I added the 23rd Psalm to this image of Julia for Kate Mcrae's Curls for Kate site, but I can't help but post it here for Stellan too. So many of us are praying for Stellan, his family, and his doctors - they need it now more than ever before.
This portion was written back in February.
Everyone says that childhood flies by. In an attempt to freeze time or at least capture a slice of time, I spent a few days in January looking at my children and the things associated with their lives at this stage that won't always be that way. Before I know it, it will be a real bus that takes them to school, not just Sam's toy bus that he's been obsessed with lately.
I hadn't taken the time to get all the photos in order until today. Brittany asked for ideas for a blogging carnival and I immediately thought of this post. Now that it's been almost a year since I started this and some of these little things aren't part of our lives anymore. They might not be the most interesting photographs, but for me when I look at them I'm instantly transported to the that time in our lives. They are the little things that make up our days and freeze the kids developmental stage for a moment.
Thomas toothbrushes...
Stuffed animals in their bedrooms...
Art projects from school
Julia's hand in mine.
It's now been so long since I made this post that the original link is gone. Here's another one that talks about not taking the little things we get to do with our kids for granted. (It was written while Tricia was waiting for a new set of lungs. Click on Tricia's name to read the comments and see what other mom's had to say to Tricia.)
Julia, doing whatever Mommy does.
Their first pet, Conor, is getting older. He is someone we definitely take for granted. Poor puppy.
She'll be blogging for herself soon enough and won't be asking me to read to her.
They'll be driving real cars (gulp) in real snow (double gulp) instead of Matchbox cars in shaving cream.
Asking to be picked up....
Shoveling for the fun of it....
Their lives will get busier and will require a more elaborate calendar than this.
The kids won't be entertained for hours by a blanket, their daddy, and a flashlight.
Before I know it the diapers a thing of the past.
Their taste in music and movies will change, they won't need to sit on his knees at the table, and the little plastic cup by their bedsides will be a thing of the past....
This eye sore will be gone...
Julia will want to pick out her own clothes some day. Until then I will dress her in adorable hand-me-downs.
She won't always have to crawl down the stairs backwards to get down them safely.
Her feet will reach the foot rest some day and then some.
The fingerprints on the patio door will get higher and higher and someday, disappear entirely.
My kids won't always live at home.
But while they are hear I will do my best to make the most of every moment.
During the summer (when these pics were taken) we spent part of Mondays making bread in an effort to eat healthier and save money.
I wish I could say I kept up with that tradition, but alas, I've returned to buying bread from the store. (We still make these muffins though.) Without any good way to store the loaves they were getting moldy too fast and I've yet to figure out a way to slice the bread so I can use it for sandwiches. It probably has something to do with the recipe I use, but I don't have a bread board either so I can't use a recipe that requires kneading. Does anyone have a good sandwich friendly no-knead recipe?
It was fun while it lasted and I think the kids got a lot out of it.
They practiced taking turns.
They worked on motor skills when they dumped the ingredients.
They learned that you have to 
work for what you want.
They practiced their math skills.
They learned to be patient.
They learned that things you make yourselves always taste better.
If you are new to my blog this post also talks about why we made our own bread and the cookbook that has inspired me.
I'm not the only one embracing babywearing* during International Babywearing Week.
In the last two weeks Julia's dolls and stuffed animals have benefited from her emerging mothering instincts.
She pats them on the bottom, covers them with blankets (hankies), and sways back and forth. She also cooks them meals in the play kitchen. It was just about this age that Sam's love of trucks, trains, construction vehicles etc. took off. It is so sweet to see where their interests develop.
When I was a child I was always playing "House". Either with my sisters, my cabbage patch kids, my My Little Ponies, or with my LittlePeople. How fun it will be to do it all over again with my daughter.
* There are companies that sell toy slings, but a simple dishcloth does the trick at our house.
That's all that separates my 2 year old from my 4 year old.
One and a half pounds.
Sam (with shoes on): 38 pounds.
Julia (without shoes on): 36.5 pounds.
No wonder my arms feel like jelly after carrying them at the same time!
Julia's latest word isn't really a word at all, but the slang word I apparently use quite a bit.
This morning on the way home from dropping Sam off at school...
"Julia, would you like to watch Winnie the Pooh when we get home?"
"YEP!"
Winnie the Pooh it is then.
Steph over at Adventures in Babywearing has been sharing sweet and heartfelt posts about her life as the mother of 4. I found her blog when I was a new babywearer two years ago. I didn't wear Sam, but I'm making up for lost time with Julia. I put her in my Kangaroo Korner sling the day she got home from the hospital.
(This photo was taken at the Minnesota State Fair)
(I started this slide show a year ago with photos from my other computer and never got around to finishing it.)
Today is a good a day as any to talk about the heating issues we've been dealing with. When else could I throw out the following info?
Our house was not 80 degrees on Saturday afternoon.
It didn't get that hot despite having 6 windows open.
We didn't have to bother our landlord on a weekend.
We didn't have to turn off our heat even though it was in the 20's outside.
We don't have to wait three days for the replacement part to be shipped.
It is not 52 degrees in the house when we wake up in the mornings.
(We can turn the heat on for a couple hours at a time but then have to turn it off or the radiators will overheat.)
