February Catch-up

As I was clicking through the pictures I took for February I realized that I had a lot of stories I haven't shared yet - as well as just a bunch of random but fun pictures.  So I decided I'd do a little catch up post for the month of February...only it turned into a huge post as the number of pictures that needed to be shared continued to grow. I'm apologizing in advance for the size of this post and hope that you will all forgive me. So without further ado here are some of the fun things we did this last month. (Note to those who follow my other blog - there are some repeats here but I wanted to make sure my general audience got a chance to see them too.)

Whilst making something Emmuska thought it would be a great idea to share the lemon juice with Samuel who was pretty excited by the idea. (I'm not exactly sure but I'm guessing something about a round object with a round pointed spot that is darker than the rest might of reminded him have something else he's pretty fond of...but that's just a guess) He enjoyed playing with it and as it turned out increasing his physical dexterity by grasping it with his little monkey feet. The girls and I were impressed enough to make this well worth the effort of doing it several times.

We all spent a bit of time playing on the floor this month (what can I say...little guy is pretty persuasive...) The bond between these three siblings is so much fun to watch. (More on that later.) They love spending time together - and of course anywhere the three of them are I have to be too for the sake of getting some good shots...like this one:

Libster really wanted her picture taken. I love that it doesn't deter Emmuska who still has her beautiful smile there in the background.

I finally got around to picking up this roll of paper from the newspaper printing office this month. Apparently this is considered an end and is just not enough to print on...whatever I'm not complaining as it cost me all of five dollars and we have already used tons of paper for projects like this:

 Yeah I'll just roll out a huge cut of paper (usually about as big as Liberty at least...sometimes as big as Emmuska) and let the girls go crazy with it.  We've done this quite a bit and have not even made a dent in our roll.  Seriously best five dollars spent this month. Anyhow I love the ballerina Emmuska made. She used some leftover hair I had cut out for a paper doll project, drew the dress (don't you love the pattern?) and glued a bead on for her ring. This picture makes me smile every time I see it. And once again I'm thankful for the over abundance of craft things I have on hand for moments like these.

Speaking of things crafty we couldn't overlook Valentines. Emmuska was so excited about Love Day that she had to make some (read many) cards. Out came the ribbon, stickers, markers and glue. Liberty had fun too but you could really see the wheels turning as Emmuska put these together. She even did a fancy little number where she would punch a couple of holes, thread some ribbon through them then tape down the ribbon. However since I wasn't on the ball enough all the Valentines were handed out at church to friends of all ages rather than making their way to their intended relatives across the country. I would like to tell you however that Emmuska named many of you individually as the preferred recipients of her creative works.

I also had to laugh at the pictures that Emmuska drew for her Valentines. They included (but definitely were not limited too...) vegetables, spiders, clouds, birds, books and occasionally hearts. Honestly there where many other things she drew too...I took to writing down what each picture was on the card - unfortunately she gave all the cards away so that doesn't really help me here. You will have to believe me when I say outside of the box is a very mild way of putting the choice of imagery she chose to represent the day.

February also saw Mycal and my anniversary. Because Mycal is in the middle of a training cycle he's been very busy so I knew the best present I could give him was a fully prepared date.  So as soon as I struck upon this marvelous idea I arranged a baby sitter and asked Mycal where he wanted to eat. I assumed he would want to go someplace in town which meant Mexican but wasn't too surprised to hear he wanted Thai. We'd both been dying for some Thai food so this was great. We found a place a little over an hour away and enjoyed a lovely drive there, really enjoyed an incredible meal (probably the best Thai we've had yet) ran a few errands and then drove back all the while listening to the playlist Mycal made for me (it's a bunch of songs he'd noticed lift my spirits - thus the title 'Songs that Make Steph Happy' I love it and have listened to it more than I'll admit). It was great being able to enjoy conversations without the fear of our sentences (thoughts...) being interrupted by some new child dilemma. And there you have what qualifies as blissful for us. ;)

Making the whole Thai experience even better was the scanning menu and coming across plate number 33. Now I thought it was probably some curry containing large orange squash but wasn't positive - after all it could be some word in Thai possibly meaning octopus liver (not high on my 'to try' list right now).  Turns out it is indeed your garden variety Cinderella squash which sealed the deal. I ordered the dish immediately. It was incredible. I won't make your mouth water too much by going into the details but I will say I need to learn how to make something like this at home.

