Clayton, Marianne, Eleanor & Winston

December 2011 - Mega Edition! Part Two

2012-02-06T12:40:00.000-08:00

Here are more pictures and stories from our awesome month in Utah.

The day Clayton was to return (late at night) the Firth side of the family decided to take an outing to Temple Square via Trax. So we bundled up the babies and headed out.
Audrey & Winston in their matchy-match animal coat-suits.

I had a front carrier to hold Win and lots of helpers to corral Eleanor. Here is Clayton's sister Monica helping me with baby-man.

Eleanor wasn't as pumped about the train as I thought she'd be. She talked of nothing else all day, but once we were on she started getting grumpy and lamenting the lack of apple juice in her life. I had water and apples (and everything else) but she wasn't having it.

"Oh mommmmm, I just wants appow juuuuuuush."

Luckily we set a meeting point and time as the second we were off the train, we became the weakest link in the journey. I told everyone to go on ahead so I wouldn't feel stressed trying to keep up. Good decision. And wow, Temple Square never fails to impress. Look how lovely.

We made our way to the temple, stopped to see the end of the large nativity and then headed in to the meeting place as it was good and cold. I set up camp to wait for everyone else, thinking we'd have to wait a bit, but everyone else showed up pretty soon. Eleanor was pretty much breaking down from the minute we left the house (Note the Rapunzel dress over her winter clothes, pick your battles, right?) And after about twenty eight trips up and down the escalator I figured my little family was done.

Yeah, tantrums in front of the Christus are only cute in pictures and hindsight. No, make that only in pictures. I still can't laugh at it quite yet. Oh my little drama queen.

We decided to head back before the family and Eleanor perked right up about going home to where we keep the apple juice. We stopped by the reflecting pool as she was suddenly interested in the stuff around her. Winston was a peach the whole time. Just look at this blurry picture of him in the Snugly. By the time we left the pool everyone else was leaving too and we were able to travel back home together after all.

A smile! A spazzy smile, but a smile nonetheless!

Clayton could not have come home a minute later. We got an icky storm that night but he arrived safe and sound. The next day the family put on the nativity. Eleanor was cast (ironically?) as an angel again. I made the cast as well, if only to keep her in line. Remember last year she kept stealing baby Jesus. That's sooo not part of the story.

Go angels!

Sooooo so so so so so happy to be with Daddy again!

All together, and loving the lazy good times while we exchanged presents.

Rachel looked super bad-A with her new gun. Yep, a real one.
Grandma Selman stopped by and we tried for a generation picture. Eleanor blinked. Eh.

Winston loved his great grandma.

See!

Autumn and Natalie got their nails done by yours truly. Of course. Like we wouldn't do nails.

Then we had family pictures taken! Eleanor seemed to think she was needed in setting up the boys shot.

The cute girl-cousins shot with Natalie, Autumn, Eleanor (digging for gold) and baby Audrey. This might have been the most successful one. Yikes.

Asher and Winston both got pj's from grandmas! Asher from Grandma Kathy and Winston from Grandma Judy. Awesome grandmas think alike.

Autumn let us see what Win would look like as a redhead. Cute, is what he'd look like. You all know how much I want a redheaded baby, right? Alas, it's probably not in the cards for us.

Autumn also drew this cute picture of baby Winston. I don't know why, but I seriously love it.

We enjoyed our Firth time but sadly Clayton's brothers and sisters all had to go back to their respective homes before the big day. On Christmas eve we went to Red Robin with a huge mass of Howell family (where I was too busy to get a group shot, or eat most my food) but not before stopping at the Gap, where E was less than enthused.

Back at Tom & Jenni's, Clayton was ready to get his game on. This is how he looks for a lot of our vacation time. Either manning the games or waiting for someone to come play.

Eleanor and Allie decorated gingerbread houses. A total home-run as far as activities were concerned. They both did a surprisingly good job. Winston liked his new Christmas eve pajamas.

And was shocked at... ??? He's a pretty expressive little guy.

Eleanor, Megan, Allie, Winston and Tommy in their pajamas.

The magical glow of the tree and my two cuties!

Eleanor crashing the cousin's turn in front of the tree.

Getting a lift from Tommy.

Tasting her gingerbread house, we could barely keep her from it the rest of the vacation.

Christmas morning at the top of the stairs. This is Tom & Jenni's tradition, they make their kids wait up there until they say it is time to come down.

Once the unwrapping began, Winston found someone's pack of gum from a stocking and was good to go.

Eleanor was so excited to get her Angelina Ballerina dolls. I wonder if she remembers that she was the one to find them almost two months earlier, brand stinking new, for $2.50 at the thrift store. Score. We bought them and then hid them away for Christmas. I hear that works less and less the older they get.

Jenni got Winston the cutest book ever made. It's Dr. Suess's "Oh Baby, The Places You'll Go!". It's a baby version of the classic, "Oh, The Places You'll Go!" The little pictures of the baby inside even look just like Win. He freaking loves this book.

Allie got a bike! And a cute lion hat.

We went to Church and then to my mom and dads for dinner and more presents. I seemed to have not gotten any pictures of all that. Oh well. On the 26th we drove up to Tremonton for the annual Firth Christmas dinner with all the cousins. Here is a picture of a few of us.

Eleanor with 2nd (? 1st once removed?) cousins Nicholas and Waylon.

After the holiday excitement died down I got the chance to see my friends Heidi and Shauna. Eleanor got to see Heidi's daughter Emma. They are just 3 weeks apart and get along famously.

We went out for ice cream after lunch. And Eleanor learned that ice cream can change your tongue to blue. If you order blue, that is. She still thinks any ice cream is making her tongue blue now. It's kind of funny.

Winston learned to Zombie-crawl over Christmas break. He also climbed up his first step. The one pictured here.

After a few attempts, that is.

He also got his first tooth on Christmas day, poor guy. Bottom middle, and a second joined the first before we flew back to Michigan.

For Clayton's birthday on the 30th we played games, went to dinner with his parents at Tepanyaki and had cakes and trifle. But apparently I didn't take any pictures of that either. Sorry babe. Just know that he totally looks 31 now.

The next day we chose to have a super chill New Year's Eve.
Around 10 we celebrated with the kids.

We had horns, hats and poppers. Eleanor enjoyed the poppers quite a bit. You can even see some of the streamers mid-air in this picture.

I loved the last week of our visit. It was nice to just do nothing. You know, after the holidays are over how you just strip down and eat handfuls of Swedish Fish. Oh wait, just Eleanor does that?

No visit is complete without a trip to Outback. Mmmm.

More time at Tom & Jenni's. Home away from home (away from home).

We headed up to Park City on the 4th to see our friends Brandon and Mandy Woods. We went for sushi and ice cream. It was so nice to see them again!

I love her!

Allie has an impressive collection of costumes for dress up. On one of the last few days of our trip Eleanor found a kitty costume that rocked her world. She proceeded to wear it for the rest of the trip. Jenni even let us bring it home to borrow for a few months. In fact, as I type this Eleanor saw the picture and is now digging in her room to find it.

Julie got to meet the kitty.

And Julie, Win and I on another night. I miss living so close to all my favorite people. P.S. My hair is too short. I hate it! I loved the haircut I got about two months before this one, but I told my gal to go shorter in hopes that it would last a little longer before trims. My bad. It's weird how just a few inches can make a world of difference in self esteem, but I'm shallow like that. For the record, it's a good cut- she did a great job, I just feel like it makes my head look too small for my body. And please don't comment on this, I'm not fishing for compliments, I just want the record to show- so years down the road when I ask "What was I thinking?" I will have the answer right there.

Here is Adam saying goodbye to the kids. We have missed him at each of Winston's nap times. And in general of course.

Well! We have reached the end of our Utah trip! Now I just need to catch up on January and we will be on our game. Go me!

December 2011 - Mega Edition! Part One

2012-02-03T22:28:00.001-08:00

Soooooo many pictures! And there are only about 3 people on the planet that will enjoy seeing all of them, so the rest of you- feel free to scroll on down and browse.

On December 7th I geared up for a month long trip to Utah. Clayton would stay in Michigan for finals and get uninterrupted study time, then join us in Utah two weeks later. I was nervous about traveling with two all by myself, but it worked out ok. In fact, it went incredibly well. I think I had concourses of angels helping me through the day, once again due to the faithful prayers of our mothers. They may have even been fasting, not sure. All I know is that we were prepared and it was uneventful. A long day of travel, sure, but all in all- Hooray.

We arrived late in the evening in Salt Lake City to our own little fan club. My mom, dad, sister-in-law Jenni and her daughter Allie. Allie and Eleanor took to each other right away.

I mean, come on. Are you dying? Jenni and I were beside ourselves. We daydream about our girls playing together all the time. So this is honestly one of the happiest sights to me.

The next day we headed up to Clayton's folk's house. This is the first time Clayton's dad got to meet little Winston.

We discovered they look an awful lot like each other. This is a picture of Rex at 6 months old. Well, it makes sense- Winston looks like Clayton... Clayton looks like his dad. But still!

Winston and his great-aunt Gwen. Rex, Kathy, Eleanor & Winston

Back at my mom and dad's house. This was home base for most of the trip. Allie and Eleanor enjoying sno-cones in their tutus. (P.S. Using the sno-cone machine we got at our wedding from Clint and Alison! Thanks guys, you have no idea how much that thing gets used!)

Basically, if Allie is doing it, then so is Eleanor.

Allie also helped out with feeding Winston!

Poor Winston, E makes herself comfortable while she finishes an apple.

Tom, Jenni, Shane & Megan tried to feed Winston a banana, or, his first solids, like, ever. He wasn't having it and it was hilarious.

Here Winston is thrilled to hear about Tommy's mission call to Mexico City, West. He leaves later this month!

The girls helping in great-grandma's room. This is my grandmother, Marguerite. She is 93 (92?) and suffers from Alzheimer's. She is on hospice care and they keep telling our family that she has very little time left, but she keeps proving them wrong. She still has a strong love of babies, chocolate and winking. It's funny how some days she wont say two words all day, then the next she will comment on Winston's dimple and try to tickle him. It was sweet to have the kids spend time with her over the holiday.

Megan and her two boyfriends. Shane seemed pretty cool about sharing her with Winston.

Uncle Adam was some sort of baby-whisperer. Almost every picture I have from the trip is him rocking Winston to sleep.

The girls.

Jack and Winston.

Eleanor "fixing" great-grandma's hair on a good day. Mom and I had cut and curled it, and E wanted in on the action.

Grandma with two of her favorites- baby Win and some See's candy.

At Tom & Jenni's house the girls helped make cookies.

I don't think Eleanor wore her regular clothes there for more than 20 minutes at a time. Here she is dressed as a ladybug.

Later, Eleanor really wanted to go outside. While it was an unusually warm winter, I didn't think she was quite dressed for an evening stroll. However, being a stubborn two year old, I finally let her out so she would learn for herself. Sadly, and as usual, I caved first. She was halfway down the block before I realized this particular "lesson" wasn't hitting home.A few nights later I got to meet up with some friends I haven't seen in ages. This is Kennedy and Winston.

Jana, Julie, Heather and myself.

Another day Jenni and I took the kids to go see Santa. Last year we missed him and were ticked about it, so we got in early this year.

Both kids liked him just fine. Poor Eleanor really didn't know what he was about. Aside from a few songs, we hadn't covered what Santa does yet. He gave her a candy cane though, so he could slaughter unicorns for all she cares.

A quick ride on the merry-go-round.

After the ride, they got to see Center Stage (a local dance/talent company) give an hour long concert in the mall food court. They were in heaven. Eleanor kept asking me to let her up on stage. She figured she was a little girl in a dress and she also wanted to dance. I love that she doesn't get that they are all dancing in unison. I may have to start her in lessons sooner rather than later. Also- Allie was wearing an outfit similar to the little girls in one of the numbers (Allie is right behind Eleanor in this picture) so they kept trying to herd her up with all the girls. It was kind of funny.
Hitching a ride on the back of the rental stroller.

Meems and Win! She was helping him "walk".

Which he loved.

Abby, Win and grandma. Both my parents work so Abby is one of grandma's best caretakers during the summer and holiday breaks.

Abby & Win. I love his cute tongue in this picture.

See. See! He even got him to sleep while giving him a ride on his shoulders! Magic, I tell you.

Aunt Cassie!

Allie "taught" Eleanor to rollerskate. It is now one of her favorite things to talk about. "Mommy, dwaw a picher ov me. Tay, now dwaw me wit whoawer skaze." (...draw a picture of me, okay, now draw me with roller skates. I get this all the time.)

One day Abby and I tried chalking our hair into rainbow colors . Or rather, I used Abby as a guinea pig and then did it to E and myself. Well, Eleanor's washed right out, both Abby and I got stuck with pink sections for over a month. I guess it's not a great idea on processed hair.

Back on the Firth side of things, baby Winston got to meet his newest cousin little Audrey. She is one month younger and a freaking doll-baby.

Clayton's sister Monica was selling her dog Tess's puppies and brought them down to Rex & Kathy's for the week. This is Tasha (well, I think). Win seemed to like her.

Here is proof that Eleanor touched one of the dogs. As obsessed as she was by them, she got more and more tentative as the week went on. She has even named two of her little stuffed toy dogs "Tasha" and "Growler" after these dogs.

See! This is huge for her!

Sweet cousin Natalie. Eleanor used her as a pillow while she watched the Mickey Mouse Christmas Carol.

Cousin Asher, Audrey and aunt Rachel.

Winston showing some serious love for Asher.

Autumn, Natalie and Winston. They were great little babysitters.

More puppy time.

So this is the end of part one. Part two should be up in a day or two. Hoorah for catching up sometime before next Christmas!

End of November 2011

2012-01-20T12:07:00.002-08:00

Holy Moses, I am behind again. But wouldn't it be weirder if I was blogging events sometime around the time they happened? Yeah, totally weird, so let's not change horses mid-stream. I'm starting small here, just some mundane stuff that took place in November before we went to Utah for a month. Mostly pictures, so here goes!

For Thanksgiving we were lucky enough to have the Phillips come visit good old Greencrest for the holiday. Everyone on the block (and the honorary Greencresters the Stevens) made an insane amount of food and gathered at our house for the day. Not sure what I was thinking volunteering to host it at our house, maybe that I'd be forced to clean it. Well, either way, it was a blast. We had 30 people in the house at one point and yet it didn't feel too crowded. Miracle.

So many pies!

Kids playing in Eleanor & Winston's room.

A few days later I put Winston in the bouncer so I could run some laundry up and down the stairs without him being upset. On one of the trips down I found this.

Ohhhh, my poor baby! He fell asleep jumping. I was trying to get another angle and bumped the wall and he jerked awake by jumping. Like his legs got disrupted mid-signal. Such a cutie!

And a few days after that we had our ward Christmas party. I loved that they held it so early in the month before all the post-grad crowd take off. Here are three of my favorite girls.And three more favorites.The Primary kids sang two numbers. Cute Eleanor thought that she was supposed to be up there so she followed them all on stage. She's there in the red dress.

My three cuties.

Eliza got her face painted. Don't get me started on missing Eliza...

And Eleanor decorated a cookie.

While Winston smiled at everyone he saw.

Deaths all around! -That's for Megan, Tommy and family. We may use the phrase "You're killing me!" a bit too much when describing something cute. Thus, Winston is often "killing people" with his smile and dimple.

At home, Eleanor likes to amuse Winston as best she can.

Peekaboo! I wish I could have gotten his face, he just adores her.

As we got out our Christmas decor, Eleanor found some rather large socks. Ha ha.

All of our "real" Christmas stuff is in storage in Utah, but I keep finding things to make or buy at thrift stores here in Michigan. I only got to enjoy the decorations for a few days, but Clayton stayed for two weeks alone during finals, and we wanted it to be festive for him. So! We hung ornaments in the foyer...

