Our Autumn (So Far)

With the huge exception of the week when my parents were visiting, we have had one of the most gorgeous autumns I can remember having in a long time-- it's been warm and dry, and overall just perfect.  (While my parents were here, it rained non-stop.  Naturally.)  And we have been doing all the things one usually does in the fall...

Napping:

(In Daddy's arms, if you're lucky!)

I think Bentley actually took this shot on a Sunday afternoon...  I'm glad no one is taking pictures of me napping!

Buying, carving and decorating pumpkins:

I love the green one, especially.  But really I sort of love all of these...

Visiting Cox Farms:

I got to be a chaperone for Kendra's class field trip to Cox Farms-- here we are on the bus!  I enjoyed myself even more when I realized that the last time we'd been, I was 8 months pregnant with Ryder!

Appreciating the sheep

Learning to milk a cow

She did great!  I would have tried it, but as a nursing mother, it seemed like I already spend too much time on stuff like this...

Enjoying one of the many slides there

Heading home (and sitting with her incredibly whiny, annoying friend)

Dressing up as vigilantes:

Getting caught in the rain:

Looks closely, you can see the water droplets in my hair-- I was completely drenched.

 Trying out our Bavarian dirndl dress:

What a fun present from Grandma and Grandpa's trip to Germany!  Kendra's totally ready for Oktoberfest now!

 Loving on Daddy:

"Don't go to work!  Stay here and play with us!"

Getting haircuts (just the girls):

Isn't she sweet?

Shameless selfie.  I know.

 Enjoying the gorgeous foliage:

These little burning bushes like to hide out among the trees.  They're my favorites.

 Figuring out how to keep the baby warm on cold mornings:

Somewhere in there is my beloved Ergo carrier!

 Visiting the park:

And looking cute in our warm fall clothes:

And of course, celebrating Halloween:

For the ward party, I tried to make Colton look like a Smurf, but it didn't really work.  I used blue corn starch left over from the color run, and it really just isn't meant to be used as make-up.  But on the plus-side, it was okay when he ate it!  But we opted for a different costume for actual Halloween...

The Relief Society's hayride was a big hit

Queen Kendra is perched rather daintily on her hay bale!

And of course, trick-or-treating with our friends, the Konstantys (notice Colton's new costume)

Knocking on doors

 We enjoyed swinging:

Colton slept in a swing for the first six months of his life, but this was taking "swinging" to a whole new level for him!

I like how little his feet are in this picture

And here he just looks so pleased with himself for being a big kid!

And occasionally, we were just plain crazy:

Ryder was actually happy here-- he was excited for Bentley's missing tooth.  But it was early and he still had bed-head, so he really just looks nuts.  But in a fun way!

I have no explanation for this picture.  Ryder is just weird...

It's been a great fall so far-- now if only this splendid weather can last until-- oh, I don't know-- March?  Then I'd be set!

A Very Long Post About One (Miserable) Little Tooth

It was five years ago when I stood Bentley on the bathroom counter of our apartment to brush his teeth.  He was almost two, and I was proud of myself for successfully giving him his bath, a task I had given up while pregnant with Kendra.  But Craig was over at our newly purchased house, frantically trying to get it livable before we moved in.  So bath time was up to me again.  And it had gone just fine.  Until Bentley took a step backwards off that counter and knocked his mouth against it on his way down.  I held him, still wrapped up in a towel, over the tub to catch the blood, but soon realized that this was upsetting him as much as the fall, so we moved to the changing table so I could get him dressed and resume calming him down.

And that's when I noticed that one of his front teeth was missing.

And that's when I called Craig and begged him to come home and help me out with the mess I'd created.  We drove off to Urgent Care in Falls Church in the middle of the night while my in-laws (who'd been at the house helping Craig) stayed with Kendra.  We got lost.  We wondered, as Bentley oohed and aahed over a passing train if the trip was even necessary.  We were all up way too late.  And the gist of it all was, "Yup, he knocked out his tooth."

