Veggietales

Our son eats his veggies. He also apparently eats VeggieTales. Mike was reading Mighty a VeggieTales book the other night, when Mighty started leaning toward the book with his mouth wide open, saying "Ooomph" and making a chomping motion. It only took us a couple times to figure out what he was doing. Mike asked him if he was eating the vegetables, and Mighty responded with a big grin and a head nod along with another "chomp". Larry the Cucumber, Bob the Tomato? Be afraid. Be very afraid. This boy will eat you for dinner!

Skunk

Yesterday, the older three were in the backyard themselves. Manly Mouse was wanting to be held for his nap, as seems to be his custom, so I sent Mighty out with his sisters to keep watch. When Mighty hears the words, "Do you want to go outside?" he shouts with glee, "Yaaayy!". I couldn't keep him in on such a beautiful day, so the girls just had to watch their brother and include him in their play.

They were being very sweet. So, when I saw Miss Mouse tip over in the grass and sort of roll on her back a bit and then look up at the sky, I wasn't surprised to see Mighty do the same thing and then be followed by similar behavior from Sunny. I figured they were playing Follow the Leader or something sweet like that, maybe looking at fluffy clouds and coming up with ideas on their shapes.

I stuck my head out the door and asked if that was what they were doing and offered encouragement on how sweet they were being. Miss Mouse propped herself up on her elbow; Mighty struck the same pose. Miss Mouse responded to my encouragement and question with, "What?! No, Mom. We're kittens, and we're rolling in skunk." Of course. Silly me, how could I not have known?

Table for Six

A few pictures of our newly-expanded family.....

Such a proud, proud big sister - Sunny had started having a really hard time with the "waiting game" before little Manly Mouse was born; this smile is not just proud and loving, it is a smile of intense r.e.l.i.e.f.!!

 Miss Mouse is so excited to have another person to care for. I know one of her strongest love languages is "quality time", but "acts of service" has to be up there pretty high, too.

Mighty Mouse was very sweet to his tiny sibling.

So many kisses from such pretty girls

These two couldn't get enough of watching Manly Mouse in his carseat on homecoming day.

It must be an automatic human response to make goofy faces at a baby when he's awake!

Peaceful. 

Manly Mouse has the longest fingers of any of our children! Mighty Mouse has huge hands - huge - but Manly Mouse has fingers that just won't quit! I love how they are similar and how they are so different, too.

The two Easter bunnies who just can't stop kissing this new little brother.

 Mighty really does love his little brother. Often he will go get the blue pillow, put it on his lap, and pat it as an indication that I am to put Manly Mouse on his lap. I let him hold his little brother until he signs (and says) "all done", though I keep a good hold on Manly, too, of course.

 I was so excited to get a picture of Manly Mouse with his eyes open!

 We got this fruit bouquet from one of the groups that Mike leads; isn't it amazing???!!  I've seen these different places, but I never thought I'd actually have one of our own at our house for our very own sampling enjoyment! Serious yummyness.  Doesn't Manly look like he's going to take a bit of it? He was pretty impressed. For sure.

 Our Easter Bunnies.

Mighty really liked his ears. The girls did, too, and posed for pictures with "rabbit expressions" and "plain expressions". I just didn't include those photos. For some strange reason I thought this post might tend to be a little photo-heavy.....

 Our new neighbors invited us to an Easter egg hunt on Saturday. At the last minute, I decided to go along; my Mom volunteered right away to stay with Manly in the car so that I could go with my Dad to take the older three to hunt eggs. Mighty and I went with the 1-4 year olds; Grandpa Bob took the girls in the 5-8 year old category. I was a little bummed not to see the girls enjoy their first hunt, but I had so much fun watching Mighty get the hang of "see-the-egg-grab-the-egg"!

 Some people complain that there are not cute little boy clothes. I'm not sure there's much cuter than toddler Carharts, though. Well, maybe toddler neckties......or suspenders.....get the idea that I like little boy clothes? Or maybe I just like my little boy......it could be that, too....

 Sunny found a "prize egg" and won this mohawk wig. She thinks it is a cockatoo wig. I think she saw one once at the Minnesota Zoo.

