Blueberry Picking

Two weeks ago we went blueberry picking with several friends. It was fun but also insanely hot. I laughed to myself imagining farm workers today or slaves back in history laughing at us city folk who pay for the privilege of working in the fields! Anyway, I always love a chance for my kids to see where food comes from. Maggie was a good helper except for that one time when she accidentally dumped out our entire basket. Finn wasn't a good helper at all unless you count eating as many blueberries as he could pick (and believe me, the ones he ate weren't all blue - many were pink or even white, but he didn't seem to mind).Wouldn't it be nice if I had taken a photo where you could actually tell my kids were picking blueberries, rather than just hot and sweaty in a field? Yeah, I thought so, too. I didn't though. I was a little busy wearing my 20-pound baby in the sling, keeping her from eating blueberries, leaves, and whatever else she could grab, keeping Finn from running into the poison-ivy-filled woods, and trying to pick at least a few berries. It was fun but I'll be glad next year that Finn will maybe be old enough to help a little and Carolina will be walking on her own (of course, I'll probably be chasing her everywhere).
I made some really yummy blueberry muffins from this recipe and we made some blueberry pancakes, and then all the rest of them went straight into my family's hungry tummies.

Stupid Blogger

I just wanted to say that there are a couple of more recent posts under the "Blueberry Picking" post below. Blogger is giving me fits and published my auto-publish posts at the wrong time and in the wrong order. I've come to my blog several times to see if the new ones posted and I thought they didn't because I just saw the "Blueberry" post at the top. Little did I know the new ones just were posted BELOW the "Blueberry" post. That's irritating.

The two littles

Finn and Carolina have a very sweet relationship so far. He still loves to kiss her on the head and does so many times a day. Now that she's mobile, however, she's definitely testing his love for her. She grabs his toys and they both want to play with this musical table. He may be bigger but she's pretty darn strong; I'd say they have an equal chance of beating the other one.

I'll interpret these photos for you based on what they would say if Carolina could talk.

Carolina: Mom. Are you going to help me here or what?!
Carolina: Okay, fine. I'll have to fend for myself. I can see you are no help.
Finn: Touch you, Cay-cay. Touch ear. Kiss you, Cay-Cay.
Carolina: Ok, just try any funny business and I'm outta here.

Sharing a room

We have a 3-bedroom house. When Carolina was born we decided that Finn and Maggie would share a room so we moved bunk beds into Maggie's room but since Carolina slept in mine and Grant's room for the first four months we just left Finn in the crib in her room until we were ready to put Carolina in her own room.
We've definitely had our ups and downs with it, but that was more due to Finn being able to climb out of the big boy bed as opposed to being contained in the crib. Now he is pretty well acclimated to the big bed and goes to bed easily at night and very easily for his nap. He does wake up way too early some days (4:30, 5am) and comes right in our room but otherwise he's doing really well with making the switch.
The night I took this photo they were so keyed up for some reason that I couldn't get a photo of either of them that wasn't blurry! And normally Maggie sleeps in the top bunk but she was just playing around on his bed.
We also have to take the ladder down during the day so he doesn't climb up there but don't worry, he's figured out how to climb up the sides. At least he calls for me when he gets up there, rather than trying to get down by himself!

Cute Finn

Finn is all boy - he loves to run, jump, kick, roar, climb, bash, and destroy things. However, I think being around me and Maggie all the time is starting to rub off on him. Two of his favorite words lately are "cute" and "tiny."
When driving down the street I am likely to hear him say the following:
"Tiny backhoe, mom."
"Look! Tiny car, mom." (Yes, he punctuates nearly every sentence with "mom.")
"I see cute dog, mom."
It cracks me up. A few weeks ago I was walking with my friend Rachel and a guy ran by us. Finn hollers after him, "Tiny guy, mom!" I don't think he heard but it was pretty awesome. And, as Rachel said, he was pretty tiny (for a guy, anyway).

My Man

Grant is the best dad in the world. He is in the trenches with me, every day, changing diapers, giving baths, reading stories, feeding, tickling, and hugging and kissing. I couldn't ask for a better father for our children and I'm so thankful to have him. Every night we tell each other how lucky we are to have our amazing kids but I know also how lucky I am to have him. He encourages me as a mom, helps me (often without me even asking) and shows me every day with his actions that being a dad is important to him. I just wanted everyone to know how I feel about him!

