April

Oh time, why do you go so quickly? Anyway, here is an April wrap up-

Warmer weather made it so we could finally spend time at the park. Swinging is one of Georgia's favorite activities. Last Friday Wade pushed her in her swing in our front yard for over an hour.  

The trees are blooming.

We visited the garden center and picked flowers for the baskets on our front porch. 

Georgia has been over-watering them for weeks. 

Papa got extra snuggles on his birthday. 

The Easter bunny visited.

We dyed eggs. 

Attended a wedding. 

Played with Biscuit. 

Went to the dentist. 

Played with buddies. 

And celebrated Earth Day. 

May 1-10

Thank goodness for the sunshine. It feels like it has been cloudy for months. We all started taking vitamin D to fight off the cloudy day doldrums.

Henry had his First Communion on May 6. All I have is blurry photos, sorry. (Look at our tall boy!)

He was excited and nervous about doing it. I'm not a super religious person but I LOVE the kids Mass. They sing beautiful songs and talk about how we should love each other, forgive each other, spread joy and peace. I cry in my pew every week. It's beautiful and I'm so grateful to Wade for supporting me in my decision to send him to a Catholic school. It's so much more than just that... It's a special place that goes beyond academics and celebrates life and childhood and Henry is thriving. 

Wade, being a super husband, fixed the back light for me. So often I start sentences with "How cool would it be for me to fix..." And what it really mean is, "Babe will you fix..." But he rarely complains. 

I love how he fixed it. It's perfect. 

On Thursday Henry had a dentist appointment.  We like to use dentist appointments as an excuse to have a Mama Henry Lunch at El Mezcal. We eat cheese dip without judgement (Wade) and drink too much ice tea. Henry had a great report from the dentist.  They put sealants on his back teeth, which hurt a little but feel totally fine now. Georgia ended up going to the dentist with us and spent a half an hour brushing the tigers teeth :) 

On Friday Henry had the school carnival. He ran around with his buddies and Georgia ran around from big-kid inflatable to big-kid inflatable, while Wade and I tried to keep up. She got a bloody lip from a run in with an older kid but it did not slow her down. The girl has no fear. On Saturday we went to the Helmet Fair sponsored by the local fire department. The kids got new bike helmets and Georgia got to sit in the drivers seat of a fire truck. On Sunday we celebrated Mother's Day. Wade got up early (!) and made breakfast and then we all went outside and played for hours. We brought a blanket out and laid in the sunshine. Then I took a long shower, which was amazing and used the soap that Henry and I made on Saturday. 

Making soap is one of my ideas for an activity for Henry and I to do this summer. He loves creating recipes for it. This one is grapefruit, mint and oatmeal. After my shower we went to Papa Keno's, my favorite pizza place, for lunch. 

They have giant rolls of paper for the kids to color on which kept Henry busy the whole time and Georgia busy for 3 minutes. Next door to PK's is a Japanese garden which Georgia loves. It's a rock garden so Henry enjoys climbing on the rocks. Georgia enjoys throwing the rocks. Wade and I enjoy sitting on the bench talking and feeling the breeze. It was a lovely breeze.  Henry picked a beautiful peony for me.  

I am so lucky to be the mother of these amazing children. Henry: my sweetheart. Gentle and thoughtful and sensitive. I love that he gets lost in his daydreams.  I love that he makes noises when he builds his Lego robot guys and that he wants to tell me every detail of his mind craft buildings. He loves to snuggle and wants to make people feel good.  He makes silly jokes and will hurt himself with slapstick humor to get his sister to laugh (which she does every time). Henry made a coupon book for me for Mother's Day and one of the coupons is unlimited hugs. I found out last night that those coupons are reusable and never expire, so I'm using my unlimited hug coupon every day. :) 

Georgia: my firecracker. My determined little one, who wants to do it her way and on her own. She loves to try new things and go places. She could spend all day outside in a swing or at a park. She loves to nurse and snuggle and loves stuffed animals and baths. She's fearless and bold and smart and is getting pretty good at selective listening. She is going to give Wade and I a real test at our parenting skills but I think that she will be worth every second of it. Both of my kids make me proud every day. I'm so blessed by them and by the team of people that help me care for them: Papa and Gigi and Grandpa. And speaking of Gigi:

My mom is one of my best friends. She is an amazing listener. She is open and loving. She takes care of people with a selflessness and generosity that I strive to achieve every day. She is talented and humble and kind. Henry gave me a photo of him holding a sign that said I love you because you are kind. If I am kind it's because of my Mom. She is the first person I call when I need a friend. She is the mom I strive to be. ❤️