Yes, actually Sunny won TWO cockatoo wigs. What could be better for a 1,000 sq. ft. house than one cockatoo wig? Two, of course.

Really, I loved it. The girls both got suckers from the Easter bunny and balloon bears from a clown and loved the egg hunting. Most of the candy was sent to my aunt and uncle's store because we really can't take much more around here, but still, the hunt itself was fun. The prizes were fun (Miss Mouse won a light-up thingy that I can't find words for right now), and the sampling of treats on Saturday afternoon was plenty - sort of a pre-Easter warm-up, you could say.

One of my favorite moments of the egg hunting morning was when the clown asked Miss Mouse what type of animal she wanted. It was loud in the room where we were, and she hadn't heard that the clown had asked Sunny whether she wanted a bear or a dog. Sunny had said "dog", though somehow she ended up with a bear. Well, Miss Mouse just heard "what type of animal do you want?", so she answered: "A penguin please". The look on that clown's face was priceless.

Easter pictures.

 He's not a crabby baby; he just looks that way when his Mama takes him out on a bright sunny day, even though she squirrels him away in the shade.

Oh well, Sunny told me tonight that when he has that "little puff" on his face when he frowns and then he puts his arms up to be "a strong little guy" that is her favorite way to see him. She really likes these pictures.

 I was decently happy with this Easter picture. It was the first I took and the best. 

Easter 2014 - Miss Mouse, 7; Mighty Mouse 19 months; Sunny Mouse, 5; Manly Mouse, 9 days.

And the best family picture we got.

Trust me, this is the best. No one is crying; no one is picking their nose; no one has their mouth wide open (though that particular picture is great fun); and no one is flailing their arms too terribly badly. Ah well. Maybe next year.

Me?

Mighty has been enamored with my camera for the past couple of months. It makes it hard to get a decent picture of him because he's constantly trying to get to the back of the camera to see the picture on the screen.  The other day I finally turned it to - gasp - "auto" because I just couldn't capture his and Mike's wrestling fast enough with my usual "aperture priority" setting. This is probably because my brain has been taken over by a teething toddler and a soon-to-be-met baby. Be that as it may, I at least captured the moment with the two of them tackling each other and shrieking with laughter. Quickly, though, Mighty Mouse realized I was photographing and ran over to see the pictures. He was so pleased and pointed at the screen and then at himself, saying "Me!?" over and over again. I got really excited that he was "getting" the concept of "me", which seems sort of complicated, so I clapped, which encouraged him to keep pointing and labeling himself as "me". I don't know if it really is an advanced concept, and, honestly, I don't care so much whether it's advanced or not because it's just downright cute. Still, though, I think it might be a little on the early side for Mighty to know that he is both his name and "me". I mean, really, Elmo doesn't even do that yet.

Fun Toddler Times

I just finished going through some of my blog archives searching for ultrasound pictures of Sunny that I could perhaps have used to download onto my laptop and avoid having to search the basement for the cd of her pictures. I am determined to get her little "love at first sight" frame filled before her youngest brother arrives. The other kiddos had printed pictures that I was able to take home, cut out, and stuff in the frames. The ultrasounds we had with little Sunny yielded only cds, which increase the number of steps necessary in framing pictures. Anyway. It was fun looking back over the updates I wrote of Miss Mouse when she was a tot waiting for her little sister to arrive. I thought I should toss in some updates here on Mighty Mouse as he awaits the arrival of his little(ish) brother.

Mealtime is really fun these days. Mighty folds his hands before he touches anything food-like and gets really adamant that we do the same. We are ALL to pray - in unison - with folded hands - before touching our food. If one of us attempts to shirk one of these steps, Mighty starts "oooh! oooh!!"-ing and points a finger straight at the perpetrator!  It's hilarious. He is definitely our "prayer police officer" right now.

At night when I do bedtime alone, the girls and I often read our stories, sing our songs, and say our prayers in Mighty's room, mainly so that he is contained and mostly safe and entirely supervised. Well, as soon as he hears us start in with "Our Father," he runs over with folded hands. Somehow he has figured out that that is also a prayer, just like our mealtime one. I love it.

