Another girl!

Congratulations to my sister- and brother-in-law, April and Arthur, who welcomed this morning healthy baby girl - Sophia Thérèse. We could not be any happier for them! It's likely to be several weeks before we have the chance to meet Sophia, but we'll be praying for her and her family in the meantime, and wishing them all the best during this time of transition and adjustment to the new little ruler of their home.

Arthur is Nathaniel's identical twin brother. He and April now have their own set of three girls. Which leads me to musings on the genetics involved... this is a much discussed topic among our family on Nathaniel's side. As most of you know, we have three little girls. Nathaniel's twin has three little girls now (hooray!). The only other brother of Nathaniel's who's been married long enough to have kids is Phil. He and Renee have three little boys. So, what are the chance that we'll ever get a boy, if we continue to have children? And what are Renee's chances for a girl if they have more kids? Are we really each stuck in a gender rut? Given that my mother-in-law had six boys before her first girl (followed by one more boy and one more girl), I'd say the gender-centric child bearing runs in the family. Not that I have any urge to "keep trying till you get a boy". Personally, I'm perfectly happy with my little women. But it's interesting to think about. And as for Nathaniel's most recently married brother, George... I think the first time he and Anna find out they're expecting, they're likely to be on the edge of their seats to see which gender their babies will all turn out to be!

Congratulations, Arthur, April, Lucy and Mary! We can't wait to meet Sophia!

Halloween 2009

As mentioned previously, we had an atypical Halloween this year, complete with a cold weather camp out that was attended by a portion of our family. In order to allow the girls a trick-or-treating experience and to give them a chance to use their costumes, I took them to the Children's Museum's trick-or-treating event on Thursday night. It was... fine. It was a long line of children moving from one teenager with candy to the next over two floors of the museum, then emptying into the basement floor to play. Of course, the basement floor got more and more packed as the night wore on, till it was well beyond anything I've ever witnessed on a visit during daytime hours (thank heavens!). The costumes of the employees/volunteers were uninspired and themes to go with the different sections of the museum were nonexistent or out of order. But the kids had a good time and came away with a pretty sweet bag of treats. I wish I had paid for Meg to have a trick-or-treat bag as well, because they gave away coupons for Noodles, Valentino's, Paint Yourself Silly and others. Lesson learned. We hung out and let the kids run wild around the prairie dog tunnels and theater area for nearly an hour, then headed to a coffee shop, where the kids ate their treats and Renee, her mother and I got treats for ourselves.
The mime school prepares for their big show; or, the girls preparing to don their costumes.
The spider and the pumpkin. My first foray into store bought costumes. Not that there's anything wrong with that! I just love being able to say, "Yes, actually, I did" to the "Did you make those?" inquiries. It's a pride issue. If you're a sewer, you know what I'm saying. I figured the time I'd spend creating these choices of costumes was worth way more than what the store was charging, though. Plus, the girls LOVE them, so it's win-win-win!
The ballerina-bumblebee, or something like that. I hadn't bothered getting Meg a costume but saw this one the weekend before Halloween. I couldn't resist. It has wings and antennae, but she's one. The chances of keeping those on? Right.
Our crew of costumed kids at the Museum. From left to right, Elliot, Ruth, Meg, Marianne, Henry, William and Simon (the son of my friend, Erin).
Ruth and Marianne slide into the big chair near prairie dog village at the Museum. The hats are, by far, my favorite part of these costumes. That pumpkin beret is top notch.
Meg playing in the same chair. I had to keep her a little closer than the other girls because I was afraid someone would trample her in the crowd. Luckily, the draw of a few stairs leading to a giant chair were enough to keep her entertained.
The coffee shop we descended upon got more than they bargained for with our troupe of sugared up kids! The college kids working the joint were extremely friendly, though, and even brought over a bowl of candy for the kids to pick from. NuVibe downtown. I recommend them if you need a coffee on your way into or out of the Children's Museum. And let's face it, you probably do.

*****

Nathaniel headed out Friday afternoon with the older two girls to join his family on their annual camp out. Right up to the line he was asking whether I was SURE I didn't want to come along. Really, no. I like camping, and I hope we can go next spring or summer. But I was very content to sit this one out. I spent Friday night cleaning out our basement storage room, assembling some new shelves and putting everything back away. It was a lot of work, but I was excited to have a quiet night to get it done! (Meg goes to bed at 7:15, so even with the quality time we spent together she took up very little of my night).