1/26/14-2/2/14

I've got a lot to catch up on so this is going to be a short one.  We had a busy week.  Henry had open house at school on Thursday.  It's so fun to see him in his school and compare how he feels about it now to how he felt about it even last year.  At his open house last year he walked with us and was shy around his teachers. This year he ran in to the building and we found him 30 minutes later only to lose him again when he spotted a buddy.  I love it.  I want it to feel like his space and I want him to feel like he is a part of something and important.  Good stuff.  On Friday we ordered take out Free State and watched a movie.  On Saturday we cleaned and went to the store and cooked. I made some chili which Georgia actually ate. The girl is finally starting to try new things.  I think she must be growing because she is always talking about being hungry.  And speaking of hungry, last night we went to Grandpa Benda's to watch the super bowl and eat pizza.  Henry ate 4 pieces of pizza, a salad, a packet of apple sauce and 4 cookies.  I can't believe how much that kid can eat.  He has also almost outgrown his size 10 pants and his shoes that he got for Christmas that were at least one size too big for him when we got them. 

It's supposed to snow tonight, 5-8 inches.  I'm ready for Spring.  I have a garden to till and seeds to purchase.  I want to smell grass and rain and lavender.  I am ready for farmers markets and fresh produce.  But I'll suck it up this time... maybe we can at least go sledding.  :) 

January recap: Mostly Laurie stuff

Has anyone seen January?  If you see her, could you tell her that I missed her.  Like, seriously, where did that month go?  So I think I mentioned earlier that I am going to try to merge this blog with my personal blog, which I know doesn't make for great reading if you're here to check on the babies, but you can skip this post.  I will make sure it's clear which posts are just my general blabber about myself and which posts are just my general blabber about the babies.

About me-

I'm not sure if I mentioned my goals for 2014 are for each month - 

1-Make something

2- finish something

3-do something that scares me

4-take something off of my procrastination list

5-organize something

6- have an adventure

7-do something special with Henry, Georgia and Wade (separately if possible) 

8-spend time with friends. 

1- I made a piece of art for the wall in our living room.  It was a project Henry and I did together and I like it.  It's probably a little weird and I'm sure it's not everyone's taste, but I am discovering my aesthetic and I'm excited about it.  I think I like the mix of fabric and nature.  Bright colors, weaving, a mix of hard and soft. I am so lucky to be married to a super talented artist that still loves my super crafty, amateur hour art projects. 2- Over a year ago I purchased cardboard GEORGIA letters to put on the wall in the kids room.  Henry and I started painting them and then they got stacked on a shelf, half finished.  I pulled them off the shelf this week, finished painting them and hung them on G's wall.  It's funny when you live in a small house, how nice it is to take something off of the shelf and put it on the wall.  That shelf space is precious. 

3-Oh man, I really nailed it on this one this month.  I started going to the gym. Sure I didn't start until the 31st and that was only after my sister asked me 10 times if I had signed up yet (thank goodness for her, without that pressure I don't know if I would have mustered up the courage to do it), but those facts are not important here.  What I'm focusing on is the fact that in January of 2014 I committed to and actually started going to the gym on a daily basis.  I've gone every day since the 31st.  That's 4 days more than I went in 2011, 2012 and 2013.  Yay me!  

4-Baptism!  That was big on my procrastination list.  I don't know why either because it turned out to me one of my favorite moments of January.  Tender and sweet and just all around lovely.  I love that we did that for our babies. 

5-I cleared out 3 bags of clothes and trash from our bedroom.  One bedroom.  Just my stuff.  Ridiculous. 

6-This one was a little hard this month.  It's been so cold and people have been sick around us.  Henry did have his first reconciliation, which was an adventure but not really what I had in mind when I came up with this resolution.  

7-We had plenty of fun times together this month.  We went to the park and had a picnic in January (crazy) and Henry and Georgia and I have made a couple of trips to get frozen yogurt this month.  Georgia and I made cupcakes together (she mostly ate sprinkles).  It's a loose interpretation of my goal but I'll take it.

8-Well, I got to spend a weekend with my sisters and my Mom, who just happen to be some of my very best friends.  Lucky me. 

So overall I feel pretty good about how I did this month.  We have some fun stuff going on in February.  I'd like to find a way to slow things down a bit.  I wonder if journaling helps with that. Stopping every day to think about the day.  I may need to do that.  