 

After our anniversary was Valentine's Day - in honor of which we have a picture of the guy who will someday make some lucky gal's Valentine's Day utterly lovely and sadly many others' day sad because they aren't with him. Have to admit I feel badly about bringing someone that could potentially cause so many tears into the world but it's not really our fault there's only one of him.

And then you have my gorgeous girls - so full of life and fun. Here they are cutting a rug - though I really couldn't tell you how Liberty is accomplishing that end with her hands...funny girl.  I just love watching them when they get into something like this.

Samuel was a little bit of thumb sucker throughout January and February (hasn't really done it so far this month...) and wasn't fond of a pacifier in replacement. This was a source of distress for a few friends who remembered their days as a thumb sucking child. I've never really had a thumb sucker (Muska liked her pacifier until she cut teeth and Liberty would settle for nothing less than my breast...) and occasionally get a little distressed by possible implications.  I was thinking about this while rocking him to sleep once when I looked down and saw the picture above and suddenly it was hard to get worked up about anything he did. He was just so precious and innocent. I know he will make choices that will be hard for me to understand or accept - that will even make me sad but it's hard to think about those things right now. And I just keep praying that I can be the kind of parent he needs.

And then you have Emmuska. I could spend countless words trying to sum up her character - but there really isn't anyway. She's just too many things. Independent, photogenic, helpful, stubborn, determined, understanding...what would be the word for somebody convinced they are fifteen years older than they are? Yeah she's that too. Never a dull moment with this girl. And once again I pray for wisdom, strength and courage to be the mom this girly needs.

Never fear. I'm not about to leave Liberty out of this little introspective moment.  The above picture was taken one night when I just wasn't doing anything quite right. For some reason I just couldn't figure out what it was she wanted and needed.  In utter desperation she turned to turned to her source of solace (at least for this day...) her exercise mat.  This poor girl - she tries so hard to tell us what she wants or needs and far too often we just don't get it. Especially frustrating for her since she likes things to be just so. Misunderstood holds true for this little girl on a number of levels but she keeps on trying.  On an exciting note Liberty has decided that nursery isn't so bad and has been going lately - even staying throughout all the meetings. (A huge step as she has been going to class with me since August when the nursery leaders were changed. Each week I would ask her if she wanted to go to Nursery or to class with me and without exception she would choose class and then sit through the next two hours with me so this has been exciting. Hopefully as much for her as for me as now she gets to enjoy singing time, snack time, play time...) She's a great girl and we are blessed to have her in our family.

Which brings me to sibling relationships.

These kids love each other. A lot. The girls love holding and helping with Samuel.

They love telling him stories, playing games with him, watching over him and making him laugh - by whatever means necessary.

And he just eats it all up. He loves every second. Not that he doesn't reward the effort. He has special laughs and smiles that make the girls hard work all worthwhile.

On a completely different note...okay there is no explanation for this picture. In fact I was a little surprised by it when I was going through pictures today. All I can say is I'm not too surprised I have it.

Okay its official we've entered the random part of this blog post. Here we have Emmuska in her standard Damsel in Distress routine - yelling out for help and all. Because it was pretty apparent that her mother wasn't going to help her Liberty ran back there to help her sister. Heart of gold I'll tell you what.

And while we are in this particular corner of the house I thought I share Emmuska's second bedroom with you. Yes this is actually the little nook by the front door but for some reason Emmuska likes to duck back here to change in and out of her pajamas (note the pile of cloths). I've no idea why I just know my odds of stumbling across some panties or any other piece of clothing are pretty good.

Liberty helping me with a stamping project at 2:30 a.m. - because rather than help her fall back asleep I put her to work. (Actually she really wanted to stamp like I was...which is why I stamp at 2:30 in the morning...)

Because I had to capture the burgeoning fashion sense in our family. (Emmuska not Liberty...I picked out Liberty's outfit.)

Emmuska telling how disgusting it would be if babies peed or pooped while they were in mommies tummies which is why it's a good thing there is a cord between mommy and baby. Of course once the camera came out she had to strike a pose:

Yeah she loves the camera. (And it loves her.)