Saturday, Meg and I drove out to Indian Cave to join the campers. We spent a beautiful day exploring the park and visiting with family. By the time Meg and I got back home, it was well past trick-or-treating time in the neighborhood. I hadn't had any plans to participate in the festivities, but any guilt I might have felt for hiding in the house with the porch light off to avoid the local ghouls and goblins was removed.

We did let the girls dress up in their costumes again on Halloween night and trick-or-treat around the campsites. I was really surprised by the participation! There was only one other group of kids dressed up at the campground, but almost every campsite had a big bowl of candy sitting out, and the campers would come to the road to pass candy to the kids. They made a very impressive haul, given the circumstances.

I hope you had a wonderful Halloween with your own little princesses and wild things. My favorite moment this year has to be when I was driving the girls home from the Children's Museum outing and the older girls announced that they had decided "next year we're going to just trade costumes. Okay, Mom?" You betcha! I should make them sign something on that, so they don't forget...

Packing

This weekend is the big family-Halloween-campout. I was sort of game when the topic came up a month or so ago, but I'm wimping out. It's pretty much official. I'm packing now for Nathaniel to take Marianne and Ruth camping, while Meg and I spend some quality time in the warmth of our home. As I gather camping supplies, there's this tiny part of me that wants to go. I really do love tent camping! But then there's the baby and the coldness... I love summer camping, preferably near a body of cool water in case it gets too hot. It's not like I haven't taken babies camping before. As a matter of fact, Ruth was almost exactly Meg's age on her first weekend campout. Marianne camped twice the summer before she even turned one!

At nine months:
And at ten months:
(Gratuitous baby pictures of Marianne included both as evidence of camping experience, and because I'd meant to include some with her birthday post yesterday but was feeling too lazy to pull out the old cds.)

It's just that trying to coax small children to sleep when it's freezing is not so much my idea of an ideal weekend. And, as silly as it sounds, the idea of losing the "extra" hour of sleep on the night of the time change makes me very sad. Not that Meg will really let me enjoy it - I'm sure she'll be up at six instead of seven on Sunday morning.

The bottom line is, Meg and I will join them for the day on Saturday, but I'm just not feeling up to the overnights.

I'm off to finish packing supplies and food for the brave ones. Say a little prayer for them that it goes well - that they can stay dry and warm reasonably well rested.

Six

I keep making cracks within Marianne's ear-shot like "No WAY can there be a SIX year old in the house. There are no kids here anywhere near THAT old!". Mostly I do it because it cracks her up and she'll argue and argue with me that SERIOUSLY! She's SIX now! But also I really find it more than a little hard to believe. It's true, though. I remember the night I went into labor with her. I couldn't believe I could REALLY be in labor because it was the night before my due date and that was all too convenient. Lo and behold, just after noon the next day she was born, right on time.

I wish she could have retained some of that timeliness. Now she's the one always making us late. She can't go upstairs for a pair of socks without getting distracted for fifteen minutes along the way. Poor Ruth is ready for school 20 minutes early every day, but she's arrived on time to walk up with her class maybe three times this year because Marianne just can't get ready and out the door.

I hardly know where to start in reviewing the past year of Marianne's life, but the biggest change has to be in knowledge. She's learned so much! She now reads simple books well, and we're starting to move on to chapter books. Give the girl a Dick and Jane reader, and she can read it cover to cover with only an occasional pause to sound a word out. She does basic math, like adding and subtracting, in her head. Oh, and the occasional bit of multiplication and division... and she knows some fractions. ("Sure, Marianne, I'll save you a donut or two from the bag." "I want a quarter of it, Mom! We should each get a quarter of the bag, and then we can each share a little with Meg but she doesn't need that much.") She completed a 4-square Sudoka style game the other day with no help other than an explanation of the rules. She is constantly amazing me with new math and reading skills.

When I was in Newport a couple weeks ago, she wrote the following note for me. The spelling is phonetic, and she was apologetic for it when she gave it to me, but I told her I couldn't imagine a more wonderful "card".

(Click on the picture to see a larger version, if you'd like to try to sound it out on your own.)

Translation, with corrected spelling and with punctuation added based on how she read it to me:

We're praying for you Mom. I hope you had a very good trip. I'm glad you came home in 3 days. I love you, Mom. We missed you a lot. I hope you had fun. You are the best mom everybody's seen before. I'm glad you are my mom. We had fun while you were gone but we're still glad that you are home. I'm glad you are my mom. Love, Marianne and Dad and Ruth and Meg. By Marianne. For Mom.

