No baby yet

The long-awaited time for our new little girl to be born seems to continue to elude us. My goal was to make it through this past Saturday, so now that Saturday is past I am starting to already get a bit antsy. I actually felt more likely to have the baby around 34 weeks than I do now! I am beginning to think that this little one is either trying to hibernate for the winter or she is going to follow her sisters' previous examples and need to be encouraged with a large quantity of Pitocin. Meanwhile, I will continue to consume endless chocolate and gain more unsightly weight!

Special times with daddy
Tyler recently took S. on her first official "date." She picked out her favorite dress, had her hair and makeup done, and even wore a little necklace. She was very excited. She ordered chocolate chip pancakes, but I doubt the pancakes will be what she remembers. Rather, great time alone with daddy!

P. made her own opportunity to connect with daddy. While daddy was worshiping at the piano, P. sat down and joined right in. She was nothing but smiles ... and so was daddy. Our two little girls are priceless gems.

Our first garage sale
Years overdue, Tyler and I took part in our subdivision's annual garage sale this month. It took us two weekends to go through everything in our basement and eight hours to get rid of it. We let the kids pick which toys we sold, but S. and P. had a hard time letting go stuffed animals. P. actually found that the place she liked most was right in the stuffed animal tub! Although I was totally exhausted afterward, it felt really good to cut down on the amount of stuff we had accumulated over the past eight years and we are getting pretty close to actually having a clean and organized basement. (Translation: A place for the kids to go nuts this winter! What can they possibly do to cement floors and concrete walls? Ummm, don't answer that; I would like to live in this little Utopian idea for awhile.)

Funny faces
As part of the garage sale clean-up, we dug all of the baby toys out of our basement storage. The kids took full advantage catching up with items they haven't seen in over a year, but I think P. had the most fun. One morning after breakfast, I caught her cracking up at herself while making funny faces into a mirrored toy.

Doing school
Even though she is only three, S. has been eager to join E. in "doing school." I try to include at least one hands-on project a week in either science or history for E., so when it is doable S. gets to join us. Here she is modeling clay. While E. made a tablet with his name written in cuneiform, S. eventually decided that she would rather use the screwdriver to eat the clay. It was pretty gross and I tried to get her to stop, but compared to some of the other things she has been eating lately I figured this might be one of the least things to hurt her!

Time with Cousin Heath
Tyler's cousin was in town this past week for a conference and he postponed his travels home so that he could visit with us for a night. It has been a long time since we have seen him--I think almost two years--and it was good to catch up. Because getting out the door with a slow, slow preggo woman and three kiddos took awhile, we didn't have much time to "sightsee" so we went to our favorite local park/farm before taking him to the airport. Heath works within the agricultural industry and our youngest two have barely set foot on an actual farm! Here are some photo highlights, although I bet that Heath has much better pics because all E. did was ask that Heath take his picture. =) (Thanks for visiting Heath! Maybe at some point we will make it to NY to see you and your family!)

Backlog of blogs

The month of July went by fast and furiously. Hot and humidiously, too! Not finding any time to blog throughout the month made me believe that I may actually have a life. Either that or I am too tired and pregnant to withstand my normal late night blogging sessions. Let's pretend it is the former!

So do I suddenly have a plethora of time now that it is August? Unfortunately, no. But I do have our van getting repaired right now and it is going to be a 6 hour job. So I have to spend all day sitting at Bread Co, sipping a cool drink, and not having any children pull on my leg. What a painful predicament I am in. Maybe they will need to keep the van overnight and I will be forced to get a hotel room too ... ;)

A friend's spontaneous visit
One great event this past month was a visit from an old college roommate, Laurie. She came in town for the weekend and it was great spending time with her and our other roommate Becky. We went downtown to a children's water/sculpture park one day. The kids had a blast and it was great catching up with friends.

Birthday celebrations continue
Tyler's mom and stepdad came into town for S.'s birthday. They brought Cousin Ashlynn, too. It was a nice, relaxing weekend. S. received cards and gifts for more than a week after her birthday, so every time she saw a card of any sort (including some of the thank you cards I was trying to send out!) she would rip them open thinking they were for her. Her musical and message cards are on her dresser and still get daily use to give she and P. momentary dancing breaks!



Dancin' it up
Speaking of dancing, one of the gifts we got for S. was the "Just Dance" Wii game. All three of the kids love it and it is nice that they can all participate without actually needing a controller to feel like they are involved. Every time I put that game in for them, it just makes me laugh watching them trying to match the moves. It really is like having a dance party!




