"This is what a Princess looks like!"

Genevieve comes running in to tell our guest, "This is what a Princess looks like!"

Here's a princess and her granny!

Freaky Feather Fear

I am ashamed to admit my son has a ridiculous fear of loose hair and feathers. So strange! Watch this!

He totally screams like a girl too. He is in a fearful phase right now that we are working on. Hopefully, it passes soon or at least before he gets to school and gets made fun of for it. We had to end his bath early last night because Genna went to the potty, got distracted, and threw away her toilet paper in the bathtub instead of the toilet. As I tried to grab it all, it disintegrated into a million pieces that made Isaac do his girl scream and want out of the tub immediately. It was a gross and chaotic bath time to say the least.

Reunion of "The Twelve"

"The Twelve" is what we once called ourselves. A group of us that met freshman year at Texas A&M have kept in touch for the last nine years since we graduated. This was our fourth reunion and eleven of us were able to make it for some of the weekend at least. Five are pregnant, three for the first time, so there was lots of baby talk going on. We had a great time! My mom so lovingly kept the kids for me so I could have time to talk and catch up.

Past: This was after we graduated at Brian and my first apartment. I think it was end of 2001 or beginning of 2002. It's the oldest picture I could find with all of us together, but I know there is another one out there.

Present: 2010 Three people are missing since two had already left for the weekend when we took this.

A Paint-by-Number window into their souls

While I was out of town this weekend, my mom gave the girls a Paint-by-Number kit. They were so excited to show me when I got home. Hannah's picture had a girl with an inappropriate bathing suit on (Tsk tsk, Mimi!), and I asked her why she did't just paint some clothes on her. Her reply, "I have to follow the numbers, Mom." Paint-by-Number rules trump appropriate clothing rules, I guess.

Genna showed me hers and it was pretty, but I noticed some of the numbers were darkened out where you couldn't see them. Apparently, Genna messed up on one and then decided she didn't want to follow the numbers and she would just paint it whatever color she wanted. So she marked out the remaining numbers. A free spirit, if I ever saw one!

Thomas the Train box

Look what we made before I left for the weekend!

Hannah told the sibs a story and illustrated it inside the box too.

Not on my list

This project was not on my summer list, but I have good reasons for veering from my list. One I was still deciding whether or not I could make something here in Texas without all my supplies at home. When I found this tutorial, I just couldn't wait to start it. Plus, as you are reading this I am giving these as gifts while attending a mini reunion with my college girlfriends. Four of them are pregnant, but only two know what they are having as of yet...two new baby girls! Not to mention the severe sewing machine withdrawl I have been going through since this whole moving process began over two months ago. The hand-sewing I brought along just isn't cutting it! And on top of all that, I am waiting on the filler for my lap desks to arrive in the mail.

Anyway, if you popped over to see Mrs. Dork's cute outfit, then you may have noticed a few differences between hers and mine. One was on purpose and, I admit, one was not. I went with a complete halter instead of adding her cute tabs in the back. I don't know why, could be laziness. Then there are the bloomers. Somehow they ended up one pattern on one pants leg and one pattern on the other instead of one pattern in the front and one in the back. I have read and reread her tutorial and still don't know where I went wrong. I do know how to get the patterns in the right place, but as for how she got them in the right place I am still not sure. Maybe something is wrong with my brain or maybe I have just been away from the sewing machine too long! I vote for the latter. And you better too!

Here they are, but they sure would look cuter with some little girls in them!

I made this big sister dress to match too.

The big sis is close to Isaac's size, and so I used him to measure. I even had him try it on after it was finished, but he did not like that one bit. That surprised me since he lets Hannah dress him up like a girl all the time. See!

Three Lap Desks...check!

I am in the midst of lesson plans and still working on Isaac's stocking, of course, but I took an evening off to make these and actually check something off my list!

It took me an hour and a half, start to finish, which surprised even me. They were fast and simple. If you want the tutorial go to Balancing Everything. The main thing that I did differently is using a rounded edged dry erase board instead of the hardboard panel for obvious reasons. And I made them smaller so that they could be used in the car. This way all three kiddos can sit in a row in our 8-seater Sienna in their respective boosters and car seats using their lap desks and no one is touching each other. You know how that goes on long trips.

I let the girls choose between the two fabrics, encouraging them to pick different ones, but I had enough fabric of each in case they didn't. Hannah picked the owls which were my favorite and Genna picked the girly fabric which I fully expected. Isaac gets construction trucks because they were on sale and, bonus, he loves construction trucks!

I have enough bean bag filler left over that now I am just itching to make a bean bag! It will have to wait though. Way too much is on the imporant to do list right now!

Hurricane

Hurricane Harbor, that is! The kids went to their first water park today and had a blast despite the fact that they were too short to ride on almost anything. We only went on one "ride" which the girls and I piled into a big raft and went down a twisty gigantic slide. They screamed the whole way, but they both wanted to do it again! They loved the wave pool and the lazy river too. Hannah tried to cross this pool via a monkey bar type rope ladder while walking on fake plastic logs. She didn't make it and the lifeguard was a bit overly dramatic and jumped into to help her get to the side. She was pretty mad at herself for not making it across, but I was proud of her for trying. She's much smaller than the rest of the kids that were doing it.

