Violet is usually very helpful, with the exception of one morning

I think it was yesterday, I can't really remember that well. It could have been the day before. Violet woke me up early before 7 am and told me she got the house all ready. She had gone downstairs and turned every single light on she could reach the switch for. I think she reached 7 or 8 lights. It was SO bright downstairs. The sun was even streaming in the windows. I asked her to turn them all off and go back upstairs. I got in the shower and she got my toothbrush ready...and squirted face cream on my toothbrush. Even though she was so proud of herself for getting my toothbrush all ready, I was annoyed because that face stuff is very concentrated, expensive, and she used a ton of it. I showed her which toothpaste I like to use...and said she could only get it ready if she used what I told her she could use. She did the same thing this morning, got my toothbrush ready for me, and accidentally used the expensive face cream again. Once I straightened her out with which toothpaste I like, she headed downstairs and tried to pour herself a glass of water from the gallon of cold water I keep in the fridge. It was completely full, very heavy, and she had spilled water all over the table. I could tell she felt bad about it so I helped her clean it up hiding my frustration with the way the morning had gone. I have a lot of errands to run with Calvin while Violet is at school this morning. I have an appointment in North Liberty for a baby-check and then we are heading to Dubuque to meet up with Josh and Carrie. We're staying in a waterpark hotel for a couple nights (heading back on Saturday morning) and helping Austin celebrate his 5th birthday, which was the 23rd of March. The cousins love to get together so we hope they have a blast and create some fun memories. It will be a nice time to see Josh and Carrie too, time with them is precious as its tough to travel with little kids...soon there will be six kids between all of us. I am hoping night times when the kids are in bed will be good times to reconnect and play some games or something. I haven't packed up yet, and the family has to leave by noon!

New words for Calvin

He now says "pee-pee butter" for peanut butter, "Dora", "ippo" for hippo, and "da-da, da-da, loo-LOO!" for cock-a-doodle-doo. Today we had another successful event on the toilet with Calvin. He said "poopy now" and had gone a little in his diaper. I asked him if he wanted to go sit on his Elmo potty seat and he enthusiastically said "yeah!" and headed for the upstairs bathroom. I put it on the toilet, he sat down, and I tried Violet's tactic of telling him to push it out like a fart. He successfully finished poo-ing on the potty! He was happy to flush on his own, and was really interested in the fact that the poo disappeared as he watched the flush and said "down dere! down dere!" while pointing down the toilet. I don't really know what this means...I am certainly not mentally ready to potty train him so I guess I'll just follow his lead if he keeps acting interested.

Everything is 4 on me!

A few things Violet said lately made me record them on paper before I forgot to blog about them. She's very keen on the fact that she's four, and notices how old everybody else is, and frequently talks about things she used to do when she was three, or two, or one. She was sitting at the table last night coloring or something and said "Everything is 4 on me! My forehead, my tummy, my pajamas, nail polish, even my nose is four!" And this morning when she saw what I dressed Calvin in, she said "Mom! That shirt with the blue, gray, orange and brown is SO cute on Calvin! I didn't know he was wearing that! Its amazing! The airplane matches his pants! Gray and gray." Her enthusiasm about such tiny things is so precious!

Calvin lately...age 2 yrs 3 mo

...is changing so much lately. His vocabulary is increasing, he seems to learn a new word or two every day. Violet and Calvin can keep up a conversation pretty well now, even if his consists of one or two words, she can still make sense of what he's talking about. Their most common conversations are actually fights. An example would be: Calvin picks up a sippy cup which she knows is full of water. He will say "apple joo" and she will correct him saying "No, Calvin, that is not apple juice, it is water." And he'll say "Mo, Lala, apple joo." (No, Violet, apple juice) and insist it is something else just to pick a fight. She hasn't learned this leads to nothing but more yelling. He absolutely loves to look at the sky and point out airplanes. If he's outside he's continually monitoring the sky looking for them. If he sees one, moving slowly wayyyy high up in the sky, he will know its an airplane and point it out. Another thing he likes is the moon. We walked to meeting tonight and on the way home, a sliver of the moon was brightly shining. He says "Moom! White moom!" Dave, of course, jokes with him and says "Are you sure it isn't purple?" And to our surprise, Calvin responded by saying "Mo daddy, mo purple moom, white moom." He runs really fast, his hair is growing longer, blonder, and crazier every day. He hasn't had a hair cut yet...and for now we're not cutting it. Dave seems to love how crazy it is starting to look, I really don't mind it. He loves to climb and jump off things. He is extremely ticklish and most of the time I can turn a grumpy attitude around by tickling him. He has excellent balance and the ability to land on his feet most of the time he jumps off things. He still loves his little white meow and special blanket, and has completely forgotten about his pacifier. At least we think so, he never mentions it or asks for it, and doesn't seem to want other kids' pacifiers if he sees another kid or baby with one in their mouth. One thing he's started to do lately is play macho. Or at least act like it at times. If Dave plays around with him and wants to make him laugh, he some times tries as hard as he can NOT to smile. He gets this little tiny smirk on his face and walks away so nobody can see his effort not to show emotion. Silly little kid. He is gaining confidence in public with people who talk to him. Lots of people say hi to him if he's sitting up in the shopping cart near me, and he (well, most of the time) happily waves and says hi. Of course there is another side to Calvin I haven't mentioned yet. He can be the complete opposite of sweet and silly. He knows how to scream really loud, throw fits when things don't go his way, push Violet's buttons quietly and calmly and sits back and watches his work while she freaks out (his favorite seems to be running his fingers over her dry-erase board art creations to "ruin" them but he does so when she's not watching and waits for her to notice), and be disobedient. He seems so agreeable at times when we ask him not to do something. He'll quickly respond to a request like "Calvin, do not lock the door" or "stop throwing your food on the floor" with a quick "o-tay mommy" or "o-tay daddy" but 2 seconds later, he'll lock the door or throw something on the floor. Whenever I catch him in the act of disobedience he gets a slap or spank, and sitting in his time out chair until he calms down. That usually works...but like a typical 2 yr old...just keeps on doing it. Working with him on obedience will come with time and consistency.