This was taken the very next day.  This is gross, but I'm pretty sure that's blood all around his mouth (I didn't want to hurt him more by washing it off)

And that was that.

Halloween just a couple months later, sporting a gap-toothed grin

Or so I thought.  Until a few weeks later, when I was spooning oatmeal into his mouth and saw-- to my horror-- that there was something there on his gums!  And within a few weeks, that tooth had come right back again, although now very crooked.  Natalie's father-in-law, a pediatric dentist, had warned me that this happens frequently.  When you can't find the tooth, it often means that it's simply been slammed back up inside the gums, he explained.  {Cringe}  I'd tried to get x-rays to see if this was the case, but could never succeed in getting Bentley to hold still enough to get a clear picture.  But now we had irrefutable evidence that this had been the case.

And he's been sporting that crooked tooth, evidence of my incompetence, ever since.  I can't even count the number of times that well-meaning people have asked if he's lost a tooth there, as they eye that gap, and I get to explain all over again what happened.  It's been a lot of fun.

But it all ends now.

Because yesterday that darn tooth finally fell out.  My little baby is finally losing teeth.  The normal way.

But that tooth is still keeping us on our toes.  Because Bentley woke up yesterday to find that it wasn't there.  I was afraid he'd swallowed it in his sleep, but then he managed to find it.  I told him to put it in a bowl so we wouldn't lose it.  And then I promptly forgot and tossed it down the sink when I was doing dishes.  But apparently that tooth is even tougher than our garbage disposal, because Craig was forced to fish it back out of the drain.

That tooth is like a bad penny.

I dutifully put it on Bentley's dresser as promised (he was so worried when I couldn't find it, but was really good about going to bed anyway and trusting that I would find it), and then an hour later removed it and replaced it with money, a la Tooth Fairy.  And my plan now is to just throw the thing away, because holding on to an old, dead tooth is gross.  But somehow I ended up slipping it into my dresser drawer.  Just for now.  Because at this point I'm not sure it won't find its way back to us anyway.  But also because it's hard even for me to believe that after all these years, I can finally be rid of this awful little reminder of the dumb things I can do as a parent.  And it's even harder to see how quickly my little boy is turning into a not-so-little boy...

My still sleepy-- but very excited-- Bentley

Little Stick Figures Explain Me So Well

My cousin put this on facebook.  That second stick figure should be me.






This is also how I feel about shrimp and crawfish.  Because, as Dave Barry pointed out, they're all basically giant cockroaches that happen to live underwater.  Nothing about them makes them okay to eat.  I still get creeped out when I remember the time I was eating scrambled eggs on a cruise and realized there were tiny shrimps in there.  They had little black beady eyes

{Shudder.}



Image taken from http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/alternate_universe.png

Nothing New Here

My Mom has been telling me that newborns are nothing more than baby sharks for years now.  She may have even been saying this to me when my youngest sister Rachael was born twenty-some-odd years ago.  So it's not like Colton's ability to put everything into his mouth is strange or unusual or shocking.  If you have ever, once in your life, been around a baby, you've witnessed this phenomenon.

But still. 

When I set Colton down on the bed next to a toy car, and the car gently rolls towards him and he turns his head to see it with his mouth wide open and tongue sticking out, ready to taste this new adventure, I can't help but laugh.  Same thing when I'm trying to snap together this one outfit where the onesie has snaps on the shoulder, and I realize that while I'm busy fiddling with snaps, Colton is eagerly craning his head around, trying to lick my knuckle.

What a nut.  My baby really is just a little shark!

Make that, "A baby shark who is REALLY good at sitting up these days"!

And who is also big enough to ride in the five-point harness shopping carts, rather than sitting in his baby carrier!

Happy Friday

My parents were here visiting off and on this last week, which-- as always-- was a delight.  And, true to form, we took hardly any pictures of it at all.  So you'll just have to take my word for it that they were here, ha!

But during all the craziness and the hanging out and the eating of amazing food, my Mom did manage to snap this picture which I love.  I absolutely love it, even though it's dark and slightly out of focus.  It's become my favorite picture for now:

Pure joy.  Right there.

