Christmas Parties

This year we went not one, not two, but SIX family Christmas parties.  Whew!  It was a whirlwind and we were exhausted by the time all was said and done, but boy did we have fun!  I wish I would have taken more pictures, but I was too busy enjoying myself.  I want to be a part of the memories, not just take a picture of them.  Add that to the fact that my munchkins were spun-up, sugar-crazed maniacs that literally never stop moving, and well, I guess you can see why pictures were few and far between.  Nevertheless, I did manage to capture some of the fun that we had.   It was so nice to catch up with family that we hadn’t seen as much as we would have liked this year and Evelyn and Mitchell had a ball playing with all of their cousins.  I wish we could focus more on this togetherness than gift giving all the time.  It is so hard not to fall into the materialistic aspects of Christmas, but we really do try.  We want to teach our kids that presents are not the most important things.  Family and love are. 

Wildlights

We went to Wildlights this year at the Columbus Zoo in late November.  We ended up going on a Tuesday night and it was perfect.  Cool, but not too cold, and not crowded at all.  The kids were mesmerized by the lights and decorations. Christmas music played throughout the zoo and we enjoyed $2 hot cocoa and kettle corn.  One of highlights was getting to see Santa’s reindeer!  I loved watching the kid’s faces as they took everything in – it was magical!

Miss Fancy Pants

Evelyn loves to play dress up these days.  Her favorite books right now are the Fancy Nancy series.   She wants to be fancy whenever we go out now.  Jewelry is a must – beaded necklaces, bangle bracelets and multiple rings.  She usually has a pair of sunglasses and yesterday she packed a boa in her purse.  I didn’t realize she even had it until I noticed pink feathers all over the backseat.  Shoes are another big thing with Evie.  She owns more pairs than I do and she changes them multiple times a day.  Recently Aunt Sha-Sha gave her a pair of black booties.  She absolutely loves them and insisted on wearing them to school because they were ‘so fancy’ and she wanted to show her friends.  It’s not unusual to find her dressed up in a princess dress with not one, but two frilly skirts underneath in addition to her light-up Cinderella heels. 

As fun as it can be to play dress-up, sometimes getting her dressed to go out can end up being quite an ordeal.  Evie is a strong-minded child and so stubborn.  She has started wanting to dress herself a little bit more which has led to some interesting results.  For example, the other day she wanted to wear a bright pink dress with a purple skirt underneath, navy blue leggings and black boots.  One morning, I dressed her up in a grey and yellow polka dot shirt and jeans.  I thought she looked adorable, but she started sobbing because the sleeves of the shirt were too tight (they really weren’t).  Another day Pat got her dressed and she threw a fit because the sleeves of her shirt were too long.  There are days when she cries because her socks aren’t long enough (she’s tried to pull anklets up to her knees) or her pants don’t completely cover her ankles (they were capris).  We pick our battles and we don’t mind her having an opinion about her clothes, but it can be frustrating sometimes.  

Despite this, I do love having a fancy-pants little girl.  Getting Mitch dressed for the day is usually a lot easier and faster, but Evie really enjoys her clothes and extravagant accessories and that’s fun to see.  Heaven help us when she’s a teenager though!

Jibber Jabber

Mitch is a pretty physical kid.  He learned to roll over and sit up fairly early.  He was crawling well by 7 months and he took his first steps at 9.5 months.  These days he’s a running, rolling, climbing and jumping machine.  His language, by comparison, has been a little slower to develop.  For a long time he just said Mama and Dada and sometimes ‘Bye.  He was mostly just gesturing and making random sounds. He’s still doing this, but recently Mitch seems to have had a little language burst and has been saying few new words and repeating things after us. 

He can say Mine, Apple, Uh-Oh, Up, Mama, Dada, Bubba (Bubble), Cup, Choo-Choo, Shoe, Love you (Pat swears he said this, but I haven’t heard it yet), Dis (This), Dat (That), Bye, Hi, Stop, Yes, No, Uh-Uh (while shaking his head no) and pop (for lollipop).  He can say our sitter’s name (Titi) and he will make a dog sound (a sort of woof-woof / howl combination) and say ‘moo’ when he sees a cow.  We’ve been trying to get him to say ‘Evie’.  He managed something that sounded a little bit like it, but he doesn’t really call her anything yet.  He just follows her around and drives her crazy.

