happy little eggs

Look at me posting about holiday activities BEFORE the holiday actually happens! I actually am hesitant to post these tonight because I know that after tomorrow I will have more Easter pictures to share, but I have some time right now so I figured I would get a jump on it.

John finished up his semester last week and there really are not words for the kind of relief and happiness we felt around here about that. The last three weeks of the semester were truly the most insanely busy, stressful, and wretched weeks of his schooling career thus far. We still have many years left (1 in his masters, 3-5 for a PhD), and there will probably be more craziness to come, but honestly, I think those weeks will be hard to beat. We rarely saw him, he didn't sleep (one of the nights that he was up until 3:30 AM working on something, he came in to the bedroom to lay down only to have his alarm clock go off right then for work), and we were all feeling lonely and frazzled without him around. We are used to him being busy and occupied, but we aren't used to him being non-existent. He had knee surgery on Wednesday and truly, we were so excited about it because we knew it would mean that he could have a few days of down time to rest and hang out with us. We have taken full advantage of having him home this week and were pretty glad to have a low-key day at home to dye Easter eggs together. It ended up being a two day long event (John and I boiled the eggs together late one night, the next day we dyed and decorated eggs with the kids, and then that night John and I boiled and decorated some more by ourselves), and it was so much fun.

Here are the kids all ready to dye their first egg (or eggs, in Pearl's case-- she was not happy unless she had an egg in each hand).


Georgie was excited to watch his sister drop and egg in the dye. He kept encouraging her, "Come on, Peng, you can do it!"


She required much supervision. It was totally a disaster waiting to happen.


She was pretty happy when she plopped that egg down in the dye, and I love that you can see the dye on her fingers.


But then we wanted to let George enjoy himself and do his thing so we thought we'd put the Peachy Baby in her high chair to watch. Um, she was NOT amused.


Luckily her tears were nothing a little cheese bread couldn't cure.



Happy baby-- check. Now George could get to work. (Btw, the leg warmers were all George's idea. We put some on Pearl and he insisted on finding his and wearing them as well.)


George loved doing this so much.



He mostly did his eggs himself, but he did want a little help drawing Bowser (seriously) on one of them.


Pea started to get restless, so while George painted on some sparkles, Daddy walked with her down the hall. (She is loving walking these days. She mostly wants to walk while holding someone's fingers, but she is started to take steps on her own and keep her balance. She can do it if she wants to, but she frequently chooses to lunge/dive to where she wants to go instead of keeping her balance and walking.)


While George and I worked on an egg...


...John caught these little fingers swiping the scissors off of the table. It made us giggle and I was so happy John had the camera right there to snap the picture.


Mama and the babes with their eggies. (Please let's not talk about my bangs. I was growing them out until I saw these pictures. Now I am cutting them.)


Our eggs turned out so vibrant and pretty! This second picture shows why:


Could you see it? Here is a closer look:


We added drops of food coloring (neon and regular) to our dye baths to make the colors that we wanted. We played around with color combinations and ended up with so many cool eggs in the end. I only have pictures of the ones we did that afternoon, but that night John and I made some that turned out pretty good, too. Here is a look at the ones George and Pearl did.


I did not edit or saturate these pictures at all. This is really how bright they are, promise.


Before bed that night Pearl decided a little snack was in order, so she helped herself to her first hardboiled egg ever. At first she wasn't sure about it and kept smiling at us wondering what she was supposed to do with it. She took a few test licks to see what she thought...


...and then she went for it. She really liked it at first, but grew tired of it about halfway through.


Tomorrow should be a happy, full day, and we are so grateful to be celebrating Easter's miracles with people we love. More to come.

loungewear at its finest

I have been known to coordinate my children's clothes. I have also been known to coordinate their pajamas. Perhaps there is a recovery program I should join-- it's slightly excessive, I know. But really, if you could wake up to this in the morning, wouldn't you do it too?


I mean, seriously.


And since we're posting about pjs, let me throw these in here, too. Just a few cute pictures of my Pea baby one morning fresh out of bed. There are very few things in this world that are more fun (or cute) than babies in the morning.



Let's finish this loungewear post off with photographic evidence of my son's addiction to basketball shorts. Every single time we go to the mall he thinks he needs a new pair. And if we happen to be shopping with my mother and there are basketball shorts on sale, he usually gets some. You might think that this is totally overkill, but you don't know how often my son wears basketball shorts. He happily lets me pick out his clothes for when we leave the house, but as soon as we return home his first order of business is to rush to his room, rip off his pants, and put on some basketball shorts. So he wears at least one pair a day. If we leave the house multiple time he wears multiple pairs. Really. We had fun trying to fit them all on his little body :).


When he tried to walk he tipped over-- that is what the second picture is. (Didn't want anyone thinking I was trying to put my 3 year old in some seductive topless pose :).)

pea turned one

These poor photos of Pea's 1st birthday celebration have been all ready to post for weeks now. The motivation to actually write the post alluded me, but tonight I am kicking myself into gear and saving these photos from wasting away in the recesses of Photobucket.