We escaped the hot temps in our house on Saturday by dropping the kids off at Grandma and Grandpa's and went out on a date. These things did not happen while we were out:
I did not drag my hubby into BabyGap just so I could see in person the cute outfits Brittany was talking about in this post.
I wasn't subjected to 5 minutes of profanity while I waited in line to use the restroom at Macy's. The mother who used the f-word every other word did not have a 6 year old in the restroom with her. She didn't allow her daughter to cut in front of me in line. That same mom didn't say the following, "What's taking so long? Is someone pooping?"
I did not spend those 5 agonizing minutes praying for the well being of that six year old.
We did not spend the first hour of our date just trying to find restrooms at the mall. What's the deal with department stores not having both restrooms in the same place????
We were not sent on a wild goose chase before we left the mall when the sign for the restrooms sent us up one floor only to find out that the men's restroom was located two floors down from the women's.
We were not completely annoyed, frustrated, and mad about restrooms. Nope. Not us.
This is not the second time I've written about bathrooms this week. That's plain gross.
I was not excited to find The Flight of the Navigator at the movie store. Who gets excited about cheesy kid movies made in the 80's? Not me!
Other things I didn't do this week:
I didn't let my kids have play food straight out of the box from the lady I bought it from on Craigslist. I washed and sanitized it all first. Since it's so tempting for them to put their lips on it I made sure it was all germ free first. I wasn't too lazy to avoid getting them sick.
I did not go out to lock the gate twice....in my robe. (I was wearing other clothes too, but the robe offered extra warmth in the cold, cold night.)
Julia didn't come downstairs after her nap wearing a dress, tights, pajama pants, and one sock. Not my little fashion diva.
I have not been treating a yeast infection as if it were diaper rash. Nope not me. I didn't let my poor baby girl suffer all week when the diaper cream didn't work. I took her in to see the right away. Not 6 days later.
I did not turn around and sell a LittleTikes Vanity for more than twice what I paid for it. The lady who bought it didn't live a quarter mile from our old house. The world isn't that small.
Brian did not have to spend an extra hour in the car yesterday driving home to retrieve my work stuff that I forgot to bring to church with me. oops.
We did not sit together as a family in church for the first time in six months. The suckers suggested by my nice readers didn't work like a charm.
I did not lose my cell phone again. It didn't ruin my whole Sunday afternoon. I did not find it in the yard 30 seconds after sending up a prayer for help. (I had dropped a receipt and when I bent down to pick it up the phone must have fallen out of my pocket.)
We didn't revel in warm temps at the apple orchard, splash in rain puddles, and build snowmen and go sledding all in the same week. Not here in Minnesota!
What did you not do this week? Join the fun at mycharmingkids.net
Freedom - I went downstairs to let the cat out and feed him his breakfast this morning an could not find him anywhere. Brian searched. I searched. I searched again. My mind started racing through all the senarios...was there poison in the basement that we didn't know about? Is there a hole somewhere that he got out through (would help explain the mice getting in!), was he stuck somewhere? Finally I went outside and sure enough, there was the cat, trotting up to the front door to get his breakfast.
Fresh Air - We have radiator heat in this house and so far it had been working just fine. I'm bracing myself for the day our built in china cabinet doubles as a freezer. Until then we are experiencing the opposite problem - it's flippin' HOT in here! Two mornings in a row we've woken up in hot, stuffy rooms. The termostat is set at 67, but it is 76 in here. I have always struggled to breath in hot air. Maybe there's a nurse or a doctor out there who could tell me if that's related to my low blood pressure and low pulse (50-55 beats a minute)???
We turned the thermostat WAY down (50) and have a number of windows cracked to reverse the sauna effect.
Free Time - Brian's mom has graciaously accepted our request for a spur of the moment babysitter. After naps we'll drop the kids off at Grandma and Grandpas and head into the 'burbs in search of something fun and free to do. We haven't figured out yet what we want to do with two precious hours of kid-free time. If it's anything like the two hours I spent wandering around Target yesterday (mostly in the toy aisle), it will be filled with talk about the kids, but at least we'll be able to talk in complete sentences and without interuptions. :)
Freaked out - You know all those doors I talked about in our house? Well FOUR of them lead outside. I think our front door is pretty obvious, but the man who was peaking in the door next to the library thought that particular door looked like a good option. I was sitting here at the dining room table blogging away when the dog went balistic. I looked up to see a beared man looking into my house. Talk about freaked out!
I kindly explained to the mailman that he could leave packages by the other door if we weren't home. I hope he got the message.
Here's the rest of the snowman we made this morning.
You can see a close up of the head in
the post below (minus the pine needle hair).
Bearing no hard feelings after his night in the basement,
Houston stayed warm on my shoulders while the kids went sledding.
Both kids, but Julia especially, liked adding snow the snowmen.
Over and over again Julia would get down bend down and pick up snow to add.
Once we pulled out the sleds Sam was done with snowmen. He tried all variations of going down the hill. Feet first, on his belly, and my favorite as a kid - on his knees.
It wasn't really that cold out (I didn't have socks on inside my boots and my toes were plenty warm), but hot chocolate seemed appropriate with snow piling up all around us. I didn't get an argument out of the kids. :) We had a snack and watched Jack Frost (after the part where the dad dies). While it might have been nice to sleep in this morning it was also nice to have the house cleaned, two snowmen built, the sidewalk shoveled, a movie watched, a toy sold on Craigslist, and a meeting with a client all accomplished before lunch.
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