I think Isaac enjoyed the kiddie pool the most with it's spraying water and slides more his size. Although around 2pm, he was lulled to sleep by the lazy river and took a nap on me for nearly an hour. It was a long day and we all got a little pink even with two thorough sunscreen applications.

I can't believe they've never done this before!

Played in the sprinklers! Hannah was just 7 months old when we moved to upstate New York and then to Germany after that. In those places, the hose water is freezing year round! I had to add boiling water to their baby pools so they didn't freeze in the heat of the summer. All this is to say that we never could just play in the sprinklers. Today they had their chance!

We went to the track so I could run. (Yes, I am trying to get back into my exercise and diet routine since I no longer have an excuse to get fat.) It was super hot and the kids found a puddle and Isaac was soaked when we got in the car to head to the house. When we got back to my parent's house, my dad was watering and so I encouraged them to cool off in the sprinklers. Hannah didn't last but a minute and decided she didn't want to get her close wet. You know she doesn't like the way it feels, even for a little while. Genna and Isaac had a blast though!

Maybe

I bent down to kiss Genna when I got back from the store and saw a big bump, bruise, and cut, all in one, on her forehead. I asked her what happened and she said she didn't know. Later I was racking my brain to figure out if she did it at the pool or what could have happened. I wondered aloud about it again and she say, "Well maybe it happened in the bathroom when I got off the toilet. And maybe I bumped my head on the sharp corner of the bathroom counter." "Maybe?" I ask, "Or that's really what happened, Genevieve?" That's really what happened! I was cracking up at the word maybe with all the details. She is really something else.

Chopsticks

To keep Isaac busy, I showed him how to use chopsticks to pick up the little wonton chips while we waited for our food at PF Changs. Of course, he couldn't do it, but he got creative trying. He is one determined little boy!

I love you, Isaac!

Stranger or friend?

Genevieve started out as a severely shy baby and toddler and has turned into my most social and friendly child, and if you know my children that is really saying something. How did that happen? I don't even know. She was so shy that if people talked to her she would usually burst into tears and cling to me like they had just asked to eat her for dinner. She wouldn't even let me put her down at play groups or let me leave the room when people were visiting at our own house. Things started to change around 18 months old. Now we will be walking in a public place and as we are walking she starts talking to passers-by. I mean the people are still walking away from us and we are walking away from them and she is chattering away about her doll or our dog or whatever is on her mind at the time. The people will turn and crane their necks as long as they can while still walking, partially to be polite and partially, let's be honest, because she is just so darn cute prattling on with those curls and huge blue eyes.

At the airport (when flying from DC to Texas), she was conversing with a young lady behind us in line as we waited to check our bags. She had told her all about our dog, how cranky he is and that he will bite you if you step on him when you're not looking. She told her all about her rolly backpack and how it is the same as Hannah's but she got it later than Hannah and about all the things inside it, in particular her Nani that is an elephant head with a blanket attached. She told her about where we were moving from and to and how our new house is empty because our stuff in on a boat in the ocean moving sooooo slow. I swear I have no secrets with her blabbing about everything to everyone. Anyway, we end up seeing the lady again when we get to the gate and she hands the girls a little picture she drew for each of them. After she walks away to sit down, Genna turns to me and asks enthusiastically, "Mom, can we sit next to her on the airplane? She's my friend!" I asked Genna, "Now is she your friend or is she a stranger?" When she answers wrong, I correct her. Before I can explain why she is a stranger, Genna says, "But Mom she didn't even give us poison candy. She just gave us these pretty pictures. And," she turns to Hannah, "we told her our names. Didn't we, Hannah?" Ha! I guess stranger danger isn't quite clicking her little mind.

What I am working on this summer

First priority is to get things in order for homeschooling. I had all my curricula sent here so I could organize it and do my lesson plans. Here are my goals in this area:

Send off letter of intent to home school

Make lesson plans-I still need to pick a planner! Any recommendations?

Make a prayer binder (with pictures of people for whom we need to pray)

Make cookie sheet magnetic activity

Make felt board activity

Make Velcro activity board

Second would be to do some of my crafts while I am here at my parent's house. My goals, roughly in order of priority, as far as these projects go are:

Finish Isaac's stocking

Make 2 pillowcase totes for gifts

Make 3 lap desks for my kids in the car on our long drive up to Maryland from Texas

I don't know how realistic these goals are, but I plan to do what I can during nap times and bedtimes. Isaac's stocking is getting closer to being finished, but it still has many evenings worth of work. The lesson plans will be time comsuming as well since this is my first time doing it and I am such a perfectionist that it is paralyzing me in this area right now.

Beach Trip Photos

By day three, they had cleared the piles of seaweed enough to have some room to play in the sand. The wind died down a bit and the tide went out a little. With the wind lessening, the mosquitoes were more of a problem, but I had my handy Avon Skin So Soft with Picaridin that worked like a charm to keep them off us. However, the wind was still enough to blow the bug spray into Hannah's eyes when she walked by as someone was spraying it. Trauma and drama. Apparently our family can't go a day without it.

