Photos

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FIVE

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HOW did we get here. I had babies and babies and suddenly I have a child old enough to go to school (which you will this fall).

You are sweet and caring and love to do things to make other’s happy. You send love notes to people in the mail, bring your siblings their favorite toys, share treats/snacks and you love to cuddle, especially after you’re supposed to be in bed.

You feel things deeply and take things personally. I often have to make sure I take extra time to talk about feelings with you. For example yet another pair of pants you were wearing ended up getting a hole in the knee, and I could see how sad you were. You were feeling ashamed, like you’d done something wrong. I had to sit you down and let you know that it wasn’t your fault, it was the pants. They weren’t strong enough, and we’d buy new ones. I didn’t want you to play any differently or worry about them. I can definitely see the rule following personality traits of an oldest child forming in you, and while it’s something that can be helpful to a parent or teacher, I want you to learn when to break the rules too.

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Happy Bunnies

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I don’t even know how to describe life right now. Some moments are calm and I’m so content my eyes well up with happy tears looking at my big beautiful family. Some are so chaotic that I can’t catch my breath and I’m constantly running and I don’t know if my kids are fine or if I’m failing them. And some days I feel like everything I’m doing is wrong and I’m definitely failing them. So I guess if I give you an answer one day and you don’t like the answer, just ask again a few minutes later?

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Making Magic

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You’d think that sleeping less would mean you’d have more hours in the day to, well.. do more? And maybe it’s true, but all those things you want to do, you need to figure out a way to do them without your hands. Occasionally it works - I read an entire book the other day. But most of the time I’m struggling to accomplish one thing that needs to get done that day.

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Bunnies!

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It was a tradition I hated to miss.

Last year we were lucky and did our photos early enough that the pandemic wasn’t a though yet. This year, though, you couldn’t pay me to set foot in that mall. Knowing that, I decided to look elsewhere. Luckily a photographer that lives in town was offering bunny mini sessions!

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Merry Christmas!

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Well we did it. 2020 is coming to a close, Christmas is here, and I feel like I’m at the end of a marathon. I’m excited to be taking some time off of work, for staying in my PJs and watching the kids go nuts over their presents. They definitely get what’s happening this year, have been diligently counting down on their advent calendars every day, and becoming crazier and crazier as each day passes.

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What Month Is It?

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Oh hello there. Seems that living in a pandemic is not always easy and is certainly exhausting. Whether it’s the extra patenting, the constant fear and anxiety or something else crazy, like zoom fatigue, I’m pretty much always tired these days. By the time the kids are in bed, I can barely keep my eyes open. I barely have enough brain power to watch an actual tv show, let alone do anything fun like document our life here. I have loads of pictures that need to be sorted through, too. Ugh.

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Pumpkin Month

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Every single day, E wakes up and asks if we can go trick or treating.

I kind of thought he’d forget about trick or treating after a year, but three year olds have amazing memories. Besides the fact it’s the first week of October and trick or treating is not really an option, I’m not sure there will be trick or treating this year, period. We’ve been debating doing an egg hunt in the yard, or trick or treating just to the neighbor’s house, but either way, we’ll need some distractions for the next few weeks.

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Picture Fun

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One of the best pieces of advice I’ve gotten about parenting so far, is not to compare them. They’re going to be different. This close in age, they’re going to be as different as they can be in most ways. That’s just the way it works.

And so far, that’s pretty accurate. It seems like we have on introvert, who pulls into himself when he’s in stressful or new situations. He requires a lot of down time, and is a pretty strict rule follower. We also have one that seems like an extrovert who expresses himself outwardly, thrives on loud and busy situations and wants to be around people. Oh, and he thinks mischief is the best.

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Ups and Downs

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Hello there!

What happened to last week? I remember celebrating Easter and birthdays and having a good time, and then it’s like I blacked out and here I am.

This is hard.

It’s also a gift, to have all this togetherness. To be here to witness new milestones and to be the one to comfort the tiny humans EVERY time they’re upset about something. To have all this extra time with my kitty who doesn’t have a whole lot of time left.

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Then and Now

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Who wants a fun post, full of pictures, to take their minds off all the crazy stuff in the news lately? I know I do!

We’ve obviously seen how quickly life can change when big things happen. Everything seems uncertain now, and we’re not really sure what’s going to be happening in the next few months. Instead of speculating on that, I’m going to focus on how life changes slowly, over the course of a year.

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I'm Gonna Hug You and Kiss You and Love You FOREVER

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Well… we did it again.

I actually said we wouldn’t this year, and I was okay with that. But then we walked by the place in the mall one day, and E saw the signs advertising the bunnies, and he ran up and hugged them, and told me he wanted to see them.

So we ended up with an appointment. As always, I had my predictions of what would happen, and was completely wrong. One day maybe I’ll get better at predicting how my children will react to situations. Or they’ll keep surprising me - I’m okay with being kept on my toes.

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BUNNIES

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We’re still figuring out what Easter will look like for our family, but this year is making me very excited for the future. E is old enough that he understands egg hunts now, and they’re my new favorite things. We don’t hide the eggs very hard, but he loves running around finding them, and now that he knows that they’re filled with treats, he’s extra excited.

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Worth Every Penny

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When I was pregnant and we'd walk through Target looking at baby clothes, Tom was always drawn to the socks.  He'd talk about one day possibly having matching socks with E.  Somehow when I was looking for Christmas presents this year, I stumbled upon Happy Socks and fell in love.  They come in awesome designs, they have sizes (not just one size fits most) so they actually fit Tom (!), AND they have matching baby socks!!

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The Bad Pictures

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My boss made a comment to me recently.  "Make sure you get a few pictures of E crying too."  His point was that they'll remind us of how far we've come and all the rough times we went through, but also that they can be hilarious. 

It's true that we focus a lot on the cute and happy baby pictures.  But one of the reasons that my boss and I work so well together is that we have the same sense of humor.  So although I don't always share them, there are plenty of "bad" pictures.