(Ok, so these were a whole lot prettier in real life.)...glittered some old bulbs from the thrift store...... and decorated our honest-to-goodness Charlie Brown tree. I know, it's pathetic. I bought it our first year here as I couldn't stand not decorating even a little for the holidays, but I didn't want to spend too much. This tree was $2.50 and looking back, I think I should have splurged for the 4 foot one that was $6 at the thrift store. Oh well, a penny saved, right? (All of you who know me, stop laughing.) The 16 inch strand of green lights really makes it look spectacular, don't you think? I'm pretty sure Eleanor gets the magic of Christmas from all this splendor. Well, next up will be posts about our Utah trip!

An Afternoon at the Park

2011-11-14T22:01:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago (we are still catching up) I had promised Eleanor that we might go to the park to swing. I may have promised her this for over a week. Finally the mom guilt (One of us could die and her only memory of me is of a lie or, I would be tormented by swings forever etc... etc...) made me jump up, borrow Angela's sweet stroller and take them down. Clayton was at class so it was just the three of us. I had a hard time controlling my picture taking. The lighting was beautiful, the kids were beyond cute and Eleanor was displaying some sweet sassy attitude. The "I'm a hip toddler" variety. Not the new attitude of destruction, mayhem and feistiness that has sprung up as of yesterday. I would blog about that, but I'm pretty sure that in the time I took to write it out she would start the basement on fire or wreck the car. Yes, today she got super-mad at me that I wouldn't let her drive the car. I know, I am the meanest mom ever! What? Oh, yes. The park.

Here's sweet Winston. He loved being out even though I kept him strapped in the stroller for most of the outing.

So happy.

The walk to the park is facing west, so E had to don her shades.

She was so deliriously happy. Look at her running off in the sunlight, you can almost hear her shrieking. (She was totally shrieking, "I'm wunning! I'm wunning!)

In the skylight bubble.

And up close and personal.

Going down the big slides by herself. The playground is so much more fun, now that she is brave enough to do everything.

Remember when she wasn't? Same playground, only a year and a half later.
I asked her to stop so I could take her picture. This is what she gave me. I didn't think she was familiar with Rodin, but who knows what they really teach in Nursery.

"Eleanor, look at mommy and smile." Nope. I got about eight shots of this.

Winston, however, was all attention and ready for whatever I asked of him. "Winston, be adorable." "Sure mom!"

Strapped back in and ready to leave, I didn't want the magic to end.

Hiiiii-yah!

He finds her karate funny. Darn cuties.

I really need to take them out more, and the grocery store totally doesn't count. If we can all shake our colds and if winter wants to take a leave of absence this year, that would be terrific.

Michigan's Upper Peninsula Part 2

2011-11-12T01:00:00.000-08:00

Where were we? Oh yes, we just saw the super-dull locks in Sault Ste. Marie and decided to make our way off to see the Pictured Rocks on the shores of Lake Superior. We drove and drove and it was a bit farther than I thought, but we finally got to Munising where we stopped to get some meat Pasties.(Pronounced pass-tees.) These are basically a miner's meal. A hearty meat and vegetable dish that you can eat like a sandwich. We went to a place that is reputed to have the best ones... AND? Eh. I liked them ok, as they are a big wad of dough wrapped around the meat and vegetable stuffing. I like anything with dough, but like most food up north, they were using canned vegetables. They are quite filling though. We weren't hungry for about another 8 hours I think. Anyhow, enough of me complaining about food. If I want to be able to say that I have a healthy relationship with food, I need to stop talking about how it keeps letting me down, like a bad boyfriend or something. Back on topic.

We went to Castle Rock overlook to see, well, Castle Rock. It was a really pretty drive there and the view is spectacular. They built a large deck right up to and a touch over the edge of the cliff. Eleanor was having a great time walking up to and onto the deck until she noticed that she could see the ground beneath the deck through the slats. There was anywhere from a few inches to a few feet between the deck and the ground below. Once she realized that, she was freaked out. How funny! The random things you don't think about, except, I do think about that. Boring story at the end of this post explaining why*.
Here I am holding my sweetie. The only way she would experience this. Clayton and I took turns as Win was asleep in the car.

Up close you can see her adorable face. Funny story, we got all the way to St. Ignace only to find that we didn't have any shoes for Eleanor. We had thrown her in barefoot I guess. Luckily, she takes her shoes off so often that there was a pair of church shoes under the front seat.

This is Castle Rock.

A closer view. You are a couple hundred feet up, but it's hard to get a feel for the scale until you are there.

Here is a picture of a tour boat passing by to give you a little scale.I had great plans to take us to more of the Pictured Rocks only to have freaking Nigel, our GPS voice take us on a major road to a different spot. So we missed a huge chunk of what I wanted us to see. Like everything between Munising and Grand Marais. It took so long to get to Grand Marais (since we went down, across and back up instead of just across) that the sun was starting to go down when we got there. However, it was so pretty there that I took a few quick pictures.

Sailboats in Grand Marais Harbor.

From there I wanted us to see the Sable Dunes that are East of Grand Marais and Sable Falls, but we got on yet another incorrect road. Durn Nigel. We ended up driving on a road that seemed right but was super wrong. By the time we knew for sure that it was wrong, we just wanted to call it a day and get back to the hotel. Well, then Nigel took us on about 30 miles of twisty dirt roads through a dense, dark forest in a now dark and nearly moonless night. Luckily, both kids fell asleep. It's kind of sad when two fairly travel-savvy adults can get lost with a detailed atlas of Michigan, three guide books and a GPS. Well, I guess we never were officially lost, but we didn't get to see the waterfalls I wanted us to. And no, I don't imagine we will ever get back up there. Oh well. I hear they are pretty. Along our crazy drive I made Clayton stop when I could see Lake Superior.
Here is the view just a few feet away from the car.

Look! I'm at Lake Superior! It's mega-cold water!
P.S. Both of these shots were taken at the same time, one with a flash and one without. Weird.

Back at the hotel we got to relax again. By the time we got back to St. Ignace we were starving. I went and spent a goodly sum on treats at a local gas station and also procured some dreamy McDonald's for our nearly midnight snack. (I'm kidding, you know. McD's is never dreamy.) Winston eats the same thing for every meal, so he was happy.

You may remember this shot from my hair cutting post, but here is our sweetie boy again. I love his dimple. This is the next day as we were packing up.

We checked out and went exploring the little coastal area right out our hotel front door. Eleanor fed the birds our left over french fries. Winston enjoyed the fresh air and walking around. This is the view of Lake Huron looking South-East.
Eleanor enjoyed sitting on several different rocks. This may be because a week or two earlier we took family pictures in which we tried to convince her that sitting on rocks was the coolest thing ever. She didn't buy it then (lots of running away) but maybe she's had a change of heart. That wont help our family photos but, eh, what are you going to do?

Clayton and Eleanor.

Very touching.

And here is the view looking North-West.

Hello bubbles.

We crossed the bridge and stopped at the park on the Mackinaw City side. Eleanor immediately got out her "binoculars" to enjoy the sights. Thank you Dora the Explorer.

Ok, so I guess Mackinac Bridge is pretty long.

Our family!

The boys!

This is an action shot of a robbery in progress. Notice Winston's little bare foot and what is in Eleanor's right hand? I love how she is running, laughing and looking back to get their reactions. Winston, as always, was pretty chill about it all. He's used to her taking his stuff.

My sweeties. (Socks recovered, back on.)

Me and Winston, smooshing my glasses around my face. He is making the funniest face here too. I suppose he was over the tourist bit.

On the drive home we took Highway 119 along the western side of Michigan, the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. (Does that make sense?) There is a stretch between Cross Village and Harbor Springs that is called the Tunnel of Trees. It was very pretty, but I didn't get any truly great pictures, but if you are up in that area, I would say it is worth the drive. Twisty and slow, but very lovely. Here is one shot.

And that concludes our trip to Michigan's Upper Peninsula. It was a nice get away even if my lofty plans all came to nothing. The leaves were changing and so most of the driving had insanely gorgeous views the entire time. Michigan is so pretty, but Clayton and I grew up in Washington State, Idaho and Utah. I would rank those as a few of the more spectacularly pretty states as well, so it's hard to "wow" us. Still, I'm glad we took the time to check out more of Michigan while we are still here!

* Afore mentioned boring story: For years and years I was terrified to walk over grates. You know, like drainage grates, subway grates... they are everywhere in big cities. Why? When I was 16 and at a Youth City Council camp at Cedar City's college campus my friends and I got to attend a dance at the Institute building. High school girls at a college dance? Hello! I had on shorts so I had to change for dress code. I ran back to the dorms where we were staying, as it was less than half a mile on a small campus I went by myself. It was dark, but I was anxious to get back to the possibilities of cute college boys. As I was running back (and I was booking it) I saw a shortcut though an open garage. I ran quickly though it and noticed too late that the entire floor was a giant grate, with openings big enough for your leg to fall through, but small enough for a car to drive on. I got about two steps from the other side before my leg fell through. No serious injuries, just a lot of bruising a scraping, but it started a phobia that I can't quite shake. Rationally I know that almost any grate is structurally sound to walk on, but it still gives me the heebie-jeebies. Maybe poor Eleanor inherited it. Sorry E. Now when we go to the local library she always stops once we enter- as the foyer has a weird floor pattern that looks like decking. Every time I have to stomp on it and show her that it's safe to walk on. Poor little cutie.

Michigan's Upper Peninsula Part 1

2011-11-08T09:21:00.000-08:00

Finally, I am catching up a little! Here is our trip up north to Michigan's Upper Peninsula or the UP. I would wager that a lot of people don't even know there is a second "piece" of Michigan at all. I was curious as to why we have this entire section of our state that is actually connected to Wisconsin instead of us. In 1836 Michigan agreed to trade the "Toledo Strip" for the entire UP. There is a little more to it than that, but trust me, it's pretty yawn inducing. I did find it interesting that people from the UP are nicknamed Yoopers and that they call people who live in the mitten section of Michigan "trolls". Because we live under the bridge. Ha ha.

Anyhow, it's insanely lovely up there, and I've always wanted to see the Mackinac bridge (pronounced Mackinaw, there are about four different spellings for this same word), so we decided to make the trip up. It's just under 4 hours from East Lansing to the bridge. We went the first weekend in October which was General Conference weekend, the first time in ages that I didn't have church calling responsibilities and Clayton didn't have massive school work, so we were both stoked to have a mini-break. Road Trip!

Here is our cutie in the car. She and Winston were both champs. We essentially spent three days driving around and she couldn't have behaved better.

Starting across the bridge.

Did you know the bridge is 5 miles across? It's the largest suspension bridge (from shore to shore, not the central span) in the Western Hemisphere, 3rd worldwide. If you count the length of the central span it is 12th worldwide and 3rd in the US. Whatever the numbers, it's impressive to see, although we found it a bit underwhelming to drive across. Here is Clayton driving us across. We doubted it was really 5 miles, as it seems much much shorter, but we checked our mileage coming back across and sure enough, 5 miles it is.

Yeah, it kind of looks like any other bridge when you are on it. The pictures I took of the views turned out muddy and blurry (Shooting through car windows, you know.), but the views of either side are gorgeous.

We had a great hotel in St. Ignace (pronounced Saint Ig-nus) that was right on Lake Huron. Eleanor liked the "secret room" of the window well.

I love any picture of her and Lamb.

See the lake? It's right there! Just a few yards past our car! There is also a fire pit where they roast marshmallows each night. Fun! (We never made it for that, but still, it's a cool feature.)

Here are the grounds looking up from our room. We were lucky to hit the lull between summer season and hunting season. With the hotel being so vacant we got a great room.

As if it wasn't cool enough, there was a playground right outside our door. I mean, come on!

Here is a shot of part of the town of St. Ignace. It was very quaint. We were very excited to find a good place to eat dinner, thinking that the fish here should be fantastic. (It should!) Um.... not so much. I have to say, as much as we love Michigan, this is still my biggest complaint. Great restaurants are hard to come by. We ate at a place that smelled great outside so we each ordered the local catch done a different way. Cue trombone sound: Wom-womp. It was sub-par at best. It was akin to cafeteria food. Canned vegetables, gravy etc... It's kind of sad when you would've wished you ate at McDonald's instead, but hey, no biggie. At least it's lovely to look at, and we got fudge and taffy at a shop on our way back to the hotel, so the UP earned a few points there.

I made Clayton take us to see this side of the bridge one more time before we settled down for the night. It really is so pretty. To the right of the bridge is Lake Michigan, on the other side is the start of Lake Huron
Another shot.

And looking towards the right. Win was asleep in the car, so I just took some shots while they waited for me. I made them promise we would take family shots with the bridge on our way home.

As you can see, it was pretty dark and a bit overcast at this point.

Back at the hotel we chilled, licked Winston a bit and then E and I went swimming in the indoor pool!

Eleanor has always been our fish baby. I plan to start her in some Mom/Tot classes at the start of next year.

She had the time of her life playing on these steps for about an hour. We also enjoyed the hot-tub (it wasn't much hotter than the pool, so I felt ok about letting her get in) and she kept cracking me up by saying "Ohhh, dis is niiiiiice."

The next morning, er... so maybe it was closer to noon, we made our way out for breakfast in St. Ignace. Again, "eh" on the food. Sadly we found that the UP is like a concentrated section of what is wrong with food in Michigan. If it's ok below the bridge, it's probably awful up north. Do I sound bitter? Sorry, I just hate wasting money like that. Eating out is such a treat that it is a crying shame when it isn't awesome.

We made our way north past Castle Rock and found one of the many Paul Bunyan statues that dot the Northern Mid-West. Everyone claims that their nook of the woods was where the origin of the tales started. We didn't climb the Castle Rock overlook, too high with two small children made a few things a no-go. But Paul and Babe were neat to see.

We drove up to Ste. Sault Marie (pronounced Soo Sain-Marie) to see the locks. Clayton Eleanor and Win were happy to stretch their legs.

Hello cutie.

As you can see, it was an insanely gorgeous day. As you can also see, the locks are bohhh-wing.

That big white building is a ship in the lock. I guess the lock was either filling up or draining out, but we were too distracted by the paint drying to tell. However, we weren't too disappointed, as now when we play Ticket To Ride (possibly my favorite board game ever, well, past Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit) we can now act like pompous jerks whenever someone gets that card. What's that? We already do act like pompous blowhards about traveling? Oh. Hmm. Sorry about that. Well, not really.

My boys. I do like saying that. So that is the exciting first half of our UP adventures! Get excited for round two, coming soon!

Halloween 2011

2011-11-04T17:01:00.000-07:00

So there are still 2-3 older posts that I should do first, but Halloween is always such fun, that I thought I'd do this one first and play catch up later. A few shots from a very long week. Parts of this are way too long, I am too tired to edit, so feel free to just look at pictures.

Our entry table. I glittered about 7 more pumpkins for decor around the house. Poor Clayton, he often goes to school all sparkly.