   

1/19/2014-1/25/2014

This week has been cold, then warm, then cold, then warm, and Georgia isn't quite sure what to make of it. One day we are having picnics in the park, the next day we are making soup and hunting down our slippers.  It was cold most of last week.  Henry had school and Georgia went to Gigi's.  Wade was able to fix our bathtub faucet that would not stop running (yay Wade!).  It was quite an adventure but he figured it out and I am super proud of him.  I'm also super glad that he works from home and is willing to take time out of his day to fix stuff.  I'm sure it resulted in a few late nights to make up for missing work but I would never know it for sure because he rarely complains about late nights.  What a good guy.
After weeks of jam packed weekends, we were happy to lounge around in our pj's on Saturday morning. We made a big breakfast, watched some cartoons, drank coffee and then decided to go for a long walk and explore the neighborhood a little bit.  We are house hunting for Wade's dad, trying to find a place for him that is close by and at the same time sort of dreaming a little bit about what the next 5 years are going to look like for us.  Our little house is very sweet and the kids love sharing a room right now, so for the time being we can stay put but I think long term we are going to need a little more space.  There is a street by the river, Walnut Street, that I would LOVE to build a house on.  We'll see, for now we just like to sit in our little living room with the sunlight pouring in and dream together.  On Saturday evening we ate an early dinner and then cleared off the table to make some Valentines Day decorations which quickly turned in to making monsters and skateboarders.  Georgia and I left to take a bath and came back to find our wall of hearts had been filled with crazy looking construction paper creatures.
On Sunday we did more lounging, more coffee drinking and we headed to the park for a picnic.  Lawrence has so many great parks. We went to one our favorites, we call it The Rubber Park because it is covered in rubber tiles.  It's set up to be handicap accessible which is great for little toddler legs that can't do big steps. After some time at the rubber park Henry headed to a friends house for a play date and we headed home for a nap.  Don came over in the evening and brought some pizza and played with the grandkids.
This week Georgia has been working on potty training.  She's doing so great.  I hate to jinx it but I think she's got it.  I'm still not brave enough to do night time without a diaper but she can pretty much go all day in big girl undies.  When she pees in the potty she has to show Papa every time.  She says, "Papa come look.  I peeped in the potty." She gets a gummy bear as a reward for using the potty and she always makes sure that she picks up an extra one for Henny. Lately she is also becoming very affectionate with Henry.  Every day after school she runs over to him, tackles him and says "Oh Henny.  I miss you so much." It is pretty special. She loves watching the Grinch and does a running commentary on his moods, "The Grinch is mad...The dog is sad...Oh now he's happy...His heart is growing Mama..." I love it.  Other things she loves right now- dresses, tutu's, shiny shoes, bike rides and walks, soup (thanks to Grandma for that one), Pepper (the cat), mama's milkies, hiding from us, reading books and taking baths.
We got Henry's grade card this week and are so proud of him.  He had a few behavioral problems last semester, namely he had a couple of incidents when he was not a good listener and did a little eye rolling, which is something we do in our house to be funny, but it isn't funny at school.  He figured it out (with the help of a week long grounding) and his grade reflected that.  He got a Kindle from Santa which has been taking up a lot of his time.  I also pulled out my old Sim City game from 6 years ago and we have been enjoying building cities (and destroying them) for the past couple of weeks.
Wade is busy with work and the band.  He got to ride his motorcycle last weekend, which is sort of incredible...riding a motorcycle in January! I'm also busy with my new job, just trying to learn as much as I can so that the bosses don't regret giving me this promotion. I need to learn how to not open up the laptop on the weekends, not think or stress about work, and I'm sure I'll get there eventually.  I just need to find a balance.
The week ahead looks cold and busy.  It's Catholic School Week so Henry has some fun activities at school, ending with a performance on Friday morning at the Lied Center and an open house at school in the evening.  It's always fun to see his creations on the hallway walls.
Have a great week friends.