The men

All of us

The women

Sunday, after an early Mass, we drove seven or so hours to my parent's house, and here we shall stay for a little while. Brian will be heading back to Maryland soon to forge the trail for us a bit and, hopefully, get our car and shipped goods before we all descend upon the house.

Life Goes On

So the timing of our first ever family vacation to the beach with my parents and all of my siblings and theirs spouses wasn't the best as it turns out. Thursday we were all supposed to meet up at the Corpus Christi Islandhouse where we had rented two condos. Well, we all made it eventually; some through torrential downpours from the tropical storm and others (my mom and I) after a loooong trip to the ER. I had some complications with the miscarriage and ended up having to have a minor procedure just shy of a D&C on that day.

Day two didn't start out so well since the tide was way up, the waves were massive, and the seaweed covered what little beach was left. We had to dig ourselves out a plot of sand for the kiddies to play in. Plus, I was now banned from the water and had to sit on the beach and "take it easy" while everyone else jumped in the waves and went on walks. I was sure I had jinxed the whole trip. But as the day progressed things improved significantly. As I sat there in my beach chair in front of the beautiful ocean listening to the waves, I watched with my tears hiding behind over-sized sunglasses my son play in the sand with my brother and sister-in-law, Hannah and her daddy hunting for seashells, and Genevieve twirling like a ballerina in the waves with my mom and dad. Through all the joy I feel in my heart for them and their unequivocal uniqueness, I couldn't help but wonder what the baby I lost would have been if he or she had lived. Would she have been a "trash into treasure" kind of girl like Hannah who makes seaweed into something wonderful and useful? Would he have been content to build sand castles and drive trucks through the sand like Isaac, a little afraid of the big, crashing waves? Or would she have been a free spirit like Genna who dances and sings to her heart's content without a care in the world for who sees her? I decided he or she would have been none of those things, but something completely special and unparalleled. I have to remind myself that someday I will find out. I will meet my Sweet Pea's soul in heaven. And then I will know my child.

A Hard Good-bye

We've had a lot of good-byes this summer. And I am afraid the hardest of them all was just this weekend when we had to say good-bye to our unborn child. Our dear Sweat Pea who was due to enter the world on February 6th, 2011 is now with our heavenly Father.

As for what happened, Friday I had an ultrasound and we could not see a baby. Only the amniotic sac was present. The doctor told me that either my dates were wrong and I wasn't 8 weeks along and the baby was too small to see (which was very unlikely) or it was a blighted ovum pregnancy. A blighted ovum is where the baby isn't able to develop at a very early stage because of chromosomal abnormalities. The sac develops and the body thinks it is still pregnant for a while because of the hormones being produced from the sac. Eventually, your body figures out that the baby is already gone and you complete the process of miscarriage. I miscarried on Saturday night and it was confirmed by the doctor Monday.

I am heartbroken. I have been planning for this baby, dreaming of this baby, thinking of names for this baby and now my baby isn't with me any longer. It is strange how you can miss someone you've never even seen. How he or she could leave a hole behind. I am trying to begin to heal now, emotionally and physically. I had no idea how physically traumatic a natural miscarriage could be to your body. I expected the emotional effects, but I am remembering God's blessings all the time. My three healthy beautiful children that are still with me are a huge comfort to me and they don't even know it. I can't help but smile when Isaac asks me to cuddle with him or Genna says she wants to be together with me always or Hannah colors me a stack of pictures before I leave the house without her. And I need those smiles. I am embracing the joy from those smiles.

I am trusting my merciful God and resting in His comfort.

I am taking things one step at a time with His strength.

I am hoping for our family to grow in His good timing.

I am not doing any of these things perfectly.

Good-bye Sweat Pea. I love you.

Happy Fourth of July

God bless America!

Hannah's Monkey Business

I may have mentioned before that Hannah has always been a picky dresser. She doesn't like tennis shoes, leggings, puffy coats, sweaters, jeans or other button down pants. The list goes on. I can't keep up and I don't try to. She has to wear what I pick out for her and if she complains there are consequences. All this is to set up the scene for my story here.

Hannah wanted to change into her jammies at about 5pm because her sister got to change pants due to an accident. They were button down pants that she didn't like. We had people coming over and I wanted her to wait until later to change. Rejected, she then asked to play dress up. I agreed if she would get dressed again before the guests arrived. When the time came to get dressed she asked where her jammies were because she claimed that her pants were too wet with dog slobber. I told her to bring them to me so I could check them. Here's where this mundane story gets interesting. She brings them to me and they are soaked. Soaked beyond dog slobber capabilities. Because my little girl is so much like me I knew instantly what had happened. Yes, that's right, she put them in the sink to make sure I would say that she didn't have to wear them. Unfortunately, she was caught and received a punishment in addition to having to wear the wet pants through dinner. She sat in front of the fan trying to dry them off until she fell asleep.

I have got to hand it to her, she is creative. I love my Hannah so much, faults and all.

Cousin Buddies

They are growing and changing a lot since the last time the boys were together back in October of '09. I count it a blessing to have these guys be so close in age.