Our Elf on the Shelf: Fred Mabed Howard

We have an Elf on the Shelf. Grant's grandmother bought him for us when Maggie was three and she decided to name him Fred Mabed Howard. She's totally embarrassed about his name now and wishes she could rename him but it has stuck!
(For those of you unfamiliar with the Elf on the Shelf, it's a little doll who is allegedly sent by Santa to live in your house for the Christmas season. He reports back to Santa in the North Pole every night, and in the morning the children have to look for him because he goes to a different location in the house every morning. If a child touches him he loses his magical power. Some people use it as a heavy-handed Our-Elf-Is-Watching-You thing but that's kind of creepy to me. We prefer to just have fun with it. This year I got lots of fun ideas from my favorite addiction, Pinterest. (Sidenote- if you want an invitation let me know and I'll send you one.)
Some mornings he was just in funny places, like on top of this little bird sculpture I have, but other mornings he did some crazy things, like dying our milk green, putting Maggie's underwear all over the Christmas tree, making snow angels out of flour on the kitchen table, or eating part of a gingerbread cookie. Another time I wrapped him up in a little doll towel Maggie had and put him in the bathroom with her doll's little soap and shampoo. I did take photos of a few of the things he did, like replace all the frames in the living room with photos of himself:or make a zipline with fishing wire in the kitchen over the sink:
He even tried on some of Barbie's clothes one night. I say this all the time but I seriously don't know who had more fun, me or Maggie. It was so much fun. However, I will admit to being a little relieved on Christmas Eve when Fred went back to the North Pole until next Christmas. It was fun but took a little planning and work to pull it all off. I HIGHLY recommend one. I'm so excited I have a year to think of more fun ideas for Fred.

The gingerbread house

Ever since Maggie's second Christmas we've been assembling and decorating a gingerbread house. This year we bought one at Trader Joe's and it's my favorite one we've ever done. I had to make the frosting out of egg whites, powdered sugar, and a few drops of vinegar, and, y'all, I totally cheated. I made the frosting in order to decorate, but I assembled the house with my trusty glue gun. I think it's totally gross to eat the gingerbread house, but I figured if anyone wanted to eat it they could just get one of the parts without glue on it (like the middle of one of the slabs). It was awesome because the glue hardened almost immediately so we could start decorating right away.
Every Halloween I try to get rid of the candy as quickly as possible but this year I convinced my kids to save some of it for decorating the gingerbread house. I'm doing that again next year, for sure.
I didn't really think about who the little people were supposed to be until my genius friend, Christin, pointed out that they were Hansel and Gretel. Maggie broke the little girl and the little boy before we even started decorating and later that day Finn ate all the ornaments off the Christmas tree and tried to eat the little dog. Sheesh.
Here are the wild hooligans right after we finished with the gingerbread house.

The post-Christmas letdown

Anyone else experiencing a bit of post-Christmas letdown? There's so much anticipation and planning heading into Christmas and then, before you know it, it's over. Boo hoo. We had such a fun Christmas this year.
Here are Carolina and my mom in front of our tree on Christmas Eve. It's blurry but sweet.
Grant's parents and brother/sister-in-law, Blake and Jenny, went together with us to buy a swing set for the back yard. We had a little slide/climbing toy and a swing for ages 0-4, but Finn and Carolina always wanted to swing at the same time, and Maggie didn't have a swing at all. The new swing set is solid wood with EXCELLENT construction (more on that in a minute) and is somewhat basic. We'd love one of the ones that's practically a treehouse, with a fort, twisty slide, rock climbing wall, etc, but those are thousands of dollars, and therefore out of our budget. Anyway, this one has three swings on it, with room for one more (I want to get one of the double swings where two kids ride back-to-back) and we're hoping to add a slide soon. There's a little platform with two ladders leading up to it, which is where the slide will go.
We ordered a kit which contains all of the hardware and the swing seats, and then Grant bought the lumber specified at Home Depot. He put it together in one day with the help of our neighbor, Chuck, whose wife sent him over to help. He's extremely handy and very sweet, and even came back over on Christmas Eve while we were gone to add a few reinforcing bolts.
On Christmas morning we opened all the gifts, ate our special breakfast, opened stockings, and then Grant suggested we all go outside to stretch our legs. You can see their reaction here.