My Craig is such a wonderful Daddy.

I'm so lucky to have him.

Conversations Through the Door

I finally have Bentley and Kendra willing to sleep at night, so now it's Ryder's turn to fight Mr. Sandman.  He still needs naps, but he doesn't want to take them until around three or so in the afternoon.  Which doesn't work at all, because we have to leave at 3:10 to pick up older kids up from school.  So Ryder's sleeping has been all off.  Sometimes he doesn't nap.  Sometimes he does and I have to wake him up early.  Last week, I put him down for a nap around 3:45, and he slept until midnight.  Oops.  (That time, we gave him a warm bottle of milk which he downed and then continued sleeping until 5:30am!)  You just never know what he's going to do.

And when he's in his room not napping, you also don't know what he might get into (such as, oh, I don't know...  baby powder?).  So life is a bit of an adventure with Ryder these days.

So here are two conversations Craig had with him when he was supposed to be sleeping.

They both began with Ryder knocking on the door and Craig asking him what he wanted.

Ryder: Me want milk.
Craig: No, you can't have milk until morning.  You have to go to sleep right now.
Ryder: Me want tell knock-knock jokes.
Craig: No, it's time to sleep.
Ryder: KNOCK-KNOCK, DADDY!  KNOCK-KNOCK!

Gotta love the insistent joke teller.

And then the other day, as Craig was getting Colton out of his crib and Ryder was supposed to be napping in the next room over:

Ryder (in a rather sing-songy voice): Daddyyyyy?  Daddy, I naked!
{pause for effect, and then the realization hits}
Ryder: Daddy, I cold...

Johnny Depp was so right when he said that toddlers were simply miniature drunks...

Days of Momness

It was Friday afternoon and I was hoping to take a nap.  (I hope to take a nap most days, actually, but Fridays are particularly brutal since Craig typically gets home around 11pm on Thursdays, meaning we don't usually go to bed until after midnight.)  I'd been very productive all morning, putting away clothes that kids had outgrown, and washing and organizing the boxed-up hand-me-downs for my two younger sons.  And now I was ready for a nap.

Unfortunately, Ryder was not cooperating.  I'd put him down and hopped in the shower only to hear him banging on his door the entire time.  As soon as I was reasonably towelled off, I tried tucking him back into bed and hoped for the best.  No dice: he continued to thump around in his room.  But he was fairly happy in there, so I got all cozy in bed, opened my book and figured I could at least enjoy some quiet time, even if it didn't mean sleeping. 

It was while I was reading that I gradually realized that I was smelling baby powder-- one of those realizations where the full implication of it took a moment or two to sink in.  But as soon as it did, I was out of bed in a flash.  Even as I walked the ten feet (maybe?) from my side of the bed to the kids' room, I was filled with dread, and my worst fear was confirmed even before I opened the door: little whisps of baby powder were coming out from under Ryder's door.  Opening the door revealed an entire cloud, and a room absolutely COVERED in baby powder.

This was taken after I'd yanked Ryder out of the room and bathed him.  I didn't want him to see me snapping pictures in case he got the idea that he'd done something good.  You can see his footprints are half him walking and half me dragging him out of the room!

Note that you can hardly see the colored polka dots on the upper left-hand corner of the rug because there was so much powder on it.  There's even piles of it on the rungs of the bunk bed ladder!

So that was my Friday afternoon.  I spent it bathing Ryder and then vacuuming.  And vacuuming some more.  And then mopping.  And then still finding random places speckled with powder that I'd missed.

And their room still smells like baby powder.  But as my brother-in-law Ian pointed out, at least baby powder smells good!  Whatever would I have done if he'd found something stinky to spread all over?

PhotoDynamic Time!

It turns out I have a ton of pictures that haven't made it onto the blog yet. So I'm remedying that now.

Like, right now:

Ryder built a pillow fort and insisted that I put Colton in it with him.

Good times!

Colton napping in my arms at church.  Yes, I took a picture during church.  I am bad to the bone.

