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".

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas Eve!!!

I'm a bit behind in pictures, so I'll catch you up from the start of our Christmas season.

These first pictures are from our first snowfall in early December. Mighty Mouse loved it. Loved it! Unfortunately, the blue Thomas the Train snowboots I'd planned on him having this season wouldn't even go ON his feet, but his sister's old pink camo ones worked just fine. The girls pointed out that they were probably fine because they are "camo". Um, well.  Thank you Walmart-free-shipping, we had a new pair in a few days that are navy blue with orange. Phew. Of course, now the snow is so deep he can't walk in it. Go figure!

The girls thought I was pretty creative telling them that freshly-fallen snow is "God's cotton candy". I was being serious; there are few tastes I love more, and I think Sunny is with me on that one, for sure.

Mighty Mouse got his first haircut in November. Isn't he just a little doll? A boy doll, of course.

I'm so glad I got these pictures of him looking straight at the camera when I did. Now that he's realized the photo shows up in the screen, he won't hardly let me take his picture because he wants to immediately see the pictures on the back.

I made the tie with a pattern I bought on Etsy sometime last winter. It's not important how long it took me to get around to it, right? I did it!

This is what his Daddy thinks of ties and what his Daddy hopes HE thinks of ties, too.

Wait, what's this? This little boy loves his tie and wants it back on!!!

Note: I did put it under the sweater when we went to church; I didn't leave it hanging over the sweater design....I don't have a lot of fashion sense, but I have two daughters who do!

Mighty was searching for a 4X4 for Daddy. He didn't have any luck, but he'll happily keep trying.

Visiting Santa; this year Grammy and Grandpa Bob got to go along. We had a great quiet time there - no lines, lots of time to visit with Santa. Really, who brings their kids to Santa's Village when it's -7 degrees. Well, I mean other than me.

All three decorating their cookies with Mrs. Claus. She looked crabby in the picture, so I cropped her out. I run a harsh photo lab, I guess. Sorry, Mrs. Claus, my husband works Christmas, too, but we still have to smile, right?!

Mighty is snuggling his very chilly father under that blanket.

 Proof that he has blue eyes for now, just in case they change like Sunny's did!

 He comes across as so intense!

 I'm thinking he was hoping this would substitute for a handlebar mustache?

 When do we EVER have too much light in our house?!! Only when I don't need it and forget to change my camera settings to adjust. Oh well. Hopefully you can enjoy the little dude in his "fetching attire".

 Just one more thing!!!!

 The girls have belts on their dresses to match Mighty's tie.

Here we go with Christmas picture attempts. Look at this rodeo! Imagine what next year could look like.....

 I think this one is the winner.

 Miss Mouse feels a constant need to strike a dance pose, even when her pearls are being threatened.

 They're doing dance poses; it sort of looks like Miss Mouse wants to say "talk to the hand", but she's both too young to even have heard that expression and too sweet to use it if she had!

 He is a moving target!!!

 Proof that he does slow down. I often find this scene.

 Sweet Mighty Mouse tolerated (I thought) our mixing up two batches of cookies earlier this week. I gave him this mixing bowl and let him take a turn dumping ingredients in, just like his sisters (except that I held onto the ingredient cup at all times; he actually only "dumped" his empty bowl into my bigger mixing bowl). Well, on Saturday we had one more batch to mix up, so Mike was going to play with Mighty while the girls and I mixed up the cookies (I use my hand mixer, so it's not an option to do while he is napping!). Well, the minute Mighty saw my bowl come out, he disappeared head first into the cupboard and emerged with his own bowl which he then carried over to his booster seat, beginning to point and say "ih, ih, ih, ih" (in, in, in). Much to my amazement, I apparently have a 15-month old "baker man" (girls' word for Mighty)! There was no way we were leaving him out of the baking party!

Our snowman army. We plan to take over the world. Or maybe just our neighborhood.  I found this idea (so did my aunt - great minds think alike? or ambitious minds? something like that....) on facebook and pinterest. In the creating of this army I have decided those pinterest women are liars. Liars, I tell you! "Easy project"; "no time at all"; "quick and easy project" - lies, lies, LIES!!!!