On the video you may have noticed Maggie asking when Grant built it; she was so surprised! He actually built it the Friday before Christmas. I left the house with the kids around 8am and returned in time for lunch at 12. They thought he was at work all day. We closed the blinds and I turned music on, and also ran the dishwasher to help block out the drilling/sawing sounds. I think that, combined with them thinking he was at work, helped them to not notice the backyard activity at all! It worked way better than I thought it would.
Here, also, is a photo of my adorable nephew, Charlie, wearing the sunglasses onesie I made him for Christmas.
He lives in Miami so this shirt is always seasonally appropriate :) Isn't he so handsome?
I have several other fun Christmas blog posts in mind so check back in a few days.
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.

Three in a crib

Maggie and Finn love to crawl in Carolina's crib with her. They barely fit but it's pretty cute (until someone starts jumping). Maggie is just pretending to suck her thumb because she thinks it's funny.

Christmas cards

I love getting Christmas cards. Who doesn't? It's fun to see friends from college (and even some from elementary school) and their families and it's fun to get something besides a bill in the mail. The only thing I don't like about them is the cluttery mess they make. I used to put them on my mantle but they were always falling over or floating off the mantle. Last year I had (excuse my humility) a genius idea. I bought some mini clothespins, like these, thumbtacked some ribbon to the wall, and hung the Christmas cards from the clothespins. As I got more cards, I added more ribbon. This year I upped the ante even more by glittering the mini clothespins. I love it. It keeps them looking neat so I can enjoy them without my OCD causing me grief.
And here's a close up of my clothespins:
(Yeah, they're prettier and sparklier in real life.)

December Fun Part 2

I mentioned earlier that I decided to give handmade Christmas presents this year. Although I really stressed myself out about it and in the end, had to buy a few presents, I really enjoyed it and to me, it really meant a lot to make things for people I love with my own hands. What I would really like is for my family to decide that we will only exchange homemade items with each other for Christmas, but since I am the only crafty person in my family, this will never happen. Oh well. I certainly didn't save any money doing this, and it definitely took more time, but it was infinitely more fun than shopping in a crowded mall.
Here are two of the things I've made this year. I got the idea for this shirt here.
I think it is so cute/funny. I love it. I made one for my niece, Lily Kate, and two for Carolina. Here is the actual shirt:
And here is Carolina, wearing it:
(Sidenote: I couldn't get a great photo of her wearing it because she kept looking at herself in the camera, which made her smile, but then she would also lunge for the camera.)
I also made a boy version of this shirt for my baby boy nephews, Charlie and Jake. Instead of cat eye glasses, I painted Ray Ban Wayfarer sunglasses to look like they were hanging from the collar of the shirt. I don't have a photo but maybe Lindsay or Kajsa will send me one if they ever put them on their babies.
Lily Kate also wears a ponytail nearly every day so I thought she could use some hair ties. I bought the hair ties but made my own fabric flowers to adorn the elastic. Here are all three.
I like them and I think they are pretty darn cute. I have no idea if they will ever be worn but I hope they will! I'll post photos of my other projects once the recipients have opened them. I don't want to spoil any Christmas surprises!

Caro and family (Thanksgiving)

I just found two more photos of Carolina from Thanksgiving in TX. First is with Grandmama (Grant's maternal grandmother). They are so adorable. I think they kind of look alike here.
The next photo Grant took while his brother, Blake, was holding Carolina. She was looking at his phone and all of a sudden she started looking very suspiciously at Blake. Grant snapped a photo to capture the look. It cracks me up.

December Fun Part 1

Some of our friends participate every year in a tour of a show called Behold the Lamb of God. It's a Christmas concert written by Andrew Peterson and the first half of the show consists of each of the ten or so artists performing a couple of their own songs, and then the second half is the actual Behold the Lamb of God (I'll call it BTLOG for brevity's sake), which is the story of Jesus' birth starting with the Old Testament. We've gone practically every year since they started ten (I think) years ago. We only missed for the two Christmases we spent living in Louisville. Anyway, it is one of our favorite Christmas traditions and one of our favorite Christmas records to listen to, and last year Grant even went along for part of the tour to film some material for possibly a documentary or maybe some promotional material. Right before the tour every year they do a free concert (really it's a dress rehearsal) at a local church and it's not publicized but anyone can come (it's actually a thank you to the church for letting them rehearse there). This year I finally got to go and take Maggie with me, which was so much fun. The real concert would keep her up way past her bedtime (and would infringe upon a special date) but this one worked perfectly. We even got to meet up with some friends (both mine and hers!) and watch it together. Some of the other children got a little antsy but Maggie pretty much was rapt the entire time. You can see for yourself.
You can see our friend, Andy Gullahorn, standing with his hands in his pockets and his wife, one of my good friends, Jill, to the right of him. They are great musicians and if you haven't heard of them you should stop what you're doing and buy all of their music :)
And if BTLOG is at a city near you you definitely need to go. It is so fantastic.