Happy Colton, happy Mommy

Apparently this was the first time our kids had seen popcorn being popped somewhere other than inside a microwave.  It was thrilling.

Not a great picture, but there are three deer here, all with pretty impressive antlers.  All in our backyard!

My children hanging out with a penguin.  And I'm not even sure why Bentley is wearing his swimsuit, but you know, why not?  Also, I like that Colton looks very alarmed by this whole set up...

Sleeping Colton, miraculously not waking up as my camera flash goes off.  He still likes to be swaddled, but I always leave that arm out for thumb-sucking purposes.

Except he'll usually work his other arm out of the swaddler, too.  And, in this case, he worked that arm all the way out of his clothes!

The look on his face cracks me up-- he is so smug the way he's sucking on his bottom lip.

This was during Bentley's soccer practice, Kendra & Ryder wandered off to play.  They look like they're lost in the wild or something...

Later, they decided to have fun with the coach's cones...

Nothing like a little toes snack during church...

Bentley got a scooter for his birthday, which he was very excited to ride to school.  (Unfortunately, this meant Mommy had to carry it home from school-,in addition to carrying Colton and pushing Ryder in the stroller.  So scooter riding to school will have to be reserved for special occasions.  But I was glad that Bentley was having fun!)

Ryder and his friend Oscar at the park

It was just an orange kind of day...

Ryder, waiting for Daddy to come home...

Colton is all ready to go shopping!

And I love this: here is Craig dressed up for his school's homecoming week.  The theme that day was "Decades" so Craig is supposed to look like he's come from the 1940s.  I think my man looks good!  And apparently, with the glasses, none of his students recognized him.  Proving once again that Craig is basically the same as Clark Kent.

I wasn't kidding when I said I had a lot of pictures!  But check back in soon-- I've got a good story for you next time!

A New Stage in My Life

I'm officially a soccer mom.  I drive around with my mini-van packed full of children, camping chairs, a stroller, a diaper bag, and a few balls rolling precariously around underfoot.  I try to bring snacks wherever I go (and I pay for it dearly when I forget).  And I feel like I'm always on the go.  It's busy, and it's a pain. 

Before we began, I asked my friend Lenee, who manages to have most of her kids in various sports all the time how she does it.  I liked her answer: You just get through it.  With that in mind, we agreed to take the plunge.  And Bentley loves it.  And Kendra is already talking about how she wants to play soccer next year.  (Actually, upon meeting Bentley's coach and seeing how nice she was, Kendra burst into tears because she wanted to play, too.) 

I have a feeling we'll be doing this for many years to come...

Bentley sporting his new cleats and shin guards before his first practice

Action shot

Bentley throws in a ball while his coach (who we adore) tries to tell him who to throw it to

Happy Colton

And Ryder continues to be weird!

Anyway, we've sure been enjoying perfect weather for it this fall.  And all the kids seem to enjoy tagging along.  I might be able to get on board with this whole soccer thing after all...

Things That Make You Go Hmmmm...

The last three songs Craig purchased on iTunes were "Demons," "Kill Your Heroes," and "Madness."  And in the last few months, the titles of some of his other purchases are, "One More Night," "Gone, Gone, Gone," "Take a Walk," "50 Ways to Say Goodbye," "It's Time," "Just Give Me a Reason," and "Not Your Fault."

I think Craig is planning to leave me.

Or possibly kill me...

Everyday Household Magic

*If you have a walk-in closet, you probably can't relate to this post at all.  And if you tell me how big your closet is, we'll probably never be friends again.  Just sayin'.


My closet.  It's got so many uses.  That rod is packed with clothes hanging on it-- half of them never get worn, but I hold onto them for various reasons.  Some are professional clothes from my teaching days, and you never know when I might decide I need to look like my former alter-ego, my non-stay-at-home-Mom self.  Or they might simply be out of season.  Or, more likely, they're dresses and shirts that do not accommodate a breastfed baby, so they're biding their time until he's weaned.  (I guess that makes the odds that they'll be out of style by then pretty good, but style has never been my strong suit, and I see no reason to start worrying about that now.)  The shelves above that rod are strewn with skirts that I'm sure I'll be able to fit into soon (ha!), sweaters, scarves, and boxes of winter and maternity clothes.  And then there are a few other odds and ends that aren't even clothing at all: purses, backpacks, all the film negatives from my wedding...

