This Month in Girls-May 2013

I have been neglecting this monthly themed post, but I am going to do it for May. This month I am going to talk about each kid and what I love about them. :)

With the baby F, I delight in her little face and happy smile. I love how she curls up into my lap when she nurses to sleep. I love her little way of grabbing food off her tray and trying it out with her mouth. Her sisters talk about how she is angry when she tries a new food, because her expression is always a quizzical frown. I love when she can't stop smiling whenever one of her sisters is looking at her and how they make her laugh more than M or I do. I even love how she needs me and how being worn in a sling is all she wants. I love how when her sisters play games with her, she can't stop giggling and then all three are giggling together. I love waking up with her squealing next to me every morning. I am not sure why I disliked co-sleeping so much with the other two, but with F it is really sweet.

For L, she is my sweet 2.5 year old. I love that she is cuddly now that she is older, and will behave in Church if she is able to sit on my lap and be held by me. I love that her favorite breakfast is a piece of bread with butter (we were fighting her for weeks to eat cereal and milk before we discovered this). I wish I could take her to a store without her escaping the cart or screaming to get out, but that is not the two year old way, so I suppose I love the humility of having a screaming child whenever I shop. I love the way she does the Sign of the Cross (it is too random to describe in words) and how she does the "mea culpa" chest pounds perfectly. I love that whenever she talks about the past it always starts with, "Yesterday..." even when the event was weeks ago. I especially love her cheeks; they are so squeezable! I love how she knows just how to torment her big sister, but does it because she loves her. I love that she loves to play with G and wants to participate in all the pre-school activities.

And my first baby, four year old G, I find myself reminiscing about our time when she was the only baby. She was always good at the store, because she had my full attention. We took two naps a day together (or I would just lay next to her with a good book). I think F looks a lot like G as a baby and that must be why I am remembering her babyhood so much. I love that G is becoming more confident in drawing. She draws bodiless people, just heads, faces, and limbs and very detailed flowers; she had a lot of trouble with the fine motor skills when she was a toddler, so I love it whenever she draws or writes anything. I love how she is a good helper (when she chooses), and can clear her own place. I love how she is developing her own ideas and telling us what she thinks, "Sleeping Beauty is quite the story." I love how she memorizes most stories, poems, and songs she hears. I love how she sings to herself whenever she is alone.

I am not sure exactly what changed or when it happened, but I am finally happy again. With my three babies I have gone into a post-partum funk, this last one it was a diagnosed post-partum depression, but besides that where I just do not feel like myself. I am fairly certain it is not a lower level of stress, because this whole moving thing is stressful. It is not the ease of taking care of three kids, because I definitely do not find that easy. But I am focusing on trying to love them and let go of my ideas of how things should be. I am learning greater patience and self-sacrifice. I am so happy I have my sweet girls, and so happy that I am finally able to enjoy them.

Moving, Late Quick Takes- Saturday May 25

M was sad I did not do Quick Takes yesterday, so here I am linking up with Jen late.
 
1. This is what my living room looks like and I am trying to ignore it so it does not drive me nuts:

 2. But then again our toys have never been so organized.

 Bedtime cleanup has been a breeze.

3. On the bright side, moving day is Monday. So maybe we will be able to live in order again soon. It also is not snowing in Minnesota anymore, so that is good. I also have fresh, hand picked, locally grown dandelions daily from my sweet daughters:

They pick only the most exquisite dandelions.

4. My new double-oven/range is at the store and will be delivered on TUESDAY! Hooray! M is going to attempt a self-installation since the installation quote I received yesterday was a little bit insane. Hopefully the youtube videos he watched will suffice since we will not have internet for about a week after we move in. Thus, I will not be around for any posting those days, but hopefully it will not be too warm out to try out my five burners and two ovens...

5. I know I promised pictures of the new house at some point, but here's the thing. No room is entirely complete yet, and I hate to post pictures of an unfinished product. So I will post each room as I put the finishing touches on them. Mostly it is curtains and then rugs that need to be done.

6. Baby-o is working on that first tooth fairly consistently these days, which means naptime trouble and lots of crankiness. However, we also started her on solids and this time I am skipping the purees and doing Baby Led Weaning, which basically is giving the baby finger foods which she can pick up and feed herself. ("Weaning" is what the Brits call feeding babies things besides breastmilk). I tell you it makes baby feeding a lot easier since all I have to do is throw food on her high chair tray. Yesterday she ate three steamed broccoli "trees"and loved them! 

7. M is at his university's graduation today. The house we are renting is adjacent to a house full of seniors apparently. I was explaining to the girls what graduation was and about the robes they wear when a whole group of our neighbors trooped outside with their parents and were taking photographs outside. We have been calling the house next store the "party palace" since they tend to play loud music at night at least once a week. As the girls were looking at the graduates out front I heard G say, "No L, it is called the Party Palace because they play bad music all the time!" I am glad we are instilling a love of good music in our children with orchestral and chant Masses and other good music in the home... :)

With Greater Knowledge Comes Greater Culpability...

I am posting at Truth and Charity today... Check it out!

Seven Quick Takes Friday-May 17

One of the things I am really looking forward to after we move is getting back to a normal schedule, and that means blogging beyond Quick Takes. If it weren't for this link-up at Jen's blog, my blog would be utterly deserted these days. It is a bit insane what we are attempting to do with three kids four and under, but we are managing somehow...and here come the Quick Takes:

1. My parents and sister came to visit Sunday night through Thursday morning, and it is incredible how much can get accomplished with so many adults around. The house is about ready for us to move in! There is another mornings worth of odd jobs and then we will be set.