Maggie's Sixth Birthday (Superhero)

So I think it's well-established that Maggie loves The Incredibles. She wanted to have an Incredibles-themed birthday party for her sixth birthday. I generally shy away from licensed characters on clothing, toys, or even for birthday party themes. I really wanted her to love her party though so we talked about it and decided to do a Superhero theme. This was the first year that she had a big school class to consider (her preschool only had a handful of people in it), plus we want to include church and life friends, and since it would have been too much for me to handle a 30+ guest list, we decided not to invite her school friends. Maybe next year we'll do that.
Anyway, we ended up with about 14 children and I got the idea to make some easy superhero capes for all of them, with their initial on the back. I loved the way they turned out. See for yourself:
Here's the view from the other side of the table:
So we had a theme and we had the capes, now what else were we going to do? Well, I thought it would be fun to make an obstacle course for the kids and call it Superhero Training Camp. Since we had decided to hold the party at a great playground we had access to the jungle gym. First the kids had to run up the stairs to the top of the tallest slide, go down the twisty slide, then hop on one leg through eight hula hoops I had laid out on the ground. Then they had to crawl through a fabric tunnel I borrowed from my mom, then they each had to rescue (find) a toy animal from a mulched area, then run to the paved area and throw a water balloon on a chalk drawing of a giant monster (which washed away by the time everyone had thrown their water balloon). After they completed Superhero Training Camp, they received their cape.
We also played another game, which I called X-Ray Vision. For this game I put about 10 everyday objects into cloth bags, had the kids get in a circle, and then I walked around, letting each child stick their hand in the bag to feel the object. I put in things like legos, a doll, a comb, etc. No one was allowed to say what they thought it was until everyone had felt it. Then, on the count of three, the children would shout out what they thought it was and I would pull it out of the bag. I thought it would be fun but the kids were SO into it. They were cracking up and squealing with excitement when they got it right, and then cracking up when they got it wrong. It was so much fun.
After that we ate pizza and cake. I love to bake but I just couldn't handle baking a cake on top of everything else, so I bought a delicious cake for $15 from Costco and had them just ice it with plain chocolate frosting. Then I made some buttercream frosting, dyed it my colors, and decorated the cake with the special logo I made for the back of Maggie's cape.
Here's the up close, artsy shot:
I also made these superhero lollipops where I took a regular Tootsie Pop and made a little eye mask and cape out of paper. I put a bunch of them in a jar with some beans to weigh down the jar, and the kids each got to take one home with them.
All in all, it was a big hit and all the kids (especially Maggie) had fun. What more could I ask for?! I loved it. Happy Sixth Birthday, Maggie!
Oh, I almost forgot. For the thank you note we took a photo of Maggie in her cape and I used Picnik (free photo editing software) to put words on the photo, saying, "I'm SUPER glad you came to my party!" I can't find that version with the words but here's the photo we used.

Maggie's (non-Grant) film debut

Maggie recently had the opportunity to be in a PSA produced by one of Grant's coworkers. It's for a nonprofit company that provides mattresses to orphans. Get your hankies and settle down to watch her. It's only about two minutes long, but feel free to click on the "Extended Version" once you get to the Vimeo page. That one is about three minutes long.

Fall 2011 Promo from 4theORPHANS on Vimeo.

I was so proud of her; she didn't complain about a thing and did exactly what they asked her to do. They paid her in doughnuts which was more than generous enough for her.
Enjoy!

