Photo challange: Fireworks

This is my first attempt to take part in one of my friend's photo challenges, and my first attempt to post multiple pics to a blog entry, so bear with me...

My dear friend Jess challenged us to to post pictures about fireworks this week. Ours were pretty lame and never left the ground, however the kids still liked them, as you can see by their faces.

They're holding glass jars because before the "show" they were trying to catch fireflies. Honestly that was probably more fun than the fireworks, but at least they were sweet enough not to say so.

Just checkin in

I used to write these "Just checking in" posts on MM fairly regularly, to keep my friends caught up on the daily stuff going on in my life, and I figured I'd continue the trend here. As I'm not in the mood for a lot of verbiage (shocking I know) I thought I'd give you just a bulleted list today:

* Yesterday was my birthday, nothing special happened, although I did enjoy a nice surprise today when I dropped my kid's off at my best friend here in town's house and she had a cake and mini-party ready for me. Thanks D, that was so sweet!

* School is going the same as always. Busy, lots of projects to work on and not enough time to do them. I'm currently working on a research proposal to study the usefulness of information literacy programs in technical college settings, an essay on a controversial topic in collection development (I've yet to pick my topic) and generally trying to catch up on readings and quizzes as I'm a few weeks behind...

* The kids are over summer vacation, or at least they are over being with each other 24/7. They are constantly fighting and screaming at each other, and Fiona has a major breakdown at least 3 times a day. When does school start?

* On the plus side, Fiona is back in gymnastics and doing great, and I found a new class for Saskia called "Cheernastics". It's gymnastics with a little bit of cheer thrown in. Since cheerleading is the one sport that she is interested in, this seems like a good way to trick her into doing the workout she'll need in order to gain the strength necessary to one day be a cheerleader.

* That's about it. For the weekend we have no big plans, just grill something and maybe hang out at the park for a bit.

Wishing all of you a great 4th of July weekend, love and hugs, C.

Mother's Day

My Mother's Day was mostly lovely. The kids have been itching with anticipation all week. I suppose that is a benefit to them being young, I know in another 5 years they won't give a damn about Mother's Day. But for now, it's right up there with Christmas, except all about Mama.



My dear husband and adorable kids let me sleep in this morning, then brought me breakfast in bed. I got my presents from the girls; lots of homemade cards, a pin cushion that Saskia made me at school, marigolds for my garden, a teddy bear which Saskia bought me when rollerskating INSTEAD OF getting an ice cream cone (which is what the money was for, the darling) and a wooden flower with a picture of Fiona in the middle which she made at preschool. The Paul lugged in his present to me, a patio chair so that I can sit outside and work while the girls play over the summer. As dorky as that sounds, it was really nice. We have no patio furniture and I've been pining for something so that I can let them play outside, as I'm too paranoid to let them out by themselves, yet too busy to stay out for long with them.



Then I spent an hour lounging in bed, drinking coffee and watching America's Next Top Model reruns. At noon I finally turned on my laptop and phone, only to be surprised by another wonderful present, a gift certificate to L'Esprit from my dear friend Cristina, aka HomeSlice! I was in shock, it was such a sweet, considerate thing to do. Thanks again Homey! I have no idea what I have done to earn such fabulous friends as I've made here on MM, but I am so thankful for each and every one of you!



After some time bumming around the Net and MM I made myself get down to business, which was homework. My to-do list by Tuesday: take 2 quizes, write a 2 page paper, and do research for 4 projects. This was the frustrating part of my day. I spent about 3 hours on the research for the first project and came away with little of value. Switched to project 2, found zilch. Took a break, did laundry, and came back to take the 2 online quizes. Did well on those, yay! Had dinner (which DH cooked, because techinically I wasn't supposed to be working today, HA!), gave the kids a bath, rocked my baby in the rocking chair (I can't believe she'll be four on Wednesday!) read to the girls and took them to bed. Got up again and wrote the paper. And here I am. I'm content with the work I did, bummed that I didn't spend more quality time with my kids on this Mother's Day, and full of love for the two little bundles of joy I brought into this world.

She's the best friend ever

Homeslice, I love you! YOu are an awesome friend, a wonderful supporter and a lovely human being. I have always known this, and now thanks to your generosity my children do too!

You see, yesterday a package arrived in the mail for the girls. We opened it to find this gorgeous bag:



Saskia read the card to us,


which says "Happy Spring, Fiona and Saskia! I hope I get to meet you someday- your mamma rocks! Love Homeslice" Awww, you rock too Homey!

Then they dug into the package



The shirts are so beautiful! The girls absolutely loved them and put them on right away. Of course, Fiona spilled something on hers within five minutes and had to take it off again, but no worries, the stains washed right out. :) Needless to say everyone here is thrilled with their gifts.



I don't know if you can tell, but the patch has their names on it! So cute!

THANK YOU
HOMESLICE!

Baby Love

A post I saw tonight about babywearing got me feeling very nostalgic for when my girls were little, so I thought I'd share a few baby pictures with you.



T My first baby in the hospital right after she was born

Baby wearing

Big sister (my step-daughter) and baby #1

Mama and baby #1

Baby #2 fresh home from the hospital

More sister love

And all three sisters together

Mama with baby #2

That's just a taste of our baby pics. For some reason I can't find a lot of my favorite ones, that's the problem with digital pictures isn't it? Change computers, reorganize files and suddenly you can't find stuff... Next week I plan to journal about my step-daughter and give you some more sisterly love pictures. Until then, I hope you enjoy my little photographic trip down memory lane!