Double date night

We had such a fun night yesterday. I love doing things "on the fly"...which made yesterday so fun because its hard to plan things last minute with little kids. Earlier in the afternoon, our good friends Dennis and Selena asked Dave for some help cutting down a big tree that was in danger of falling on their house, so he went over there for a few hours to help. Dennis was so thankful for his help that he wanted to treat us to a night out (thank you again Hemmers!!). We made last minute plans by asking Alex W. and her friend Grace to babysit, got them to our house, and all 5 of our kids played together. Violet was soooo excited that her friends and favorite babysitter were ALL coming over to her house all at the same time. It was almost more than she could handle. She wasn't excited to see me when I got home, because that meant the night of fun came to and end. Our date night was relaxing - we got the babysitters and kids settled with a couple pizzas for supper, said our goodbyes (though the kids were all too excited and already playing together so intently they hardly noticed we left), packed our friends into the back row of our LaMarche-mobile and drove together to a new restaurant called Roux Orleans downtown Waterloo. Dennis recommended the crawfish binettes (which are deep fried, yum) for an appetizer. I got cajun-seasoned pork tenderloin with garlic mashed potatoes. Dave had catfish, Dennis got steak, and Selena got chicken parmesan. The meal was also served with cornbread muffins topped with a seasoned honey butter. The food was great, the conversation was great, and the time was relaxing. We topped off the evening sitting around some lattes at Starbucks. We were only gone for three hours from 6:30-9:30. The sitters did a great job, kids were all happy, and toys were picked up. Violet's friend Ivy said to her "Violet, I am going to miss you when I leave your house!" What a sweet girl. They didn't realize that after a short night of sleep they could spend more time together in Sunday School class the next morning. Calvin gave me a running hug when he saw me. Even though Violet wasn't all that happy to see me at first, both kids freaked out screaming "mommyyyyy!!!" and melting down when they saw me walk back out the door so I could drive the two babysitters back home. I was still home in time to kiss/hug them before bed. They didn't get to bed til close to 10 pm...which made for a less-than-pleasant morning. Calvin seems to weather less sleep better than Violet. He seemed cheerful most of the day. Violet had a pretty testy morning...so let's hope she catches up on sleep tonight and the rest of the week.

Will you forgive me?

I guess I've been apologizing to Violet lately for things (probably "I'm sorry for yelling at you, will you forgive me?" type of thing)...I learn this by listening to her talk because I can't remember very well. She repeats everything I say. This morning, she finished breakfast, and about 5 minutes after she got down from the table, I noticed she still had a piece of egg yolk on her cheek. I said "Violet, you still have egg on your cheek!" which of course made her giggle and she wanted to see it in the mirror. I showed her, and she said, "I'm sorry mom, will you forgive me?"

baby faith

This morning Violet was chattering away about making another big cupcake. She got an enormous cupcake silicone baking pan for her birthday (the kind that takes two cake mixes worth of batter to fill up!), and a couple weeks ago we attempted to make our first one, but unfortunately, it was a flop. The top "muffin top" part of the cupcake had too much batter in it and didn't bake all the way through. So we made the best of the cake with the bottom cupcake part that baked just fine that we could. It was supposed to be a small group treat...so tonight we are going to try again. While she was eating breakfast this morning, she said "I think we should pray about the cupcake that it won't be a mess this time." So she prayed for the cupcake to turn out and be pretty. We'll see how it bakes this time, as soon as I'm done writing we are going to start attempt #2 with less batter in the top part.

Pregnancy update

Tomorrow I'll be 31 weeks...and next week will be the 7 month mark. This is flying by soo fast! Baby is really, really active. The other day I felt so uncomfortable, I think baby was flipping over there was so much movement. Violet enjoys feeling the baby kick a lot, she is excited every time she feels movement. We are not decided on names yet...we gotta get serious about it at some point. A recent pic:

Potty fluke

So, the short story is that Calvin pooped on the toilet the other day. I think it was totally a fluke. I went to change his diaper in the middle of the day and happened to notice that something was about to happen, so I stuck him on the toilet, and read him a few books. I was betting my chances of success were going to be pretty much zilch, but to my surprise, he didn't freak out like I thought he would, so I went with it. Violet came running over to the bathroom and was surprised to see Calvin sitting there. She asked him if he was going poop and he said "yeah!" But nothing happened. She said to him, "Calvin, just push it out like a big fart!" And he did exactly that, and emptied his system. I bet that won't happen again for a very long time!

Unexpected morning walk

This morning turned out a little different than my usual Tuesday morning routine. Dave left the house early to go downtown Waterloo to serve on jury duty. He decided to drive the van because he didn't want to deal with parking the enormous truck on the street by the parking meters. That left me with the truck to take Violet to preschool with. I got them packed in the truck about 8:50 and tried starting it, but it wouldn't start. I noticed that the dome light switch was turned on...which must have killed the battery. I said to the kids "well, I guess we're taking the stroller this morning!" So I quickly got them bundled up and myself, and walked Violet to school. She can't walk as fast as I was walking so she happily rode in the stroller. I was in such a hurry that I forgot to buckle Calvin in the front of the stroller seat (I took the double stroller...the sit n stand). Neither of us noticed, he stayed put and didn't try to move. He was so bundled in layers of his coat that I don't think he could even move. It felt like a really cold morning so they both had on a lot of layers. It was only a 7 block walk, but by the time I got there, I was sweating. Violet was excited to show Mrs. A her new shoes. She told me that Mrs. A has shoes just like hers, with a pink part on the back part of the heel of the shoe. That girl is SO observant. The walk back to the house was much easier, I think its because on the way, the entire walk is uphill, and the way back was downhill, felt much more relaxed and I wasn't in such a rush to get her there on time. She only got there 8 minutes late. I enjoyed the quick burst of energy this morning, I'll get to do it again when I go pick her up from school today at 11:30.