Skinny

I think Maggie is the perfect size. When she was younger than two and was hovering around the 20th percentile, I thought teeny was adorable. When she turned two and shot up in height (she's been around the 75th percentile since her second birthday), I thought tall was excellent. She's really athletic and lean and loves to run and feel her body work the way God made it.

I can't remember a time that I ever thought my body was the perfect size. I've been thicker and I've been thinner throughout my adult life, and I've never really been grateful for it, but I want something better for my girls, and the girls (girls?! Hopefully just one girl, after he turns 20-something) in Finn's life. Honestly, the only thing that made me glad about my body was having my babies without any drugs. Don't worry, this isn't a natural childbirth post, but I just want to point out that seeing my body work in that way really made me feel proud of the way God made me.

So ever since Maggie was born I decided that I would work as hard as I could to help her develop good habits for food and exercise. We eat lots of fruits and veggies and try not to eat too many sweets (this is hard for me - I love fruits AND veggies but also I have a serious sweet tooth and love to bake). I don't want to demonize "bad" foods so I don't outlaw them all together. I try to make sure she gets enough physical activity every day (and I plan on doing the same for all three children) and sees me exercising so it's just a normal part of life for her. But more than teaching her healthy habits, I want to work on the way her mind views her body.

I never say I'm fat in front of Maggie. I never say I want to be skinny or that I want to lose weight. I tell her I love my body (yes, I'm lying through my teeth but maybe by saying it the feelings will come?) and that I love that God gave me such good legs for running, or such strong arms for lifting Carolina. I praise her for her quick running or her strong kicking or her intelligence or the funny joke she made up, and I tell her she's beautiful, I do, but I want her to know her worth comes not as a beautiful girl or a skinny girl or even a smart girl, but that she has worth as a daughter of Christ and as the person He made her to be.

I'm not perfect at this and maybe this big experiment (isn't all of our parenting pretty much a big experiment?) will fail me and she will have just as much self-loathing as I do. Maybe I'll help her to have a positive body image, but how can any of us compete with the images she's getting from tv, music, and even dolls (yes, I mean those Barbie dolls, and others...)?

So, please, when Maggie's around, don't tell her you're trying to lose weight. Don't turn food down saying it has too many calories (you're welcome to turn it down and think this, but I'd rather you didn't say it!). Don't compliment the other person with you on being so skinny. Just remember - God made your body and hers, and I am in a battle against the world for how she views His creation.

I'm not saying this to anyone in particular, so please don't think I'm calling anyone out. And just to show you I'm not perfect (and also that I don't deprive her of treats), here is a photo of Maggie enjoying her first double dip ice cream cone. She chose dark chocolate and black coffee...I was so proud! :)

Sweet Carolina

In the last week or so Carolina has started clapping! She doesn't clap with the palms of her hands touching, but rather claps the palm of one hand onto the back of the other hand. It's adorable.

She also wants to stand all the time, almost by herself. She'll hold on with one hand and she looks like she's trying to work up the nerve to let go with that hand. She's still working on that one, though. It still surprises me when I walk in her room after her nap and she's just standing up in her crib, waiting for me.
She's definitely the easiest one so far (don't tell Maggie and Finn I said that!).

Kajsa's baby shower

My family is nothing if not productive (or as my mom recently said, reproductive). Between myself, my two sisters, and my brother we have added eight babies to the family. It's pretty awesome with all these babies and children around.
My brother, Christopher, and his wife, Kajsa (you say it "Kye-zuh" and it's a Swedish name) are expecting their first baby, a boy, in August. Last Saturday I was honored to throw a shower for her along with my two sisters, my mom, and Kajsa's other two sisters-in-law and other mother-in-law.
(Here I am with, from left, my sister Erin, Kajsa, and my mom on the far right.)
When we were planning and divvying up responsibilities I happily volunteered to be in charge of the decorations. I had a fun vision of what I wanted it to be. Kajsa grew up on a cattle ranch in South Dakota and has a sort-of vintage/rustic/shabby chic aesthetic. I thought she would love it if we went in that direction and had lots of textures like burlap, grosgrain ribbon, different rustic papers, with a color scheme of light to medium blues, khaki, and white.

Here's a photo of the food table.
I had fun getting little miniature chalkboards to use as labels describing the food. I did feel a little dorky writing "fruit" for the fruit, as if a person couldn't tell that's what it was by looking! Oh well, it looked cute.