First Cardinals game
When we lived in KY, Tyler and I would frequent Reds games. Not having kids allowed us to be spontaneous enough to park along the river, walk the bridge, and buy $6 nosebleed tickets whenever we wanted. Being in the stadium and seeing the Cinci skyline and the Ohio River just made for a great time out. In Chicago, Wrigleyville was like nothing we had experienced before. We took E. to his first ever ball game there and Cubs fans are seriously die hard. The excitement and enthusiasm extended well beyond the stadium. We had nosebleed seats, E. was somewhat disappointed that he wasn't actually playing, but the experience was priceless and it had that memorable Chicago feel (with the trains going by during the game and all).

We recently have been brainstorming things to do with E. so that it is just the three of us. When Cardinals tickets were on sale for almost 70% the retail price, we snagged them. We thought he would absolutely love it. While he did have fun, and despite our good seats, E. had a hard time seeing where the ball was in the stadium lights. For the first half of the game I think he was more interested in the peanuts we were eating. During the second half of the game, he was so stoked about a baseball that he got that we joked that we could have just gone to WalMart and purchased him a new baseball instead of actually coming to the game! I hope it was a good bonding time for him with just mom and dad though. As for Tyler and I, the thrill of the baseball stadium has seemed to have worn off. We were so stinking hot that sitting in an air-conditioned car on the way home was our bliss for the night. We breathed a sigh of relief from the constant humidity while E. continually played catch with his new ball ... all the way home.
Summer camp
One of our last big events for the month was a week long summer camp. E. attended the sports camp and I volunteered during the mornings for the art camp. E. had a great time and he said the worst part about the camp was coming home each night. (I tried not to take that personally!) He got to show off some of what he learned during the closing ceremony and then we all enjoyed a reception. P. was particularly pleased with herself when she nabbed a green-frosted cupcake after the reception was over while we chatted with friends. True to the picture below, she only ended up eating the frosting ... or at least wearing it!

Our beautifully funny 2 year old

We celebrated S.'s second birthday this past weekend with a party. It is hard to believe that she is 2, yet I feel like she is older than her years. My mom, sister, nieces and nephew, and my friend Laurie were in town and it was a great weekend. I would like to say restful as well, but everyone would know better than that! Not when it was the 4th of July AND I had a party to throw!

I tried to upload this hilarious video of S. opening a Dora birthday card that she received from Aunt Jayme, but it was—you guessed it!—too big. The card sang "happy birthday" in English and Spanish and S. loved it; she just held it and danced naked on the kitchen table while the card sang to her over and over again. (Well, almost naked—she was wearing her diaper at least.) I am going to try to post it on Facebook at some point for everyone to see. So the video below is the runner-up. She is so cute; I love to hear her little voice. Especially when it isn't screaming "no" at me. =)



And here are some photo highlights from her ladybug birthday party. We invited her friends from small group and her nursery/toddler class from church (invitations, right). The rain held off, the sun eventually came out, and it was a nice time celebrating her birth with others who love her too.


Thank you to everyone who came to celebrate, gave gifts and cards, and sent cards/money in the mail. She has been receiving at least one card a day every day since last Friday!

The 4th of July
This year we took on the adventure and went downtown for the fireworks. It was really cool to see them set off right underneath the Arch. Unfortunately, it was muggy and there wasn't a breeze so half of the fireworks were hard to see because of the stagnant smoke. Almost the entire finale was under smoke, too. But it was still worth the experience. And, surprisingly, it wasn't that crowded at all. I was expecting something of Chicago-sized proportions. Chalk up another pro for the smaller "big city"!

On the con side, we took the train downtown and when we made it back to the train stop to go home, there were thousands of people already waiting in line. The line was coming out of the station, filled one entire sidewalk and then wrapped around to fill another one. It was depressing to look at and realize that we would be in that line with six tired, hungry kids for a very long time. We decided to wait it out at a local fast food place, only to find out when we got there that they closed at 9 pm. I was shocked! On the 4th of July?!? Two blocks from the fireworks?!? I rest my case. So we ended up walking to the next train stop and made it home just before midnight. The thought went through my head more than once that we were going to be up most of the night wandering the city streets. I am so thankful that wasn't the case.

Poor S. didn't like the fireworks at all (see pic below of her on Tyler's lap). She sat like this the entire time and literally had at least one eye covered the whole time. On a positive note, she got to open her first birthday present before the fireworks started—glow-in-the-dark bracelets! She wasn't too stoked, but the older kids really liked them. And P. tried to eat them, of course.


Peas for P.
Today is day two of peas for P. And, daresay, I think she actually likes them! I mixed them in with her cereal and she gobbled them right up. I hope it continues to be this easy!