Calvin's talking

He is improving so much with talking (since not having his pacifier for about 4 weeks, and doing wonderfully I might add, he may as well have forgotten about it), so this may be my LAST attempt at doing this...I tried keeping up with Violet's words but after she turned 2 I lost count. Calvin just turned 2, so I'll give it a go. One thing he likes to do is refer to animals by their sounds, not the actual names of the animals, so that is why there are so many animal sounds. I guess it all started when he started loving kitties and called them "meows". I know he understands much more than he can communicate. roar wack wack (quack quack) meow moo woo woo (woof woof) der mo! (there's more) dite dere (right there) oh mo mo (no) deer oatmere (oatmeal) mommy daddy oh-tay (okay) yeah uh-oh, more dere, mom mmm-mmm (while shaking his head for no) and then whatever he is talking about. "mmm-mmm more" or "mmm-mmm bye bye" to say he doesn't want to do something. Lala (Violet) bye bib (big) beep (deep) why (wide) why wha? (what) pee poopoo baby muh (milk) "ah-buh-bye" (could mean anything, he has said this for months for many things, but recently means "a big bite") nanee (candy) bubbo (bubble) bop (pop) mum (gum) ree Eh-mo (read Elmo!) owie hah (hot) ah-pay (airplane) I dah dit (I got it) up mou (mouse) owl tractor ball du (juice) apple oh man whoa sti-ter (sticker) nana (banana)

4 yr old logic

Tonight Violet asked me a question about the baby. We were eating supper, and she said "Mommy, are you covering the baby in food?" At first I really didn't understand her question, I had to think about it for awhile. She asked me again, "Mommy, is there food all over the baby?" or something to that effect. It then dawned on me that she thought the baby was inside my stomach where food goes. It wasn't really easy to explain to her that my baby wasn't exactly INSIDE my tummy, and that the baby has a separate place where it grows. It sure gave us a laugh though.

Doctor pictures

Doctor check ups

I got the kids in for their 4 and 2 yr check ups this morning. They had a great time there, both were happy and nice to the nurses and doctors. Calvin enthusiastically greeted each person who walked in our little room with a big "hi!". I scheduled them both at 9 am together so I wouldn't have to make two trips with each of them separately. Since their birthdays are with in a few weeks of each other, it worked well. Violet is almost 41" tall, they weighed her in at 40 lbs, but every time she steps on the scale in our bathroom it reads 38.5, so either way, not much difference. She had clothes and a full belly of oatmeal, that could have made a difference. :) So 4 was her number today. 4 yrs old, 40 lbs, and 41" tall. Calvin weighed in at an ounce shy of 30 lbs and 36" tall. His head measured 20" around which put him in the 90% percentile for his head, not surprising to me. :) Violet got to put on a little hospital exam robe. She was examined first, and answered every question correctly, the doctor asked her her full name and she could say "Violet LaMarche" clearly, showed her four fingers for her age, talked the doctor's ear off about preschool and the sparkly pet rock she painted named "Sally Pet" the day before, and was very cooperative when the doctor checked her whole body, head to toe. Blood pressure was 96/56, and she passed her vision screening. She was most excited about her knee reflexes, watching her foot bounce up when her knee was bonked with the goofy looking tool. When the doctor left she bounced off the exam table, picked up the knee tool and then proceeded to bonk her own, mine and Calvin's knees to get the same reaction. She wasn't exactly successful, but she got a kick out of it. The doctor then checked out Calvin, and he looks perfectly healthy. She noted that he was very tall for his age and was glad to hear him speaking more words in the time she was in the room with us. He said "here's more woof woof!" when he found a Clifford the Big Red Dog book, although it came out sounding more like 'Hee mo woo woo". Violet knew that they were "done" with the check ups but she asked when she was going to get her shots. She knew she was going to get three booster shots (MMR, chicken pox, and DTaP) and was SO brave, I was so proud of her. She laid down on the table, I hugged her arms, and two nurses did the three injections in quick time. I could see her face grimace but she smiled when it was all over. I gave her a big hug and she knew she had done well. She was pretty excited about her Dora bandaids and I had told her she could have a sucker when she was done. So that is the last of her vaccinations for many, many years. :) I am glad I brought the double stroller with me so Calvin was strapped in. He got a little sucker too, he would have freaked out of Violet had one and he didn't. Plus, they both did well. And yes, I brushed their teeth very well after lunch today. I told the doc I'd see her back in June with a new baby. I made a stop out at Sam's club on my way home to pick up some things, then we had an early lunch. She got to tell daddy she did a good job and was very brave. Everybody was hungry and by the time lunch was over, Violet was VERY tired. She was acting really whiny and helpless saying her legs really hurt and she couldn't even walk up the steps, so brushing her teeth and getting her to go potty before her nap was a big struggle, but once I laid her in bed, she was practically sleeping. No fight, no asking for songs or books, she really wanted to snuggle in and go to sleep. Calvin went down easy too. They have been sleeping since 12:45, I hope they both feel rested when they wake up.

Beep Why Why

Calvin's newest favorite song is "Deep and Wide". I got the kids three CDs of kids Bible songs (over 100 songs!) and every time Violet listens to a CD she soaks up everything she possibly can, learning each song very quickly. "Deep and Wide" is one of the simpler, shorter songs that Calvin attached his brain to. He belts out the tune by singing "Beep Why Why....Beep Why Why....(then a bunch of blubbering)...Beep Why Why!" then the 2nd verse "Why an' Beep...Why an' Beep..." Its so funny and cute to hear him sing with the right "words" coming out of his mouth all silly like a 2 yr old should sound, but he's right on tune!