She's a very emotional little girl, and we struggle often with her temper, but her ability to express herself helps (usually) and when she wants to let you know how much she loves you, she does so eloquently and passionately.

*****

Marianne's birthday was a full day of celebration. We started out with play time and lunch at Chuck E. Cheese, followed later in the day by dinner of her choosing (chili dogs, green beans and cheese puffs), then a family party for dessert and gifts. She reveled in every moment of it. Then just before bed she burst into tears and lamented that it hadn't been fun at all. Sometimes I seriously think there's a 16 year old's angst trapped in this little person.

Marianne and Ruth love Chuck E. Cheese, and as goofball as it all is, I love it to. I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but when we go on a weekday morning, it's so quiet and easy. There were one or two other families there, but we pretty much had the run of the restaurant. I could focus on keeping Meg entertained and out of trouble without having to fear for the safety of Marianne and Ruth as they ran around the games. And, most importantly, Marianne had a BLAST.

It wasn't Meg's first time at Chuck E. Cheese, but it was the first time she was big enough to want to participate. She couldn't get enough of the baby rides.

My mom gave me this centerpiece/game a couple years ago as a joke for my birthday. I finally remembered to pull it out again for Marianne's party. The castle has a little box inside that asks Disney Princess trivia questions and you touch the pictures on the table cloth to pick your answer. Out of control. And clearly a huge hit with the 4 to 6 year old girl crowd. (William and Henry were less entertained.)

Marianne had very specific plans for her birthday cake. "Yellow cake with lemon frosting. Or lemon cake with yellow frosting if that's easier to find." How about lemon cake with lemon frosting? "NO!" Oh, and "sprinkles to make a big six. The star kind of sprinkles." Who's a princess? That's right, Marianne is. She'll learn to be even more specific next year, though, because her yellow cake with lemon frosting had lemon zest in the frosting, and it turns out she doesn't like the texture of that. So she's just been eating the cake out of her slices and tossing the frosting.

Marianne opening her gifts while Meg makes claim to the chair in use as HERS, thank you very much.

The gift Nathaniel and I picked out for Marianne was a blast from the past - a Lite Brite. She'd seen a "bright light" at some friends' house and thought it was about the coolest thing ever. We got the "cube" version so that she and Ruth can play together, and so far Marianne has been very cool about allowing that. Actually, if there'd been someone else in the house to take the picture, you could have seen Marianne, Ruth, Nathaniel and me all working on Lite Brite pictures here. Good, clean family fun!

Happy Birthday, Marianne! I love you, my big girl!

ps

Also, today is Marianne's SIXTH birthday! I have a six year old. Whoa.

More on that soon, as it's too late to give it the time it deserves.

Not my favorite sort of surprise

We made it through the spring and summer rains with barely a drop of water in the basement. Now here we are in late October and there are three channels of water running across the floor from rain seeping in through the concrete walls. Argh. Thankfully the water seems, so far, to have all found a harmless path to the floor drain. Let's hope that holds, because the rain is still coming down.

October at its best

I love Autumn! I even love the word "Autumn", but that's not really important for this post. What is important is that, despite a cool wind, it was a beautiful Autumn weekend, and we took advantage of that the best we could.

Marianne had a fieldtrip to a pumpkin patch on Friday (her first real fieldtrip, with a bus ride and sack lunch and everything!). Her outing included a hayride, which was a point of contention, because the girls have gotten shot down for hayrides a couple times this year. First there was George's wedding, when we missed the hayride because of bad timing on our part, and then last week we were supposed to have a God teens hayride event (if I haven't mentioned God teens yet, I'm sure I will before long), but it got rained out. Ruth was pretty upset to hear that Marianne was actually getting to go on a hayride, but she wasn't. With that in mind, we decided to make a family trip to a pumpkin patch on Saturday afternoon, and make sure the hayride happened.

There was a lot of drama getting there, including a five year old's tantrum over, well, we're still baffled by what it might have been over. But we persevered and good fun was had. We went to Roca Berry Farm, the same place we berry picked a couple months ago. For pumpkin season, they have haunted houses, and goats to pet and a corn maze. Way more stuff than we got to. Oh, and of course, they had a hay ride. We let the older girls each pick a pumpkin, and they went for nontraditional choices. Since we already had a couple standard pumpkins at home, that worked out well. Below you can see Meg climbing in pumpkins that were bigger than her, and most of the family on our return hayride with our pumpkins of choice.


