Catching Up

How does life get so busy? I am not sure I will ever understand that at all. I thought having little ones would mean a lot of time at home and yet it seems most days we have somewhere to go or something to do.

I knew our warm sunny days were limited so I have been trying to get the kids outside as much as possible. Good thing too because this is what we awoke to on Saturday morning. On Monday we got another two inches - it snowed pretty much all day. It's mostly gone today already but Reba sure was excited to see it all. Her mantra that day was "snow, mama, snow" and "play in snow, mama, play".  Last Thursday I had my friend's 4-year old twins as well. The kids all had a good time together but I kow it's not something I could do full time. Despite the cold they enjoyed playing in the sand and on the bikes. Many chalk drawings were also added to our sidewalk that day. Sadly I didn't get any pictures of those. Reba likes to trace things so we had many bottoms and legs outlined that she had traced around the other kids.

Last Friday we went to the apple orchard. I was sure that this would be a perfect oppurtunity to get some fantastic fall pictures. Afterall are there any cuter pictures then little kids with pumpkins and apples and haybales on a crisp sunny day?  It took me about 20 minutes to figure out the clothes I wanted them to wear. Ones that would complement each other for the sister/sister pictures as well as be very fall like in their individual pictures. I should have known better.

First it was cold...about 45 degrees. All the other kids were in winter jackets but not mine! I just had fall coats as I had not yet discovered the whereabouts of the winter coats at our house (they have been found along with hats and mittens now). Poor Lizzie had four layers on - poor thing could hardly move her arms. It reminded me a bit of the little brother in The Christmas Story.

Here is my little farmer girl. She does like the horses. We haven't done a pony ride with her yet. I am sure she will love it after how much she loved the carousel ride this summer. I thought she was going to climb right up the fence and try to get in with the horses. She would have been stuck as there was probably a good 6-8 inches of mud in there.

I thought this picture was super cute. Her and two of her buddies watching the foal. She did get to pet it later. (She did have a hat but it was so big it kept falling off so she ended up going hat free the rest of the day). It would have been a much better picture had I gotten down and taken it from their level but my knee still isn't cooperating 100% and I wasn't sure I could get back up.

These are some of Reba's responses of mommy asking her to take some pictures. She wanted no part of it.

Liza wasn't much better. She just sat there and cried - little stinker. Regardless these will STILL be going in the scrapbook.

This is probably the best one I got of Reba with the pumpkins. She didn't know I was taking it so she didn't have time to protest until I tried to get the second one.

This week has the promise to be a little quieter - we shall see.

God Bless

What do you do on what could quite possibly be the last warm day for months and months? You play outside - in sand - with water - and bare feet - not caring if you get dirty, wet or turn yourself blue.

Bright blue sand from Walmart + Water from the hose = hours, and hours, and if mommy would let us, hours of fun!

If you notice Liza was not invited to this party. I did not want to be changing blue diapers for the next week so she was stuck on the porch in her walker. Poor thing. I kept telling her next summer, next summer - not that she has any idea how long that is. But then the neighbors came out to play so she got to go crawl around their porch and play with their toys so she was plenty happy. Don't think she even realized that she missed anything!

In other news...

Reba is starting to "try" new types of food. As many of you know we have had many struggles, tantrums, and meltdowns (Reba's had a hard time too lol) trying to get her to eat a balanced diet. She isn't sickly or super skinny so we aren't worried about health at all. Low nutrition can affect development but we aren't really seeing any evidence of that. Since her seizure due to dehydration in January we make sure that she drinks plenty through the day. She currently drinks more juice then is "suggested" by "the experts" but we still mix her juice with water and often give her the fruit/veggie combos as those are the only "veggies" she will eat.

I did get her to eat some carrots the other day. I cut them up into tiny pieces and mixed them in with rice kripie treats. She bought the "orange sprinkles" the first day but after that she was done. Part of the problem I believe is that the carrots had more moisture in them than I expected which caused the krispies to lose their krispiness. They became stale quite quickly. Oh well - it was worth a try.