On October 26th, the Allee family hosted a ward trunk or treat. Clayton had class but I still wanted to go. Sadly I was still working on Eleanor's costume right up until the time it started. I'm glad I didn't volunteer to do a trunk this year. We were late, but got there in time for Eleanor to get about three pieces of candy and to see most of the folk's costumes. Getting a picture of her costume before hand proved challenging. She was so tickled to be out at night and to see her friends.Especially her sweet friend Kinsley. Note the hand holding. It's like they're being coached on extra ways to be adorable.I wish I had gotten a picture with Kinsley's coat off (Note- responsible parenting. Notice who is chillin' in just her costume?), but Kinsley was Lil' Orphan Annie, complete with dyed red hair and special locket. I helped her mom make the dress. She was so perfect with her naturally curly hair. So darling! I love how these girls get along. We have to make sure not to sit near each other at church otherwise it's a little love-fest reunion for the two girls. It can get hilariously distracting. I'm glad I got a shot of the three of us. I was going to be Darth Vader, and Winston was to be R2D2, but I hadn't gotten that far with the costumes at that point. Since Clayton couldn't come, eh.I took a bunch of shots of her on the street with her bucket anyways, as she was too dang cute. I ended up sewing down most of her "wires" as she kept getting them caught on things. The next day was my birthday. Funny story*: Clayton and I were both still awake on midnight the "morning" of my birthday so he said I could open my presents. I had already gotten a new camera for my present, so I wasn't expecting anything else. I was still dressed from the day so I said for him to wait just a minute, I wanted to get comfortable. I hollered out, "I want soft pants! Make it so!" (Since on your birthday you should act like a dictator if at all possible.) Clayton started acting super weird and suddenly wanted me to open my present a little too much. I got nervous that it was going to be a bag of fake spiders or something awful, when lo and behold- it was new soft pants! Some awesome MSU Law ones. Yaaaaaay! My one demand met! My husband is a freaking mind reader! Apparently making demands totally works. I need to try that more often.
* I realize that wasn't really funny, but more of a "you had to be there" type of thing. Maybe amusing at best. Sorry for the oversell. Back to Halloween.

Halloween playgroup. Wow. That's about all I can say. Amy Nielson, Britani Frampton, Sarah Stradley, Aubrey Boardman and a few others made it the best playgroup ever. It was better than most ward carnivals. There were games and treats and crafts and everything had the most amazing Halloween details. There was even yummy potato soup with home made rolls for the moms, which saved me from eating fast food on my birthday, and a slew of kid-friendly Halloweenish foods for the kids. I am so glad I set our alarms so we could wake up in time to attend. It's always so fun to see Eleanor with all of her little nursery friends too. Here is a group picture minus about 13 running children.
From L-R, Back Row: Valerie Abenroth, Emily Becker, Britani Frampton, Aubrey Boardman, Amy Nielson, Nora and Jody Evans, Abby and Elisa Hutchison, Daxton and Tiffany Alldredge.
Front Row: Dean Abenroth (escaping), Laurie and Kinsley Johnson, Marisa Christensen, Eleanor and Marianne Firth, Delicia Coupe, Sarah Stradley holding Bennet Johnson, Zach Johnson (Spiderman #1 behind) Josh Hutchison (Spidey #2), Abigail and Jessica Anderson, Angela and Grant Johnson and Thomas Nielson. The little purple fairy behind Jessica was a visitor whose name I don't remember.

And just the kids.
Most of the kids, Back row, fromL-R: Carter and Thomas Nielson, Eleanor Firth, Nora Evans, Jacqueline Stradley, Ellie Becker, Reagan Coupe, Samantha?... Front row, Lily Coupe, Kinsley Johnson, Robbie Evans, Zach and Grant Johnson, Abby Hutchison

Eleanor posing with the pumpkin she decorated. Each child got to decorate it using pieces from a binder full of stick-on options. Which is lucky as we never got around to carving our pumpkins at home. I'm telling you, the traditions I imagine for our family are so special. It's a shame I probably wont have it together enough to actually do them until our kids are in college.

The rest of my birthday was just so-so. Clayton had to study and had class at night, so we planned to celebrate on another night. I did a return at Target and then at Walmart. At Walmart I had the bad idea to try on some pants. You seriously can't know how random that is. The Walmart in Okemos is so ghetto, I hate it. It's not even a super Walmart so I rarely bother shopping there. Anyhow, for whatever reason, probably misguided birthday indulgence, I decide to try on some pants. (I know! Right? Pants, for me, at Walmart. Target? Sure! 90% of my clothes are from Target, but Walmart?) I have both kids in the cart and I am trying to maneuver it into a large dressing room when the cart hits the handle of the dressing room door and stops fast, toppling little Eleanor right over the front. She landed smack on her head on the hard, horrible floor. It was so sick to see. It's one of those things that you replay in your head and can't believe it didn't break her... ugh. Can't even type it. She was mega-upset, understandably, but the sweet pea calmed down after about 4 minutes. I had a hoard of employees there asking me to fill out forms and what-not. She was fine but I was rattled. Luckily no concussion, not even a bump or lasting bruise on her head. She must have quite the armada of angels looking out for her, thankfully.

I decided to call it a day after that. There was another trick or treat event, but she's only 2 and doesn't know what she's missing yet. We stayed home and caught up on Sprout and Project Runway, occasionally stopping to check our ABCs, colors and numbers. No memory loss, hooray! After picking up Clayton from school, we stopped by Sam's Club so I could get my obligatory cupcakes. Then we got awesome Korean takeout. Goo-ood.

Halloween night. I spent most of the day doing who knows what, thinking I would whip up Winston's costume a few hours before go-time. I had bought the fabric over a month before, but waited til the afternoon of Halloween to discover that it would not sew on my machine for anything. The vinyl binds up like crazy. Getting desperate for time, I resorted to my trusty glue gun. The hot glue worked ok, but once it was dry it was easy to peel apart. Combine that with not being able to find the long sleeved onsie to go underneath, nor his blue hat and he ended up with a pretty lame costume. Sorry, Winston. We'll try harder next time. Yes you love your second child as much as the first, but boy do they get hosed out of a lot of special things. He ended up wearing a knitted romper underneath, so at least he'd be nice and toasty when we finally made it outside. But it sort of made it look like R2D2 was baking bread out of his casing.

The kids on the couch. I like that at least together, their costumes made sense.

Cuties.

"Awww, my mom made my costume and it shows."

Out ready to hit the streets!

She really was adorably excited about it all. He fell asleep.

Outside we ran into our neighbors. Eliza and Eleanor had a sweet reunion.

Knocking on doors. If they took too long then she tried the handles. Whoops.

It was just so adorable! I know I've said that about twenty times already, but she just got so into it. People gave her a ton of candy, partially because we get approximately 2 trick or treaters on our block, but also because she was so sweet.

It was just cold enough to make one loop down the street and back. Also, Clayton had class again so there was no need to be too zealous. She doesn't quite grasp that the bucket of candy is all hers. Especially since mom keeps eating all the Whoppers and Twix from it. I did let her eat a full size 3 Musketeers when we got home. She thought that was pretty cool.

After a decent nap he woke up, confused as to why he was still wearing this plastic tube.

Sorry this was so long and chatty. Maybe if I blogged more than once a month I wouldn't feel the need to tell you about every thing that has ever happened.
Still to come, our trip to the Upper Peninsula and Jenni's trip. Those were both September. Egads.

A Little Bit Of Everyday

2011-10-20T13:00:00.000-07:00

Ok, so some catch up. The past week or two, Winston first.
Little man loves to babble, smiles at everyone, but especially Eleanor, Clayton and myself. He lights up when he hears one of us speaking or catches our eye. He recently met the little hottie in the mirror and thinks that kid is hilarious. He's beginning to drool more and more and loves to shove one or both of his fists into his mouth, sometimes along with his binkie or a bottle. He also recently discovered his feet and will hold onto both feet and kind of just rock around. It's pretty cute.

Most impressively may be that he can roll over from front to back and from back to front. He is a mover! If Clayton has an early morning he sleeps downstairs and I let Winston sleep in bed with me. However, Winston wont rest until he has wiggled his way right next to me, so I play leap-frog all night trying to make sure I don't squish him. He loves to be held and I am starting to figure out when his crying means "I'm tired." (My crying always means I'm tired. Ha ha.) Once he gets to that point a quick two minute rocking and he is out. He is a very "chill" baby and we love him to pieces.

Here he is after a bath

All ready for church lying on the sweet quilt Ruth Seedall made us. Funny story, he received three of this shirt he's wearing at his baby shower. We kept two in two sizes and passed one on to our sweet neighbor Bennett. P.S. Notice his tiny leather church shoes? Baby shoes kill me. One day Clayton was holding him and Winston started this "game" where he would stare intensely at Clayton, slowly leaning forward more and more, staring all the time, until he would finally wobble over and have to lean back to start again. Clayton called me in to get a picture.

This is another shot from that game. Miss Eleanor!
What a sweetheart she is. She has been so freaking funny lately. One of her newest tricks is pretending to whistle. She puts one of her fingers in her mouth and says "Woo-oooo-wooot!" in her highest voice. Makes me laugh every time. She loves to play outside with the neighbor kids but mainly ends up doing her own thing, rather than interacting much. She plays with others better indoors.

One not-so-great thing she does lately is tipping over the 9 month old baby girl who just moved into the Phillip's old spot. Little Abby is an early walker and Eleanor seems to have a problem with it. I think she just doesn't think she should be walking yet, as anytime she sees Abby toddling around she tries to knock her down. She doesn't do it forcibly, but she will just casually go up behind her and push her over. She does it kind of discreetly, as much as a two year old can, like by using one finger or pretending to kiss her head but just using her head to tip Abby's balance. I feel awful that she singles her out so much and do my best to prevent it. I threaten time-out and she stops, says her "sorry" but give her 10 minutes and she is at it again. Then she actually gets time out. Luckily Abby is pretty tough and her mother, Elisa, is super forgiving. From this Eleanor has learned another new trick. Saying "It was acdent, mommy." (It was an accident.) She has learned that accidents don't get you put in time out. Boy are we in trouble. Luckily, she doesn't quite realize that I'm on to her.

Another funny thing she does now is that if she does something wrong and I start to use my "parenting voice" she will tell me, "Oh! Don wuhwy, mommy. Is ok, mommy. It wiw be awight, mommy." (Don't worry, it's ok, it will be alright.) She says these in different combinations all the time. If she is really in trouble she will also offer you an imaginary cupcake from her little cupped hand. That one kills me. Her imaginary play has taken off lately and she offers me pretend things all day long, but the cupcake as peace offering is just beyond funny. Where does she learn this? I know I have an unhealthy love of baked goods, but seriously!

She knows her colors, but when you ask her what color something is she answers, "Um, his name is yewhoa." (His name is yellow.) She also knows her shapes, is much better at her alphabet (doesn't skip letters, but still adds a few syllables to "l-m-n-o", and can count to 20, but 12-20 are often a remix of sorts.

Covered in dirt from our piles outside. Ugh, but I love that she is such a little kid.

From head to toe!

Everyone passed out with dad. Awwww. Eleanor never falls asleep in cars or weird places, so it is either a real treat or a real worry when she konks out anywhere other than her crib.

Trying to wear Clayton's backpack. With a law book or two it only weighs about 68 pounds.

Did you know a good week or two of my life was spent sewing Angry Birds and Pigs for a friend's son's birthday? A friend volunteered to make them for her and asked for my help. So of course I got bossy and ended up making all of these but one. They turned out pretty cute, but I was so done with hand sewing little eyebrows onto petulant poultry.

No, I will not make any more Angry Birds.

Let's just look at this little guy one more time. Our little MSU fan!

Lansing Lugnuts!

2011-10-11T13:00:00.000-07:00

In early September we had the opportunity to attend a Lugnuts game with our friends Chad, Marissa & Corban. They are such a fun family and I've mentioned before how I have such a crush on their little Corban. He's kinda dreamy. It was so fun to take E on this kind of outing, and Winston did surprisingly well.

Family portrait!

Take two. Note Winston's baseball hat? Yeah, so it stayed on for all of two minutes, but cute!

Daddy and E.

Toddler heart-throb waving to his fans.

Sweet E.

Us again.

Chad, Marissa, C and baby girl just few weeks away at this point! I'm so behind at blogging, that she is now here!

Cute kids after the game.

Cute and happy.

At the end of the game they had an incredible fireworks display. Winston was actually able to sleep through it and I was in heaven watching Eleanor. She was so excited, it was her first time seeing real fireworks. We've only ever done the ground kind for her, and these were set off in the actual ballpark. So they were big and close. E kept turning around to yell at me "Look mommy! Look! You see this? Whoooaaah! Is so big!", laughing the entire time. I pretty much wanted to say the same things to her. It was an all around perfect evening.

Babies On A Hotel Bed*

2011-10-07T23:06:00.000-07:00

*Sung to the tune of "Brothers On A Hotel Bed" by Death Cab for Cutie.

On our recent trip up north, Eleanor used Winston's pack and play for her bed, Clayton got one bed and Winston and I got another. One night Winston fell asleep and looked just like a picture we took of Eleanor on her first trip. So I took another picture.

This is the shot of Eleanor in San Diego at 2 months old.

And Winston at 3 months old in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Ok, so maybe they weren't that close, but I love that victory pose that babies do when they sleep. Have you ever tried to sleep like that? Ridiculously painful.

The blog post of Eleanor's first vacation is here. She was about a month and a half younger than Winston, but man was she chubbier! I forgot she got so rolly-poly so fast! Winston is doing great in his height and weight percentages, but gee whiz! Eleanor had the sweetest little (ha) thighs!

More to come soon! Like the actual trip post!

Hair First! Other stuff, like everything, later.

2011-10-07T21:32:00.000-07:00

I am SO SO SO behind! I promise to try and catch up in the next week or two. Blogging is so hard when there is Pinterest to be pinning on! So, I need to catch up on the general adorableness of two little kiddos, Jenni's freaking fun-tastic visit and our recent trip up north to the UP.

BUT!

In the meantime, I need to post today's event. No, not taking the car back into the shop because the part they just replaced last Thursday broke, and made me think the car was about to explode, although that did happen today. (Replaced the part for free under warranty. Phew!)

No. Today I got a haircut! If you know me, you understand this is a big deal. I get "real" haircuts anywhere from 6 months to 3 years apart. I'm a bit of a DIYer in all aspects of my life, including trims. Here is a before shot taken last week in the hotel in St. Ignace. Isn't Win just the cutest? But focus on my hair people! This is about meeeeee. And, this is about as good as it gets for my hair. Which isn't saying much.

This is my long hair looking as "Victoria Secret Model" as I could get it.

Here is a shot of me at Lake Superior. (Sad self portrait, more on that later when I actually post about this trip.) This is about what my hair looked like from day to day.
Not horrible, but not great.

And here it is looking it's worst. Frizzy, lots of wave, but no product (Or makeup, egads!) to make it smooth. Basically all around ew-ness. This was this how it looks air dried after a shower if I brush it out.

And here it is now! SHORT! I love it! I'm a bit worried that until I lose more baby weight, my head will look like a marble on a bouncy ball. But I need to remember that long hair wasn't exactly making me look skinny.

Here's a side view of me lovingly reading Eleanor a book. Ok, so we were playing with the self timer and I was trying to get a side shot to show the length in back that also didn't make me look like a Pelican. (Think giant chin melding into my neck. Actually don't.)

A gal in my ward cut it and she gave me exactly what I wanted. Jodie Evans, if you're interested and if you are ever in mid-Michigan needing some hair help. She's a wizard. I will post more in a few weeks so you can see how I'm doing once I have to style it myself. Fingers crossed for low maintenance.

P.S. I am lamp-lit and totally wearing makeup, good makeup, like even lipstick, in the after pictures. Never trust the internets.

So People, I Apparently Need A Bit More Sleep

2011-09-27T19:58:00.000-07:00

More sleep? Doesn't any mother or father of a new baby need more sleep? Sure, but I am going to blame my lack of blogging on it, rather than the real reason (Pinterest!).

Well over a month ago I made a huge list of future blogs to write with the accompanying picture information. I promptly lost this list, only to find it today snug in the notebook that I bought to keep me organized. Ha. So I plug in the pictures only to find that about half of them are nonsense. Horrible pictures of people blinking, blurry streaks that were supposed to be Eleanor and two where my chin looks far beyond "a double". There was no way that these were the ones I had meant to blog about. I must have been half asleep when I thought I was being all super organized. Which means, oh crap. I need to start from scratch, and I have no idea where to start.