Valentine Cookie Outreach

My friend Selena had this great idea. Last year she did it and said it went really well, so she recruited some friends to get in on the action this year. The idea was to reach out to our neighbors somehow and spread God's love. So we and another friend of ours baked a bunch of cookies, got together and decorated them, and exchanged cookies so we'd all have a big variety, packaged them up in cute little treat bags, and put tags on the handles of the bags with a note that says "Happy Valentine's Day from the LaMarche family, David, Maria, Violet and Calvin" with our address on it. The back side of the note card has the verse John 3:16 on it arranged in such a way that the word "VALENTINE" is vertical in the verse. When I type it out in the box where I type the post, the spaces are there so it looks like the word Valentine is vertical, but when I hit post it deletes the spaces...so this is not exactly what it looks like but you get the idea. The letters that are supposed to be vertical are capitalized and really, it just looks much better printed on the card surrounded with hearts. :) “For God so loVed the world, that He gAve His onLy begottEn soN, thaT whosoever believes In Him shall Not perish, but have Everlasting life.” I packaged up 13 treat bags with all the cookies I had Selena got these really cute heart treat bags and ribbon. All our treat bags were assembled Monday night after an effort decorating all the cookies we made. So after Dave got done with work today, we bundled up the kids, packed up all the cookie treat bags in a carrying sack and handed them out to our neighbors. Violet was really, really excited to hand out cookies to everybody. She insisted on carrying each individual bag of cookies to the door and ringing the doorbell. She got really shy though, at the moment when someone would open the door. She was supposed to say "Happy Valentine's Day!" but got stage fright each time. Instead she handed them the bag and let mommy do all the talking. Dave and Calvin were with me at the door but Dave was holding Calvin the whole time (he isn't the best walker in the snow). Everybody seemed to be really shocked that we were actually OUTSIDE in the middle of this snowy winter night, and most people were really grateful and thankful for us doing such a sweet thing. We handed out 13 bags, and only came across one house where nobody answered, so we made 12 personal contacts. Our neighbors to the north, Nate and Deb Beving, invited us in. Initially we planned on not accepting any offers to come inside, but they insisted we stop in for a second. We caught up with them a little, found out their girls both had recent birthdays and turned 13 and 10 yrs old (I'm thinking: babysitters!). Calvin loved petting their little dog. It was a nice conversation. They thanked us for the cookies, and off we went. The 12th house we stopped at was a house across the street and few houses south of ours. They opened the door, and happily greeted us. We said we were their neighbors from across the street and they said "which house?" and wondered because they hadn't seen us before. We pointed out our house, and noted the fact that our name and address were on the card attached to the cookies. They asked when we moved in and they felt ashamed that they hadn't met us yet. We told them no problem, we hadn't really met any of our neighbors yet! They were insistent on inviting us in and insisted over and over that we take off our boots and coats and sit down for a chat. I was anxious to get going since it was already 8 pm and we hadn't had supper yet, but I pushed those feelings aside and agreed to go inside to talk for a little while. We settled into their living room for about 10-15 minutes, and these two people (Jeff and Kathy) were just so excited and thankful that we stopped over and were SO excited to meet us. Upon leaving they gave us great big bear hugs and said they'd love to have us over for dinner some time. Wow! Dave said he had never met such inviting people in his life! They asked us how we both ended up in Cedar Falls since I was from Mason City and he was from Chicago, and we mentioned that it was our connection through church, and they asked us about that, found out where we went around here, and they were excited to tell us that they loved going to Heartland Vineyard right across the street, which I know is a solid Christian church that preaches the truth. Good to know! So, we may have met some Christians on our block. Both kids were pretty much melting down and tired so that is how the visit got cut short. They were so tired that they were laying flat on their backs side by side waiting to leave by their front door. I promised Violet mac and cheese if she could hand out the last bag of cookies to the next house and that got her feet moving pretty quick. Overall I think it was a success, we got to know and meet our neighbors, even some new ones that have moved in since we did. And with the scripture reference, we marked ourselves as Christians to the neighbors, I hope to make more contacts in the future!

The fighting...

...does not seem to end lately. I think my kids have the worst cabin fever and are just bored to death inside this house some days. Every time it snows, Violet gets upset and whines that it won't be spring time for a very very long time. She is longing to go outside and ride her trike. I hear ya sweetie. Playing outside in the snow is really not that fun either. I tried bundling them up a couple times and going outside, but all Calvin wants to do is walk in it and he is bored with in minutes, and Violet wants to climb hills that the snowplow makes along side the road. Which is fine, but I can't be outside supervising her and deal with a frustrated Calvin who can't do the same things his big sister is doing. I'm not going to pull them in a sled when I'm almost 6 months pregnant. Violet has a strong sense of what is HERS (her blankies, stroller, baby, etc) and totally freaks out when Calvin touches her stuff. He knows exactly how to push her buttons too, and does it in the most calm matter with a straight face. They have rare moments when they both actually play together and do it nicely and laugh, but they are far outweighed by screaming, fighting, hair pulling, hitting, and yelling. They each have an agenda for whatever they're doing and it never seems to be the same agenda. Both of them end up getting disciplined for any given situation. Calvin makes her mad, Violet freaks out to a very dramatic degree...and she gets him back in her own way. One of their favorite things to do is "play trucks". They each grab a toy truck and push it the length of the hosue from the living room to the garage door, over and over again, but they each argue about who gets which truck multiple times. I just end up taking the trucks away all together until they can agree to play nicely. Its really, really hard to remain calm in the middle of all this fighting. I am trying my best to not get myself worked up to their level, because I know in my head that it is not productive, instead it is the frustration I feel from the way they are acting. They end up scared of me when I yell at them and its not productive. They might behave instantly because they are getting yelled at but its not teaching them good behavior. I find that when I force myself to chill out before responding to them they end up listening better (if I whisper they actually listen better!) and calm down quicker. The verse in Proverbs 15:1 applies to parenting more than I have ever realized: "A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger." I want to believe that this will get better as they get older. Ages 4 and 2 aren't seeming all that compatible at the moment.

Violet felt the baby kick

Tonight while I was getting Violet down for bed, I told her we could lay down together to see if we could feel the baby move after she was all ready. That was a big motivator for getting her in bed quick, so we tried to lay really still and feel any movement. I suggested the idea of trying to feel the baby move while I was reading her a story and I felt a few kicks myself thinking this might be a good awake time for baby. I knew she'd "get a kick" out of feeling some movement. So we laid down on her bed for a few minutes, she was very quiet and patient with both hands on my belly. I felt a strong kick after awhile and could visibly see my belly move. She felt the movement, and immediately gasped and snapped her head to look at me. I said "did you feel that one?!" she said "Yeahhh!!" and got really giddy. We talked about what the baby looks like. She asked if the baby was cold in there, I told her no, mommy's body was giving the baby a big hug and was keeping baby's body warm. She thought it was funny that baby wasn't wearing socks or had any clothes on. I reassured her that once the baby came out of mommy's tummy we would definitely put some clothes on her. She insisted on waiting longer to feel more kicks, but there were none very strong that she could feel. But I know she felt the first one!