The following are of the girls giving their stuffed animals piggy (and bear) back rides. This was about the most exciting way we could spend a Friday afternoon.

I'm telling you its pretty amazing the house is still standing after this event. They were so funny tromping around that I could barely take any decent shots.

And then you have this shot...I have no idea why Emmuska has this expression on her face. I think she was thinking about something (because giving a stuffed pig a ride does require a lot of concentration) but couldn't tell you what. This picture just cracks me up every time I look at it. I think it's because of the pig peering over her shoulder.

And then we have this little thing - we'll call it 'untitled marshmallow sculpture 1' otherwise known as 'what I would spend a good portion of my time doing if I didn't have three kids, two dogs, an intense amount of laundry, the insatiable need to make new foods and take pictures of just about everything while I'm at it'. I think it's missing something...what do you think?

And we will close with this picture of Small Fry....or rather Hungry Hippo since he is currently going through a growth spurt complete with the need for food almost non-stop. (Yeah I'm practically responsible for feeding Mycal's son single handedly - some of you probably have a pretty good idea how much food that takes...)

Thanks for sticking with me through this post. Without a doubt you are a trooper. Hope you enjoyed this not so little look into our house - don't worry I'm sure we will be doing this again soon. ;)

Tidbits

Just a couple of things for the last couple of days weeks (this post has taken me an absured amount of time to fisnish...)

So I went grocery shopping on Thursday. My practice is to keep a running list on the board in my kitchen of things we need. I have the eternal goal of remembering to transfer the list from my white board to a notebook or something I can take with me to the grocery store...so far I haven't quite managed it but that hasn't deterred me from hoping that someday I might succeed in that endeavor.  In the meantime when I get home from grocery shopping I rub off all the things that I remembered from the list as I put them away - leaving the one to three items I've invariably forgotten on my list. Here's the after shot from this week's outing:

Seriously. Besides having written it on my list (twice) I had had the added reminder of using my last trash bag that very morning so it was very fresh on my mind. If I hadn't been out the door to get groceries when I used my last trash bag I would have written it on the list again. All's well now. I once again can throw my trash away.

Shortly after the grocery incident Emmuska was taking pictures with her camera. She decided she wanted to take alphabet pictures (pictures of items that start with various letters of the alphabet). Naturally she started with 'a' and since our house apparently has a shortage of alligators we had to come up with something else. I thought I had struck on something really good when I said 'Hey we how about art? We have a piece of art. Do you know what art is Muska?' to which Emmuska responded 'Yeah, it's something people do because they like to do it.' And there you have it - art is apparently another word for hobby.

Possibly coming in as the world's youngest back seat driver Emmuska has been extremely helpful in reminding me the rules of vehicular operation. As we were driving down to town on day Emmuska informed me that 'we didn't want to hit the mail boxes...'cause that would be bad.  Look out! There's a mail box! Don't hit it!' Despite a mailbox being one of the things I haven't hit in my years of driving this warning was shouted out for every mail box we passed on the twenty five minute drive down to town. The only respite from mailbox warnings was when she was telling me which direction to go. "Go that way." Kiddo which way? I can't see you because you are behind me." "That way...on the black." "Oh on the black." "Yeah you always want to drive on the black because you don't want to drive on the green grass...that would be bad. Grass isn't for driving on it's for other things but it's bad when you drive on it. Always stay on the black." This point may have been reiterated a time or two more but you get the idea. And this was on a day when I had been driving really well.  You can imagine what it's like when I've made any sort of mistake (hit a bump, come up on a car too fast etc.) Still fear of the never ending lecture from my four year old should I make a mistake keeps me in line way better than the shadowy threat of getting pulled over. So in the long run I thank her.

And finally I thought I'd share this text message I received as it completely made my day: "Right? It's such a pain to add words to my dictionary too! (I'd just mentioned that I wished I could cut and paste words sent to me so I didn't have to type them into my phone's text message dictionary.) Although my dictionary people were snobs and hoighty toighty. I know this because they have words like totalitarianism and obsequious but not ouch, snobs or hoighty toighty :)"  *For the record my dear texting buddy Microsoft word doesn't consider hoighty toighty a word either...sorry.