This and that

I know all of you (both of you? dear readers!) have been wondering what we've been doing lately since I haven't updated the blog in a few weeks.
Well, I'm so glad you asked. Here are some photos of what the children have been up to lately. Maggie went to a tea party with Mimi and her doll, Felicity. Are those three cute or what?
Maggie's been practicing her ukelele.
We drove in our wonderful new minivan to TX to see Grant's parents for Thanksgiving. After trying several methods (driving during the day, driving all night) I think we stumbled upon the best option for us which is wake up at 3am, put the kids in the car in their pj's, and hit the road. They slept for another couple of hours, had some good naps in the car later, and did really well. After Maggie got dressed I looked back in the back and noticed she had put together this getup.
While we were in TX for Thanksgiving Maggie and I got pedicures (well, Maggie had a mani/pedi), courtesy of Grandma Howard.
The day we returned from TX, my sister, Lindsay, and her husband and son arrived in Nashville. We got to have them in Nashville for almost a week before most of my family went to Chattanooga for a long weekend. While Lindsay was here we went to Pancake Pantry and Finn got the blueberry pancakes.
Otherwise we've just been busy, busy, busy, like everyone else! I got a harebrained idea that I would make by hand about 90% of my Christmas presents. I should have started in June. It looks like I'll be finished in time, with any luck at all. I'm very excited to show off what I've made so I'll try to make a little post about it.
To leave you, let me ask you a few VERY important questions:
What is your favorite Christmas song (sacred)?
What is your favorite Christmas song (secular)?
What is the Christmas song that you would like to ban from the entire world? (I'd like a sacred and secular answer to this one, too!)
Here are my answers:
Favorite sacred Christmas song - How can I pick?! They do call me the Christmas elf, so I'm going to allow myself three answers here. Three! Piggy of me, isn't it? O Holy Night, What Child is This? and O Come, O Come Emmanuel.
Favorite secular Christmas song - I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm
LEAST favorite Christmas songs - (secular) Feliz Navidad
(sacred) Do You Hear What I Hear? I mean, I really, really, really hate this song. I love Christmas but when I hear this song I want to scream, "YES! I DO hear what you hear. And it is ugly and annoying."
What about you?

He's a tricky one.

Finn still loves to hug and cuddle. Here are Finn and Carolina, giving each other good hugs.

He does have a slightly tricky side though. At church the other day Finn's Sunday school teacher, Miss Katie, had a cookie that someone gave her. Finn asked for one and Miss Katie told him he'd have to ask me first. He went out in the hallway and pretended to have a conversation with me about the cookie, then came back into his classroom and told her I said it was okay to have a cookie. I think that is both smart and devious. I'll have to watch out for him!

Carolina walks!

Carolina started walking yesterday! And do you know what is weird? Two things: it is exactly the same age at which Maggie started walking (12 months, 3 weeks), and even weirder, it is the exact same day that her 8 1/2-month-old cousin, Charlie, started walking. Can you believe it?! Here is a little video of her from tonight. If I had twenty kids, the early days of walking would never cease to amaze me. It is so much fun to watch her learn and explore.

Harvest Time!

A few days ago I was playing with the children in the backyard and noticed I could see the shoulders of our carrots peeking out above the soil. I googled "when to harvest carrots" (can't you tell I'm a master gardener? ha) and it said when you could see the top of them and they seemed big enough, as they don't actually ripen. So I thought, why not? We planted an heirloom variety that came in various colors, such as purple, red, white, and, of course, orange. I don't know why but I absolutely love vegetables in unconventional colors. It just seems like more fun.
You can see Finn holding our very first full-sized carrot (a white one), below.
I scrubbed it, cut it up, and we ate it as a little appetizer before dinner. By the way, did you know you should avoid peeling your carrots? That's the most nutritious part so I try to always just give them a good scrub. We look forward to harvesting more carrots this week and I'll try to take a good photograph so you can see all of their beautiful colors.

Marathon Weekend One

Because every post is better with a photo, here are Finn and Carolina both sucking their thumbs at the same time. It cracks me up when I see this.A few posts ago I mentioned that Grant was going to be working even more than he usually does and I'm happy to report that we survived the first insane weekend without him. He does a lot of work for the country band Gloriana. They're actually pretty good - you can check out their website here, and here are links to some of the work Grant has done for them. This is one of my favorites. Also, I should warn you that he didn't do all of the videos on here and some of their older stuff is not good, so I would hate for you to think that my talented husband made those.

