Family Campout

A couple of weekends ago, Kirk and Anthon were all set to go on a Father and Son's campout but they got rained out, so we had our own little family campout.

We had a fire, and roasted hot dogs (which dripped all over the inside of the fireplace...ugh) and made s'mores.


And pitched a tent. We turned out all the lights and played games and told stories, passing a flashlight around to whoever was doing the telling.
Anthon wasn't thrilled with Tanner crawling all over him.


Then we had family movie night and watched the movie from inside the tent. The kids slept there all night, but Mom and Dad and Tanner enjoyed the comfort of a real bed.

Fun times!

The kids lately

I originally posted this nearly a month ago, but the pictures weren't working...so here it is again.




Tanner is definitely a mamma's boy. It's really sweet. If Kirk's holding him when he's crying, he actually counts down from the second he gives Tanner to me until he stops crying and he rarely gets past 2 or 3. It's almost instantaneous. I'm completely charmed and flattered that I'm so comforting to him, even though it gets a little tiresome sometimes. And he looks at me so adoringly sometimes, that I said to Kirk yesterday that babies are God's gift to mothers of older children. After the daily emotional battle of parenting older children (getting homework done, chores, conflict resolution, sharing toys, etc.), there is nothing better than getting the cuddles and the pure adoration of a baby. It fixes everything.

He's almost 10 months old and he's finally starting to act like he's going to start to crawl. Sometimes I laugh that my 10 month old baby isn't even crawling yet, but then I remember chasing my 8 month old walking Anthon around the house all day and trying to keep everything from complete destruction and I'm grateful. I want him to stay a baby as long as possible, and so far, he's being very obliging. He has taken a few teensy steps with his arms toward a toy or Kirk, so we're making progress. I refuse to encourage it. For the reasons I alluded to already, but also, because as soon as he starts crawling, I'm going to have to be a lot more careful about safety issues. Eventually, he'll crawl regardless of what I do or don't do, and that's the beginning of the end, as far as I'm concerned. So I'm enjoying the remaining days of a relatively stationary baby.
Oh, and he's finally starting to eat food that isn't pure mush. He ate bits of banana yesterday, and he likes the soft part of bread. His favorite is still pears or sweet potatoes.



Erilyn is a lively, sweet, girly little girl. She loves friends, dancing, and anything princess-related. She says the cutest things, has the most amusing sense of logic, and still has the best control of her facial expressions of anyone in our family. She's athletic and feminine at the same time. I've started officially teaching her the letters of the alphabet, and she loves doing her "homework." We usually do it in the morning with some games and crafts, but then we practice writing in the afternoon when Anthon's at the table doing his homework. She loves it.



Anthon is developing some serious problem solving skills. After many long tests, he's been recommended for our district's gifted and talented program. His teacher said she's not surprised. I have mixed feelings about it, but he seems to look forward to the extra work we told him it would entail, so we'll see how it goes. I'm mostly glad he'll be more challenged and mentally stimulated.
He reads like crazy. He brought home The Diary of a Wimpy Kid the other day from his school library, and knowing other kids who'd read it and loved it, I didn't think anything of it at first. Then, later that night, after he'd already read the entire book, he asked me to start over with him and read it out loud. I didn't get very far before I realized it was too old for him: worrying about acne and getting girls to like you is not 1st-grader appropriate. We had a talk about how just because you can read something doesn't mean you should. Now he has to let me look at any books he checks out of the school library before I'll let him read them. The problem is, he's really running out of reading material. He's read all of The Magic Treehouse series, A to Z Mysteries, The American Chillers, most of Encyclopedia Brown, and a whole bunch of others that I'm forgetting the titles to. At our library, all there is left is Junie B Jones which I think he's resigning himself to, though he's read at least half of those as well. I found Homer Price, and The Great Brain books for him, which he's almost finished with, and he's listened to all of The Secret Seven books our library has on CD, which is the only format they have. He's read a lot of random chapter books, and most of the research guides that go along with the Magic Treehouse books, as well as a ton of non-fiction books about pretty much anything you could imagine. I think he's going to have to move on to longer classic children's novels like Charlotte's Web, and Where the Red Fern Grows. Kirk's read some of those out loud to him, and he loves it. I'm going to have trouble keeping up with him as he gets older. It's a bit daunting.

Time for a Sunday evening stroll. The weather is a delightfully cool 64 F.

Sleeping babies

What is it about sleeping babies that is so angelic?! Even my Anthon, who is most definitely not a baby anymore seems so sweet and innocent when he's sleeping. There is such a peace that comes over my house at bedtime...no, wait...after bedtime. It's such a cozy feeling.

I love how Anthon and Erilyn both insist on using Kirk and my childhood blankets even though they're old and...very well used.

Frisco Horse Park

The first time I noticed the sign for this place, way back in August when Mom and Dad were still here helping us move in, I knew we had to go there.
Saturday dawned a beautiful day. It's been starting to get a bit toasty here the past week or so, but Saturday was a gorgeous 75 F, at the hottest part of the day, so we decided to make our trip to the Frisco Horse Park before the weather would make it miserable.
It wasn't quite what I expected, but the kids had fun. And it was relatively cheap. They had bounce houses, playground equipment, a petting zoo where the kids can go in with the goats and sheep to pet them, pony rides, horse rides (for 7 and up) and lots of other horses to pet and look at. It was just a big open place, with some goats wandering free, a bunch of horses and ponies tied up to the fence, and kids running around everywhere. You could pick your pony and just climb on! Erilyn loved going fast, which was kind of surprising to me. I would have guessed that she wouldn't like the bouncing, but she loved it! (not the bouncing...the going fast) Anthon didn't want to ride a pony, but he had fun running around climbing on things and chasing goats. We probably won't go back for a while, but I'm still glad we went.
And when Erilyn's incessant begging to have a horse or to ride a horse or to pet a horse gets too much for me to bear, I know exactly where to go.