I made some little flags for the ham rolls out of scrapbook paper, double-sided tape squares, and toothpicks. So easy and cute. I wish I had a tiered cake plate to hold them rather than three plates; I think it would have looked better.

My mom also made 40 jars with monkey bread in them. We intended them to be eaten at the shower but, as always, there was way too much food so we ended up sending them home with guests as favors, which turned out nicely. They were delicious, too, with frosting and pecans...yum. Since they were hot when my mom put the lids on them, they vacuum-sealed and when you opened it, it popped nicely.

Here's the drink table in the kitchen. I found the crate in the background at the flea market. It's an old peach crate from the 1960's and it says Carolina Peaches on it. I bought it myself with the intention of using it for the shower and then afterwards putting it in Carolina's room to store toys.
You can see here what's in the crate...little milk bottles! With striped paper straws! Grant and I drank 40 bottled Starbucks frappuccinos in the last two months (we had some help from friends, too) and then I got some great biceps from scrubbing the labels off with Goo Gone. It was totally worth it, but I do plan on using them for every party I ever have for the rest of my life. You think I'm kidding? Just wait and see. And if anyone wants to borrow them, let me know! I'll gladly share.
Mom and Kajsa drinking from their lovely milk bottles.
Here's a close up of one of the mason jars I used for the flowers. You can see I had a bunch of these on the table and then two on the mantle. I cut strips of different paper in varying widths and layered them onto the mason jars. Then I tied a bow with khaki-colored grosgrain ribbon (although I used thick twine on a few of them).This is the mantle, with two of the jars and then a bunting I made out of the same papers I used for the mason jars. My photo is washed out so you can't see it very well but it was pretty cute with all the different patterns.
Kajsa and I share a wonderful mutual friend, Rachel, so I got to hang out with her at the shower. This is Caleb, Maggie's "husband"'s mom, so obviously she's an important part of my life! She's expecting her third baby in October. It's a boy so we've already decided he and Baby White are going to be best friends. (PS - Is it just me or do I look just like Carolina in the photo below?)
Kajsa got tons of awesome presents. I think they are now armed with every piece of baby gear two new parents could want. (That's Christopher's mom, Kim, and his sister-in-law, Molly, in the photo below. They hosted the shower, too.)
At the end of the shower Chris and my step-dad Benton (or as some of you know him, Poppy) showed up and so I thought I should include this photo of them with Benton's spunky mom, Willa Dean. There are lots of blue eyes in this family.
It was so much fun planning this shower. As I've said before, I'm such an introvert that I just want to plan everything, make it pretty, and then hide as soon as the guests show up! Even when it's my own friends I sometimes feel this way. But it was so much fun, I loved doing it, and most importantly, I loved being able to support my brother and sister-in-law, whom I love so much, as they prepare to welcome their sweet little guy into the world. I can't wait for August! And thanks for bearing with me through all the photos; I just wanted to document all the little details because that's part of the fun for me.

