24 Weeks

Oh how swiftly half a year of Daphne bliss approaches.  She is called a quiet baby by many, but she "talks" while she nurses, coos while I rock her, and takes great delight in making a high pitched sound while breathing in.  She does crazy hair very well.  I am blessed.

See how she mocks me.  We bought pacifiers/binkies/whatever for our vacation last week, and she laughs and laughs that I would actually think a Marianne/Lucas hybrid would take a binkie.  This is as close as its ever gotten.

23 Weeks

Late post but correct pictures.  Dapherdil went on a wild long ride this past week.  She took it all in stride and loved the extra attention she got from lots of new people.  This is one amazing little girl.

But life can be so exhausting!!!

Hope for the Near Future

Ah, a hot summer day.  Me trying to work a lot of hours in a ridiculous like fashion, whilst also attempting (attempting) to figure out some difficult decisions I'm supposed to make regarding my stewardship.  Though it hasn't been my dream day (and definitely not Daphne's as she thinks moms were made to hold babies and not speed feed them and then lay them down to get back to work-which she's partially right), I had some illuminating moments.  Lastly (as that is the order I placed these pics in, hah!, we made homemade ice cream in ziploc bags which was sorta successful and tasted good all in all.  If you glance behind our lovely model Lily, check out the perfectly trimmed hedge (my husband is full of amazing surprises and skills).  Ignore the shrub trimmings on the deck as that was my job.  I promise when I mow tomorrow I will get them.  

 Earlier in the day, my boys (ever opposed to any form of organized labor) spent nearly the entire day playing together as they had some chores to do before they could have tech time and didn't want to do the chores.  Oh, sometimes it is such a blessing when they are trying to get out of work (and can't have tech) because they play together, and I see this whole other side of them and marvel at how well they can interact together for hours and hours.  Below we have satisfied Shawn who is feeling special with all the playing with Ben and Matt.

 And then, well you know how it is with cheap equipment and very mobile children.  Every picture I took was a blur.  Essentially, here they are using my cookie sheets and baking with foam blocks (they are a bugger to clean up because they get spread all over the house but we love them Ja!).  My three little bakers of "healthy" cookies and cakes.  Matt even put on his Albertsons apron to be official.  No fighting, just playing...did I mention FOR HOURS?  Before that, in order to avoid work, they had also laid around talking about dragon games, etc.  And before that, they had played with a really kick butt toy tool bench that our neighbor was unable to sell at her yard sale and left on our front porch.  Who knew such cool toys existed for little boys 20+ years ago?  The drill actually screws and unscrews the toy bolts.  The saw "cuts" toy pieces of wood...and all for free.  I need to thank my neighbor.  So this was the boys' day.  And I was so proud of them not doing chores, er, ok, maybe only the fact that they know how to play WITH TOYS and NOT TECH only and they can be so good to each other.

Where was big sister?  Well, she is highly motivated to get chores done for money, free time, play dates, anything.  LOVE that about her.  She even cleans when she's angry at me.  Thus, she was finished with about 3/4s of the original jobs in about 20 minutes.  Silly boys!

And speaking of that neighbor and her yard sale...

New to us couches for a decent price AND I KNOW THE HOUSE THEY CAME FROM, thus taking the creep factor out of things.  I know that most blogs I follow have decorating mavens and the most fashionable colors, and the shabby chic thing down so that things aren't too matchy matchy, etc., etc, and that these colors are not vogue currently, but these are probably the nicest couches we've ever had, even with some peeling action going on, except for the 3ish years our first couch set was new.  I am so happy to have these couches and not have to wait a year or 2 to buy new ones for a lot more money which my kids will destroy anyway.  Just happy.  No money for decorating splurges right now and not a lot of time to be overly creative and do things on the cheap or even to dream them up, so this totally works with the added bonus of now having seating downstairs for our whole family plus.  Woot!

22 Weeks

Edit:  In retrospect, it looks like I have my daughter swaddled all weirdly in below pics.  Actually, she fell asleep holding my skirt and that's how she ended up.  My fashion sense is lacking...but not that badly.

Oh, this girl hates hot weather!  Parks, swim lessons...you name it and if it's above 90 she won't like it.  She does, however, act a good sport at nearly all times.

Gone are the days of nursing being her whole world.  She wants to see and interact with everyone, see where sounds and lights are coming from and so forth.  She had green eyes today, not sure if it was what she was wearing or what exactly.