Sunday update

For some reason I often feel the need to journal on a Sunday evening. Not sure why. Often I don't even have anything terribly interesting to say, like tonight...

I spent the weekend at home with my girls mostly. DH had to work all day Saturday. We tried to catch up on a little housework, laundry, etc. Not much got done.

Today the girls and I went to church to deliver GS cookies. We probably wouldn't have gone otherwise, it was so icy! We SKATED across the parking lot! Seriously, all 3 of us were wearing horribly impractical, high-heeled cowgirl boots and we nearly fell on our butts several times trying to get to the front doors. Of course, half our recipients weren't there... but it was a great service. We had a story-teller come and she told the most interesting Native American tales and sang some African-American spirituals. It was very relaxing and fun.

I spent the rest of the day catching up on one of my classes, and I will spend all of tomorrow catching up on the other class.

The girls are on winter break from school and I am considering taking them to Jungle Java or some other horrible place to keep them entertained so that I can study. The problem with that (besides the NOISE) is I am always mega paranoid at those places that someone will try to kidnap one of my girls, so I end up spending the whole time watching them like a hawk. Not exactly productive.

As for the other happenings in my life, the job thing, GS and so on, I am taking a page from a friend and refusing to think about them for the moment. One thing at a time, and right now school is at the top of the list. Once I make a decision I will be sure to let you know!

Have a great week my friends! XO

Three things I want to remember about my kids

1. They are precious gifts and I need to appriciate them more!!!!

2. They are unique and important individuals with a purpose in life. One of my purposes is to help them fullfill theirs.

3. They are sensitive, they "wear their hearts on their sleeves" as one friend put it. Therefore I need to be more thoughtful and less abrupt in how I deal with them.

I am blessed

Despite my moaning and complaining occasionally about my kids, my life, my stress I have to stop every now and then and remind myself to count my blessings.

I have two smart, well behaved, healthy beautiful children who teach me new things and bring me joy every day.

I have a supportive, loving husband.

I love my job.

I get to expand my mind and my knowledge regularly by attending graduate school.

I have wonderful, supportive parents.

I have kind and interesting friends.

I have a roof over my head, clothes on my body and food on my table.

All my loved ones are healthy.

I have a caring UU community to act as my sanctuary when the greater world gets to be too much.

...I'm sure I have many more blessings, theses are just the ones that come to mind right now. I hope I don't sound like I'm bragging. I just had one of those moments where I looked at my child and recognized how special she is and how lucky I am to have her (and her sister) in my life; and I had to stop and pay homage to her and to the wonder that is life!

why we co-sleep

Okay, I promised to write this journal a while ago but I've been putting it off. I wanted to find the perfect words, but that's not going to happen. So I'll just give it my best.

I began co-sleeping immediately with my first born. She was a "high-needs" baby. She needed lots of holding and LOTS of breastfeeding. At that time I hadn't read any parenting books, no one had told me what I was SUPPOSED to be doing. I just went with my gut and tried my best to meet my baby's needs. And what she needed was love, comfort and ME!

Over time I found that the best, most peaceful way for us all to get some sleep was for my baby to be in my bed. Most of the time when she woke up to nurse I would latch her on and go straight back to sleep. Much more preferable to me than getting up and sitting somewhere with her.

Fast forward 18 months. At this point we slowly transitioned DD1 into her own bed. It took about 6 months, but we got to the point where she was sleeping all alone. Then DD2 came along. At the time, DH was working in another country, and I was all alone with a toddler and a newborn. It was just easier for me to have both children in my bed at night, so DD1 moved back into our room.

Since then we have cycled through phases where both kids slept with us, one kid slept with us, or both kids slept alone. We "go with the flow" and whatever is needed AT THE TIME is what we do. Right now we are back to having both girls in our bed. For various reasons they NEED this right now. And I have to say, when I come home form a long night at work and crawl in between those two precious angels it is the best feeling in the world. I whisper to them I love them, hold their little hands and feel that overwhelming love wash over me.

So, why do we co-sleep? Because it is good for our children. Because it improves our family bond. Because it has helped my girls learn to care for and nurture each other. (Honestly I have never seen two more loving and empathetic children than mine (mother's pride aside!) and I believe that our years of sacrifice, nurturing and parenting has helped shaped these characteristics in them.) Because, in the end, it's what works for us.

a little disappointed

So I'm a little disappointed with my daughter's Halloween costumes this year. For once, both of them picked something to be other than a Disney Princess. My little one wanted to be Alice, from Alice in Wonderland and the eldest wanted to be a gypsy. I found an Alice costume at the Disney store, but it was $40! We are really short on money right now and that is just too much. I DON'T have time to make something this year either.

So DH found an ad last night in the paper for a Halloween store with costumes on sale. I let the girls look at it and pick what costumes they liked. Even though I had been planning on pulling together a gypsy costume myself, once DD1 saw the store costumes of course she wanted one too. So we ended up with... Tinkerbell and Cinderella. Great, how original. :(

I know, I'm being silly right? They are happy and that's what counts. But I was really looking forward to something a little original this year.... Kick me if you think I'm being stupid. :)