The other night she tried a bit of stuffing. She chewed it 3 or 4 times and then spit it out. She also tried a black olive after seeing daddy eat them. Nope- that wasn't a hit either. She did eat egg pie the other day though and was quite proud of herself. (Egg pie at our house is the same as quiche - it just sounds better to a 2 year old!) While talking on the phone to Grandma and Grandpa that night she repeated about 20 times "I ate egg pie". She was quite proud of herself. We were quite proud of her too.

We were going to take her to see a dietician but at $250 an hour we decided to pass. We will get there and someday we will sit and tell stories of all the creative things I have done. The other night we had brats and so I took a brat bun, put red jelly on one side and peanut butter on the other. Down the middle I put 1/2 a banana. It looked almost like our dinner. She wasn't so sure about it right away but after a few finger licks she decided it was yummy and she ate the entire thing. Whoo hoo! (See you can learn things from watching the Disney channel)! :)


Well it's getting late. Hope you all are doing well! God bless

Rainy Thursday Morning

It's rainy, it's cold, and I have three not so happy, enthusiastic children. Not sure what will be on for the day. We can't color because Reba lost the use of her crayons for two days due to her coloring the door, the wall, and the computer keyboard - all in one day. She also can't go play in her room because yesterday she she empty out part of her closet and three of her dresser drawers twice (once throwing them all down the stairs) and had started a third time when I caught her. She now has a lock on her door. We will try again in a little while.

The community center does have it's gym tot time today but it's from like 1 - 2:30 which is the middle of naptime and there is no way we are giving that up today!!!

I am going to try to make rice krispie bars today. it's been a long time. I love them and they aren't wise to have around the house. I am going to add carrots though. I know, I know it's weird but I got the idea when we got fall krispy bars at target. They had yellow and orange krispies in them and Reba ate them so I thought maybe I could add some very tiny carrot pieces into the mix and see if she will accept that. Her eating is still a huge issue in this house. It's affecting many things such as potty training and could potentially affect her development. We've been to the doctor and she is having us see a pediatric dietitian which is a week from Friday. I am currently keeping a food log for her. Not much on it. Yesterday she had 1/4 cup chex cereal, 4 oz grape juice, 1/3 apple with peanut butter and some peaches. Before bed she did have a breakfast shake but that is a pretty typical day. She's a tough one!

We started Parent/Child swimming lessons last Saturday. It went pretty well. Reba struggled some and didn't always want to do what the class was doing. I think part of the problem is that she is very familiar with the pool and is used to being able to doing her own thing. The concept of 'class' hasn't really sunk in yet! :) For example they wanted us to work on them sliding into the water off the side. Reba would have none of that - she wanted to jump in like she always does. I may have to take her to practice with her to get her used to having to do some of the skills while there. Seven weeks to go - will be interesting how she does. I'm not too worried because she will have to repeat this class next year as they can't start the independent classes until they are 4.

Liza is 10 and a half months old now. I can't believe it! She is developing her own personality. She's is much more demanding and needing of attention then her big sister was at her age. But we don't mind so much...just takes a little longer to get the dishes and laundry done! :)

She is pulling herself up and occasionally has let go when she is interested in something but as soon as she realizes she is standing on her own - plop! - down she goes. She is quite vocal and is currently standing by my chair voicing her opinions. She LOVES going up the stairs - we have them blocked but sometimes she can still crawl up and over - she is a determined child!

Here are her 10 month pictures - a few of them anyway.We did Reba's 9 month pictures in a similar fashion. As the photographer was taking her pictures she said I was just going through our sample book and there are several that are similar to what you are doing. Lo and behold those were Reba's pictures form 2 years ago. Reba's pictures are also in there from her ballerina pictures. In fact the manager said that they used those as an example at their district headquarter meetings to use to train people on how to add special effects and do multi-image sheets. She's a mini-model!

As you may have noticed I switched to using nicknames for the girls. It was too confusing for some (and sometimes for me) to use middle names.
Hope you all have a blessed day!