I posted about the boys' bug collecting adventures on our way to Idaho, and that (Idaho) is also where we celebrated our little gal turning one. My aunt and uncle that live in Idaho (Kim and Ken) are truly some of my closest and best friends (they lived with us on and off when I was growing up, and I still talk to Kim on the phone multiple times a week), and John and George love them as well (George is borderline obsessed with "Big Jake"), so it was easy for us to want to be with them on Pearlie's big day.

There is something really sweet about going in to pick up your baby from her crib on the morning of her very first birthday. It is a swelling feeling of equal parts overflowing joy and overwhelming love, mixed up with a twinge of bitter that her life really is whirling and swirling by, that she will not ever be this little bundle of one-year-old happiness ever again. How can you measure the heaven that is watching your very own baby become One over the course of 12 glorious, soul-bonding months? There is nothing else like that first year of new life.

John and I both wanted to go get her when she woke up, so we both did. We hugged her and squished her and went into the bathroom for a second (can't remember why) where we took this picture in which I look so awkward and creepy that I should not be posting it. But Pearl was just so smiley and happy and sweet that I am going to take one for the team and let you guys see her. Just try not to look left.


We made our way downstairs to the mantle where Pearl's birthday banner hung and my jammied babies sat for a few pictures. In the second photo Pearl is proudly waving her one little finger around for everyone to see how old she is.


Emma got to hug the kids before she left for school, and insisted on bringing Pearlie out to her bus stop to meet her friends :). There is a picture of me on my first birthday where I am sitting on the kitchen counter in my pajamas (a blue gown), holding one little finger up. We wanted to re-create that with Pearl, but we didn't have a gown and she wouldn't hold her one finger still (she likes to bounce it up and down while we sing, "One one one one one one one! Pearl is wuh-uhn!"), so this was as good as we could do. I'll have to hunt down the picture of me sometime and post them side by side.


Josh is gonna be a good daddy. He loves Pearl and she adores him.


Kim and I went to the store to pick up a few things for Pearl's cake and while we were there I had the fancy idea to make her cake into a little bathtub. I saw a package of yellow Peeps and imagined it being a little rubber ducky, so we went with it. So the outside was covered with plenty of refined sugar, but on the inside there was some serious health. It was mostly just applesauce, spelt flour, some spices, and a little sucanat. If you know my husband at all you will not wonder why Kim has a huge glob of frosting on her nose and doesn't look too thrilled about it.


While the cake baked and cooled and got bathtub-ized Pearl chilled in her birthday skirt, mostly looking out the sliding glass door and wanting to go outside to see the dog, who she insisted was called, "Gah." (My parents' dog's name is "Garth" so that is the word she uses for any and all dogs.)


We've established by now that I am clearly not an awesome party planner/giver, right? I don't really do cute themes or elaborate invitations (or, let's be honest, any of those things at all). Maybe one day I will, but I just haven't really wanted the pressure of a big birthday bash before my kids are old enough to request one on their own. Anyway, I really am not a good party thrower at all. I also am not good at getting gifts for babies who are turning one. Really. She didn't have one single present until the day of her birthday when my aunt and I went out and found some really great clothes for her at a few second hand shops in town. I figured the actual having of a present, wrapped and ready to be opened, was more important than Pearl being interested in what was in the present, so we wrapped up a few of the outfits and called it good. I am seriously not awesome, am I? Don't tell Pearl, she didn't care :). In fact, she really wasn't interested in the presents very much at all. She just kind of held them for a second and then dropped them so she could turn around and grab the balloons (much more exciting).


See?


We let George take over in the present-opening department because he, on the other hand, was very interested in the gifts.


He even feigned some excitement over the articles of clothing for his little sister that he found inside the packages: "Look Peng! Some new pretty clothes for you!" She still didn't care.


So, the bathtub cake did not turn out to be everything I ever dreamed of. It was totally makeshift, and a little messy. Next time it might be a good idea to, oh I don't know, maybe have a plan or picture or something other than just making it up as you go. This is what I ended up with-- it sort of resembles a bathtub, right? Sort of?


I love that she is holding up her one finger in the background of this first picture. And I love the second one because she kept doing that with her hands. She would hold her hands up like, "Really? What is this for? You really want me to just touch that food?"


Haha, see this picture on the right? She had just touched the cake for the first time and she was like, "Seriously? I just get to do this? What is going on here?!" So cute.


She discovered the Peep and had a little nibble. She wasn't so sure about it-- look at her suspicious eyes checking it out. I feel the same way about those icky little creatures.


Eventually she got more into it. This was pure torture for George. He was highly disturbed that we were letting Pearl ruin a perfectly good cake that he could have eaten.


She was very precise about licking her fingers off. It was cracking us up.



Her sweet little frosting face. (And is it just me or does she look like she has a mullet in this picture? Please be honest because I will get out the scissors real fast if I need to.)


Mama and Dada with the birthday baby.


Every good cake demolition ends with a party in the tub, am I right?


And a fresh clean baby for a mama to hug.


So happy and so grateful that this fresh clean baby came to this mama. Oh I just love her.