On Sunday, Nathaniel suggested we take a family walk to the sunken gardens that aren't too far from our house. Far enough that it was a bit of a daunting idea. Nathaniel walked there with the girls one other time, but since I was in labor that day - I had Meg later that night - I had opted not to join them. This time, I pushed Meg in the stroller and we let the older girls take their razor scooters. Man! You can get some real exercise when the girls are on those things because they fly! It's all I can do to catch up to them when the stop at the corners to wait for me.

We made it to the gardens and wandered long enough for me to take a few pictures. Most of the flowering plants have been removed for the winter, but it's still a very pretty garden with fountains, pools, winding paths and statues.




Today I'm off to Sam's Club, which doesn't exactly continue my trend of enjoying the fall weather, but I'll make up for it by kicking the kids outside to play this afternoon. Maybe I can convince them that raking the leaves would be a fun activity!

Flashback: Meg's 1st Birthday!

Sam got his photos to me a week or so ago, and I thought Meg's 13-months birthday (if you will) was the perfect time to flashback to her party and share the pictures I'd promised.

We opted for a monkey theme in honor of Meg's favorite stuffed animal, her monkey. I made the invites on a whim, but I think they turned out pretty cute. Marianne said she was impressed, as she was helping assemble the cards, so that's something.

The party was a small affair - just local family, and mostly just the younger set till the end of the party when Andrew and Sherri got home from a weekend retreat. I still wanted it to be fun for the kids who were there, though - my girls and William and Henry. I came across this Curious George game at Target a couple weeks before the party, so picked it up for entertainment. Then, to mix it up, I put together a little scavenger hunt to lead the kids to the game. It was a fun idea that I definitely plan to reuse at future parties. I took objects that were obviously from specific rooms (but just to be sure they'd standout, I put brightly colored tags on them with monkey stickers, so the kids would know which object was the next clue). Then I mixed them up in odd rooms of the house, leading the kids on a crazy hunt all over. So, for instance, when they saw the diaper, then knew to go to Meg's room. In Meg's room they found a whisk, so knew to head for the kitchen, and so on till they eventually found the game. It was sort of a weak ending to the game - candy would have been more exciting! - but the kids had fun and wanted to re-hide all the clues and play again later. After games, we ate, and had cake and opened gifts. Typical, but a great time. Now, on to the pictures!
Meg, watching the game playing excitement from the comfort of her new chair. Thanks, Grammy and Papa!
Henry came dressed in costume for the party. He was sort of the party mascot, though Meg couldn't really catch him to snuggle him the way she does her own monkey.
Meg enjoyed reading a book with Uncle Sam while the big kids played (and Mom worked on lunch). She had a great time being passed from aunt to uncle to aunt throughout the party.
Henry and Meg enjoying some pre-lunch snacks. There were peanut-butter-banana-crackers for appetizers, though Meg didn't have any of those. We saved her first peanut butter taste for something worthier (and till after she was officially one, because if you have to take your kid to the hospital for a pb reaction, you want to look like you were at least sort of following the guidelines).
The bigger kids LOVED the new game. It helped that it had animal masks as props for certain tasks.
Lunch time! We had a low key meal of corn dogs and veggies. I tried out a new punch recipe with pureed bananas. It was very tasty, but could have used a slug of coconut rum to really round out the flavor.
The cake was chocolate chip banana with chocolate frosting. It was a little overly dense, but tasty. I made this monkey cake just for Meg, and had another cake for the rest of us. Meg is fan of cake, so she took pretty quickly to munching this one, but as you can see, the squashing and smearing of frosting is way more fun than actually consuming cake.



Meg was pretty wiped out by the end of the cake event, especially since it was already past her nap time. But we cleaned her up and moved her back to her cushy chair for some forced gift opening.
She really was not interested much in the gifts. Luckily, she had two older sisters there to ooh and aah over the presents for her.
This picture is from the end of the party. It made me laugh because it shows the size of Meg's new chair. My mom accidentally ordered the size up from the ones the other girls have, and my running joke now is that Meg has her first piece of dorm furniture ready to go! It's a very comfy chair. And handy for the whole family!

Happy birthday, one last time, Meg! I love you and I can't believe how fast you're growing up.