2. I am going to have to learn how to use the power drill if I am going to get my curtain rods up. I am a bit nervous to try, but I need to do it. Is it allowable to hang curtain rods with a baby in a sling? Maybe we could get the on-the-back position down and then it would be safe...

3. Remember my yellow console table? I did not get it, but I am planning on painting my current free-standing cupboard yellow and taking off the doors and putting in a shoe basket. I also still need to paint the girl's ($20 antique store find) dresser white so it looks presentable. It has been living and being used in their closet this past year, but the new house closet is not big enough. I am saving the painting projects for July. I have a vision of the baby happily napping all morning for several days and the big girls playing nicely in the yard while I paint...uh huh...

4. There is some packing accomplished now, no thanks to me. M did the family room bookshelves, and my sister and mom did started in on the living room and kitchen. Now for the rest... We have a week until the move.

5. Did I mention our new oven? In the many unexpected things about our new house, one of them was several gas leaks in the oven that came with it. It was not caught by the inspection. So rather than repair the oven, we decided to tap into savings and by a new one:

I am for serious. This baby is a gas double oven, with five burners including a middle one for a skillet and two super boil burners. I am really excited to cook with it! It also makes my kitchen three steps closer to my dream kitchen.

What my oven will look like next Thanksgiving. The top has cake because it will be L's birthday.

The catch is that it will not ship until two days after we move in, so this means we will have to do crockpot, foreman grill, charcoal grill, toaster oven cooking for a week or so...

6. We had a fun Mother's Day. M's uncle, aunt, and cousins live on a farm about two hours away in Wisconsin, and we spent the day at their farm. We got to see the new kids, kittens, and chicks and some pregnant cows. The kids had a blast and I got to sit around and eat all day. The best part of the food were grilled veggies made in one of these:

I could eat only veggies for dinner if the were always cooked like that. The were amazing. I am pretty sure the vegetables were zucchini, yellow squash, mushrooms, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, and asparagus. These veggies are a reason to move the gas grill to top of the "extras" list or I will need to figure out how to make the charcoal grill easier for me to use...

7. You know how I said that we were doing well with home schooling lately? Well I think preschool was having a week long vacation due to family visiting. I know the structure helps the kids stay happy, so even though we are packing all next week I am going to try to get some preschool back into our schedule. We did do a little today, however, when we talked about the M-E-N-A-R-D-S on the first store we went to today and the T-A-R-G-E-T on another. "Mommy, Target has two Ts in it!" We did some color work when I sent her to find brown sugar. I am pretty sure picking dandelions and running around the yard count for science and gym class. So maybe we did well with home schooling preschool this week...

Seven Quick Takes Friday--May 10

1. Things have been pretty busy in Spencer-land these days. Hence, why I have been absent from the blogging world. My mind has been filled with the mundane things of cleaning the new house, painting, maintaining the order in the current house, actually doing home school preschool most days (!!), and figuring out what needs to be done before we move into the new house. Hopefully my brain will be able to think of something more interesting than house stuff soon so I can blog. Or I could post house pictures for you all to help me decorate...

2. The new house has daffodils and tulips blooming in the yard! I would post a picture, but I have not had the camera there yet. We also have rabbits living under the shed who are scared to death and hiding whenever we are at the house of two little girls.

3. We have the painting DONE! We did a stairwell, a bathroom, the living room, and two bedrooms. It took two days of just M and I working and a day with help from three friends. It looks pretty good for an amateur paint job and I am happy with the colors.

4. Current project: curtains, blinds, and rods. Ugh...I wish I were a better seamstress. I would make my own except I am worried I will not be able to sew a straight seam (this is fine for children's dresses where you don't see the stitching, but curtains seams are definitely visible). I might just be looking for sales on curtains.

5. I can't decide if I like this table for the kitchen/nook/back door entrance:

 The walls in the kitchen and breakfast nook are gray and I am planning on yellow (and white?) curtains. The cupboards are a light wood and so is the breakfast area furniture. Would a yellow piece "go" with the wooden table and bench? Or would wood look better? I am not sure I want to buy a yellow piece of furniture that we all wonder why I bought it in ten years.

6. L just came up to my computer, opened it and said: "I am going to work on my blog!" The funny thing is L and G both do not know how to use a computer because (when they use screens) it is with the iPad and they go to touch the screen. The keyboard and mouse pad mean nothing to them.

7. I just realized yesterday that G is old enough for Vacation Bible School at out parish. Normally I am not big on them, because they are usually programs made by non-Catholic Christians with an awful music soundtrack. The one they are using is made by Catholics, but it still has the awful music accompaniment (I scouted it out). She also has never been left anywhere (besides a friends house) with people she does not know. Since we are home schooling, I have not dropped her at a preschool.  I think we will try it out and see how she does. Hopefully she won't absolutely flip out. And it will give L and I some good bonding time during the baby's morning nap.

Linking up with Jen at Conversion Diary.

Truth and Charity Post: The Essential Everydayness of Being Christian

There is an everydayness to being a Christian. Most Christians in the history of the Church have been the normal, everyday people. Most of us have not been, nor are going to be canonized Saints, but that does not mean that we are not significant for the Body of Christ. The Church and the Saints exist for the everyday man. Christ in His ministry always cared for the everyday person; He healed, fed, talked to, and preached to the masses that followed Him. We are whom He loves and died for, and because of Him we can be one...Read the rest here...