So. Here are a few-day to-day shots to tie you over til I get my brain back.

Little man.

Eleanor and our sweet neighbor Grant. They have the best time giggling around the house together. They seem to find anything they do to be HI-LAR-IOUS.

I will admit though, the sound of them laughing their fool heads off will brighten your day.

Anther shot from when my parents were here. (Man! That was a freaking lifetime ago!) Eleanor loves to get "all tozy" in her blankets.

Clayton took Eleanor to the children's museum in Grand Rapids a few weeks back. Eleanor love, love, loved the bubbles. Of course.

We have a few awesome dirt piles in our front area. I think the landlord was going to replant a bunch of flowers, then decided against it, leaving three large piles of fresh dirt in our raised planter area. They kids adore it, and E is always right there in it. I don't mind until they start throwing or dumping it on each other. It never washes all the way out! Here is our little Miss Mudpie in the bath. You can't really tell how dirty she is, but trust me that there wasn't one inch of skin that wasn't coated. I had to wash out the bath tub three times.

Thanks to Dora, Eleanor has a love of back packs. Here she is wearing one.

Which is actually a tiny little baby-doll purse. How she gets them on is beyond me.

Here is an old shot, this is little Leah with Eleanor. Leah moved to Washington well over a month and we miss her family a ton! Eleanor talks about her and her older brother at the most random times. It's cute that she remembers her friends. Little kiss.

"Aaaaaahhh, we touch our noses! We so silly, mommy."Ok, so the kids are cute, but I'll admit, this was a pretty boring post. I need to upload a ton of more pictures and videos. And I need to get a bunch from Jenni. Her visit has come and gone and we are missing her like crazy. I took all of one picture while she was here.
But hey, she is the professional.

Here are a few videos to make this post a bit more fun.

"Tiny Turtle" and a bit of Winston

Hula Fever with Grant

And a thank you to Grandma Judy.

Winston Is Still Adorable, Thanks For Checking!

2011-09-06T21:18:00.000-07:00

Cute.

Also cute.
This looks so much like Clayton when he was a kid, well at least to me. Exact same expression I've seen in his baby pictures.

Happy cute.

And downright freaking edible.

People often ask how the transition to two kids has been, and if he's a good baby. I have to say, we thought E was a good baby, and she was, but Win is an exceptionally good baby. We got so lucky with his temperament. Now, don't get me wrong, most nights he still gets us up every three hours, but he really only cries for the basic needs or tummy pains. He loves to coo and gurgle at us and smiles all of the time. At his 2 month check up he was in the 90th percentile of weight and height. He's not as roly-poly as Eleanor was, but he weighs over 13 pounds and his little thighs are starting to get some tiny rolls. If you had seen his newborn legs, you would know what a feat that is. He takes a binky (E didn't, to our dismay.) and the occasional bottle and loves his swing. All of this adds up to fairly trouble free days for us. As to having two kids now? We're kinda getting the hang of it. I think. We are much more laid back this time, we know what things to freak out about and which ones to laugh at. We still aren't much for a solid schedule yet, we are all night owls, but right now that works in our favor. So if you notice I'm on facebook or Pinterest at 2:30 AM, don't worry. Win and I will still be in bed at 10 or so the next morning. When church time changes to 9AM in January we are going to be in for a world of hurt.

Eleanor's Eye

2011-09-06T21:02:00.000-07:00

Poor Eleanor. About two weeks ago (I know, I know. I promised a post a day or something. You all know I'm full of lies, moving on.) she was riding her little trike and suddenly stopped and said "OW!" I looked over and she hadn't fallen or anything but she was holding her eye. I checked but didn't see any marks. Lately she has been prone to a bit of make-believe, so I dismissed it until later that night. That's when I noticed a little mark right under her eyebrow, but it wasn't anything remarkable. However, the next morning Clayton got her up to find this. Egads!

Poor little puffy face. She could barely see out of it. We had Winston's two month immunization appointment that same day so I called in to see if we could fit her in as well. They could, so we ALL got to go to the doctors office. Good times.

They deemed it a bug bite and just told us to watch it. As the day went on it got better and better. I'm still not sure if it was a mosquito or an ant- we have lots of weird ants all over our sidewalks and driveways out front. That night we did a dose of Benadryl and the next day it wasn't even half as bad.

And in another day or two it was completely gone, as seen here. I just wanted to add these for fun as she looked so cute this day.

I love her when she's all dressed up, especially since she wants to wear her Dora pajamas (I caved) or "mermaid" dress (a 6-12 month "Ariel" costume that just covers her bum) nearly every day.

Meijer Day at Potter Park Zoo

2011-08-29T20:47:00.000-07:00

FYI, I am more behind on blogging than I thought. I just spent an hour sorting through pictures on my computer... I will try to post maybe one a day for a few days or something awesome. Don't hold me to it though. Anyhow. When Win was just two weeks old, Potter Park Zoo had a day sponsored by Meijers, where it only cost $3 to get in. Woo hoo. Off we went. Win was a dream in his car seat the whole time, and Eleanor had a blast.

And, can I just say? After wandering amongst the "great unwashed" (pilots used to always call the passengers that) I came away feeling smarter and better looking than I normally feel. Yeah, there were some real winners there, but I'm not here to be mean. On to the pictures.

Eleanor wasn't too keen on the big mascots walking around.

Cute as always.

Posing like a monkey.

If a monkey looks forlorn, halo-lit and precious. This kind of thing melts me.

And here are some video snippets of E and the mandrill mascot. If you remember, we have reason to be wary of mandrills.

E and the donkeys. Funny girl.

2011-08-29T01:34:00.001-07:00

Seriously.

Early August 2011

2011-08-25T12:00:00.000-07:00

I am nice and behind on blogging again. Grrrr. Life has been busy, but nothing much has happened. Do you know what I mean? Days on end where the laundry is barely getting done, but you have no idea why. Yes, I have two kids now, and it's an ever changing adjustment, but still. What have I been doing? I think I am biding the time since my parents left until my sister in law Jenni comes. Did you know Jenni was coming?!?! I know! Get excited, because I am. Oh the treats I have planned, she wont know what hit her. P.S. By the way, I will get this excited for you to visit too, whoever you are. I will make you awesome treats for anyone that wants to buy a plane ticket to Michigan. Anyhow, here are a bunch of shots and tidbits from my parent's visit. They got to come out for Winston's blessing. I posted his blessing, but here are a bunch more from the visit.

Winston's blessing outfit, I'm kind of a snob (you all know that) about kids-wear. So I was more than kind of obsessed with getting him a perfect little church outfit to be blessed in. I didn't want all white, or girly or a lot of things. Luckily, I found the blazer for like $3 on Old Navy clearance ages ago, the shirt was there also for a few dollars and the tie was about 50¢ at a thrift store. Sadly, I could not find little khaki pants to save my life. Well, I could find them for $25 dollars, but I don't spend that much on my pants, so I'm sure not going to spend it on something he might wear once. In the end I found a pair for $15, it still kills me, but oh well. He looked darling.

Guy Smiley.
(P.S. My mom once told me that if I had been a boy they might have named me "Guy". Seriously mom? Thank heavens you had a girl.)

His whole outfit makes me laugh. Some people think that grown-up clothes on babies is a ridiculous idea, and they're right. But come on! How freaking cute is he? Little tie? Button up shirt that will never stay tucked in? It kills me!

One day my mom flagged down the Schwan truck to buy a bunch of ice cream bars. I love my mom. Eleanor has been enjoying them ever since. As usual, we barely have any pictures of our guests of honor. We tried to get one with my parents, Winston and Eleanor, but she had other plans.

A cute shot of our increasingly smiley baby. He's at such a sweet stage right now. I love when he coos back and forth with us.

Grandpa and Eleanor one morning. (Please excuse my craft area disaster behind them.) My parents introduced Eleanor to Slim Fast. For them, a sensible breakfast alternative, for Eleanor, CHOCOLATE DRINK! I actually feel ok about her having it on occasion. It beats mornings where her breakfast consists of licking a banana.

Cute parents on the blessing day with Win.

After 8 or so shots, this is the best "smile" E would give me.

Their necks must have hurt by the end of the trip.

Us again.

My mom and E holding W. Yes, it is as precarious as it looks. But look! He's smiling!

And now E is too.

One thing the Howell side loves is swimming. We decided to try out the local aquatic center in town. Guess who is not loving the idea?And guess who is?Her look of concern here is due to the kid-sized frog slide. We thought she would be going crazy over it, but nope. It took both grandparents, myself and about 80 attempts before she finally went down it. (It's about 3-4 feet down.) Once she did she loved it, of course, but by then it was time to go.

She loves swimming. It's downright criminal that I don't take her more often.

I tried to get W in the water, but what felt perfect to us was incredibly cold for him. He hollered bloody murder. I felt extra stupid as everyone within a three state area turned to look at the fool mom who was torturing her newborn. We got him out soon enough and didn't try that again. Maybe when he's 12.

The only downside to our water day was that in a hand off, I dropped my camera in the water. Nice. Oh well, it was almost 4 years old, and I've been contemplating getting a new one anyways. The lame part was getting all of the pictures onto my computer. I put the old card in another camera and loaded them ok, but my computer kept turning off during the upload. Add into that I also uploaded my parents pictures the same day with the same power problems on my computer, so I have duplicates and triplicates in a thousand different folders on I-photo. So annoying. That's part of what has kept me from blogging. I still have stuff to post from before my folks visit, but it might take me a few weeks to find those photos too. Any suggestions on a new awesome camera? But back to the visit.

One afternoon, Clayton took my parents to MSU to see the campus. Here is a nice picture of him in front of the Law sign. Egads, I need to step it up, I have nearly NO photos of Clayton's experience at school. Need to remedy that.

Eleanor enjoying some ice-cream. If one day, she ever fights her genetics and ends up pudgy, I will have ample evidence as to why. I love how long her cute tongue is.

My parents watched the kids so Clayton and I could go on a date. It was our 5 year anniversary while they were here! Another whole post I plan to do soon. We went to Maru for sushi and then to a movie. Such a needed date night!

As always, it ended all too soon. Eleanor thought so too and hopped in their rental car. She repeatedly asked about going to the airport. Whoops. We didn't remember to prepare her for that. Much like my parents, she loooooves going to the airport.

Soon we get to go pick up Jenni, and soon after that will be our visit to Utah in December! I am dreading the flight there, as I will be traveling with E & W all by myself while Clayton studies for his finals. I figure if I start preparing now, it wont be such a big deal. Can you believe that Winston will be the same age in December that Eleanor was when we moved to Michigan? It's going so fast!

Winston's Blessing Day

2011-08-10T19:24:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday we were able to have Winston blessed at church. My parents were able to squeak in a quick visit and it was wonderful to have them there for the occasion. Here are a few pictures from the day.

The doting grandparents.

The sister who vacillated between stealing the show with her cuteness and giving us high doses of attitude. I'll take more cute, please.Our family of four. (Four!)

One with Eleanor actually smiling.And one with Winston's eyes open. And the gang outside the church. Quite a different picture from the ginormous group shots from Eleanor's blessing day. We were lucky to have every relative in a two state radius at her big day. Poor Winston, just as loved, but just from a bit farther away.

And here is a close up of the little angel. He's so stinking cute and we love him soooo much!
(P.S. I blurred the background of me as it was all distracting wrinkles and freckles.
It was taking away from his doll face.)

He turned 7 weeks old on his blessing day, August 7th 2011. He is cooing and smiling all the time now, and his little dimple kills me. His eyes are still blue, but I think they will probably change like Eleanor's did. Hers changed around 15-18 months, so we have a ways to go before we will be sure of his color, but I think they will be a darker brown than her hazel brown.

Cakity Cake Cake Cake!

2011-08-01T20:33:00.000-07:00

Did you want to hear me talk about cakes a lot? Yes?! Then read on! No? Well, that's all we have here today.

If you've read my blog even twice, you probably know about my love affair with cakes. Frosting to be exact, but cake is my favorite vehicle for frosting. My all time favorite frosting is my dad's Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting. Second place would be my crappy version of it, then third place goes to the magical stuff called But-R-Creme from good old Sam's Club. It is so called due to there being no real butter in it. It's shortening based- which is brilliant as you don't even have to refrigerate the stuff! I may have just grossed out a bunch of you, but if you have no problems with shortening, like me, then let's celebrate! In case you are curious, Costco's cakes don't even come close to Sam's club. Now, did you know that you can buy the frosting directly from Sam's bakery? I bought a smallish bucket of it from them years ago when I made a cake for my niece Caitlin's bridal shower. And I recently purchased a 5 Gallon drum of it to make a wedding cake.

5 gallons drum? Wedding cake? Yep. Sometime in May I was asked to make a wedding cake for some people in our ward. Even though the wedding would take place just a few weeks after Winston's due date I quickly said "YES!", because if anyone is going to be playing bakery, I want it to be me. And the beauty of making someone a free wedding cake is that they can't be mad if it sucks. So all fun fun fun! But back to Sam's Club. The tedium of making wedding cakes is all the baking part. My awesome friend Kristy informed me that you could not only buy frosting there, but also ready-baked cakes that you can decorate yourself. Hello awesome! So the day before the wedding I went to Sam's club and bought a 5 gallon drum of white But-R-Creme and also a box of sheet cakes. The cakes were $18 and change for four sheet cakes and the bucket of frosting was, get this, $10.68. I asked the gal there a few times if that was right, but after clicking on her computer for about ten minutes I finally figured "Oh well. Ten bucks it is!" So for under $30 I had everything to make a big mamma-jamma wedding cake. If you want a 5 gallon drum and it costs more, sorry. Those are the breaks.

Now, I hadn't met the bridal couple, and I was kind of given carte blanche as to design so I thought it could be a perfect time to try out this idea that I had bookmarked months earlier.(P.S. Are you still bookmarking? that's sooo early 2011. Pinterest is totally where it's at. Let me know if you need an invite!) I had heard that the announcements were purple, so I made that my palette, but then I heard the bride loved cows and wanted a cow cake. Ummm, I just pretended to not hear that part, and in my defense, I only got that tidbit the day before I made it. I wanted pretty, so I stuck with my original plan, although I did make a tiny concession at the end.

So I got to cutting, filling, stacking and crumb-coating. Here is the beginning! The purples all read a touch blue in these photos because (like every project I do) it was night time and I am just using a regular camera instead of a dslr camera.
I may be the last person who blogs that doesn't have one.

Ummm, it's a little tilty at the top, but more frosting will help that. I wish I had lightened the third shade of purple as the contrast isn't strong enough. Alas.

Here she is! Would you believe that it used half of my bucket of frosting to make this bad boy?

And here it is with a clean board. I used a box I had gotten in the mail (*Hoarding always pays off! Thanks for the box, Allison H!) that I covered with poster-board and ribbon. I was really pleased, isn't it pretty?

Around 2:30 AM I was hot-gluing tulle and ribbon millinery to plastic cows. Why is it always crazy-town at that time of night? So that was my concession, cow wedding toppers. I left them off in case they didn't want to be represented by heifers. I was told they used them, so that was a relief. I would've felt bad if I offended anyone. But the bride really does love cows. The plastic cows I used had both horns and udders so I cut the horns off one and the udder off the other, is that right? Firths?

I had almost 2 whole cakes left over so I strong-armed my neighbor into letting me make her son's birthday cake. Here it is. Each letter represents a different sport.