Payday

I think it's easy to feel under-appreciated as a mother on a daily basis and to therefore expect too much out of Mother's Day, as if it's the only sense of reward or appreciation we get, when really, if we take the time to notice, we get paid every single day, and sometimes, multiple times in a day! 

Case in point: Tanner was a pill during Church today.  Oh, of course he smiled and flirted with my friends and was sweet as could be for part of the time, but then he got tired.  And he didn't have his bed.  Thus begins the battle.  Have you ever noticed how annoying squirming babies are?  They are so tired that if you even think about putting them down to play or give them to their less than favorite person, they'll scream at you.  But even when you're trying to love and cuddle them, they squirm and wiggle and pull your  hair and rub their runny-nose-faces into your Sunday clothes.  It's annoying.  And frustrating.  And draining on the Mom--feels--loved--and--appreciated bank account. 

All of our nerves got a little raw having to listen to him scream the whole way home from Church.  I knew exactly what he needed: lunch and a nap.  By the time we got home, he was so upset and so tired and so hungry that I had to hold him while he ate his peas because he screamed at me if I tried to put him in his high chair. 

But then, something miraculous happened.  I snuggled up close to him in my bed to nurse him and he immediately quieted down, snuggled in close and began the soothing suck-swallow-breath of nursing.  It was beautiful to see his relief and contentment and to know I had something to do with it. For whatever reason, it was so supremely fulfilling for me to know what my baby needed, when he needed it, and be able to give it to him.  I sighed deeply and held my baby close.     

Cha-ching.  Payday.

My style

I got the idea from a friends' blog to go to the site sproost.com and take a quiz that tells you what your home decorating style is.  Now I know.  I'm 43% Nantucket style, 29% Cottage chic, and 28% Modern elegance.  Does this fit me?  Here are some pictures of the various styles:

Nantucket (which I knew was a place, but I didn't know it was it's own style)

Cottage chic

And, Modern elegance

Clearly, I like light and earthy. I think it's interesting that I seem to be drawn to beachy-ness when I've NEVER lived near the ocean, or even large bodies of water.

Shopping, anyone?!

Conversations with my 3 year old

Conversation #1

While I was feeding Tanner the other day, Erilyn was playing peek-a-boo with him by standing behind his hi-chair and popping around to the side.  We were all giggling when suddenly Erilyn said, "Mom, Tanner is like a puzzle." Slightly intrigued at her logic, I reply, "Really?  How?"  Patiently, she says, "Well, when he's broken, you can fix him." Now, I'm amused. "But Erilyn, he's not broken!"  "Yes, but when he's broken, you can fix him!"  Chuckling, but still failing to see the connection to a puzzle, I ask, "Okay, but if he breaks, how do you fix him?" At this point, she's getting a little frustrated that I don't seem to be taking her seriously, and, condescendingly, she says, "Well, Mom. You get a hammer and nails and just fix him."  ?!?!  Of course I explained to her that you can't use a hammer and nails to fix people if they break, but I still have a terrifying image of Tanner fussing on the floor while Erilyn approaches with a hammer, ready to "fix him."

Conversation #2

A couple of days ago, Erilyn and I went to the library for story time.  We didn't realize that the story time lady is taking a break until June, so we had lots of time to sit and cuddle and read books.  It seemed to me that we read a lot of books about flying: there was a unicorn one where a little girl flies around on a unicorn; there was one about a paper doll princess who gets blown around in the wind; and there was at least one other one I'm forgetting about.  They all had that dreamy, imaginations are so great kind of feel to them where everything turns out happily in the end and the child has a special secret that adults don't know about.  So, when Erilyn said to me on the way home, "Mom, if I jumped up really high in the air, all the way up to the sky, what do you think would happen?"  I naturally assumed she was thinking fantastically and responded in kind, "well, I think you would bump into a lot of tree branches."  

"Nope."

"Oh, okay, well then, I think you'd get blown away by the wind."

"Nope."

"Okay. Would you get stuck on the clouds?"

"Nope."

"Well, then, Erilyn.  What would happen?"

"I'd fall down on the ground and break my head open."

!!!

Conversation #3

This afternoon, Kirk and I took the kids to a splash park to commemorate the first day of 90 degree weather.  They had a blast, and since it was kind of a last minute thing, and a celebration of sorts, we stopped to get pizza on the way home.  When Kirk got back into the car, the conversation went like this.

Erilyn--Dad, did you get a pepperoni pizza? (her favorite)

Kirk--No.  I got the sausage, pickle, and other-gross-things kind. (she hates all those things.)

Erilyn--Oh.

I then passed out some breadsticks since it was late and everyone was starving.  A few minutes later, after some quiet munching, we hear Erilyn say to herself, incredulously, "Hmmmm...this pickle is good!"

!!!

The two things I love most about conversation #3 are first, that Kirk can, without missing a beat, and with such a straight face, make up something outlandish to tease the kids about, and second, that they believe him wholeheartedly and are therefore thoroughly surprised about, in this case, the pizza--or pickle, tasting good.

My two cool cats, on the way to the park.  I just love Erilyn's smile, and Tanner's chubby little cheeks.  It's Tanner's first time wearing sunglasses and it was a good 15 minutes before he even tried to take them off.  So cute!


And Anthon is definitely a book worm.  He reads at least one chapter book a day. And they often have up to, or sometimes even more than 200 pages.  He's running out of age-appropriate reading material...any suggestions?