 Little Lady also let Kristi, my secretary, take care of her the whole 2 hours of primary.  I'm so thankful for Kristi, who said she actually enjoys it.

Post exhausted nap:

21 Weeks Old

This stage of my motherhood feels weird, wanting to freeze all the perfectly endearing parts of my children, yet wanting all those annoying characteristics to be grown out of.  Can't have one without the other though, and time goes by so quickly I can hardly catch my breath.

What has the adorable Daphne been up to?  Not a lot of this during the day.  Me:  "Please, Little Girl, sleep for just an hour or 2 so that I can clean and maybe (maybe, maybe, maybe) someday have a hobby other than cooking and reading."  Daphne:  "No way, Jose!"  Once I do get her to sleep (2 hours after I wanted her to sleep, thus making me work late EVERY SINGLE NIGHT), she sleep very, very well for her age or any age, I suppose.  She is also sweet, happy and patient in the morning when she wakes up.  Aside from sleep, she is working the rolling over thing a bit more.  Drooling check.  But the best thing this week was hearing her laugh and laugh at her dad.  You can tell she is starting to think he is someone kind of cool.  Lily helps a lot with Daphne-I admire that she gets that opportunity.  As I told Lily, I was so scared of babies until we had her.  I had probably changed 6 diapers in my entire life before being a mom.  Lily knows what to do in a lot of situations with a lot of different ages of children.  Now if I could get her to be more gentle with her brothers and stop extracting slave labor in exchange for Pokemon cards.

Working this Fourth was hard.  The whole weekend was pretty fun for all, but I had to work at the most inconvenient times and Daphne just wanted her mommy.  Can you blame her?  I'm so fun!!!

Very, very happy that Lucas worked super hard for a couple hours on Shawn's room.  That kid drags out every toy (nay, I say every item) in the house that he can get his cute grubby little hands on, and he never puts any of it away, ever.  Bless his heart.  So after me letting the kids be bribed or pressed to do a half-hearted job for the last few months, Lucas worked his magic.  (I forget about his magic sometimes).  Now there are no more near deadly eggshell walks on toys.  It's safe in there!  Also, Lots of great food means SO MANY DISHES a girl could cry whenever she walks in the kitchen but Lucas bailed me out there while I dried.  Ah, love, it means a lot of different things than you think when you start out.

My upcoming diabolical plans?  

Well, 8-year-old Matt gets to step it up and take on a bathroom cleaning once a week.  I'm going to find some gentler cleaning solutions just so he doesn't have an asthma attack as an excuse to not get the job done (I say that lovingly, not maliciously).  Speaking of which, that little dude has totally stopped having as many breathing problems this summer since we invested in an air purifier last week.  So happy!  It feels horrible as a parent to know your kid is struggling just to breathe and you have no idea how to make it all better.  

Other plans include ACTUALLY GETTING SOME ME/ONE-ON-ONE TIME (granted, with kids swarming around because there is no other time-I shall just set boundaries) so that I can sew with Lily, actually do a little decorating on the seriously, seriously side, organize photos, make baby albums (albeit it simple) for some children besides Lily (I know, I know.  And I am so ashamed.  Maybe you are thinking I had no business making more babies if I couldn't even manage to make them baby albums.  You'd be wrong, but you might think it.)   I also want to hit the math facts/counting hard-maybe in a group session because again, 1-on-1?  Fo' get 'bout it.  And finally I want to take some writing time (together because see above) as I want my kids to know how to do it, improve it, get good at it, and enjoy it.  

OOh, Ooh, and even though I already said finally...deep breath:  Lastly, I want Ben to get speech practice with ME, LUCAS, LILY, and MATT every day in short spurts.  I feel like if we hit it hard we can really help that guy make a little progress.  AND service is so important.  When you serve others, you learn to love them more and more, and my little Ben needs lots of love from his family.

Three Things Thursday

I LOVE ARCTIC CIRCLE AND THEIR 50-cent CONES.  Let's just say I've been there multiple times this roasty toasty week.

Daphne laughed and laughed at her daddy yesterday.  I am trying so hard to get that laugh recorded, but she knows my plans, I think.  That little bugaboo will not laugh for me...maybe a little 1-second chuckle but that is all.

We have a houseful of psyched for Fourth of July people 'round here.