Okay, maybe it was just that those women were not totally stressing about a little bit of stickiness left by the baby food label on the back of the jar. After about 15, I stopped scrubbing them with canola oil and left the sticky on. The process had been: rinse jar, soak jar, remove as much label as possible, wash jar in dishwasher, wash jar in vinegar to make sure no remaining baby food flavor lingered, scrub jar with canola oil to remove all possible label stickiness, wash jar in dishwasher again to remove canola oil remnants....Yeah, I'm thinking the initial pinterest people didn't do all that. I gave up on it, too, and I think the last five turned out just as well, if a little stickier, as the first 15. They were a lot more fun to make, too!

At one point, after painting the caps black and cutting out circles for the brims from construction paper, Miss Mouse commented how fun this project was and how she would love to do it with her children someday. And my heart melted, and it didn't matter how much time I'd spent scrubbing with oil; it was all completely and totally worth it.

Also worth it has been delivering these sweet little treats. I think the most fun one was surprising an older gentleman across the street with a snowman (they have hot chocolate mix, which we also made with a recipe from my aunt) and some other treats we made. He wasn't home when we dropped them off, but he called later and asked if we had seen Santa because he must have dropped off some delicious treats. This particular man lost his wife a year ago this week, so to do something that brightened his day/week was, again, worth all the scrubbing in the world.

 The girls spent a good chunk of afternoon making rubber band bracelets. I spent a good chunk of the evening picking up rubber bands. I haven't yet found a container for her to store them in.  We had an issue with Sunny when she made a mistake on her bracelet that turned out to not be correctable. She was so upset to have to start over that she threw rubber bands (I think - I didn't actually SEE this and am just relying on the fact that I had an upset four-year-old and rubber bands all over the floor) all over the floor. She earned herself a picking up time and a lecture. A long lecture. Probably too long of a lecture. It was an unfortunate way to end a valiant effort, and I was sad about it most of the rest of the day. Tonight, though, as she and I were talking about how she could handle a situation differently when she makes a mistake, she told me, "well, I just wouldn't do it right away". "Do what?" I asked. "Well, I would try again, but not right at the same time. I'd wait a day."  Big sigh of relief, mixed with regret (and verbal repentance) for how upset I'd gotten earlier in the day. I'm so proud of how insightful this sweet little girl is becoming. She's not exactly like her older sister, who is so determined that she'll sit at the table and make the bracelet if she has to try 34 times, but she knows what works for her. And that's what's important.

Our family picture taken tonight at church. Just to clarify, Miss Mouse is standing on the same step that Mike is. I am standing on the step below them. Not great planning, but I'm thrilled that everyone looks mostly happy!

 The most popular Christmas gift so far. It's a dragon tail that you wear around your waist with an elastic band. Miss Mouse and I bought it for Sunny and Mighty last weekend at a local craft vendor shop.

 A common scene today. A dragon tail racing around a corner. There is no way I could love this more!!!!

She is, of course, a friendly dragon who flies around and gives people rides. She can't wait until I let her jump on our mini-trampoline with the tail on. Oh, and the tail and the Christmas tree? They don't mix well, but it was pretty funny (considering nothing actually got broken).

Merry Christmas!!

Terrific Tuesday

We had a terrific Tuesday last week!  The day started, as always, with school, but in the afternoon, rather than doing "Mama time" or craft time or snuggly-reading-time, four of us bundled up and headed out for a sneak peek at our smallest family member.

Trusty Neighbor Carroll (nope, they aren't Quakers - we just like the title) took care of Mighty Mouse because we really didn't think Mighty would be too interested in sitting in a waiting room, then sitting in a dark room watching a screen that made no sense to him, and then sitting in a car for the ride home. Lots of sitting involved for a boy who lacks understanding of the coolness aspect of what was going on. Instead he spent his time showing Carroll lots of tricks like how he plays the piano, what his favorite books are, and his light-speed travel around our house.