Being a super-pushy kind of neighbor, I made her let me do his last year too. In trying to find the pictures I realized I had never blogged it. So here are the pictures from last year. He's into sports and balls if you can't tell. I loved the tennis ball I made, even though the fancy pants butter-cream I made tasted like eggs to me. Real butter-cream is cooked and I wanted to master it. No longer! Not when you can buy fake happiness in 5 gallon buckets. Sadly, his basketball turned out a touch more spaceship, saucer shaped.
Say that 3 times fast. No don't.But back to this year, look how sweet he is!
For a non-relative, I kind of love Grant more than most kids.

Luckily he likes me too.

Post Script- I have no idea if they even liked their wedding cake. I'll just assume that it was acceptable. And I am almost out of frosting. Gross, huh. I've given some away and made a few more projects and now have one container left. It makes me a bit nervous to be so low, but I also realize the need to remove this "staple" from my diet if I want to lose any baby weight. It does make really good cookie-cups, just like the ones they sell at Mrs. Fields stores. Which are awesome, in case you were wondering. P.S.#2- *Hoarding rarely pays off. The original statement was misleading. Don't end up on TLC for the wrong reasons. Also- I know I say "also" and use parenthesis about twenty times too many in this post. I blame baby sleeping schedules.

Whatever, We Didn't Like Them Anyways

2011-07-28T18:43:00.000-07:00

So another set of friends and neighbors have left us this year. We lost the Woods and Helgesens in May, losers. And just a week ago we lost the Phillips. What-ev. I know we have to leave next May as well and that it's a cycle and blah, blah, blah.... but it still sucks. There is a big hole in our daily lives that gets filled up, but never filled. You know? I'm trying to write this flippantly to keep my already hormonal emotions in check. Is it working? You're not crying, right? Ok. so far so good. Here are a few pictures of our last few days with the Phillips.

Lexie gifted little Winston with the most adorable little crocodile romper that her sweet Wesley has as well. We dressed them up together to compare and contrast. How cute are they?!

Wesley is still the smiliest cutey ever. If he wouldn't smile at you within the first minute or so, you knew something was wrong in the world.

We could only keep the wolves at bay for so long...

Actually this is just Wesley's cute brother Miles.

And sweet Benny. He freaking LOVES babies. It's the cutest thing, he makes a beeline for Wesley or Winston the second they are in sight. And don't worry, a grownup has him safely in hand here, despite what it looks like.

And if they didn't, I'd say Benny's been due his revenge for 15 months now.Yes, that's a barely one year old Eleanor holding a newborn Benny. Just thought I'd reminisce.Back to present, here is the whole Greencrest gang with a few honorary neighbors added in.

And here are the women folk. Cute Ashley, Ruth, Lexie (sniff), Angela and me.

We also went out to lunch earlier that week. Funny story, a new mom was sitting behind our table with her newborn son. When she and her mother got up to leave she inquired about Winston, how old etc... Then she asked me if I was breast-feeding. Um, yes? (Kind of a weird topic to ask a total stranger in public, but whatever.) She then proceeds to start gushing about how awesome breastfeeding is because it makes you lose "SO MUCH WEIGHT!" and on and on. I just kind of nodded in agreement as I polished off my bacon-mushroom burger and fries. As she was rambling she had to prove her point so she pops up, holds out her arms and says "I mean, just look at me!" Just like a Jenny Craig ad. Yep. Good job you. Bravo on losing your baby weight in under two weeks. Lexie sweetly asks at this point, "Aw, is he your first?" We were all trying to stifle our laughing. We assume she thought she was being helpful to a bunch of possible new moms, not realizing that we had 14+ kids between us. It was extra funny to me because that is Eleanor's favorite phrase, "LOOK AT ME!" And because nursing doesn't do jack for my weight loss. Well, it might if I didn't eat frosting after every meal.

Look at us!Back to goodbyes, here is darling Sophie. She is such a tender doll of a girl.

Zach isn't going anywhere, but I had to include his sweet pose under the cursed moving truck.

Miles!

Their whole family.

The whole neighborhood.

After they left we all did a lot of this.

Winston especially cried and cried and cried.

Good luck on your new beginnings, Phillips! We will miss you all more than you know!

Winston Before and After

2011-07-24T16:06:00.001-07:00

I saw this idea on a blog and decided to try it out.
Thanks to my wonderful friend Lexie for her help!

Winston's First Few Weeks

2011-07-22T11:24:00.000-07:00

Things are starting to settle down around here. We are getting used to patches of sleep instead of full nights, although today has been pretty pathetic. I cleaned the whole upstairs to prepare for my visiting teachers coming, only to realize that they said they were coming tomorrow. I also thought I was taking dinner to someone tonight, nope. Tomorrow as well. As I tried to put the cheese away in the dishwasher, I realized that maybe I'm not doing as well on less sleep as I thought I was. But hey, clean house, right? Hmm. Lack of sleep is usually not the time to try and blog, boring or loopy. Wonder how this post will turn out?

Anyhow. Here are some pictures of the first few weeks having Winston with us. It has truly flown by. He had his 1 month check up today and he weighs 11 pounds 5 ounces and is 23 inches tall. That's a three pound plus weight gain. Yay! I would say he's grown four inches, but we all know that the initial measuring isn't terribly accurate. Too wiggly, I guess.

Here's the "welcome home" message my mom and Eleanor made for little Win.

Sweet snugly boy.

And our sweet girl. She is "blowing bubbles" here. Which means she is basically spitting. I'm glad this trick only lasted a few days. She is wearing the dress that my mom got her in Hawaii. Mahalo!

Ohhh. Staying dressed is so hard!

Modeling some of his sweet outfits. Note the adorable skater socks? Love them! Thanks Delicia!

Eleanor and neighbor Nora outside enjoying ice cream.

Cuddling with Angela. Eleanor used to pose like this all the time.

Playing on the floor in their room. Well, Eleanor was playing and it's still only her room.

She was trying to make him play with the phone. He couldn't dial for crap. I guess rotary phones just aren't his generation.

So Eleanor just let him talk. She is so cute with him. We keep a good eye on her as sometimes she loves him just a bit too much.

It's a bit hard to see in this picture, but Eleanor put a second dress on underneath her first one, telling me it was "her pwetty skut." (Her pretty skirt.) I thought it was adorable, until we went to the grocery store and she wouldn't let me take it off her. So she looked like a tiny polygamist wife. I guess that's kind of cute too.

Big yawn.

Swimming outside!

Wearing sweet dress and matching head scarf.

Looking super blond in this picture. This is when he reminds me of Val's boys. General concern again.All dressed up for his first week at church! That was July 10th. Can you believe they even make such tiny clothes? Button-up shirts and pinstriped wool pants. He he! He did really well. I was useless in Primary that week, but oh well. However, listening to Sacrament meeting in the nursing lounge is awesome. You get so much more out of the talks! Last week we tried to go again but Winston chose to hose us both down a few minutes before leaving. So we stayed home and napped instead. Fingers crossed for next week.

Winston's First Bath

2011-07-20T19:13:00.000-07:00

His first bath was a little less ceremonious than Eleanor's was. No crowds, just me Win and E. Clayton was at work and I would've waited for him, but we had already put it off a few days and little guy was due a good cleaning. Wet wipes will only get you so far, you know? Winston fussed a bit at first, but seemed to like it after a few minutes.

Eleanor wanted to play at the same time.A little concerned, but he often looks that way.

All wrapped up in his towel.

My super awesome over-flashed pictures. He's such a sweetie!

4th of July 2011

2011-07-18T21:29:00.000-07:00

Quick refresher, we live in a duplex on a Greencrest street, a street full of duplexes. The one right next to us is owned by the same landlord and all four units are being rented by people from our ward. And all four, well, at least the other three families are freaking awesome. We love them to bits. They are hugely responsible for why our experience has been so amazing here in Michigan. (When we first moved to Michigan we randomly moved into the duplex right next door to these two, so there were 5 families for a year. We moved into the spot where the Overson's were after they moved. They were also responsible for our feeling so welcome.) Anyhow, our four families have two gigantic fenced in yards between us, which are perfect for shin-digs. Last year we had a wonderful 4th potluck and so we did it again this year. The Greencrest neighbors host and provide the main dish while everyone else brings sides and desserts. It pretty much rules. This year we went super easy with pulled pork sandwiches and sloppy joes. Sadly there were too many desserts for me to try them all, though I did make a valiant effort.

A welcome sign for the kids to draw on.

Just a few of the desserts.

Some of the sides, the ugly, but super tasty cake I made is in there, sitting on the world's cutest cake stand.

Here's a slightly better picture. It's a coconut cake with coconut, cream cheese frosting and fresh raspberry and strawberry and cream filling. Do you know how good raspberries and coconut taste together? Very good! I got carried away with the filling (more is not always better) and had a heckuvatime trying to frost it. Durr. I even dyed the top layer blue so it would be red white and blue. It ended up being served more like a trifle. Oh well.
P.S. You all remember that I looked for this very cake stand for over 4 years, right? Do you see how pretty the ribbon is? Sorry, it was a long four years. Darling children were everywhere. I won't name them in case parents don't approve, and since I never ask for permission. However, the little boy in blue is our very own Win. He he, it looks like he's picking his nose. Gross.

It was the first time a lot of our friends got to meet him, like sweet Laurie.

These two cuties were killing me with their adorable hair, and the fact that they were sharing the tiniest chair. (That aunt Jennifer gave to Eleanor- thanks Jen, we use it all the time!)

Eleanor had to get in a sweet snuggle with her brother. P.S. He is only 2 weeks and 1 day in all these pictures, which is why he is mainly (and blessedly) asleep the whole time.

Cute neighbors! I love her headband.

Family portrait!

Teaching her the patriotic essentials.

Little fireworks for little people.

If you click on the picture you can better see Eleanor saying "Ohhh!" or, "Oh no!"

We moved the fireworks to the back of the lawn and we had a really nice show! Thanks to the Allees and Hansens and others for bringing so many! I didn't even buy a single sparkler this year. (But I had the world's best excuse.)

Could these two be any cuter?

P.S. ( I know I write P.S. a lot, so sue me.) Our wall neighbors, the Johnsons, inherited this sweet play set from the lovely Bailey family, who sadly moved to Ohio. It is sooo great. The kids love it, our backyard has just gotten, like, a thousand times cooler. Wait til you see what else the Johnsons recently got. It will have to wait for another post.

Eleanor and Clayton enjoying the show.

A small sampling of her commentary. She would also say "Happy Birthday" to a lot of the fireworks. Why yes, we are celebrating our country's birth, Eleanor! Thank you for helping us remember the true meaning.

A shot of some of the group.

And a few more.

I had to include this one so you could properly see her darling red, white and blue skirt (from cousin Allie). With her sparkly silver sandals and white polo, I was seriously wanting her whole outfit in my size.

Look who's awake!

So Winston, what did you think of your first holiday?
"Oh, I don't know, a little loud."

No one said awesome-partying would be easy. We had a great evening! We have the best neighbors and friends in the world. Did I mention the desserts were awesome? (Why can't I have fruit pizza every day?) And I think I can safely say, over two weeks later, that everyone is finally out of fireworks. Thank heavens. I have been feeling like a super crotchety old lady each night when I hear someone letting off their stash of bottle rockets or whatever at 2 AM. It's one night people, move on!

Winston Week One

2011-07-09T19:33:00.000-07:00

Who has time to blog? I am behind again so here are a bunch of shots from Winston's first week, starting with his first 2 days at the hospital and the week we had Clayton's mom Kathy with us. It flew by in a haze, thank heavens for photos. Otherwise I would honestly have the vaguest memories of Kathy's visit. We are getting into a very flexible routine around here. I am starting to get the hang of getting by on little patches of sleep, and Win is getting better at sleeping for three hour stretches at a time. Yay!

His adorable, long little feet.

My mom, Judy and Winston.This one is a little out of focus, but he has such wide, alert eyes. It's so cute!Falling in love. Everything I love.

Our little family.
His cute little profile. I love his cute nose and tiny tucked under chin.

One of several "worried" looks that he has. Notice the wee little wrinkles above his left eye? What baby comes out with worry-wrinkles? Mine I guess. Probably a lot of "Um, mom... you probably shouldn't be doing that..." in the womb. Stuff like spray-painting, eating sushi or lawn mowing.

All packed up in the car-seat for the ride home from the hospital.

At home on the bed. Killing time with a camera.

Hee hee!

He's so stinking cute, I can't handle it!

Oh no!

Oh no, oh no, oh no!

Poor guy had either an eye infection or blocked tear duct for about two weeks. I would imagine it might be from big sister kissing his eye almost every hour. She loves to give him kisses and so far, is very good at being "soft" with him. When he fusses she says, all alarmed, "Oh no! Go make him happy!" So we do.

He makes her very happy.

Sweet grandma Kathy.

Yet another panic face. Silly little guy.

He really is a sweet, contented baby.Not sure what has him so concerned in life.

Clayton with his kids (Kids! How weird is that?) and mom.

Kisses!

Being "soft".

Cute.

More to come soon. I promise!

How It All Went Down: Winston Edition

2011-06-28T10:22:00.000-07:00

Here are the details of Winston's birth. Warnings. One: This is awfully long. I can barely match my clothes on the amount of sleep I'm getting, let alone write a decent summary, so I didn't summarize. At all. Second: This probably isn't required reading for a few people, say, my dad, Adam or well, any guys. This post may or may not include words like "dilating", "effaced", "cervix" or worse. So all you menfolk just wait for the next post which will be back to sunshine, rainbows and pictures of little people.

So. I made it to 40 weeks with no big problems. I was actually feeling better at 39, 40 weeks than I was at around 36, 37. Back then I was googling "castor oil" and wondering if doctors took bribes. On June 9th, the day before my due date, Eleanor and I picked up my mom from the airport, hoping that my contractions might start on the ride home. Nope. Friday the 10th came and went with no action either. I still naively thought that I would surely have him before my next doctor's appointment the following Tuesday. Well, the weekend was lovely with my mom around, but not so much as a twinge. Maybe a few twinges of guilt when I had to get up in the middle of the night for a bathroom break and a snack, because my poor mother would get excited to hear doors and noises, thinking we were getting ready to head to the hospital. Tuesday's appointment found me barely dilated and not effaced at all. And can I just add for your gross out factor that it was the most painful check I have ever had? Well it was. The NP who I normally love did it and originally I was going to ask her to strip my membranes but chickened out once lobster-hands pronounced me completely unready. I like to think that I am pretty tough with pain, but this one had me in tears and shouting (well, not really shouting, but saying-out-loud which is something I never do at the doctor's) "Ouchouchouchouchouch!" I meekly inquired about their induction policies explaining that my mom was in town and our only babysitter for our daughter. Total fib by the way, I have awesome neighbors and a ward full of friends, but you know, they don't need to know that, and I really wanted my mom to meet the baby before she had to fly home. They told me to come back the following Tuesday, the day my mom flies home. Booo.

So that day I went home and mowed the lawn. What could it hurt, right? Turns out a lot of achy, already loose joints, that's what. And however proud I was of my hard work, it didn't create so much as a single contraction. Well, this story is already getting old. Long story shorter, Thursday morning I was up at 4 AM with Eleanor, she had a bad dream or something. Once she was back down, I couldn't get back to sleep, so the second the doctors office was open I called in to see what could be done. They had me come in for testing, which includes being monitored for about an hour, given a quick ultrasound to see if the amniotic fluid levels are good and then given another physical check. Unluckily for delivering, but lucky for health of the baby, everything was great. He was happy as a clam (huh huh) and had no intentions of leaving anytime soon. The doctor however was awesomely sympathetic and put me on the waiting list at the hospital. I went home to wait for a phone call. Later that day they told me I tentatively had a "spot" on Saturday at 1PM, only I had to call at noon to make sure they weren't full. Not exactly awesome news, but I guess it could be worse.