But it's the floor of my closet that really gets interesting.  That's where I keep my assortment of slippers-- everything from purple & fuzzy to rainbow & fuzzy, and also a pair with Pikachu on them and a pair with bananas on the toes.  That's also where I tend to throw my workout clothes if I think I can get one more wear out of them before they 're too smelly.  And, of course, you'll find anything that was on the floor of my room that I shoved into my closet in order to quickly clean up or not have to look at the mess any more.  It's where you'll find stuff that my kids put there: sippy cups and toys and blankets (so many blankets...) and anything else they found to play with, and then abandoned on the floor of my closet. 

Because my closet is so much more than just a closet: it's a hiding place, a place to feel alone without going too far away from mommy.  It's a place to sit giggling until it's time to come bursting out and surprise mommy.  It's a place to go when you've got a laundry basket on top of you, turning you into a robot, and you're recharging.  It's a magical place.

But it had also become something of a dump.

So in a fit of energy one day, I cleaned off the floor of my closet.  I managed to make room in a drawer (!) for those workout clothes.  I put all the sippy cups in the sink to be washed and I even put the toys away.  I stacked the slippers on top of their mate so they were both matched and not taking up so much space.

And now I can see the carpet that resides there.  And it's so peaceful and restful and clean seeing the carpet on my closet floor.  I never knew I could love that little square of carpet so much, but every time I see it I feel like a woman who has things put together and organized, so much so that I can leave that patch of my home absolutely devoid of stuff.

It's become my happy place as much as it's always been my children's.  And even clean, it's still magical.

Keepin' it Classy

It took us a couple minutes yesterday to realize that Ryder had managed to go outside looking like this:

 

Wow.  Just, wow...  I'm not sure which is worse-- the utter and complete lack of pants, or the combination of crocs with black socks!?!?!?!?  Or the fact that above his pants-less white legs and diaper, he's sporting a button-down shirt and sweater vest!  The combination just sort of boggles the mind...

One more for the road:

I can't even imagine what the neighbors were thinking.  Especially once we dashed out and proceeded to take pictures before we even corrected the situation...!

Gold Stars

When I said earlier that we were committed to planting a garden next spring, what I really meant is that Craig is committed.  And I fully support him in this commitment.  Because while I do most of the day-to-day grunt work around here-- laundry, cooking and cleaning-- everything else usually falls to Craig.  This means he's in charge of yardwork, home maintenance/improvement projects, and changing lightbulbs.  And killing bugs whenever he's around to do it. (And helping me out with anything else that's going on when he's home.  Craig is a very helpful husband.)

So yes, gardening definitely falls under the "yardwork" category.  And you already saw the lovely garden box he's built.  He and Bentley have been reading Square Foot Gardening together and making lists of everything they'll need and having a nice time getting it all planned.  As part of this process, Craig decided that we needed to start composting.  He figured that in order to make this easy for me, he would set up the compost heap near the house, so I can pretty much just chuck stuff into it from our sliding door.

Craig knows me so well.

So he's built a little cage for the compost heap and now my job whenever I have vegetable peels or whatever is to throw them in there.

And I LOVE IT!

I totally love it.

Who would have thought composting could bring so much joy?

We've been trying to eat healthier, so I've been cooking with a lot more fruits and vegetables, and nothing makes me happier than chopping vegetables for dinner, collecting all the stems and stuff on a plate and then presenting it to the compost pile.  It's a double win-- I'm eating healthy AND helping my garden!

I feel like I am being rewarded with gold stars on my forehead every time I contribute to the compost heap.  Like, if someone walked by and took a look, they would be impressed by what a healthy and environmentally conscientious family we are.

Who would have guessed that I was so easily motivated?  And that I could get so excited about garbage?