Violet had a dream

And she told me about it earlier today. She said to me "Mommy, I had a dream that the baby just POPPED right out of your tummy! And the baby was crying, and crying, and crying. I gave her a blanket. Mommy, we need to go to the store and get the new baby a blanket because I don't think she has one in there!" I could tell she was deeply concerned about the baby's blanket and went on about it for some time, so I think that will be a good gift idea for Violet to give to the new baby. And we don't know the sex of this baby, but Violet often refers to the new baby as "she" and I have a strong feeling it is a girl. I hesitate to even write that, because it just makes me think I'm going to be wrong. I thought Violet was a boy before she was born, and I thought Calvin was a girl before he was born, so I'm 0 for 2. The score might change!

Music

My kids respond to music so well. Violet is a song bird and can learn a song in a few days, she is constantly humming something and inserting her own words to whatever tune comes to her mind. She has CDs of kid music she listens to with her headphones all the time, and when I turn on a CD of music for both to listen to in the house, they almost immediately calm down and play nicely together (well, not all the time...they're professional fighters too!). Violet learned the entire first verse of the Star Spangled Banner in about a week and loves to belt it out. Calvin can hum almost every song Violet knows on tune. He was humming the star spangled banner while eating his cheerios this morning. I think they got stuck on that song over New Year's when Dave and his friend Shawn were belting it out while cooking breakfast together.

Calvin probably won't be a fan of short pants

Dave and I have discovered one thing that will keep Calvin from napping: short pants. And if his ankles are exposed, he'll FREAK out. Last night when we were putting him to bed, all his pajamas were in the washing machine so we had to resort to using a long sleeved onesie and and pair of pajamas that he wore a few months ago that I suspected were a little too small. The pants were slightly short but they fit everywhere else so we figured they'd be fine. I put on a pair of really long socks and pulled the socks way up on his legs. Dave put him to bed and later told me that he was fussing about his ankles, and Dave "helped" him pull his pants down over his exposed ankles and pulled his socks up. Calvin seemed satisfied with this, and went to sleep, but a few moments later, he woke up fussing again. I went into his room and got him up, he was crying and pointing to his ankles. I asked him if he wanted another pair of pants and he sadly said "yeahh". So I got him a different pair of long fleece pants and he seemed reallllly happy. Silly boy. He snuggled right into bed with no fussing at all. And slept through the night (with no pacifier!!). Same thing went on at nap time this afternoon. Apparently the pair of blue sweatpants he had been wearing all winter are all of a sudden too short. Nap time was a disaster, and I had forgotten about his issue with short pants. I went up to his room and again, found him fussing in his crib pointing to the skin that was exposed on his ankles. Duh! The short pants! I changed his pants into the same fleece pair from the night before and he immediately was happy and went right to sleep. I predict he will be very happy to see his footed pajamas ready to wear in his closet tonight.

Nap trouble and I'm still sick

Even after a tiring morning at indoor park, both kids were wiped and went down for naps at 1 pm. They are just not sleeping well. Violet woke up after only 30 minutes and Calvin was screaming after 45 min of sleep. I think I'm going to lose my mind if they stop napping during the day. Calvin is doing fine with out his pacifier, although I think he would sleep longer naps if I he still had it. I'm still sick...maybe I didn't write about it before but I've had the nastiest cold for a whole week. The start of it was the day before Violet's birthday which was last week Tues night. My nose and sinuses have been completely blocked and my throat has been sore. Especially in the morning, from breathing through my mouth all night. Its getting so old...and tiring. I can't taste anything, my breathing is raspy and I just feel exhausted from morning to night. My head feels like its fifty pounds and bloated. Dave caught my cold too so he's suffering along with me. I'm ready to be done with this and start feeling better.

All done with pacifiers?

I've been thinking about taking Calvin's pacifier away from him lately. And today is happened. A few reasons why, actually: 1. His addiction to them lately has seemed to increase and he seems to want it all the time. 2. He still cries if I give it to him and he's still upset, having it in his mouth doesn't make him stop whatever he's upset about, it doesn't serve the same purpose it did when he was 4 months old. 3. I lose them constantly and am sick of depending on having one with me at all times just to "pacify" him. 4. He's two years old...definitely not a baby anymore. 5. I wish I had taken it away from him when he was 12 months old. 6. Having it in his mouth all the time keeps him from talking, which he needs to do more of. 7. Almost every picture I've taken of him in the last month has that thing in his mouth. I can't see his pretty smile and sweet little dimple on his left cheek. 8. He's still at that precious age where he can cry it out, if he gets any older I'd have to incorporate some sort of logic tactic that made sense to him when taking it away or deal with even bigger tantrums...no thanks, I'd rather not. Its bad enough already. Soooo....after his nap today, I got him out of his bed, he handed me all his "stuff" which includes his favorite blue blankie, two stuffed kitties and his paci. Seems in his mind, all of those things must be together to be comforting, but not anymore. Anyway, he gave me all his stuff so he could climb out on his own. He reached his arms out expecting me to hand him everything back, and I only gave him his kitties and his blanket. I think its still important for a child to have comfort objects, and blankies and kitties I totally approve of. He knew he was missing something, but I told him he didn't need his pacifier anymore. Of course he threw a fit, which I ignored. I stuck the beloved piece of plastic in my pocket and walked downstairs, knowing he would end up downstairs eventually. And he did, and he got over it. He played off and on, and at times he would get really upset, he would go search out his blankie, kitties, and then BEG me for his pacifier. He even found my diaper bag on top of the counter top and started digging, found one, and then heroically announced "here's mine!!" with the paci proudly in his mouth. I took it away immediately and told him he was done with them. Of course he threw a fit, so I just walked away figuring he would get over it soon enough. 10 minutes later, his cheeks were stained with tears and he clutched his blankie and kitties. I was starting to feel a little bad. He wanted to cuddle with me for awhile. I suppose after what he thought was a great find in the diaper bag was something I was going to take away, he was probably pretty frustrated and defeated. Dave encouraged me to not give in...we've made it this far and announced to him it was over, no more pacis. In fact, even though I had been thinking of taking it away for some time, I was blissfully ignoring the fact that time was ticking away and my little boy wasn't a toddling 13 month old baby anymore and in fact, a little boy who was growing older and working on completing his third year in life. Besides, some times the paci is downright convenient. It keeps him quiet for hours some times and he's never gone a night with out it. So tonight is his first night with out the paci. I told him no more pacifiers, but he could keep his blankie and kitties. He said "o-tay". That just confirmed to me that he 100% completely understood what was going on. I did the usual bed time routine...diaper change, pajamas on, brush teeth, read books...kisses, hugs, lights out, fan on, zip up tent, say goodnight. He did cry a little bit, but it wasn't even close to a tantrum. And he did great. I heard some noises come his room (babbling and talking) as I worked on getting Violet to bed. She always takes longer to get to bed so I get him down first. Its been an hour and I *think* he's asleep. At least I heard no more crying, and its silent upstairs. I will check on him before I go to bed, but I think this is it!! I just keep telling myself there will be times he probably freaks out again and wants it, but I can't give in, not now, not after I made such a big deal out of it and he's already learned that his relationship with that piece of plastic is over. Dave and I have been discussing the idea of taking it away from him ...but today it just happened, very much unplanned, but in a few days, he'll hopefully forget about it. It will be easier NOW than when he's three, and I knew it would have been easier if he was just one. I guess I live and learn. So I guess my advice to any moms reading this who have babies with pacifiers, take them away earlier than later! I wish I had done it loooong ago! Ahh...funny. I can hardly believe that I'm blogging about pacifiers. :D