He may not be talking a ton, but we know that his comprehension skills are spot on.  He understands everything we say to him.  The other night I said to Pat “I think I’m going take the kids upstairs and give them a bath”.  I got distracted for a half a second and turned around to find Mitchell was no longer in the room.  I found him on his way upstairs to the bathroom to get in the bath!  I can ask him to go get his shoes or to put one of his toys away and him will.  I read to him before bed every night and I’ve starting adding books that are a little bit longer.  I don’t necessarily read all the words, but I do talk about the pictures and try to get him to identify things.  He LOVES trains right now so we’ve been reading The Little Red Caboose and The Little Engine that Could.  We love it when we can hear the real train while we are reading.  Mitch always stops to listen and say “choo choo”.  There is a show called Choo Choo Soul and he is obsessed with the theme song.  Whenever I play music for the kids, he starts jumping around and waving his arms yelling ‘Choo Choo!  Choo Choo!’.

I love that he’s starting to talk more.  He gets so frustrated when he wants something and we don’t understand.  Hopefully this frustration will lessen when he can tell us what he needs.  It’s hard to tell right now, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s a lot shyer that his sister ever was.  He’s not a performer.  When we FaceTime with family, he won’t say too much other than “Bye”.  If we try to get him to talk, he usually hides his face.  Regardless, I’m sure that we will be hearing more and more out of our Mitch!

Leaves

Every leaf speaks bliss to me, fluttering from the autumn tree.
Emily Bronte

Happy Halloween!

Halloween this year was an EVENT.  It was really the first time Evelyn cared at all about the holiday and we really had fun with it.  When it came time to decide on a costume, we just couldn't decide.  At first she wanted to be a princess, but I have to admit, I steered her away from that.  Ultimately she decided she wanted to be a cowgirl and that was that.  She wore the costume a total of 4 times - Boo at the Zoo, the Latonia Halloween Block Party, Trick or Treat (Columbus had theirs on Oct. 28th) and a birthday party on Halloween.  She got to dress up for school too, but she chose to be Doc McStuffins for that (we already had the costume).  Evie loved being a cowgirl.  She loved all of the accessories and she loved the makeup.  All I did was add some brown freckles with an eyeliner pencil and my girl was in heaven!  We trick or treated with some of neighborhood kids for about half a block and then Evie announced that she had enough candy and she wanted to go home. She was more than thrilled to be able to give out candy to the other kids and I can't say I minded.  As for Mitch... well our little monkey just wanted to do whatever big sister did. He was so cute in his costume and he charmed the pants off of everyone.  Then he had two lollipops and then threw a mega-fit when we wouldn't give him the entire bowl of Halloween candy.  Our kiddos sure do keep us on our toes and we love it!

The Trenches

I haven’t been updating this blog as much as I’d like because, lately, life has just been so busy.  Sometimes I feel like we are constantly going, going, going and then at the end of the day, I’m not even sure what we did.  I can see why people sometimes refer to the parenting years as being ‘in the trenches”.  Some days you’re just trying to survive and make it through.  

Tactics we used just yesterday to get the kids to eat their dinner no longer work, so we re-strategize and try a new approach.  The bedtime routine that has run so well – bath, teeth, story, songs and bed – is suddenly disrupted by a rebellion so we have to buckle down, power through, and spend 45 minutes mopping up bath water, wrestling kids into the pjs and listening to a seemingly endless litany of needs… “I need a story”, “I need to go potty”, “I need a Band-Aid”.  Or in Mitch’s case ”Mama.. Mama.. Mama”.    

There are so many things that I love about the ages that my kids are at right now.  I love we can all play, giggle and have fun together.  I love their endless curiosity and how the smallest thing can make their eyes light up.  I love to watch their imaginations at work and I love the hugs and kisses.  But, even with all this, it’s still really, really hard sometimes.  I find myself nostalgic for the baby days.  They were, at least for us, so much simpler.  Our babies were easily transportable, they slept a lot more and they could sleep anywhere.  They couldn’t care less how we dressed them, they were more easily entertained and they didn’t put up a fight when it was time to eat.   That precious time went too quickly.  Now we’re in the trenches where just getting the kids dressed for the day can be a test of patience.  The other day, Evie burst into tears because her sleeves were too long.  A few days later, she lost it because the sleeves were too short and then because her socks wouldn’t stretch to her knees.  