So, 2014 and stuff

Well, that was a long, awkward silence. I can't believe we are almost a month in to 2014 and I'm already failing at my #3 resolution.  I have come to terms with the fact that I am not a good (reliable, consistent) blogger but I'm not giving up.  In fact, in typical Laurie fashion, I'm going to make it even harder on myself by committing to updating this blog weekly AND attempting to print and file all my photos each week.  Can I do it?  Sure. Will I do it? Probably not, but I like a challenge.
So far 2014 has been busy.  But I guess I need to go back farther than that.  Let's see, when was my last update? AUGUST!  Yikes.  I really am bad at this.  Well, I'm guessing that school went well for Henry in August and September. He probably had a few colds and forgot to have us sign his folder a few times.  I'm sure we ate a lot of frozen yogurt on half price Tuesdays.  I probably complained about being tired and Georgia most certainly put a lot of random items in her mouth.  Wade played some shows and designed some stuff.  The kids dressed up for Halloween and did some serious trick-or-treating. November was NUTTY.  Georgia had her second birthday.  Henry had his 8th birthday and his first friend birthday party.  We traveled to Colorado for Thanksgiving and spent a few days with our dear friends Jason and Mandy and then went to Fort Collins to visit Susie, Ted and Willem.  The drive was an adventure and we learned a little bit about how this family does on the road (not great).  Oh also, in November Georgia got Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease and a stomach bug (also, not great).  In December we spent a lot of time with family and had a wonderful Christmas which was followed directly by more sickness, ear infections, nasty viruses, strep throat and sinus infections. But we bounced back to welcome in the New Year (3 days late and at 9:00 pm) and jumped right in to 2014 with more visitors and a baby/bridal shower for my sisters.  The kids got baptized. We decided to get some chickens this spring. Nearly every appliance in our home broke, including our furnace during, what meteorologists are calling "The Polar Vortex".  I started a new job which is about 90% writing (so I better start sleeping or this may not be good). Whew, and we are only 22 days in.  I have some personal goals this year that I will update you guys on as we go.  I know this is usually a family blog and then I have my own blog for random ranting, but I can't keep up the one, let alone two, so I've decided to throw in random rants every now and then on this blog.
I have photos from the last 4 months that I will try to post in the next few days and then we'll all be caught up and I can get on with the business of becoming the super blogger I was always meant to be.      

Second Grade!

The great photo dump and other stuff

I've cut back on the number of photos that I post to facebook.  I just don't feel like I have the control of it that I used to and I'm not sure that I want all 200 "friends" looking at every aspect of my life.  It's weird to run in to mostly strangers at the store and know that they've seen the inside of my house, photos of my children painting, etc... I've transitioned to Instagram for most of my photo sharing because I'm able to make my stream private and share only with people that are interested in looking at hundreds of photos of my children. :)
So here are some photos from my instagram stream this past week (or so).

 I love that Georgia lays on her tummy to color.  I remember doing that as a kid. 

 Kelly and Cooper are two of Henry's favorite people.  Partially because they have a video game system that he loves and they let him play it whenever he comes over, but also because they get him pizza.  No seriously, he loves them, they are great. 

 I saw this painting a few weeks ago.  I just wanted to document it.  It was amazing.

 Georgia calls these "bubble slippers'.

 Pillows and "Friends"

 I don't think I posted this earlier.  A family photo, the first one we've taken in a while.

Georgia loves to read. 

 She loves to wear "hats"

 This was her first time on a carousel.  She picked the purple horse.

 Dressing up with Henry. 

 Picking flowers from our yard.

Holding hands with her brother.

Taking naps with Grandpa (mostly Grandpa napping).

 

And painting

8.19.2013

Sooooo….once again I fail at weekly updates.  I’m not ready to give up yet.  I’m stubborn.  Really stubborn.  Like, it took me 10 years to graduate from college, stubborn.  Anyhoo, this weekend was busy, well at least it felt busy although thinking back on it I feel like we were mostly homebodies.  I tell you, there is nothing like the “mirror” that is having children.  I always thought we were homebody-ish but now having this 7 year old around that grumbles with every outing and cannot stand the idea of putting on shorts in order to go outside, I realize what big’ol homebodies we really are. 

This past week was the last week of summer.  Henry and Georgia spent their days with Gigi and Grandpa, like usual.  The week before, the one that is missing from my attempts to update weekly, well that week Gigi and Grandpa were in Colorado.  Which, I feel, explains why it was that I was not able to update the blog, I mean I was chasing these kids around all day long.  I had no energy for cute photos and long explanations of our daily activities.  My blog post would have looked something like “HELP ME”, which isn’t very interesting.  So see, I skipped the post for your sake. So anyway, last week, while my parents were out of town, Henry and I decided that we were going to paint the living room.  It’s slightly hilarious that we thought we could do this.  We figured we’d tackle one room at a time while G napped.  In a week we were able to paint one wall.  I learned some things.  1. 100+ year old walls are not flat.  2. 7 year olds aren’t great painters.  They are prone to distraction and mostly just want to use the roller on their hands.  3.  I hate washing out brushes and rollers and my husband will only do it for me some of the time. 4. My job is way easier than keeping up with my children 5. Henry can talk some serious trash when playing Mario Cart. 6. It’s impossible to keep my house clean, I will stop trying.  7. Georgia and Henry love Chai Tea Lattes. 