While Mighty was tucked at home, the rest of us enjoyed seeing the "littlest brother", as he is now prayed for at night.  Especially cool was seeing his tiny little hands with his ten tiny little fingers waving right at us. When the tech switched the machine to 3D, we could see him covering his ears with his hands! So sweet!  Apparently we are already a bit loud for his taste!  We also got to see his little feet with all his little toes. At some point I will fish the cd of pictures out of my purse and share some of the pictures - especially the hands and feet are really clear along with his cute little profile - but tonight I just wanted to get this note on here so that someday I remember what we saw of "littlest brother" at his 20 week ultrasound. Obviously the best part was finding out that everything about him seems to be forming and growing just the way it should be.

Particularly fun were the moments where he seemed to "wave" to us and also when we saw him open his mouth, stick his tongue out, and then sort of "chew" his mouth closed. We might be loud enough that he covers his ears with his hands, but apparently he is already working on joining in our conversations, right?!

Well, after the fun ultrasound, we did end up getting in some snuggly-reading time at home before heading out on our annual Light Parade adventure. We finished up reading A Cricket in Times Square which quickly became one of my favorite children's books EVER. We're planning to read lots more about Harry Cat, Chester Cricket, and Tucker Mouse over Christmas "break".....even though I cried at the end of "Cricket" when Chester went back to Connecticut.  Anyway, it was a wonderful way to wrap up the afternoon. 

Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Dick arrived (just in time to see me crying over Chester Cricket's departure!!!) mid-afternoon, too, so the girls go to show Grandma some fun (read: horribly ugly and weird-looking) sea creatures they'd found in some of our ocean books (we're in a Geography chapter on oceans right now).

Then - when the temperature had dropped sufficiently and the winds had picked up enough to whip at our noses - we headed out!

Before Mike and I even got to the street with little bundled-up Mighty Mouse, Miss Mouse had scored herself a light saber!! I think I was probably even more excited about it than she was, and my excitement went a little off-the-chart when Sunny scored one (with Grandma's help) later in the parade! Seriously, I would have paid good money to have a light saber fight with my sister, though I'm not really sure she's into that.

Mighty started out the parade on Mike's shoulders until it became impossible for me to keep his mittens on (more impossible for me to keep putting them back on because I couldn't reach his hands, to be exact). His little nose demanded my nice scarf, too. I'm not sure he was too impressed by our dressing him in a woman's scarf, but he didn't protest too badly, probably given the extremely cold night.  After about 20 minutes, he and Mike retired to the van and had their own "man fun" there while the rest of us froze and collected copious amounts of candy while "oooo-ing" and "aaaahhhh-ing" over the brightly-lit floats.

Sunny waved her little mittened hand quietly but steadily through the entire parade.

This picture is for my sister - the horses are dressed as camels (see their humps?) and the miniature horses are sheep!!!!  This was the cutest group ever!!!!  I was so sad that Mighty missed them; I would have loved to see which animal sound he chose to make for miniature horses dressed as sheep!

I took these pictures two weeks before the Light Parade, but I wanted to show Sunny's hat because at one point in the parade, a gal came over and offered (in jest) Sunny her whole bag of candy in exchange for Sunny's hat. What a way to make Mommy (the hat creator) proud!! Sunny seemed to know the lady was teasing (I was also proud of that fact!) and seemed quite pleased that her hat got such a compliment. She didn't think twice about turning her down, obviously, since we were overflowing with candy already. Seriously, all of the adults, plus Miss Mouse, had pockets full of candy; I had two bags with a can of pop in each that were both so full of candy that I was dropping candy out of them; by the end of the parade, we made a satchel out of one of the three t-shirts we snagged and poured candy into that, as well! Apparently the end of the parade route is the place to stand to snag lots of candy - and four toothbrushes - and two containers of floss - and three t-shirts - and two cans of pop!

Notwithstanding the fact that Miss Mouse and I had to soak our frozen feet in a warm bathtub when we got home, it was a marvelous time. I'm so thankful Mike was able to be there and hang out with his little boy so that we could all have fun (Mighty really liked the part of the parade he saw). It was great for Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Dick to join us, too - what great memories!

Balanced

Just in case you missed it on facebook.....here is our perfectly balanced group!!!