Miscellany

Here are a few cute things the kids have been saying/doing lately. First of all, Finn has gone from having lots of words but not putting them together, to having a million more words and putting long sentences together. It's so fun. Yesterday Grant was helping him cut his pancake and Finn said, "Thank you, Dad, helping me, Dad." And he's been saying, "I sorry be mean, Maggie," a lot, sometimes even when she's the one who's been mean! He also says "no thank you" and "yes, please". He's been telling us "Don't say that" and "Don't sing that" but he does also request certain songs. Yesterday he wanted to hear "Channel Pooh" over and over again. What? You aren't familiar with that tune? It's "Happy Birthday to You," obviously! (We always sing, "And many more from Channel Four, and Winnie the Pooh, from Channel Two.") He has some really terrific tantrums, like if I very cruelly refuse to let him pour all of the coffee beans on the counter, or if I won't let him play with the knives, but we are really having so much fun with him, too. My mother-in-law calls this age the "Terrific Twos" and although he has his trying times, I have to agree. It's so much fun...most of the time.
We're growing a pretty big garden (we'll see if anything grows and is edible) and he loves to go out and see the "bob-tatoes" (tomatoes, named after Bob the Tomato from VeggieTales videos that he watches at church sometimes). He sometimes pulls small, green bob-tatoes off of the plant and brings them to me.
Carolina officially has two teeth (on top) and the lower ones are somewhat close to coming in. She, like her big brother and sister, did not have any trouble getting new teeth. They just popped up overnight with no big fuss. She is crawling really well and pulls herself up to stand now. I went into her room the other night and it was pitch black so when I reached in there I was surprised to find she had pulled herself up to sitting, too. She says "mamamamama" and "dadadada" and is imitating us saying other words like "hi". This week I was waving goodbye to Grant as he drove off and looked down to realize she was waving, too. Now she's waving all the time!
Here's a photo of just the girls. I'm not sure where the sunglasses came from but all three kids have worn them (never to actually block sun, just randomly inside because they're funny!). Sorry for the low quality.
Can you believe we're past the first week of July?! Where has time gone? Maggie's school goes through the summer but this year I decided to take July off. This past week Maggie has had soccer clinic with her friends Caleb and Abby and she has loved it. Next week she has art camp with the always amazing Tiffany Dupree. The week after that we don't have anything planned but I will pack in lots of fun summertime activities. And the week after that I ended up deciding to send her to school to have one last week with her BFF, Riley, before they both start kindergarten.
We don't know exactly what we're going to do for kindergarten. The school that Maggie is zoned for is not a place I would send my child. She's on the waiting list for a school that has a lottery admission for some of its spots. It's a Spanish immersion school that's about 10 minutes away, we know lots of people there, and I think the Spanish would be a good challenge for Maggie. Right now it's looking like we'll stay on the waiting list for that school until the first week or so of school, and if she doesn't get in, then I'll home school her but still send her 3 days a week to Miss Heather (where she's been going the last two or so years). I feel really conflicted about this. I think home school might be the best thing for her as she could be taught 100% on her level and at her own speed, but I feel somewhat stressed thinking about being responsible for her education and trying to do a good enough job in our small house with two little ones underfoot. If you had asked me two years ago if I would ever consider home schooling I would have died laughing at you and thought you were crazy. But now...we'll just see what happens. Life is always exciting around here!

Happy 4th of July

Here are the kids in their red, white, and blue for the fourth of July. Maggie actually said, "I just need to wear something blue because I have red hair and my skin is white." We couldn't get one good photo of everyone so here are the two best ones. Since I don't know how to use photoshop, just use your imagination and try to combine the best of both into one perfect shot, ha! With two thumb sucking babies it's hard to get a photo of both of them without their thumbs in their mouths.
In this one Finn is mimicking me trying to get everyone to smile. He's throwing his arms up and saying, "Hooray!"
We actually didn't do anything special for July 4th this year because we had a fun-filled, celebratory day on July 3rd. The suburb my dad lives in (where I grew up) has a country club that does a fantastic firework show on July 3rd. My dad's house is perched high on a hill with a perfect view of these fireworks so my sister, Erin, and I, each invited a few friends over and we had a cookout/swim/firework watching party. Wasn't that nice of my dad and his wife, Elizabeth, to let us plus a combined 11 children age 8 and younger come and invade their house? It was a blast (pun not intended; I realized after I typed it but I decided to leave it). Now we're just trying to convince my dad to make it an annual tradition.
I hope you all had a wonderful day yesterday!

The Happiest Baby In The World

Seriously, how did I get this happy, happy, happy (did I mention she's happy?) baby?! And how could I be anything but happy when I get to see this face all day?
And I know this photo is very similar to this last one but I'm putting it on here anyway, for my own enjoyment!
About two weeks ago something terrible happened. I should preface this with a little information. My kids and I all sleep with white noise machines in our bedrooms. Our house is teeny but I use a monitor in Carolina's room because I'm afraid I wouldn't hear her through all the white noise machines. (I know my sister Lindsay is rolling her eyes right now. She scoffs at the white noise machines but I do not care. Love you, Linds!) So two weeks ago I went to bed, checked the monitor to make sure it was on, and fell asleep peacefully, expecting Carolina to wake me up around 1am and 4am as she usually did. The next thing I knew I was waking up at 5am in a total panic. It turns out the monitor was on the wrong channel so I could still hear her but it was very faint, and actually couldn't be heard over my darn white noise machine. I ran back to her room but she was sleeping. I was so upset I couldn't go back to sleep and she woke up happily around 6am. I felt like the worst mom in the world, imagining her crying in the night and no one going in to get her. I want to cry right now just writing about it.
HOWEVER...the next night she slept through the night on her own and ever since then she's only been waking up once a night. So I feel bad about it but I am pleased that at least something good came out of it. But still...worst mom ever.