A question: do we have to buy the Crayola brand markers or is the Target brand okay?  Because I was digging through those bins looking for Crayola, original, wide tip, not washable, markers and hanging right by my head was a perfect little line of Target brand.  All the while Georgia was yelling “Buy it” “Get it Mama” “Jaja want it” as she unloaded an entire shelf of lunch boxes in to the cart. 

Once again I’m off track.  But that’s fine, the trip to Target for school supplies was pretty much all I can remember from two weeks ago anyway.  I may have blocked it.  This past week was nice.  The weather is amazing.  Unfortunately, we are not the only creatures that are enjoying it.  The mosquitoes are out with a vengeance and our children are mosquito candy, it seems.  So we locked ourselves in and enjoyed the breeze through screened windows.  Blah.  On Thursday the family got together to celebrate my birthday.  The people are Free State were smart and put us alone in the back room.  Kelly surprised us with cupcakes.  Georgia surprised us by throwing her rice (which was actually only surprising to the waiter, sorry man, we left you a good tip though).  On Friday Henry and I made another attempt to paint the living room.  We completed wall #2.  Slow and steady.  On Saturday G and I got up early and went to breakfast with Kelly and Cooper at Roost.  We overate and then went to the farmers market and overspent.  It was fun.  All the while, Henry and Wade went to Dunkin Donuts and then sat around watching cartoons.  In the afternoon Wade and I got on some coffee induced cleaning kick and we cleared out a ton of baby stuff (you’re welcome, Mom).  I thought I’d be sad letting those things go but I wasn’t really.  The week before knocked out any desires I had for a third child.  J  On Sunday we did more cleaning, shopping, drinking of coffee and whatnot.  We played some and we cooked some.  It was a nice relaxing day and Henry only had to put on his shorts once. 

That's all I've got.  I'll add some photos and pretty it up for you this evening (sure I will....). 

8.7.2013

Our friends, Jason and Mandy, came to visit a couple of weeks ago.  It's hard to put in to words what they mean to us.  Being with them is just so good.  Anyway, one day at dinner they mentioned that they enjoyed the blog.  I felt a little bad since I have been terrible at keeping up with this blog since Georgia arrived (and decided not to sleep for, well, for 20 months and counting). It's mostly a time management thing but there is also the thing about effectively communicating while only getting 4 hours of sleep, see I don't...effectively communicate on 4 hours of sleep.  My coworkers will tell you: I space off mid sentence, start stories in the middle, forget that I have already told them something minutes after I tell them.  It's pretty nuts.  I plan to revive the blog, I want to, but I think I'll focus on shorter stories and photos for a while.  Just until she starts sleeping.  She has to sleep someday...right?
So today is my birthday.  I'm not thrilled about turning 36, it's bothering me more than it should, so I made my list and am determined to change my attitude.  Here it is.  36 things to do in my 36th year-

This year I will -

1. Learn to use my fancy camera
2. Visit my sisters
3. Swim in the ocean
4. Read 50 books
5. Save money
6. Catch fireflies
7. Start a new tradition
8. Make a Christmas Stocking for Wade
9. Send each of my sisters a “just because” gift
10. Focus on the good
11. Art journal/photo every day
12. Exercise daily
13. Play more, clean less
14. Be kind
15. Stop worrying about things I cannot control
16. Have a big birthday party for Henry
17. Make Christmas gifts
18. Go vegetarian
19. Take Henry to see the mountains
20. Lay in a hammock
21. Have a family photo session
22. Have weekly movie nights
23. Remember birthday’s and anniversaries
24. Paint the living room
25. Send thank you notes
26. Take walks with my husband
27. Wear a skirted bathing suit with pride
28. Plant and pick berries
29. Paint until I make something that I’m proud of
30. Talk less, listen more
31. Fill my house with fresh flowers
32. Play with my children every day
33. Sleep in a tent
34. Keep up with the blog
35. Nurture friendships
36. Kiss the hubs