Pics of Violet's birthday

Violet's 4th birthday

She is four years old today, wow! The day couldn't come fast enough for her! I made a paper chain of the days left until her birthday and when I created the whole chain, it was 20-something chains long, and each night she ripped off a day. It was a big motivating factor getting her upstairs in bed, getting to rip off a day. Last night we made her birthday cake together, and she had to wait an entire day to eat it. This morning she woke up around 7:30 and climbed into bed with me. I told her Happy Birthday, and she said "I'm four! I think I feel taller!" and she jumped out of bed, stood on the floor, and put her hands on her head trying to "feel" if she was taller. Silly girl. She wanted me to sing her happy birthday right away so I tried my best with my morning sick voice. Daddy got home from the gym shortly after that and she celebrated the fact that it was her birthday over and over. I snuck downstairs while she was still upstairs and put the helium balloons that I had gotten for her on the kitchen table with the completely decorated birthday cake. Last night she only saw the green frosting go on the pink cake (her color requests) but not the decorations. When I asked her what she wanted ON her cake, she told me these things: -a picture of Violet with pigtails -a picture of Calvin -hearts -flowers -"a box of a game" <--her exact words, which means a picture of a game that is in a box, she received a few games in boxes recently for gifts (memory, Twister, etc) so that must have been where her mind was -the number 4 So I tried my best to make a cake with all her requests, and when she saw the balloons and cake she got even more excited. Calvin and her immediately disconnected the balloons from the bag of candy that was holding them down and ran around the house with them. Helium balloons are the best toy, I should pick them up more often for temporary fun! I went to Bible study at 9:30 this morning, and she got to play with all her friends at the chapel for a couple hours and eat lunch together. She passed out fruit snacks to her friends in honor of her birthday, some of the kids sang happy birthday to her. She ate four bites of her peanut butter and jelly sandwich, four baby carrots, and took four drinks of her water and a whole bag of chips (a little one). Apparently she wanted to eat more than four bites of chips. :) When we got back from the chapel I got both kids down for a nap. I am feeling pretty sick with a sinus cold and congestion so my head felt (and still feels) pretty congested and horrible. I laid down to take a nap the same time the kids did, and I woke up when I got a text from my dad saying he had arrived. I knew he was coming and would show up at our house around 3-3:30 so I knew to wake up around that time. I got myself "awake" and let him in the garage. Violet woke up shortly after that, Calvin slept a little longer. She was really happy to see Grandpa Jon. She gave him a big hug and he held her for awhile. He read her some books that he brought from home. One in paticular, called "I am four" is one from my childhood that brought back a few memories for me. It was a gift for Rachel when she turned four, but I read the book a lot when I was younger. Dave and I got dinner ready around 6:00. Violet polished off all her food (a few big pieces of ham, a big pile of rice, and broccoli) and even had two extra helpings of broccoli. She found independence with the stick of butter near her and her own knife, I'm sure she smeared butter on all her bites of broccoli before the bites hit her mouth. Either way...she got her veggies for the day. Then...THEN....FINALLY we got to eat the anticipated cake. She picked out four candles herself and stuck one in the cake (way too far) so I did the rest. We sang her happy birthday, she grinned from ear to ear, and blew out her candles in a few blows. Of course she wanted to eat the piece that had a stick figure drawing of her...which was huge. Dave cut her a piece and she only ate half of it. Calvin just sat in his chair during the meal...didn't eat or want anything. He had asked for oatmeal when he woke up from his nap and I let him have some since he's had such a picky appetite since being sick. He only wants oatmeal. I guess it isn't the worst thing to want, in fact its pretty healthy, but he refused anything else. I think Violet is the only healthy person in the family right now. Dave is feeling under the weather, I have a cold, and Calvin is getting over croup. Calvin didn't even want cake. Violet then made sure we were all done eating cake, and was super excited to open up all her presents. It went much like Christmas time a month ago. She was on a mission to open all the presents as quickly as possible, barely looking at each gift. She got most excited about a little outfit for her baby doll and wanted to dress her as soon as she opened it. She did inspect every gift after she opened them all. She got: -bendaroos -a huge cupcake pan to make huge cupcakes -a sparkly pink folder to put papers and drawings in -a card with $50 from Hardinger Great Grandparents -two sets of furniture for her Loving Family dollhouse -three shirts -a pink baseball bat and ball -Elmo tickle hands (Calvin got his own set too) -a pack of gum I may have missed something, but for now that is all I can remember. All in all she had a really great day. I thank God for her, she is a sweet little girl.