Saturday I called and as expected (my neighbor Lexie went through this whole rigmarole with her son 9 months earlier) they couldn't take me. So we beat feet for the lake, as it was the sunniest day we had had all week. After the lake we sent Clayton to a matinee while we finished projects and made dinner. Lexie texted me to say I should call the hospital again, even though I was supposed to wait for a call from them. By this point I felt like I was bothering the entire world with my "poor-me" bit. Millions of women have gone way longer than I have and I'm sure grandmothers everywhere have missed births, but did I mention: This was happening to meeeeeee. So against my "don't bother people" mentality I called again around 6 PM, and to my surprise, they said come on down!

Once they got me gowned up and checked our labor and delivery nurse gave me my IV. She had me take off my wedding ring so it wouldn't get dirty, which I thought was odd, I've never had that request before. How "dirty" could it get? Um, pretty freaking dirty. There was blood all over when she was done and it hurt like the dickens. She had to get a second kit and do it over. When I finally got brave enough to look down I saw that the freaking thing was jammed way too far under my skin. It was killing me. She knew it was off, but I think she was afraid of having to do it all over. When she asked how it was, I was afraid of having her start over as well so I asked if she could just pull it out a touch. She did, and while it wasn't perfect, it was better and stopped burning after an hour or so. So far so... well, so far ok. They started the pitocin drip and things started progressing. I hate how they ask you to rate your pain all the time. Um... I don't know, a two? A seven? Worse than a bee sting but better than being eaten by crocodiles?

We turned on the tv and got to waiting, luckily there was a House marathon on tv that I was enjoying. Clayton tried to take a nap on the bizarre lounge chairs that all hospitals have that fold out to an inverted "V" shape. So cozy! Around 2 AM the contractions were coming regularly, every minute or two and within an hour they were pretty painful. My water broke on its own and then within a few minutes they got really really painful really really fast. I inquired about the epidural only to find that the anesthesiologist was helping with a C-section right then and would be a few minutes. Those "few minutes" turned into almost an hour and forty minutes. I was NOT prepared for that level of pain. I had blithely ignored all the hypno-birthing or Lamaze techniques during pregnancy as I was planning on having an awesome epidural. I ended up doing every lame thing I could remember from all the baby shows on TLC and from watching those labor videos that always have those horrible "hippie mammas". Don't get me wrong, I have lots of perfectly normal friends who go natural. I'm talking about the ones who chant through contractions buck naked with their birthing sensei or wizard or what-not while burning incense and summoning helper-spirits through glass beads placed around the room. Seeing as we didn't have any patchouli oil or guardian candles on hand, I did the best I could. In other words, I knew to breath out a bunch and maybe vocalize through each one or something. At one point I made Clayton turn off the tv as it was just too much. How people go natural is beyond me. How much worse can it get? Ugh.

Anyhow, the magical anesthesiologist arrives, Clayton goes off to find something distracting (needles and Clayton are on fighting terms) and I get my happy, happy, happy drugs. Oh, to feel the drugs slowly wash the pain away almost makes it worth going as far as I did. Almost. The contractions were getting easier and easier until I was comfortable enough to try and nap. Whether you ever have a baby or not, everyone should get an epidural at least once. I couldn't shut up about how good it felt. My L&D nurse was probably so sick of me waxing poetic about pain relief, but oh. It was so nice, I let Clayton turn the tv back on. After a short nap they woke me up saying the baby's heart rate was too low and they wanted me to move. They strapped on the oxygen mask and would "tickle" the baby's head. Each time she did his heart rate would go back up. At that point they said I was at a 10 and should try pushing. They got the on-call doctor from my doctor's office in there and I tried to push. They didn't have me push along with the contractions like they did when I had Eleanor, they just had me push and push and push. I hadn't pushed the epidural button, so it wasn't as strong as at first, but after a few minutes they said my pushing wasn't productive and they wanted to wait a half hour for the epidural to wear off a bit more. That is when I threw up. Charming. I was grateful to have only had ice chips in the last couple of hours. I think it was the overly plastic smell from the mask.

So we waited, and my previously numb legs were slowly waking up. Soon I had full sensation in my feet and legs. I could really feel the contractions but they were still blessedly muted. Thankfully after almost an hour Clayton asks the nurse how much longer, they had said 30 minutes after all. I was getting nervous that I was "feeling" way too much. Why get an epidural if you don't get to use it, right? The nurse calls the doctor and they tell her to have me try pushing a few more times to see how well it does before they come back. So I do, and I guess I passed as they got back in there. I should say so! I could completely tell that the baby's head was waaaay down and trying to come out. Oh, and it was hurting like crazy again. Long story short(er) the doctor comes in and I get to push. After a few minutes of burning like the fires of hell, the head made it's way out and everything after that is easy peasy by comparison.

They placed little man on some towels on me and I got to see our son. Love at first sight. There is nothing like that moment when you just get to think: "He's all ours! He's here, he's finally here!" He was also pretty darn cute, although totally covered in vernix- which made him look like a little ghost. He took a few seconds to wail but didn't make too much of a fuss. Then they took him over to the heat lamps for measuring and all of that stuff. I was tempted at that point to push the epidural button, they even told me I could and should at that point, but I didn't want to be completely numb again. I ripped along my previous episiotomy scar and tore kind of all over so they stitched me up. That truly smarted. Ugh, see- no boys should be reading this! But the nice part about not upping the epidural was that I could get up and walk right after. With Eleanor I pushed the button right after I delivered, and I couldn't even get into the wheelchair. It was nice to have my legs working this time.

After a few minutes they left us alone to enjoy our little guy. We had decided by that point that his name was going to be Winston and not the runner up name of Desmond. I had originally planned on Winston Manning or Desmond Thomas Rex. Clayton suggested Thomas Rex for Winston and I was terribly pleased. Thomas is for my father and Rex is his dad. Seeing as Winston was born at 6:30 AM Sunday on Father's Day, it seemed perfect. And we can call him T-Rex if we ever feel like it. That's fun, right? After nearly two hours in that same room (You know you're not in Utah when a delivery room isn't needed soon. With Eleanor they couldn't get us out of there fast enough.) they finally sent us to the recovery room and took him off to be properly washed and immunized. Clayton went home for a nap and I did my best to nap as well before they brought him back.

Clayton came back with my mom and Eleanor. "Oh! A baby." she says. Eleanor was carrying a balloon and she tried to hand it to him saying "Here doo doh." Like it was no big deal. She was more interested in all of the neato things in the room, like the curtain that slides around and the leftovers of my lunch. My mom got to spend the night in the hospital Sunday night so Clayton could be at home with Eleanor and so she could have some time with Winston. Boy was it nice having her there. We chose to check out late Monday evening when Clayton was done with his class. Normally I think people who check out early are nutso, but Clayton had to take my mother to the airport shuttle at 3 AM that morning and we didn't want to harass a neighbor to watch Eleanor for 30 minutes in the middle of the night. Also, checking out bright and early Tuesday morning sounded equally lame. Tuesday happened I suppose, I don't remember much of it except that we had to take W to his first doctor's appointment. Wednesday Kathy, Clayton's mom, came and she was a miracle those first few days. Just as Eleanor would be getting up, baby and I would just be getting back to sleep. E loved the extra attention as well.

I'll be honest, recovery sucked. Ripped stitches and general weepiness are not high on my list. There were a few days where all I wanted was another epidural. I can say that now as I am feeling much better and I haven't used a pain pill or cried once today! Go me! Was this diatribe a bit too long? Yep. Is anyone still reading? Gosh, I hope not. I need another few weeks before the hormones wear off enough to write coherently. Let's all look forward to that! And the moral of the story is that little Win was worth every second of all of it.

Winston - Part 2

2011-06-23T10:17:00.000-07:00

And here is a whole other batch of photos from our two days in the hospital.
We were so happy that we could get little man here in time for my mom to see him. She even stayed at the hospital overnight instead of Clayton so she could get in a fair amount of cuddling.

Eleanor seemed pretty unfazed by it all. She walked right up to the baby with the balloon she and grandma picked out and said "Here doo doh." (Here you go.) She liked to say "Hi baby!" and pet him... time will tell how well she does in the future. So far so good.

So cute!

Her "holding" him. She'll get the hang of it soon enough.

For the most part, she was more interested in my food. I'm glad somebody was.

I am so excited to see these two grow up together.More of Clayton and Winston.

Our hilarious attempts at a family shot.

This one was possibly the most successful.

Our new center of the universe, give or take one two year old.

So far so good, his fontanelle is still poke-free.

Eleanor really enjoyed the privacy curtain. Twirling.

And many, many rounds of "Peet-tah-dooooo!" (Peek a boo)

He is already a champion cuddler.

I wish this shot was in better focus. He was so alert, lifting his head up and trying to look around.

He is our sweet dream baby!

Hopefully there will be more and more to come! Right now I am a bit of a zombie, so forgive me if my writing is a bit loopy.

Winston Thomas Rex Firth - Part 1

2011-06-22T16:26:00.000-07:00

Hooray! We finally got to welcome our little man to the world! Winston Thomas Rex Firth was born June 19th at 6:30AM weighing 7 pounds 15 ounces and measuring 19 and 1/2 inches long. Yes, he has two middle names- named after both our fathers.
Check out that dimple!

Nice before and after pictures, huh. He came out covered in a lot of vernix, so he looks a bit alien in his first shots. We could tell he was a cutie, despite the nurse going on and on about it, continually calling him "cheesy." Um, gross, stop saying cheesy. Could you just wipe him down and hand him over?

I'll have to post the "details" post on another day. For now here are some pictures with a few captions.

Clayton and the best Father's Day present he'll ever get. I suppose it's good to max out early, his expectations can never get too high.

Winston looks just like him, only with my nose and his cousin's chin and another cousin's dimple. We'll take it.

Can you see his tiny tongue? He wasn't the licker that Eleanor was right away, but man was he awake and looking around. He can also hold his head up off my shoulder like Eleanor could. Weird, strong-necked kids we produce, eh?

He weighed only an ounce more than his sister, for which I am terribly thankful. I was worried that 9 days late would mean two pounds heavier.

Our sweet angel. So far he's been a dream. Don't get me wrong, he's a newborn and chooses to sleep and wake like one, but he is a content little guy overall.

They had us stay in the labor & delivery room for about three hours before they finally took him to be cleaned and poked and all that jazz. Everything seemed a 180 from how it went with Eleanor's birth. They didn't have Clayton accompany him for his testing and stuff, so we sent him home to go get Grandma Judy and Eleanor. I took a nap.
Here is big sister giving the baby a kiss.

More to come!

The Last All Eleanor Post. (Hopefully)

2011-06-18T11:43:00.000-07:00

We're both still here! And by we, I mean me and the fetus. We are only 8 days overdue right now, which wouldn't be that big of a deal except that my sweet mom has to fly home Tuesday morning super early. I would rather like for her to meet her newest grandson, since that was kind of the point of her visit. Luckily Clayton's mom will be here after my mom leaves to help with Eleanor. But man, we are cutting it close right now.

So here are a few pictures from this past week. I've really enjoyed Eleanor this week. She's been extra huggy and lovey, maybe she has an idea that things are swiftly (ha ha) about to change. Here she is working on the dishes. What a help she's been.
P.S. Any water we conserve by being careful when we brush our teeth or shower is completely undone with Eleanor at the sink. Sorry environment.

After a bath in her cute Jessie towel. She got it for her birthday, but I don't think I have gotten a picture of it before.

It's either this, or her Elmo towel, and she is a happy camper.

Grandma Judy brought Eleanor her favorite red glasses. She wore them for quite a while the first night here.

Only they are a real prescription, so she has to lift them up to see through. We will be taking the lenses out soon.

While I worked on my green desk, Eleanor helped by "painting" the fence.

And worked on her tan as well. Don't want "paint" on her cute shirt.

She's very thorough.

On another day with no labor in sight, we took my mom out to see the thrift stores here. When I saw what my mom was wearing, I changed Eleanor to match. Because we can.

What a cute pair!

Later that night it got a bit too quiet. When I checked the kitchen, I found E working on a masterpiece on our menu board.

This face just makes me laugh. I love her coloring "style" right now. Basically, how many lines can fill one space. I'm glad one of my projects this month was making a giant chalkboard out of an old table top. I didn't take a picture, because, well, it's a big black board. Whoopee. It will be fun for her though.

We have spent a lot of lovely evenings outdoors too. Here are E and Grant harassing little Wesley Phillips. He is such a lovable baby boy.

And seems to do very well with toddler aggravation. Seriously, he is one of the smiliest babies I've ever known. He is such a doll!

Today I was scheduled to be induced at one in the afternoon, but the hospital was full, so we are on standby. Something we know an awfully lot about, but it doesn't make waiting any easier. As soon as we heard that it wouldn't be right then, we beat feet to the lake for an hour. Eleanor was soooo excited. Right as I mentioned "swimming" she started removing her shirt, and as soon as we said "lake" she headed for the car. We caught up to her and made our way to Lake Lansing.

Clayton opted out of the water, as he was (is right now) headed to a matinee of Green Lantern after. I'm always happy to send him to boy movies alone, and he feels the same way with any period-costume film for me. Win win.Eleanor, meanwhile, was busy announcing 17,000 times that she was in the water. "I INDA WADDER! I INDA WADDER! I INDA LAKE!" Yes, dear, yes you are.It's a really nice temperature, if a bit muddy. Here is a snippet of her enjoying the lake. Nothing much happens, feel free to skip.
Not so fast grandparents.

And we ended our brief jaunt to the shore with sno-cones. Always a good idea. And here it is a few hours later.

I've made brownies and sweet & sour meatballs so far today. I think I'll make a huge batch of cookie dough, just to cover all the bases. I'm all out of projects that interest me enough to move. I finished the bedsheets and bed skirt, painted the peg-board and sorted through a bunch of pictures. Now I either want to have a freaking baby, or play Rummikub and Sequence for the rest of the night whilst eating brownies. Cross your fingers for my mom to meet little guy!
(I a seriously thisclose to going out for castor oil.)

6 Days Overdue and What Have I done?

2011-06-16T17:12:00.001-07:00

Well, this morning Eleanor was up at 4, so I was too. I couldn't get back to sleep and was pretty miserable. Not labor miserable, more the lack-of-labor miserable. So I waited til 8:01 AM to call my doctors office and ask about induction. They had me come in at 9:30 for a quick ultrasound, some monitoring and checks. The baby is in great shape, and I'm still not where I want to be for labor, so they weren't super jazzed about starting me. However, they did put a request in to the hospital. Basically, if there is room I get put on a list and can maybe go in. They called the hospital to check and sent me home to wait for a call..

A few hours later they called to tell me that I could try for Saturday at 1:00. If they fill up though, I am out of luck. So I am doubly determined to make this happen before then. My poor mother has to leave Monday night, and I would really love for her to see this sweet baby. After a quick trip to Target and a good nap, I headed outside and made good on my threats to mow the lawn. Here I am in all of my sweaty glory. I know, I really do glow when pregnant. Ha.

It wasn't too bad. Maybe tomorrow I can do the neighbors.

The front lawn is fairly small, but the back yard is enormous. However, once I started, I figured I might as well go for it.

Here I am all done. Hooray! Let's hope that got me dilated to a 7 or something. Ya right.

Eleanor got out the neighbor's toy mower to help with touch ups.

This week I was able to finally paint this old beauty.

Before.

Before, before, before.

After!

After, after, after! It's a super bright green with muted silver handles. The color is from the Disney paint line: "Little Mermaid". It looks a bit aqua in the picture, but it's more of a Kelly green in person. I love it!

How are my other projects you ask? Well! Guess how many became crazily unimportant? Many! Let's review. These were things I wrote down about two weeks ago.