To swallow or not to swallow . . .

Last night P. had her first taste of food, well, if you consider runny rice cereal “food”! I gave it to her right before bed—she was really tired—so the timing probably could have been better thought out. I will probably start to give it to her every night at dinnertime so that she can sit at the table and eat with us.



In other family news . . .
We have had a busy couple of weeks. We have been looking at houses handfuls at a time and still haven't found anything. I was also sick most of last week and then it hit each of the kids for one day at a time, too. (Don’t worry, it wasn’t the swine flu!) We have also been trying to get all of our summer clothes out and get S. and P. into their next sizes. Basically, our place is absolute chaos right now . . . and we still haven’t found any of my shorts.

Last week, I took the kids to our church’s play group at this really nice park. It was so fun that we went back that weekend as a family. There is an oversized pond to fish in and a farm at the park, too. We also had dinner with friends and made smores over a fire in their backyard. Overall, a nice relaxing weekend. Enjoy the photo highlights!

Downtown

We had some really great weather this past week, so Tyler took the older kids downtown for one morning to play soccer, ball, etc. That is an interesting thing about this city, at least compared to Chicago. You can decide to go downtown for a few hours and it isn't a big deal. It is like going to the mall or to a restaurant ... with a few more constraints on the available parking. In Chicago, you definitely had to use public transportation from where we lived. (Of course, riding on a train to and from downtown was all part of the fun! But it also meant a large time commitment in order to make the trip.) In Chicago, there always seemed to be a parade or festival or some other function occurring in a part of the city that caused mass congestion everywhere. When you go downtown here, there really isn't that much going on, not too many people around, and really not that much to do. You can drive through the downtown area, get across the bridge into Illinois, and never have to press on your brake. While I don't miss the Chicago traffic, I do miss that there was always something to do! And sadly, we just never had the time to do most of it. When asking about this year's family vacation, E. asked to go to Chicago!

Practice, practice, practice
I have been giving P. every opportunity possible to practice sitting up. She almost has it! She is just about to the stage where she is sitting up but has that forward lean. I sat her down in the chair today for a little photo shoot before the older kids woke up. She absolutely loves affirmation, so when she sits really well I start praising her and clapping and she just smiles so big! Her other new item of interest is that she has officially found her thumb and sucks on it whenever she is tired and trying to fall asleep. E. never had any interest in his thumb (he took a pacifier until 4 mo.) and S. is a two-finger sucker (you have all seen the pics ... and if not, just look back through old posts!). So P. will be my first thumb sucker. And she sure is cute doing it.

Warning! Busy week up ahead!
I have a very busy week coming up and I am really dreading it. I am not dreading the week's activities, just all of the unknowns that come with it. (I am a control freak and not having everything laid out and planned causes me unnecessary anxiety. This is just one of the negative side effects of my perfectionism.) My employer just finalized yesterday that I need to go into the office for four days (Northern KY/Cinci area). Normally I just have to go for a couple of days, but this time there are extra meetings I need to attend and a new online store feature that I need to get launched. (I am the manager for our online bookstore: www.AnswersBookstore.com. We are launching a new "live chat" feature where customers can chat live with our customer service team without having to call in.) The dreadful part is that I am nursing P. and she has only ever taken a bottle once . . . and that was over 3 months ago. Not only that, but if she isn't on site for me to nurse, I will have to spend a significant amount of my day pumping. Not fun, but the real anxiety comes in that our office is so fast-paced that many days go by so busily and quickly that it will be 3 o'clock and I will realize that I never had lunch. So stopping to pump every 3 hours for 45 minutes - 1 hour is a stretch for me, not to mention that I have to then find the time somewhere in the day to make up for all of the missed time pumping. If it wasn't for the physical discomfort of not pumping, I would forget entirely. So now I am debating if I should ask a grandmother to stay on site with the kids so that P. can be "delivered" to me whenever hungry or if I should just pump. I mean, pumping would be a nice lesson to me in drawing boundaries and walking away from loose ends in the heat of the moment, but it would also cause strain on P. by switching her virtually cold turkey as well as on the poor grandmother that had to try and feed her . . . while watching the other two. Wow, am I irrational and a worry wart or just super protective and cautious? I normally call this critical side of myself "realistic," but maybe "pessimistic" would be a bit more accurate! On a postive not (yep, I just have one), we will get to see all of the grandparents while we are in town. My days in the office are a Thursday – Tuesday, so we will get to see Tyler's mom and stepdad while I need to be at the office and then we are going to drive up north to see my mom and dad over the weekend. If anyone is up for it, drop in and see us!