Anyway, he was with them working on a music video until 2AM last Thursday (missing dinner and bedtime) they were playing a show with the Wilmington (NC) Symphony and hired Grant to come along and produce and film some behind-the-scenes things as well as a music video, so he went on the bus with them last Friday around 5pm and didn't return until mid-day Sunday. It may seem silly or complaining but it's very challenging to be at home for a weekend with all three kids by myself. In case you've missed my multiple posts on Facebook about Finn waking up around 4:30AM daily, that was just the icing on the cake for being a single parent all weekend. I also locked us out of the house en route to a birthday party on Saturday. Smart one, huh? Luckily we got to spend a lot of time with family who took pity on us, and we actually had a pretty good time even though it was exhausting. So now we just have to make it through a busy week, next weekend where Grant will be making a short film all weekend for Andrew Osenga, followed by another busy week, and then Thanksgiving! I am so excited I can hardly wait. Oh - and this is out-of-character for me as I work hard to enjoy each moment of my life and not look forward to the next thing, but I am pretty overwhelmed with this particular month for some reason. So please don't tell me to stop and smell the roses! I'm trying.
Here is another funny double thumb-sucking photo for you. I can't exactly remember what we were doing or why it appears Carolina is lying on Finn and they are both in my lap. There's no telling, really.

Hippo Lovin'

Carolina has a little hippo toy that's almost like a soft washcloth with a hippo head on it. That sounds weirder in writing than it is in actuality. Anyway, if she doesn't fall asleep right away during naptime, she'll often pull toys into the crib with her from the toy bin next to her bed. The other day I went in to wake her up to pick Maggie up from school (which just feels wrong to wake her up) and she had the hippo on her face! It was so funny that I had to take photos of it from every possible angle. For your viewing pleasure:
Here's what I saw when opened the door.
Here's from the top.
Here's a close-up of her face.
Adorable.

Halloween 2011: It was INCREDIBLE!

Here are Finn, Carolina, and Maggie with cousins Lily Kate (SuperGirl) and Jack (Superman).
Last summer Maggie watched "The Incredibles" for the first time and absolutely fell in love with it. She loved it so much that it actually inspired her superhero birthday party that we had earlier in October (sorry, no photos yet...). When we were deciding what everyone would wear for Halloween it was quickly decided that there was no choice BUT The Incredibles. In case you've been living under a rock, The Incredibles is an animated movie about a family of superheroes. Each parent and the three children all possess some amazing super powers. It worked out pretty perfectly - there's even a baby Incredible! Okay, he is a boy named Jack-Jack, but it didn't really matter to me if Carolina went as a boy, baby superhero for Halloween. I lucked out by finding a little boy's Dash Incredible costume for a good price at Target, but I didn't want to spend a lot of money ordering costumes for the girls (shipping, etc.) Plus I thought I could make the costumes pretty easily. I simply bought red, long-sleeved t-shirts and red leggings for the girls, as well as a black mask for Maggie (I knew Carolina wouldn't wear one even if I could find one small enough for her!). I drew the Incredibles logo onto freezer paper and created a stencil for each shirt. I did have to paint some of it freehand because of the multiple colors on each on. For more on creating a freezer paper stencil, click here. Anyway, I did it all during a two-hour nap on Halloween, so you know it couldn't have been too difficult.
I'm pretty proud of the way they turned out! Also, it's pretty funny that Erin's kids were superheroes, too. That was completely coincidental, if you can believe it.
Here are Grant and Finn, enjoying Finn's favorite treat, a lollipop.
The last three years we've gone to my sister Erin's neighborhood to trick-or-treat because they have a little parade, a million kids, and Erin hosts a chili dinner afterwards. It's a really fun tradition for us now. Last year Finn didn't really get the whole "trick-or-treating" thing, but this year he had so much fun knocking on doors and picking out his candy. It was so fun to watch. And last year Carolina was a week old! This year she still had no idea what was going on but she really enjoyed being around everybody and all the commotion. Here she is in the stroller during the parade.Here's Finn, showing off his cuteness and muscles.
Finally, here I am with Carolina, wearing the tiny cape I made for her to wear at Maggie's superhero party.And if you're like me and love Halloween but hate all the candy and figuring out how to control it, you may want to check out this interesting blog post from a nutritionist/mom.

Pray for me

We have a challenging situation coming up because Grant is basically working nonstop for the next few weeks. It's crazy just how much he works. He has the work ethic of a worker bee, which is one of the many things I love about him, and he's doing it for the benefit of our family, but the next few weeks we will hardly have a break together. It will be tough with three little children. I need to pray for a good attitude and a supply of patience and energy that I've never had before.