- Paint baby dresser. DONE!
- Take in bed sheets and bed skirt. Pinned and taken downstairs, but not sewn. Hmm. Still want to finish this one.
- Turn two Mexicali dresses to shirts. SOOOO not worrying about this one anymore. It can wait a few months at least.
- Cover a few pillows. Eh. Not urgent. Can do after baby. Unless baby takes another week, in which case I could probably do one.
- Other sewing projects. One was covering the swing cover to be unisex versus girly. Done. The other was to make a headrest that matched the baby car seat. Done. My mom finished the hand-sewing for me. So nice! There were some other things I can't even remember now.
- Clean the spare room. Done! My mom coming made this one a bit high on the list. However it is cleaner now a few days after she has been here. you got to love mothers.
- Deep clean the car. Done! This was LOOONG overdue, I was cleaning out toys that I remember putting in the car for the trip to the airport December 1st. Um, gross.
- Paint old bedroom side tables. Done! Horribly done, seriously, worst spray paint job ever, but they aren't keepers, we've had them forever and it is done!
- Steam clean the carpet. Ahhhahahahahhaha.
- Take a hospital tour. Well, I read that I just have to go to the third floor triage, I don't need the tour now, do I? We can find it. I hope.
- Get the brakes done on the car. Whoops. They aren't too bad, but we will still be getting them done soon. Just don't want to lose the car for a day at this point.
- Paint sewing desk. Done! As you can see above!
- Pack hospital bag. This is on every list I've made in the last month (I make a lot of lists) but I don't feel like I can really cross it off until it is all the way packed, which includes toothbrushes, makeup and stuff that I use everyday. So kinda?
- Recipe book. Well, I've waited forever to start it, I figure it can wait another month or so.
- Clayton's dental appointment. Check! He had his initial check up and goes in for his root canal the morning after his mom gets here.
- Eleanor's 2 year pictures. Hey, she's still two. We'll probably do this when we photograph the baby. Soooo, what. In like three more weeks? Ha.
- Sleep. Not much last night, but I have gotten a few awesome naps with my mom being here. Moms rule!

What is new on my list? Since this baby isn't coming anytime soon? I'd like to paint a mirror I got at the thrift store, possibly get a mirror cut for a frame I found at the thrift store a month ago, paint over my old peg-board (it's green, and now with the desk I have a bit too much green), sort through a box of frames and pictures, sort through my ribbon, possibly organize it and other really lame stuff like that. I even made a project for my mom. I had her crotchet me one of those baby cocoons that you see in newborn photography. Done! Go mom!

Alright. I am tired of nesting. I'm ready for the next phase. The cuddling baby phase. Let's hope my activity shakes things up and gets us going before we have to be induced. Thanks for all of the kind words and support!

Crocodiles!

2011-06-14T09:25:00.000-07:00

Guess who hasn't had the baby yet? That's right! Me! Thus the blogging. I figure I should get completely caught up so I can go all ape blogging baby-boy news... once he finally decides to come out. Why wont he get out?! Ok, so I'm only 4 days over, I know that is like, nothing compared to a lot of people. Two of my neighbors went 10 days. So I can hang in there a few hours more. Ha ha. I find I am getting grumpier though, which makes me feel bad and then makes me want to cry. Yep, I'm all kinds of fun right now. Anyhow, that isn't what this blog post is supposed to be about. Moving on.

My sweet mom got here last Thursday evening and it has been just wonderful having her here. She has been making my life so much easier. I haven't had a chance to wash a dish and Eleanor has never had it better. On Saturday we all went to Outback for dinner, which was awesome as always. We were having a lovely evening.

However, Eleanor was a bit distracted by something...

Something alarming...

... but something she has been very curious about lately. Crocodiles. Our table was facing this little guy on the wall. She HAD to go visit him. She's not scared of them, just completely obsessed. It all started with her loving and watching a lot of the cartoon Peter Pan recently.

This was a pretty realistic looking guy.

A few weeks ago we thought we were being funny by asking her what a crocodile says, thinking there isn't really an answer, or at least one we taught her. But she surprised us with this funny little growling-song-thing. It took us a minute to realize that she was singing the "crocodile music" from Peter Pan. (It's the little tick-tock song that plays every time the crocodile is trying to get Captain Hook. You can here me singing it on here too, sorry.) We laughed so hard at our funny little girl. She really keeps us on our toes. She has since then learned to love both Rescuers movies as well as they also feature crocodiles. I finally got her to "sing" the crocodile song on camera this past week. In this first clip she also mentions that crocodiles are in the Rescuers, only I didn't figure it out for a minute. Like I've said before, she is much smarter than both of us.

Here is another version of basically the same thing. Cute, but long.

And in completely unrelated news, here is a little summer outfit we received for the forthcoming (hmphh, we'll see) baby. As you can see it says "Ben's Banana Stand".

So with a little unpicking and fabric paint, I changed it to say this.

Which is from one of our all time favorite shows, Arrested Development. Yep. I am using this pre-baby time super efficiently!(George Michael and Michael Bluth working hard at the Bluth Banana Stand.)

Hula Doll!

2011-06-14T08:23:00.000-07:00

In my days as a flight attendant, I traveled to Hawaii around 10 times. When my niece Abby was little I would bring her back a Hula Doll. These are basically dark haired Barbies mounted on a base that dances around. They are terribly cute. I got one for Allie when she was smaller too. Well, recently my mom and dad took a now teenage Abby and her brother Jack to Hawaii, (I know, right?) and sweet Abby brought Eleanor back a Hula Doll! I was so excited, but more so was little E. This is right up her alley as she loves anything Barbie right now as well as anything that dances or plays "Pearly Shells" at top volume. We even went to the dollar store to buy her some leis so she could be a "hula girl" too. Here are the videos of her opening and playing with them. This is mainly so Abby can see her enjoy it, but you are all free to watch them too.

More Before & Afters

2011-06-11T06:59:00.000-07:00

So we are starting the countdown of days past my due date. I was due yesterday, June 10th. Booooo. No baby yet, and I don't feel like a whole lot is happening, so I might as well catch up on my project blogging, and maybe my projects. My mom got in on Thursday night and we have loved having her here already. I wish today was sunny so we could go to the lake, but it is gloomy and bleh. So instead, I think we will tackle my craft area and maybe one more big project. We shall see. I keep hoping contractions will derail my plans. So here are a few more big and small projects I've finished in the last few weeks. The first is just a boring tray I picked up at the thrift store.

Before

After
Once again, please excuse my super awesome photography skills.

Boring old side table before.

And still pretty boring side table after. This was a super-quick spray painting job that looks almost as bad in person as it does in the photo. Basically I had left over spray paint and thought that the patchy black would look better than the ugly fake wood veneer. It does.

And here is the dresser I got at a super fun store called Dicker & Deal. Everything there is priced to be bargained down, however the dresser was marked at $8.99, so how low are you supposed to go? I didn't know you were even expected to bargain so I didn't say a word and the guy sold it to me for $7.44. Woo hoo!

One of the drawers didn't close correctly, it was pretty dinged up and as I found when I got it home, it smelled very strongly of men's cologne. I figured out the problem with the drawer closing, I got rid of the smell and refinished the whole thing. I tried to strip the brass to get a silver finish ala this tutorial, but the hardware pieces are solid brass, not plated and couldn't be stripped. Duh. The process tarnished them pretty well though, so I also had to spend a bit of time using my silver polish to clean them up. Sadly, we also had to lose the sweet Spiderman sticker.

Here is Eleanor during the "baking soda to get rid of the smell" treatment. I ended up using an odor-blocking primer inside the drawers to make sure that our baby boy doesn't smell like a member of Jersey Shore.

And here is after! It's set up in the closet in Eleanor's room, thus the dresses hanging on top. I forgot to take a proper "after" shot while it was still downstairs. For the color, I used some left over paint from the downstairs foyer makeover which was pretty close to the original and I'm pretty happy with the results. I love blue.

And here is an open drawer, clean, odor free and lined with shelf paper. One big project DONE!

Do I dare? This is my next project. My neighbor Ruth gave me for this for free and it became my sewing desk. I want to paint it bright green like this or this. Fun huh. We'll see how motivated I feel today. Although, this picture made me appreciate the desk's natural awesomeness.
Do you see what I see?

Hilarious, yes?

SOOOOO........????

2011-06-10T04:24:00.000-07:00

Any news?

Stop Showing Projects and Show More Eleanor

2011-06-04T23:15:00.000-07:00

Okay! Okay! Eleanor it is. Here are a bunch of shots from the past two months that didn't make it into other posts. Mainly because I am slacking on the blogging front.

Here's our little E outside with a few of the neighbor boys. That's E, Zach, Miles and Grant. We love them all.
(Are you seeing her boots? I am.)

In the neighbor's little playhouse with Grant.Some afternoons, playtime can get to be just too much.

She decided to chill on the lawn for a few. This is how I feel each and every day lately.

Enjoying the box that grandma sent some books in.
She likes the books too.All dressed up waiting to go on an outing with daddy. She loves her white hat, but insists on wearing it with a sparkly pink headband on top. It's actually kind of cute. P.S. Can you see her adorable Pumas? Another sweet hand-me-down from her cousin Allie. In one of daddy's law classroom. Any time he takes her there, people end up giving her stuff, like snacks. No one ever gives me snacks. Did we mention the huge "mermaid" phase she is going through right now? This is a 6-12 month mermaid costume from Allie that neither girl actually wore at that age. Eleanor dug it out of a "too-small-box" and LOOOOVES it, even though it barely covers her bum. Since then we have convinced her that half of her regular clothes are "mermaid clothes". Her old leggings and jeans are all now new-and-improved "mermaid pants", her shirts and dresses "mermaid shirts or dresses". At what age does it stop being a cute behavior-aid and turn into straight up lying?Another too-small treasure she unearthed. A 12 month swimsuit. She KNOWS that anything swimmy is totally mermaid, and wants to wear swimsuits all the time. Now that it's so warm, it's pretty much her uniform. P.S. She is playing in the dresser drawers from the new-used dresser I got for the baby. I had tons of baking soda inside to kill the cologne smell, so she was sliding around making a fine old mess. Eh, she was happy and helping the baking soda do it's work. Win-win.

A new favorite pastime is finding/chasing/feeding ducks or geese. There is a nice (if awfully buggy) man-made lake nearby that has a bunch of them. Some of the geese are a little too forward. I was nipped by one when I was little and would not like her to get quite so close. Oh, I should note that these are her new sunglasses that make her look like she's going skiing or something. Boy does she think they make her a cool cat though. It has a stretchy velcro strap so they actually stay on for a while. I found them at Target if anyone is interested. These next pictures are from the day that Clayton had his massive 7 hour take home final. He needed an extra 2 hours or so to prepare so we tried to be gone all day long. It was one of the hardest days ever. We ran errands all over town, went to a movie (Remember her eating our spilled popcorn off the floor of the bathroom stall, sitting in the wrong theater for 20 minutes and later wetting my pants for me? Yeah, good-times.), we went to Lake Lansing, played on the toys there and then found a good duck locale.

Here she is at Lake Lansing. It was too windy for ducks that day. But man did she love the water nonetheless.
On the swings there, she met a little friend and they spent a good half hour shouting "We funny mommy! We so funny!" They kind of were, especially since the other girl was about 5, I don't think her daddy thought it was as cute to have her shouting baby talk. What can I say? Eleanor is persuasive. And here is E at the duck place. Eating disgusting 3 week old bread. Nice. Is this when we are thankful for preservatives? My picky eater who wont touch a sandwich with a 10 foot pole ate three whole pieces of stale white bread. Ugh. Um... why did I let her eat it in the first place? Remember the movie theater? I think I summed it up best with "Shudder, shudder, shrug."
I'd like to blame pregnancy, but I fear we have no one to answer to but ourselves. We have created a movie-monster. Once the weather was considerably nicer I thought E would be overjoyed to be outside playing with the neighbor kids. Sadly she was instead obsessed with her latest movie obsession. (This time it was Tarzan.) This was the only way to get her to stay outside for more than 45 seconds. Eleanor is ~~always~~ ~~sometimes~~ occasionally persuaded to share with Grant. He, however, is just the sweetest little angel. His mom may be laughing now, but he has to put up with a lot from Eleanor. I love that they are tiny enough to sit there together!This is Eleanor's little friend Kinsley. We went over to their complex for a yard sale and K came running over, grabbed E's hand and they continued to walk around for a bit like little best friends. These two and also little Leah are hilarious at church together. So much so that we have to make an effort to get there early so we can sit far away from each other. Otherwise they have the most adorable little mini-reunions, hugging each other and holding hands and then being irreverent for the next hour-fifteen.
It's hard to reign it all in since they are so stinking cute!Here is little Leah in between E and G. This was at Lake Lansing Park for a ward BBQ. In which Eleanor was delighted to run amok.
That's what parks are for, right?You probably can't see it in these tiny shots, but I love every little detail about this photo. Her tiny braided buns, her two dolls clutched possessively tight, her tiny socks and shoes, but most of all her little band-aid on her knee. She looks so much like a big-kid and little toddler all at once to me.But the toddler side won out as we stopped for ice cream on the way home to appease her little temper. One of the best parts of our duplex (next to another duplex, all filled with friends from the ward) is that we can communicate, watch each other and trade goodies from our kitchen windows. Eleanor has taken up the practice. She can't open the two glass sections, but if they are already open she can slide the screen section by herself. It's moderately safe/risky, but she is very good about not leaning out too far. I had to run something over to a neighbor while Clayton was with her at the table. She looked so cute there (in her swimsuit) that I had to grab my camera to take a picture.

But when I started to head out of her sight she was up-set! Silly little goose with her crocodile tears.

Getting her up from her nap-times (on the rare occasion that she actually sleeps) is still one of my favorite things. Her hair has always got this Jane Birkin, Bridget Bardot, perfectly messy thing going on that is so so cute to me. (P.S. I made their names into links so you wont 'google image' them. A few nakey pictures will come up. Yikes!)And she is always in the funniest moods. Must be her dreams. Sweet happy girl. We love her so much!

Eleanor's Room Before & After

2011-06-02T20:01:00.002-07:00

Remember this picture? This is a small peak at Eleanor's room the day after we moved in to our current apartment. Soon after, I painted the walls (her third blue nursery, "Why no, I don't have obsessive issues, why do you ask?") and got to decorating. I had pretty much everything and it's finally been nice to have it all together for her. Oh wait, I still haven't made curtains, well, I did for her last room (#2, scary Michigan house) but I never liked them. Since I've known this little bun in the oven is a boy, I've wanted something masculine since the room was so girly. Something to balance it out. Honestly though, I would be amazed if I tackled that before we move next year. I did put up white cardboard in the windows to cut out the light. It's super classy looking. Ha. This was the first "finished" room in our place.

So here is the "before".

And here is the "after".Ugh, the crib-skirt is completely pulled out and crooked, and I didn't notice it till after. Guess who was too lazy to fix it and take a new picture. You guessed right! I love her crib-skirt, I made it out of a few layers of blue tulle.

It's hard to see the doily garland I made. It's cute. I got the tutorial here over 2 years ago and finally made it almost a year ago. It may seem like I am getting crazy amounts of projects done lately, but honestly, I am just finishing or documenting a lot of things that I started ages ago.

The ugly clutter on her door? That would be her ribbon clip thing. She has a few. I wish I had painted the inside of the door white. Was worried at the time about the landlord caring.

Speaking of a few, here is her little lamb family. The second one to the right is her first and favorite as you can tell from the dinge-factor. Funnily enough, the one to the far left is the "daddy lamb" and the others are apparently just acquaintances.

It's hard to see (Jeesh! Could I take a decent picture ever?) but the little box is a princess and the Pea diorama I made before she was born. Princess and the Pea is one of my favorite fairy-tales. I saw this amazing little diorama a few years back and had to make my own version. It's intense folks, hand painted real-wood floors, hand cut and shaped topiaries, hand sewn mattresses... yeah, it was definitely a pre-baby project.