Mornings have MUCH improved

Wow, what a difference. I really feel like a new woman! Dave installed some light blocking shades in our bedroom so it is darker in the morning. It allows me to sleep longer than when the sun shines in the room so early in the winter. Before Dave installed the black out shades, we had some other cellular blinds on the windows, but they were so transparent there might as well have been nothing on the window. One of the window shades was broken too so we (yes, quiet tacky in fact) tacked a blanket up in front of the window. So the new blinds are a nice upgrade to our room. Since Calvin has been tented in his crib, mornings have been pleasurable. I wake up when I want to, or Violet wakes me up when she comes in my room and snuggles in bed quietly with me. She is very sweet in the mornings, full of hugs and kisses. I usually get up and shower right away so I can get Calvin at a good time. When I go in his room he is always awake, but just sitting or laying down in his crib just waiting for me to come get him. Its just so much nicer. This morning Dave and I had to make a point to set our alarm so we would wake up (knowing it was going to be so dark!). We got up and both got ready...and by 8:15, the kids still weren't up yet, it was eerie. With in minutes though we heard Calvin wake up...it was just much later than normal. Too bad he is sick. I don't think I should take him to Puggles tonight.

At home with a sick little boy

Calvin woke up this morning with an ugly cough, I suspect it is croup again. Poor kid. Doesn't seem very severe but when he does cough, it sounds like an adult seal is in the room barking. Dave took Violet with him to BBC because he teaches a Sunday School class and she was on a mission to sing happy birthday to her friend who just had a birthday yesterday.

5 months pregnant

That's how far along I am now. I had to figure that out, I haven't been keeping track as well this time and I have to look at the ticker on my blog to find out exactly. I am feeling this baby move a lot more lately, especially at night when I'm trying to go to sleep. That's how they all seem to be. Mommy finally relaxes and stops moving, time for baby to wake up I guess. Thankfully the kicks aren't very strong yet and not keeping me up, but it is really comforting and nice to feel the baby move on a more regular basis.

Bonding time with Aunt Rachel

Since Rachel graduated from her ortho residency in Oklahoma, she's been around Iowa staying with us, other family, and visiting friends. She's been here a number of nights and we've all loved having her around. Myself especially since I don't see her that often, and the kids totally loved having her around too. They got some great time with Aunt Rachel. Makes me happy that they know her and will remember her! She got Violet a couple early birthday presents which she opened, because Rachel wouldn't be around for her actual birthday. She got her some new dolls (she called the dolls Violet and Rachel) for her doll house in her room and the game Twister. I got some silly pictures of the last few weeks with the kids and Aunt Rachel:

Calvin's tent

And it might not be with you think. Over the last two months, my little Calvin (um, not so little anymore though) has made my mornings miserable. He has been consistently climbing out of his crib every morning around 6 am and walks into our room and asks for his little meow, blankie and pacifier. When he found his new freedom he did it every single time he couldn't find them in the dark, so most mornings I would get woken up way too early and he would get out of his crib a number of times after I'd put him back in and tell him to go back to sleep. Nothing was working. A few times I spanked him but he didn't seem to respond to that very well either. Mornings became a time of dread and much frustration. Sooo.....I resorted to caging him in. I was so desperate to find something that worked, I was willing to try anything. I got him a crib tent (I searched the market, there really is only one out there), ordered it, and paid for the quick shipping. I got it in two days! It took Rachel and I about a half hour to install it. It totally works, and I love it. This morning I slept in til until a lovely 7:40 when Violet woke up (she is easy in the mornings, she doesn't wander around and do dangerous things like Calvin does) so I took a shower, got ready (she played with her doll house in her room under strict orders to not go in Calvin's room), and then went into Calvin's room to get him out of bed when I was ready about 15-20 minutes later. It was soooo nice. He was ready to get out of bed, but he wasn't crying or anything. He was just standing there in silence waiting for me. I got him out and said "Calvin, do you like your new tent?" He enthusiastically said "Yeeeeah!" So its a good thing. I never would have thought I'd do this in the past...just seems so "silly" to "cage" in my kid, but its working, and I really like it so far. When he is older things will change of course, but for now, it is the perfect thing. There is no possible way he could get out of it. There is an inside netting that completely wraps underneath the mattress and connects to the dome top and when the zipper is shut the pull tab gets tucked into an outside pocket. The only thing it makes more difficult is changing his crib sheet, but its still possible.

Oh be careful...

You all know the little kid's Sunday School song. "Oh be careful little eyes what you see, (repeat), for the father up above is looking down in love, oh be careful little eyes what you see..." and it goes on warning about ears, etc. Violet has extrapolated the lyrics to anything she sees or thinks. She was spending some time in the bathroom after breakfast and while sitting for some time, I started jotting down the verses of the songs she was singing to this tune. Here are some of them, I'm sure I didn't get them all: -- "Oh be careful little mom what you hug, oh be careful little mom what you hug, for the father up above is looking down above, oh be careful little mom what you hug." -- "Oh be careful little shirt what you put on..." -- "Oh be careful little stroller what you push..." -- "Oh be careful little finger what you move..." -- "Oh be careful little hand what you plant..." -- "Oh be careful little pants you pull up..." -- "Oh be careful little door what you shut..."

Harold and the Purple Crayon @ GBPAC

I took the kids to the performing arts center at UNI today for a live production of Harold and the Purple Crayon. This book happens to be one of my favorite childhood books and has become one of Violet's. She has heard us read the book to her so many times that she can recite almost every single word on each page, down to the "hungry moose and the deserving porcupine" and the "trim little boat". She was looking forward to this day for so long, and I gotta say, I'm glad its over. It was just OK. The play was creative and mostly accurate to the whole story, in fact, Harold in the play acted out the whole book with animations in the background that helped make it feel more real. But at the end of the book when Harold gets in his bed and "drew up the covers", that wasn't the end of the play. It kept on going, and going, and going. Harold ended up in the middle of many other adventures. Violet was so confused why the story kept going. She kept saying things like "Why didn't Harold go to bed? Why did he have a bad dream? Why don't we have this part of the story? Why does Harold keep going to bed and waking up? Why does this keep going? Why this, why that..." it didn't end. She was so inquisitive about this Harold story. Calvin sat on my lap the whole time and just stared, he didn't seem to be that affected by the story. There were some very scary parts to the play, when the drawing of the dragon under the apple tree became real, and many other things. Every time she got scared she had to jump in my lap and verify with me that it was just a person under there dressed up in a costume pretending, and that it wasn't real. We went to the production with some friends, and the conclusion was the same...not so good. The beginning was great and fit the book, but the play just went on and on and didn't seem to have a point or an end. All the kids got pretty scared, but while we were eating lunch with everybody at McDonald's after wards, Violet told me that she wanted to go back and see Harold again. When we walked back to the van after lunch, she sighed, buckled into her car seat, and said "Well! That was really fun. I want to go see Harold again! When can we go see Harold again mom?" I was happy to say we probably couldn't go back because they weren't going to play it again. And she would be just as happy reading the book over and over and over again to herself.