Mighty has had words exploding left and right lately. I'm sure I can't even begin to name them all. I'll try to name a few that are particularly fun:
*Baby (Baaaay-beeee!) - He noticed one in church last week and informed his Daddy of it. Over. And over. And over.
*Daa - Daddy
*Mama
*Tuck - Stuck - He will purposely get himself stuck into some strange position or wedged into a corner and then say "tuck! tuck! tuck!"
*Nice - Usually used when Mighty sees a baby or a pet
*Animal sounds - Grr (bear), Roar (lion/tiger), Baa (sheep), Moo (cow), Eeeow (cat), Voof (dog), Blub, blub (fish), Bzzzz (bee), Sssss (snake), Oo, oo (monkey, Uh, uh (pig), Neeee (horse)
*Colors - I don't think he "gets" any of these, but he very clearly says "Blue" when prompted.
K-k-k-k-k-k = Milk
Bub - bib
Peesh? - Please. He always seems to add the questioning intonation at the end, but you can tell he assumes that by using that word, he will get what he wants. The sign and word are often accompanied by a nodding head.
Baaah = Ball

Signs: Mighty has always loved baby signs. He picked up "read", "more", "drink", "all done", and "please" right away and still uses them in conjunction with his words. So fun.

Sweetness - Mighty is a sweet little guy. The other day - the day that it was spring here - we walked around the block - six blocks, actually (six straight blocks, does that make sense? not actually around six blocks, but six sides of a block....). Never once did he fight holding my hand. Miss Mouse pushed the stroller along behind us because I was sure Mighty would tire out at some point, but he never did. Miss Mouse just kept commenting, "He's so interested in discovering. He's so curious. I love this age." She sounded like an adult. Sunny danced ahead in the sunlight but listened really well when I gave directions on how close or far she could wander. And Mighty just loved poking at the snow with a stick, poking at puddles with a stick, splashing in the puddles, poking at mud with his stick, and trying to sneak bites of the stick. Still, though, I just love, love, love that he will hold my hand without fighting about it. Poor Sunny had a very hard time holding my hand; it was a real struggle for us, and it finally ended when she was around three and asked me to put her on a "leash" because she knew she would try to squirrel away from me and that scared her. Yep, she begged me to "leash" her to protect her from herself at age three. Sad on one level, but on another level it was some really impressive self-awareness from a three-year-old! Anyway, it's easier on Mighty and on me if he will continue to put his little (big) paw in mine while we enjoy all the exploration spring has to offer.

Sayings

We've had some great moments lately.  The first was during the news the other day following a segment on Post Partum Depression. The girls were interested in the segment because they showed babies, and they love nothing more than babies. Sunny, especially, wishes she could "snuggle them all".  Naturally, they asked what PPD is, so I explained the best I could saying that sometimes mommies bodies have a hard time adjusting to not having babies in them anymore. That can lead to them getting really sad or nervous or stressed out even though they are actually very happy about their new babies.  I added as an afterthought that sometimes the lack of sleep that new moms get is also something that makes it hard for their bodies to adjust. Miss Mouse looked relieved the minute I said that and commented, "Oh, good! Then you won't have to worry about that since you have a fussy baby who is teething anyway!". Um. Apparently being used to not sleeping is a preventative for PPD in her book!!!  I couldn't contain my laughter, but I did point out that I wasn't laughing AT her, just laughing because I'd never thought of sleep deprivation as a prevention method for Depression before. She was proud.