I am mainly blogging this now because it's been on my to-do list for months and months. I told you I don't finish projects in a timely manner. For those of you keeping track, I deep-cleaned the car yesterday! Huzzah! Today my big chore was errands. I got all of the post-baby stuff that women need. I think Clayton owes me a generic Otter-Pop for not making him buy Tucks and Maxi pads. I think I owe all of you a name-brand Otter-Pop for reading that last sentence.

"Chenille" Baby Blanket

2011-05-31T16:57:00.001-07:00

About a year ago I saw a tutorial on making "chenille" baby blankets. They are kind of really cool. I've wanted to make one since I first saw them but never liked any one's baby enough to make the effort. KIDDING. But seriously, I still haven't finished Eleanor's baby blanket, so let just realize my short-comings and go from there. Recently I saw this tutorial pop up again and I thought I would try it for our little one soon to come. I bought some cotton flannels and got to work. It's kind of a fun project. The original tutorial is here and the one by Dana over at Made is right here. You got to love Dana and all that she does. Is she on crack, or meth do you suppose? I know I am going through a nesting phase right now and finishing a lot of projects, but these professional bloggers are out of control productive. In my early days of blogging I kind of wanted to jump on board the whole "I can do that- I should be making money off this!" mind-set until I realized that I really don't want a full time job being crafty. These women are intense! I appreciate what they do, but anytime I try to do what I like for a living, I don't like it anymore. I just want to be Eleanor (and bambino #2)'s mom. That's enough for now.

Anyhow. Why am I rambling? Oh yeah, cause I am due in 10 days and everyone has to let me do whatever I want. So. Back to the blanket. I took about eighty pictures, because as Dana said- it's just neat looking at every stage. Here it is all cut up.

Here you can see the backing fabric that I adore, but that doesn't really match the other stuff, but once it's washed and fuzzy it's not such a big deal. Also- after about two hours of cutting and only being about an 1/8th of the way through, I went and bought a chenille cutter. Wow it was worth it. I went from thinking that this would be the one and only blanket I made this way, to now wanting to make one for everyone I know. Big difference.Here is the binding that looks like yet another shade of blue that doesn't quite gel. As much as I like decorating and fashion and what not, I really don't have that quilter's gift of picking amazing fabrics to go together. I'm having the same problem in my bedroom right now too. Three different shades of gray and they are not getting along. Grrr.

And here it is after going through the wash. I wish I had thrown a color-catcher in there, as the red makes the light blue look a touch lavender, but I'm ok with it. It's done, and lately that has been my drug of choice. Done projects.

Would you like to know what else I want to finish this before baby? Oh good, cause I want to tell you.

-Finish painting the dresser I bought for little baby-boy's clothes and stuff. I naively thought I could have them share a dresser, nope. Too much stuff. I bought the dresser for $7.44 and it's really cute, just needs some refinishing. I sanded and primed it today and also did a heavy primer on the inside- as once I got it home I found that it had a broken sample of men's cologne inside. It was sooo strong! I don't want my little boy smelling like a man until he is one. So after two weeks with baking soda treatments, I got out the Kilz Primer and sprayed the insides of all the drawers. Now it all smells heavily of paint. Hmmm and ugh. I hate when projects take 7 more steps than you planned on.

-Take in my bed sheets and bed skirt. We recently bought new "good" sheets since the ones from our wedding registry are literally falling apart. We know we will be leaving this bed here when we leave in a year, and would like to upgrade to a King size, soooo I got King size sheets for our Queen sized bed. It's more annoying than I thought it would be. I'm tripping all over them and they come off way too easily. Want to fix each day, but each day comes and goes and I still don't take the time.

- Make two Mexicali dresses into shirts. I've had these for years and don't wear them as dresses as they look a bit costumey. I did one about a month ago and love it, so I just need to do the other two. This is low priority.

- Finish 3 or 4 other sewing projects that I started ages ago and haven't finished.

- Clean out our spare room so my mom and Clayton's mom have a spot to sleep when they come. My cute mom keeps saying that is why she is coming, to do this kind of thing. Mmm, no. Nothing is less welcoming than having a cluttery room with no where to put your clothes and no bed to sleep on. Hey! Thanks for coming! Now go sleep in a corner on the floor.

- Deep clean out our car. Oh my gosh, it is truly hideous right now. This is on the agenda for tomorrow.

- Finish painting a side table of Clayton's. I sanded it today but ran out of paint halfway through. Durr.

- Start painting my sewing desk. I bought the world's cutest green color in the inspiration of THIS awesome bit that I saw ages ago but I have yet to sand or prime, so this one is getting lower and lower on the list as well. All I wanted to do last week was paint outside and it rained all week. So I sewed instead. This week it's beyond hot and muggy and all I want to do is sit inside and eat generic Otter Pops. Guess which scenario is going to play out more?

- Rent a steamer to clean our downstairs couch, all the carpets and mattresses and maybe the car interior. Do you know how hard that sounds? Super hard. Just saying. This has been on my to-do list for about a year.

- Get the brakes fixed on the car. Think this maybe shouldn't be mixed in with sewing projects and painting dressers? And should, I don't know, just be done? Yeah. Me too.

- Take the hospital tour so that I will know where to go should this baby come anytime soon.

- Eleanor's 2 year pictures. So we're three months behind. Two is two, right?

- Cover some pillows I've had for ages.

-Pack a hospital bag.

- Get Clayton's dental appointment made, and soon. Poor C.

- Start the recipe book I bought from a friend on one of those scrap booking sites. Wanted to support her at the time, now just feel like it will go to waste. Send me your best treat recipes folks. I'm making it all desserts.

- Sleep.

Holland/Tulip Festival

2011-05-27T20:16:00.000-07:00

So according to the internets, one of the Michigan "bucket list" things to do is see the Tulip Festival in Holland Michigan. We probably wouldn't have gone out of our way for it, but it happens to be where our favorite beach is, so we decided to make a day of it. And I can save you a trip by saying "eh".

I printed off a map and directory telling about all of the amazing places you can see the tulips. It had them ranked by number of bulbs planted. The big farms want to charge you $10 a person to go see them which is downright hilarious to me. They average about 200,000 bulbs, so I would imagine it is special, but we are too cheap to pay to see flowers. I can see fields all over Lansing that have at least 200,000 dandelions, so there. We instead went to a place that has 80,000 bulbs planted and is free. I was still a bit underwhelmed. You mainly walk around looking at little planter-sections of different varieties of tulips. Maybe a greater interest in horticulture is needed to make this fun. I was just a little bored and a little panicked that E would pick one. The fine is $50 per flower. Yikes. Luckily, she did very well at "NO TOUCHING!"
Hey look. A windmill and some tulips. The most photogenic part of the whole festival.

Some friends of ours went to the parade, vendors and whatnot, but unless they are throwing candy, I can't possibly be bribed into watching a parade at 8-9 months pregnant.

Here are E and C walking around the tulip planters. E is into waving a lot now which is always funny to me. She also likes to say "Oh HI!" or "Hello derr!" like she hasn't seen you in weeks.

Tulips, two year old, lamb.

She was enjoying running around on the grass. I was enjoying not chasing her. This is poor Clayton trying to get a shot of her in front of the tulips. I ask a lot of my family.

He corralled her back to where I was sitting in the shade. I tried to bribe her with a piece of gum to sit on my lap for a picture. I like that you can see the gum in her mouth. I don't like that I look so dorky with braids. On Eleanor? Adorable. On me? Hmmm, why'd that big gal do her hair like a five year old?

Thank you for hiding my double chin sweet girl.

It was super hot in downtown Holland, so we had high hopes for the rest of the day at the beach. We got there and it seemed awfully cold, but I got my suit on anyways. By the time I made the walk to the beach I was shivering. Clayton brought E over a few minutes later (they had been playing on the swings on the other side) and I was heartbroken to see Eleanor so excited to be at the beach. She is obsessed with all things Little Mermaid right now. P.S. She's waving again.

This is as close as we got to getting wet. The place was deserted. We bailed. You needed coats. We were going to meet some friends there but I called them to tell them it wasn't worth it. They went anyways as their boys had their hearts set on the beach. They said as they made the drive from Holland to the shore, the temperature gauge in their car dropped about a degree a mile. It was a twenty degree difference between the two. Bummer.

Back in the car Eleanor showed us that she is as cool as ever.

The whole trip felt a little like a waste. I had my heart set on a beach day before the baby comes. A dozen other little things went wrong all day too. We were scratching our heads as to why we were having such bad luck. We even stopped at this great fish-place in Grand Rapids on the way home to buy some fresh fish to grill once we got home. Sadly they had NOTHING worth buying there, just a bunch of stuff they had already cut up to fry. Disappointed we ended up buying trout from Meijers instead. It wasn't until the next day that we realized that it had been Friday the 13th. We aren't superstitious people, but maybe we will just sit the next one out.

Wee Boy Baby Shower

2011-05-25T20:17:00.000-07:00

On April 28th a few of my friends and neighbors threw baby boy Firth a baby shower. It was downright delightful! I couldn't believe how many people came to show their love, it really is the sweetest feeling to know you have such lovely friends. And can I just say the food was freaking awesome? Such good treats. Here I am with my third? plate, you can see how excited I am about it. You can also see how the buttons on my shirt are working overtime. Poor buttons. Did I tell you how I a few weeks ago I ripped my pants all the way down the front? That was awesome. Anyhow...

Look at all the fun treasures! This little guy is freaking SET!

I am going to post the names and a little info of everyone as I want to remember everyone down the road. I apologize if it isn't your favorite picture of yourself, but I think everyone looks adorable. Here are Delicia Coupe, husband just finished his 1st year of law, 3 adorable daughters and they might be the funniest couple I've ever known. Jamie Helgesen, might be the hottest person I've met in real life, her husband just finished his 3rd year of law, she's mom to 3 adorable boys. They have just moved home to Utah and the ward just got sadder. Meg Hansen, crazy smart and has three of the brightest kids I've met, who also have the most beautiful curly hair, her kids are my go-to in Primary, they will always answer a question correctly for you.

Rachelle Woodbury now lives in Washington but was here randomly for the weekend! She is expecting her second baby a bit after me, she is a yoga guru and I miss her little Josh as I occasionally watched him. Angela Johnson is my wall-neighbor, she has to put up with all our noise. Her husband is in the middle of his post-grad something or other (sorry Timmy) in Soil engineering, or something. She is expecting her third son this summer and sings like an angel. Kristy Rivers is in the Primary Presidency with me and is my sanity each Sunday. She is hilarious, the mother of 5 darling girls and works while going back to school. Straight up awesome.

Aubrey Boardman is our resident party planner whiz, has two sweet kids and is rocking it as a "single mom" while her husband is working in California for the summer. Celina Wille is the mother to four kids, the wife of our bishop, a relative encyclopedia of nutrition knowledge and one of the best cooks ever. Speaking of awesome cooks, Kristen Gray makes the best pies and treats and is one of most creative and artistic people I know, and she's talented, not just creative. There is a difference. Sadly she and her husband are moving soon.

Ashley Stevens husband is finishing his schooling this year (child psychology?) and they have two of the sweetest girls. Her daughters are always dressed like something out of a storybook and she makes the most precious quilts. Ruth Seedall is another one of my street neighbors and the mom to four great kids. She is our fountain of knowledge as far as being a mom goes. Have a question? Call Ruth. Sadly we lose them after December but we try not to think about that. Kris Barncard is one of our Relief Society's treasures. She is one of the most charitable women I know and is so thoughtful and kind.

Lexie Phillips is the last of my street neighbors. She has four blond lovelies and is also leaving this Summer. Angela and I will need anti-depressants soon to deal. Lexie is insanely talented at anything baking or crafty. People watch to see what she or Ruth bring to ward potlucks as you will want to get some of theirs first. Marissa Christensen's husband is in the middle of medical school and she is so so stylish, always looks so ladylike and put together. She is expecting her second child this fall, I always want to carpool with Marissa because she is so fun to talk to. Jodie Evans husband just finished his first year of law, they have two insanely beautiful children and she is our resident ward hair girl. It's so much fun to have her do your hair. She also knows how to do all that couponing stuff that is way beyond my IQ level.

Mandy Wood's husband just finished his law degree and so they left us along with the Helgesens. The Wood family were one of our favorites, we went to Chicago with them this winter and had a blast. They have the best taste in food and both are amazing cooks. Mandy can make any party crazy- gorgeous and is so talented at decorating and the like. Their son is sooo cute. I already miss them like crazy. Jessica Anderson just had her baby girl Abigail a week ago! Her husband just finished his 1st year of med school. They are our super impressive performers. She can play a bunch of instruments- most amazingly is the harp, and he is a ballroom dancer.

Christy Bailey is also in the primary presidency with me and is just your solid, amazing gospel pillar. Her 4 kids are so cute and soooo smart. Humble as they come, she freaking made an entire quilt in one day for our baby and it is cuter than anything I could have worked on for months. And I didn't even know she quilted! Just amazing. Last but certainly not least, Emily Becker is our ward sunshine. Aside from being gorgeous, she is so fun to talk to. She is our ward librarian and I have to force myself to go to primary rather than trap her in there to talk to me. Her two daughters look like the 50's illustrations for Dick & Jane primers, all blond curls and dimples. Her husband finished medical school and is a bona-fide doctor now. Luckily they are working here in Lansing so we get to keep them longer.

Big ol' me! I'm the ward busy-body in that I want every one's business to be my business. I'm kind of pathetic in my calling (thankful for the other three that pick up my slack), my husband just finished his second year of law school and I am expecting our second baby, a boy this time, in about fifteen days. Wait, what? That can't be right. Hmm. I am a jack of all trades and master of none as is evidenced by my house full of unfinished projects and cluttered surfaces. Today Eleanor wore a swimsuit all day long! Oh, I should mention that it was raining non-stop and a little bit freezing in the house. I am apparently motivated only by my cravings.

There were a few ladies who were there but didn't make it into pictures, and so many more friends I could talk about my love for, but again, this was mainly for records, I just got a little carried away. My mom honestly gives thanks every day in her prayers for the amazing friends and neighbors we have here in Michigan. We do too. It's hard to have so many wonderful people come and go so often, but I am so glad we got to know some of them while we're here.

Eleanor's Newish Tricycle!

2011-05-20T19:41:00.000-07:00

Ok. So this was an insanely satisfying project. I recently bought Eleanor a used Radio Flyer Tricycle for $11.99. I was pleased with the price and figured I could clean it up. Only I couldn't. It had some weird tar-like substance on the handlebars that none of my magic chemicals could get off. So I decided to paint it, since that is pretty much my answer to everything in life right now. I took off the seat and taped up the wheels before I remembered to take a picture, but here is what it looked like before, only much, much dingier, and without the yellow basket on the back or the streamers.

Here is a close up of the handlebars. Ugh.

And the whole bike, minus the blue seat. A few coats of white primer, a few coats of aqua spray paint and a touch of pray gloss later...

... and we have THIS! Isn't it adorable? I am so pleased with how it turned out!Eleanor loves it so much, a little too much. Sadly now when all the neighbor kids are out riding bikes in the driveways and playing in general she will not join in if her bike is out there. She will sit on it in the middle of the lawn making sure no one will touch it. Then she wants me to bring it indoors so no one can touch it. Great. Little Ebeneezer Scrooge we've created. Remind me again, at what age does sharing kick in? She can scoot around on it a bit and can push the peddles back and forth, but doesn't understand the whole "around motion" that will get her moving. Hopefully by the end of the summer she will figure it out. I'd also love to add some sweet white streamers, but don't think there is a way to get them in the end of the handles. The previous ones were cut off and I couldn't get the handles off either. Oh well, Good enough.