Mitch would just assume run around in a diaper so getting him dressed can feel like a wrestling match (one that often ends in tears).  Seriously – the kid sees us coming towards him holding clothes and he runs the other direction.  And once we finally do get the clothes on him, we turn around to find that he’s removed his shirt and is in the process of trying to take off his socks…with his teeth.  *Sigh* 

Each day I find myself more in awe and filled with even more respect for our parents.  They dealt with the tantrums, the screaming, the clutter and toys and messes too.  They know what it’s like to not be able to take your kid to a store without them asking for 500 things in the toy aisle.  They understand how frustrating it can be to not be able to get anything done and still end the day feeling exhausted.  They how disheartening it can be to finish the laundry only to find the basket filled with dirty clothes the next day.  They understand how you feel when you just made your kids a nutritious dinner, but all they’ll eat is mac and cheese. They know how tough and overwhelming it is to balance work and family time and how completely chaotic it can feel sometimes.  They know because they’ve been there, survived it and somehow managed to stay sane.  And they still love us despite all that we put them through!  Many of the seasoned parents that I talk to say the same thing…cherish this time because it goes by so quickly.  That can be hard to do when you’re so exhausted and stressed out that you’re not even sure what day of the week it is.  But I also know that it’s 100% true.  My children drive me straight up bonkers sometimes.  But no matter what they do, I love them.  I love then so much it hurts.  So we’ll keep trudging through the trenches and doing our best to appreciate, amid all of the pandemonium and fatigue, those special, amazing moments we get with our babies. 

Evelyn's First Field Trip

Yesterday Evie and her Kangaroo class went on their very first field trip! 

Evelyn was so excited and she couldn’t wait to wear her navy LCC t-shirt and go to the Jacquemin’s Pumpkin Patch in Plain City, OH. The kids got to go to Pumpkin School and learn about all different types of pumpkins.  Evelyn’s favorite was the white ‘Snowball” pumpkin.  They also got to see a ‘baby’ pumpkin on a vine that still had an orange blossom and pick out a ‘pie’ pumpkin from the patch.  After a small snack, the kids were able to run around in the hay bale maze, go down the slides and play in the corn boxes (large grain boxes filled with dried corn).

I was excited to be a chaperone.  I wanted to see Evelyn’s interactions with her friends and put some faces to the names she’s mentioned.  I was also happy to get the chance to talk with her teacher.  Evelyn really seems to love Miss Teri and she is seriously wonderful with the kids.  I was impressed at how attentive the children were when they were at Pumpkin school.  They were all so eager to learn!  I loved how all of the children sang “Thank you Jesus for our food” (to the tune of a nursery rhyme I can’t think of right now) before they ate their snack.  It was nice to get to know some of the parents too.

It was a great day all around!

Already October

It’s hard to believe that it is October.  Our days of warm, sunny weather are numbered and will soon be replaced by the crisp, cool air of the fall.  While autumn is one of my favorite times of the year, I’ll be sad to say goodbye to summer.  

There are so many reasons for this, but the one that I’ve been thinking about recently are the kid’s clothes.  Don’t get me wrong.  I love the warm sweaters, comfy sweatshirts, cute little boots, and holiday ensembles that the kids wear in the fall.  What I don’t enjoy is packing up the summer stuff.  In fact, I hate it.  When the season change, I put off sorting through the clothes for as long as a possibly can.  Both kids still have clothes in their closets that they wore last winter that won’t fit this year.  I need to sort through them and pack them away.  But every time I start to do it, I find a reason to put it off until later.  It is a tedious task.  Also, packing up their clothes is an emotional thing for me.  There are many that will roll their eyes and think I’m ridiculous and they’re probably right.  I just can’t help it.  Most likely, the clothes worn this summer will be outgrown by next year and that thought makes me want to cry.  Evie’s favorite yellow sundress won’t fit next summer and Mitch won’t be able to wear his “Awesome Lil’ Bro” t-shirt.  No doubt there will be other cute outfits, but it’s still difficult to fathom just how quickly these kids are growing up.  

Picture Post