The next verbal excitement occurred later on Wednesday at church. Mighty Mouse might finally be transitioning to being a one-nap tot, so he had gotten up from his one nap at 1 and had not napped again, despite my most valiant efforts at singing "Jesus Loves Me" and "Children of the Heavenly Father". Still, I reasoned, I wanted to get back into our Wednesday night church routine, especially because Mike was preaching that night. So, we loaded up in the -6 degree warmth and thanked God that it had warmed up four degrees since the noon news. To my chagrin, there were no close parking spots left, so I (gulp!) dropped the girls off at the door and instructed them to go directly to the coat room and wait for me there. I'm not entirely comfortable with that in a church our size, but we do know quite a lot of people, even on Wednesday nights. And I definitely wasn't comfortable with them walking across a parking lot in subzero temps in church clothes, even with good coats, hats, mittens, and boots. *Sigh*.  Anyway, Mighty and I braved the temps because I A) didn't think it was fair to leave a 6- and 4-year old in charge of a rambunctious toddler brother, and B) figured he was the easiest one to share a coat with on the walk across the parking lot. Incidentally, when I have teenagers to haul to church, we will park in the farthest spots and leave the closer spots for elderly people and parents of small children. Honestly.  I digress. Again.  Mighty and I made it into church and found the girls ready and waiting with coats hung, purses adjusted, and hair smoothed in the coat room. We even had enough time to go for a walk around the church to burn off some of that excess energy that's been being stored up with day after day after day of subzero temps and ridiculous wind chills.  Before sitting down, the kids giddily found their Daddy and attacked his legs.  We walked in before Mike and (I thought) settled ourselves in the second row (I use the first row as a barrier for Mighty, but we still at least sit CLOSE to Daddy). Not long after we got "settled", Mighty Mouse realized Mike was still in the back of the church, so he squeezed into the aisle, put his little hands in his "where is X?" hold (out in front of him, palms facing up, hands together) and ran toward Mike saying, "Da? Da? Da? Da?". About halfway up, with me close behind him, he realized he was in the middle of a church full of people, and, to my delight, he hesitated! Yay! There is hope for this child yet! He hesitated!  I walked him all the way back to Daddy, had him give Daddy a hug, and then we went back and sat down. He was entirely irritated at the idea of Daddy sitting in front of us, though; I think probably this is because we had the treat of sitting with Mike on Christmas Eve AND at a friend's wedding last weekend. It was fine when Mike got up to preach, though, so I was thankful for that. The sermon time went quite swimmingly, and Mighty was behaving pretty decently for being as tired as he must have been.  Well, at the end of Mike's sermon, he prayed as he often does, and he ended with, as he often does, "And all God's people said" which is a cue for the rest of us to say, "Amen". However, right at the moment of "All God's people said -----", Mighty Mouse dropped a cloth finger puppet and announced, "Uh-oh!". Yep, apparently all God's people say "Uh-oh"!  It felt loud to me, and he says the words very clearly. Mike didn't hear him, though, and although the pew behind us started laughing to where the bench itself was shaking, I don't think many others heard. It was really just completely and perfectly timed, though, and it made my night.

Miss Mouse completed the trifecta of kids' sayings this evening after dance. The girls have dance pictures next week, and they brought home the brochures/order forms tonight. After pouring over them for quite some time after supper, Miss Mouse brought the brochure to me and showed me a picture, asking "What is this about?". Well, it was a picture showing the difference that editing can make in removing blemishes from the dancers' photos. I explained it was mainly for teenagers who might have "blemishes" on their faces, and it is possible to pay the photographer more so that he will take time to edit those blemishes out. With a look of great understanding, Miss Mouse nodded and said, "Oh, I see. So, if the parents don't like their child's face like that, then they can fix it on the computer for the picture."  Oh dear.

26 weeks

Since Baby Boy didn't cooperate totally for his 20 week ultrasound, we got another peek at him on Monday.  We're glad to know (after 40 minutes of trying!!) that his spine is just fine (the doctor was quite sure he was fine, but the 20 week ultrasound just hadn't gotten a good picture to confirm that particular area of the body; given our history, it's pretty nice to have confirmation on all body parts being healthy). 

I think he looks like his siblings and will fit in just perfectly!  Obviously he could be orange with purple hair, and we'd still happily welcome him into our family. But it's just always funny for me to see all these little ones who look so much alike running around. My sister and I look like sisters now, but as children we barely resembled each other at all!

The bubble by his mouth in this first picture is his hand.

This one is a similar pose but taken with the 3D imaging instead.

Mike and I both think he looks a lot like Sunny in this last ultrasound picture where he is sort of "smiling".