Happy birthday Carolina!

Can you believe it's been a year since Carolina was born?! It seriously went by in a flash. We are so thankful for her life and she is definitely one of the best surprises of my life (I'm going to go ahead and say the best surprise of my life!).
It's funny to celebrate a one-year-old's birthday because it's not like she has any idea that it's her birthday or can even conceptualize a birthday. But we couldn't let the day go by without doing anything. I try to be careful about sugar so I didn't want to give her something sugary to celebrate since we'll be doing that today at her joint birthday party with Maggie. So I bought her a freeze-dried fruit snack at Whole Foods (big whoopee, right?) and then we went to the playground with her and I pushed her on the swing for a half an hour. It's definitely her favorite thing to do. I made an 11-second video of her on the swing on that day because her giggle is just infectious. Please ignore the idiotic sounding person in the background saying "Wheeee!" That would be me, trying to make her laugh.

Not everyone realizes this (I don't think I've blogged about it before) but Carolina strangely was born on her big sister, Elle's birthday. Elle would have turned seven this year on the same day Carolina turned one. I can't believe they share a birthday. Isn't that crazy? I hope that it will make Carolina feel special and connected to her sister but not sad or upset in any way. Every year we have our special things we do to celebrate Elle and now that Carolina shares her birthday we've adjusted some of them. This year was easy because Carolina had no idea, but eventually she will and I don't want her to feel bummed or not celebrated. Both girls are equally important to me but here on earth I think it's more important for Carolina to feel celebrated and loved. I don't think Elle would mind one bit. Luckily we have another birthday or maybe two before Carolina knows about birthdays and about Elle, so we have some time to figure it out. Anyway, this was one of our happiest October 24ths ever and Carolina is hugely responsible for that. In a way, her being born on October 24 has redeemed that day for us. We still love and miss Elle so much and wish she were here, but it's so nice having someone/something to be totally joyful about on that day. And I'd like to take this time to mention that this world is broken and that is the only explanation for something so tragic and painful as losing a child. Happily, my hope is in Jesus, and a time is coming when all things will be made perfect.
Revelation 21:4
He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.
I Thessalonians 4:18
But we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve like other people who have no hope.

"I just can't believe it!"

Yesterday we met my sister, Erin, and her two kids at Target. We spent over an hour there, walking the aisles, drinking coffee (Erin: "I want to marry whoever decided to put Starbucks in Target."), stocking up on Halloween supplies, playing with toys, looking at clothes, and purchasing paper products for Carolina and Maggie's joint family birthday party this weekend. Along the way there were three cousins fighting over an eye ball (yes, a bouncy ball that looks like an eye), one broken glass candle holder ("STAT clean-up on aisle 7! We've got broken glass!"), but mostly everyone was content and well-behaved. Ah, the way to wile away the witching hours of the late afternoon.
Were you wondering how many cousins could fit in one shopping cart? We fit three in but I think we could have squeezed all five in there.
Here are two funny Finn sayings that he's recently picked up. He will say, in a whisper, "Mom, can I tell you something?" And when I lean down to hear what he has to hear, he won't say a word. He just likes asking if he can tell me something.
He also has frequently been saying, "I just can't believe it!" which is pretty cute for a two-year-old.
I know I've said it a million times but God gave me exactly the boy I needed. He is so sweet, joyful, cuddly, and adorable. I think he is pretty awesome.

Sprinkler Time

Here's a short video Grant made of sprinkler fun at Mimi and Poppy's house this summer. Enjoy!

Who needs a pool? from Howardyoudoing on Vimeo.

How you know you need some time without your kids...

1) When I'm in the car with Finn (and even Maggie, too) I'm constantly pointing things out to them like trains, dump trucks, dogs, bicycles, etc. Lately when I've been driving by myself I find myself saying, "Look! There's a train!" and then realizing too late that the kids aren't even with me. Yes, this is embarrassing to admit.

2) I was by myself last Sunday shopping for a new pair of shoes and when I was trying on shoes I almost bought a pair that was slightly too large so that I could grow into them and they'd last me longer. Luckily I realized before it was too late that my feet are (hopefully) done growing!

Happy birthday to...

(Here's a photo of Finn showing off his favorite funny face. He'll run up to us and say "Look at my funny face" and then make that face.)