She got to play with her balloons again (seriously, skip the gifts and just get balloons) before bed, and then, just like that, the huge rite of passage that is turning one was in the books.


I think it should be a rule that people get to have a perpetually-one-year-old child forever.

remember the smiling

George drew this picture for me yesterday:



I love it so much for a bunch of reasons (what is not to love about a 3 year-old version of his family?), but I think mostly because it paints (draws) such an accurate portrait of what our lives have looked like for the past couple of weeks. The brown person is me, and as you maybe could guess, that is Baby Pearl sitting in my lap. George is the guy drawn in black, his hand stretched out to hold mine. And the little guy on the end is someone that George said was a "weird stranger." Not exactly sure why the weird stranger made the portrait and Daddy didn't, but we went with it, and it is hanging on the fridge proudly.

Pearl has been a sick little girl the last two weeks. It has been a very strange bout of illness; we get rid of one thing and another immediately begins. It started with some random throwing up (George and I also both threw up, but that was even more random so I don't think they were related). She struggled to have an appetite for anything other than breastmilk, and for a few days that is the only thing she ate at all. She had a low-grade fever on and off. Then the coughing and the runny nose started. She would cough so hard at night that I was sure she was going to wake herself completely up, but she always managed to stay asleep. Bless her little heart. Then last Friday she woke up absolutely screaming at about 6 AM. The grabbing at her right ear told me immediately that she had an ear infection. She has tubes in both ears, and within about an hour, sure enough, the right ear started draining. As soon as we got to the parking lot of the doctor's office that morning she threw up (random, seriously, because at this point she hadn't thrown up in 6 days). I stripped her down, wrapped her in a big blanket, and ran through the falling snow into the doctor's office where my baby immediately remembered the shots that had been administered to her just a couple weeks prior there, and was clingy and weepy anytime anyone tried to come near her. The prescription the doctor gave me started out awesome because Pearl really loved taking it, but quickly turned into a nightmare because of the yeast infection that it gave her. It was so bad, and Nystatin wouldn't touch it. I was having to rinse her little bum off after every diaper change because wiping it hurt too badly. Meanwhile her right ear is draining blood and nastiness. By day 6 of the antibiotics I had had it. I couldn't keep doing it to her-- the ear seemed to be under control, but the yeast infection was raging, so I decided to stop giving her the antibiotic. The next day she wouldn't go to sleep for more than 30 seconds if she wasn't in my arms. She would scream hysterically and then she started grabbing her left ear. I was seriously devastated at the thought that she was now getting an ear infection in her other ear. Like clockwork, the left ear started draining, and I knew. That was yesterday. I was so happy to talk to the ENT and find out that stopping the oral antibiotics a day early wouldn't have made a difference in the ear infection (well, actually, I was a little mad to find out that the yeast infection should have never happened because she should have never been on an oral antibiotic for her ear infection in the first place-- just the drops), so we started the drops in the other ear (so both ears, now), and the draining has definitely decreased. Pearl is still not herself, but she is doing pretty well, all things considered. She mostly just wants me, though yesterday she really wanted my mom to rock her to sleep, which was a nice break for a minute.

 I love that in his picture, George drew Pearl on my lap because that is pretty much where she has been every waking moment of the last two weeks. She is also portrayed with a sad face instead of a smile, and it's true-- she has been so much more sad, whiney, screamy, and needy. She doesn't feel good. Poor little baby girl. He also said that he drew her ears really big to show the ear infection (it appears that I was given big ears as well :)).

I am relieved that he drew me with a smile on my face. There have been times in the past couple of weeks that a frown would be more accurate, but I'm glad that isn't something that has really stood out to him. I am also really happy that he drew himself holding hands with me. I have been more impatient with him, and less attentive to him because of Pearl's neediness, and I've felt badly about it. He's been heard crying, "I never get to do anything fun!" because it was bedtime instead of frisbee playing time. He's had to compete for attention over Pearl's insistent screams with screams of his own, and in turn, I get frustrated. I am so happy that he still wants to hold my hand. I'm so grateful that in the car tonight he told me that I was his best friend, and that at lunch today when I told him I was the luckiest mama in the world because I have the best boy and the best girl, that his happy reply to his sister was, "That's me and you, Peng!" I'm so happy that he is still smiling, both in his picture and in life. He is my little guinea pig child, the one that I have to learn and grow and succeed and fail right along with, and I hope he always knows that my greatest desire, the purest yearning of my heart, is that he feels happy, safe, and loved.

I hope when he is all grown up and thinking back on his childhood, the picture that he paints of himself is one where he is smiling. I hope he remembers the giggles under the covers instead of the stern counting to three to get him to obey. I hope he remembers the games of tag on trampolines where we both fall down from exhaustion and laughing instead of the times he got sent to his room to "think about it."

Mostly I just really hope he remembers that in our home there was a lot of joy, a lot of laughter, a lot of love, a lot of peace, and a lot of smiling. It's a good reminder to me that I need to be constantly aware of cultivating that atmosphere here, even when I don't really feel like it.