too?! We were also excited to see her and spend time with her outside of wedding world :) It's been way to long since the sisters were able to hug all together.
We have already been to the aquarium, and the park, the boardwalk, and the cyclone in Coney Island. We walked by the bay and had water balloons too.

Life is good here in NY. Lots of laughter and hugs. I'll miss them when they move on to the their next stop in Altoona today. But we have one more big destination planned before they go... The Zoo! it will be Micah's first zoo ever.

We cleared the camera cards and we are ready to go.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Belated Birthday to both my little munchkin and my country!

We spent the 4th in RI - poolside. And since it reached triple digits in NYC we were thankful to be there every moment. Claire perfected her swimming abilities and by the end she was scooting around the pool in just her 'swimmies'.

We were glad to be in RI also because they are allowed to set off fireworks! Mostly they were all the same shooting sparks into the sky and sometimes there would be some different colors or noises, but they were all pretty much the same.... Claire liked them though. Nick fell asleep during the 'show'.

Overall it was good to go and as I sit here typing this up, the kids are 'breakfasting' next to me and Claire; seeing the pictures of the pool says 'Mommy, I don't want to be home'... I kinda feel the same way.

A Day in the Life

Recently someone who just had a baby asked me what we do all day. I had to think about it, because it seems like we don't do much. Then I realized that it only feels like that because our days are so repetitive. So I put it down in writing and it looked way more impressive. So I think I will attach it to my resume when I enter the job hunt as a reference to all the skills I have mastered since I began this journey 3 years ago.

530am- kids wake up. Drag myself out of bed to get shoes and snack cups ready + drinks for everyone while keeping a constant stream of 'shhhhh' coming out of your mouth because Jim is still sleeping.
6am- kids, bag, phone, keys and stroller out the door for a run.
7am- home, Claire watching 'George', Nick either eating cereal or hanging out in bathroom with me while I shower.
8-10am- chill and get some chores done.
10am- snacktime! decide to go to park. commence gathering and changing of everyone into play clothes.
11am- out the door for the park, get there and realize there are no kids our age so we pack up and head to another park.
1130am- (is it still morning?) decide to picnic at the park for lunch

12- picnic at the park

1215- play with kazzoo which is more interesting than anything else at the park

1230- Sister takes kazzoo

1234- Nick gets kazzoo back

1pm- play in water, get soaked

2pm- hit the swings to dry off
230pm- hit the road for home
3pm- naptime for Claire (aka torture) Nick asleep in car seat from the 7 min. drive
4pm- Nick wakes and I realize it is almost 5 and I have no plans for dinner
430pm- Claire wakes (if she slept at all) and dinner panic sets in (everyone snacks)
6pm- where did the evening go?
7pm- dinner of some sort, it's amazing what you can do with empty cupboards and no clue what you are hungry for other than cookies.
740pm- Jim arrives home from work

8pm- baths
830pm- Read to Claire, fulfill every little demand and close the door hoping for the best
945pm- Nick asleep and in bed
10pm- mommy to bed
3am- Nick wakes up, roll out of bed and deal with it
6am- kids up for the day
repeat....

I Feel Good

Just ran 20 min.! Woot. I definately know what they mean when they say runners high. :D What are you doing today?

Monkey Boy

This is Nick's newest trick, should you turn your back on him for more than a second you may find him in several places not excluding: the top of the play table, in Claire's bed, on top of the dining room chairs, or standing on the dinning room table. The kid will climb anything and then he hasn't exactly mastered the getting down part so he just stands there and screams at the top of his lungs to let you know that he's gotten somewhere where he shouldn't be and he'd like some help getting down... I love this kid.

Little Chocolate Bombs

For Father's Day I invited Jim's dad and other family members over to our house for dinner. They are not dessert people, but I am and I wanted to make something nice. So I saw Martha make these little chocolate cups and I thought they were adorable and I wanted to make them. I read up on how other people made them and I even watched a video on how to do the delicate parts. I was totally ready.
Basically you blow up a balloon and dip it in chocolate that you have melted in a double boiler (or two pans sitting on top of each other in our case since we don't have a DB). The result will look like this:

However in none of my 'research' did I read anything about the chocolate bombs that were created in my dining room this afternoon. If you are using water balloons because you waited till the last min. like us and that's all the store down the block has, your kids will break the balloons as fast as you can blow them up, you may also feel like passing out about 4 or 5 balloons into the blowing up process. Also if you dip said water balloons into the melted chocolate before it has cooled to exactly room temperature they will explode! covering you and your tiny assistants in chocolate and spraying chocolate up your walls and all over anything for about a 6 foot radius. (not a good thing when company is coming in an hour) The balloons may also spontaneously explode while already covered in room temperature chocolate and sitting on your table. (also shooting chocolate upon yourself and 6 feet around you but not your tiny assistance who are by now hiding from this 'fun project')
In the end you will look something like this and be too horrified to take pictures of the chocolate covered house you now have:

But once you freeze the chocolate covered balloons, clean yourself up and come back to them when they are set; you pop the balloons gently and remove the balloons from the chocolate and you can fill them with anything. Martha filled hers with chocolate mousse, by the time I had the cups made there was nothing left in me that wanted to try another new recipe so we filled ours with vanilla ice cream and raspberries... yummy!

So for Father's Day my husband got not only a delicious dessert but also a chocolate covered wife. :)

On The Move

But not in the right direction, ran twice this week and gained 2 lbs. What is going on? and please don't give me that line about muscle weighing more than fat.. blah, blah, blah. How does this happen? Boo....
on a brighter side the 'runners high' this week has been wonderful :) Anyone else still on the pavement with me?
On an even brighter note, Mr. Nick is also on the move.. check him out!

This is not the best example of his mobility because he really just wanted the camera so he was crawling cause it is faster for him still.

Happily Ever After

Sometimes you need to read a good fairy tale to realize that you are living one. :)

My God is Good

My God is good. He knows what he is doing. And he's known from my very beginning. There is no better comfort than that. It's good to know that someone has a handle on what's going on, because I sure don't. Time is flying by, whizzing past, and I feel like I am standing still. I'd like to know the plan, where the kids will be in 10 years, where we will be in 10 years but I have a feeling it is much more exciting to trust Him step by small step, moment by moment. My God is good.

I am a Skilled Metal Worker

Is anyone still running out there? I took a short sabbatical while my life got crazy filled with nothing. But I'm starting back up in Week 4. Ran yesterday and felt great, even tacked on a little time to the last run because I felt like I could. The kids were great after we got started and we fell into a groove. :)
In other news Nick is venturing into the walking world more enthusiastically. He now will take 3 or 4 steps at a time to get from one holding on point to another. It is so exciting to see and so sad at the same time. He's growing up, turning one next month. He's certainly not a baby anymore. I got to hold a newborn last week and I marveled again at how tiny they are. How helpless and simple they are. It is amazing!