Finn loves music. His favorite part about his birthday was having the birthday song to him many (many, many, many) times. In fact, he still loves singing the birthday song. He always is sure to sing the entire song, including the "and many more from Channel Four, and Winnie the Pooh from Channel Two."
This morning when Finn came in to wake me up he was singing the birthday song and in my half-asleep state I thought I heard him change the words a little. I asked him to sing it again and he sang (it really works best if you sing it to yourself as you read it), "Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday to my attitude, happy birthday to you." That's pretty awesome. That is a pretty great way to be woken up.
Then at breakfast, while he was eating his cereal (which he inexplicably calls "fo-fuh"), he started singing the song again, except this time it was "Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday to my fo-fuh, happy birthday to you." I don't know if it's as funny to see it written down but you'll just have to believe it was insanely hilarious in real life.
I love my little jokester!

Happy October!

Here's a photo of my sister-in-law, Kajsa, with her little guy Jacob, my mom, and Carolina and Finn. Look how big my kids are compared to that little peanut! He's about two months old now.

Changing the subject...
Isn't October just the best?! It is my absolute favorite month and I am so lucky that all of my girls are born in October. My friend, Rachel is nine months pregnant right now and is VERY ready to have her baby. I just texted her a little encouragement, telling her that six years ago tonight I worked a full day with a terrible attitude (I was just SURE Maggie was going to come the day before), came home, cried and whined a lot because I was so tired of being pregnant, and then I was holding Maggie in my arms by 2 AM. I cannot believe Maggie will be six tomorrow! It's just crazy.
Anyway, we had her birthday party over the weekend and it was a huge hit. I'll have photos just as soon as I get them from Grant (if you'd like to send him an e-mail to encourage him, I wouldn't mind). It was superhero themed and it was probably my favorite party I've ever done for one of my kids.
Tomorrow is her real birthday and we have some special things planned. When I was little the birthday girl got breakfast in bed, so we are starting that tradition this year with our family. She has been asking about this for months. She requested homemade blueberry muffins so I'll be rising at five AM to make them (Grant and Finn will be up with me, too. Ugh. How do you get a child to sleep later than 4:45 AM?) I'll make extras to take to school at lunch time, defying her teacher's request to send erasers instead of food. Sorry, Mrs. D! If other parents hadn't done it first I probably wouldn't, either. Thanks, fellow parents! Carolina, Finn and I will be eating lunch with Maggie at school. For dinner tomorrow she requested a "European picnic" so we'll have that for dinner. What's a European picnic? I'm glad you asked. When I've traveled in Europe it seemed like at least twice a day I'd eat something like freshly baked bread, an apple, some cheese, and a piece of dark chocolate. It was cheap, delicious, and portable. So now when we want to take a picnic, rather than make a million sandwiches or complicated things I just pack some bread, some fruit, some good cheese, and a little chocolate, and fancy it up by calling it a "European picnic." Maggie LOVES it, obviously, since that's what she chose out of all the things I could have made her. I'm looking forward to it because, Hello! What an easy dinner!
It's so much fun to make birthdays special. I love it.
Here's Maggie with her BFF, Riley, at a sleepover a few months ago. Yes, those are fake, cheap, plastic fingernails.
Pretty sure this was a swimsuit fashion show.
Love, love, love my six-year-old!

It's a zoo in here.

We love the zoo pass Grandma and Grandpa bought for Finn's birthday. It's so close that we don't mind going for little visits here and there, which I much prefer over a loooong, all-day visit. When Maggie was in school I took Finn and Carolina to meet up with my sister, Erin, and her kids Jack and Lily Kate.
I think everyone had the most fun in the Lorikeet Landing, even though Finn looks a little suspicious of the lorikeets here.Finn and Lily Kate (the gray and yellow blur) were freaking out about them (in a good way).Even Carolina was captivated by them. I think it's fun, too, but I can't be in there without remembering the time we were there with a member of the family (who shall remain nameless) and he was pooped on by one of the Lorikeets. It makes me verrrry nervous.

Swingers

The weather here has been so wonderful that one Friday, after school, I took the kids to a park we love and we stayed there for two hours, having so much fun. I put these photos on facebook but I love them so much I wnated them on here, too.
Although it's hard to tell from the photo, Finn was having an awesome time.
Carolina didn't want to leave the swing. Here she is with a big smile.
And here she is with a HUGE smile!
It was a perfect day!