Dave gone this week

Its time for the quarterly sales meeting at Dave's work and he's going out there to meet his new boss and new co workers. He didn't get a different job, but someone was placed in charge of professional services (he is a project manager for professional services) to give the department more direction and develop it. So, he's looking forward to it. His new boss is a lady in her 50s or so, he has spoken to her and said he thinks they'll get along. That's good news. His flight left around noon today, and Violet was not taking the news well that he had to leave. We didn't tell her til yesterday because we knew she would get weepy and clingy. She did, and didn't handle daddy leaving all that well. He was packing, and she wouldn't stop hugging him. I had to distract her and ask for her help in preparing lunch so he could finish up packing. We made PBJs and she spread jelly and peanut butter from here to timbuktu by the time she finished. She made a huge fuss if I tried to help her so I just allowed her to be distracted, and he left with a few goodbyes, kisses and hugs. She got disciplined during lunch for whining back at me when I asked her a question so after a slap in the leg, she started crying hysterically for daddy. I have a feeling its going to be a rough week. I haven't been feeling the best. I think the worst is over though, and I'm glad it was yesterday, not today. I had some type of indigestion and couldn't function well, I was popping Rolaids every couple hours for stomach comfort and sleeping as much as I could. On Saturday (yesterday), I slept from 10:30-5:30 in the afternoon, with a few breaks in between there to do a few things. Dave took the kids to the store by himself to exchange some shower heads (we're looking for a new one for our shower, its proving to be a difficult task!) so that gave me a little quiet time to rest. Dave was itching to go out to eat last night so we made a trip out to Waterloo and had dinner at Red Lobster. He got a lobster tail, snow crab legs and shrimp, and I nibbled bites of potato soup, which I could not finish. My body was just saying "don't eat right now". I had no appetite. Kids were pretty restless while we waited for a table (the line was super long) but they kept themselves mostly busy staring at all the live lobsters in the cage. Violet was disgusted and intrigued all at the same time that daddy was eating a lobster. She asked a million questions how the lobster got killed, did it hurt the lobster that he was eating it, etc. He offered her a bite but she didn't want to try any of it, saying it was yucky. We left and by the time we got home it was 9 pm. We were in high gear getting them to bed ASAP. Mornings have been rather difficult for me lately. Calvin is always the first to wake up around 6:30 and he walks into our room and immediately says "Meow?" asking for help in finding his precious little white stuffed kitty. Dave took him back to his room and Calvin said to him "poopoo" - much to our surprise, he was actually right this time. Dave did a quick diaper change, put him back in bed, and he just kept getting up and getting up, probably 5 times. Its so hard not to get incredibly annoyed when I am just not ready to wake up. He even walked into Violet's room and woke her up, which annoyed me even more, because she was crabby and not ready to wake up. I've resorted to locking her door when they go to bed so he can't get in there. I am ready to start locking him in his room too. Or put up baby gates on his doorway or something. I just CAN'T deal with the kids climbing all over me in the morning when I'm trying to sleep. It makes for a very frustrating time and a bad start to my day. I've learned that I can not get by with less sleep than I need. Being pregnant, I am generally very tired all the time, and getting to bed too late is detrimental to my survival during the days. I fell asleep at 10 pm last night and I don't feel like it was enough sleep. Getting to bed at a decent hour is a big struggle for me since I never want the nights to end. They're so nice, quiet, and peaceful, I love night times after the kids go to bed. Dave and I some times watch movies, or stay up and watch favorite TV shows, whatever, its just a nice relaxing time for the two of us and its so easy to let 11 pm slip by and go to bed around 11:30-midnight. Not good...need to change that.

Visitors for New Year's 2009-2010

Dave's mom, Martha, was one of the guests we had over for New Year's. We had wanted her to come visit for some time and decided after Christmas was going to be the best time. She came out late Wednesday night (the 30th of Dec) and stayed til Saturday the 2nd. One of the main goals of her visit was to allow Dave and I help her transition over her budget system to an electronic form. When Dave and I visited her a few weeks back on our way home from Ohio, she showed us her paper system of budgeting with the envelope method. Her binder of papers was categorized with all her expenses, how much she budgeted per month, etc...it was a painstaking (well, that was our perception of course) effort of budgeting that method on PAPER, of all things and required so much of her time to organize and keep up. Dave and I have our finances (the envelope budgeting system) on a software program called Money Map which is designed by Crown Financial Ministries. Anyway, we saw the work she did to record just one transaction and knew immediately if she converted her work to the software that we used, it would be MUCH easier for her to manage. In our opinion, of course. :) She was very willing, however. She brought out her computer and we got the software downloaded onto her computer, and over the course of three days, converted her work on paper to the software. It is all the same information and the same way of budgeting, it will just take her awhile to learn the functions of the program. She feels very lost and confused, but she knows we'll help her transition over. There were moments during the set up process that she "saw the light" and got very excited at the prospect of having all this information at her fingertips. With her paper system, she never really knew if the envelope balances added up to the balance in her checking account, and the software program calculates everything to the penny so you're never a cent off. I also helped her log on to her internet banking, sign on to her credit card online, and when the time comes, I will help her pay her first bill online. We're rocketing her into the 21st century world of banking (which is SO much easier! I can't fathom actually writing a check, sticking it in the mailbox, and putting a stamp on it, I haven't done that for 10 years). She's nervous, of course, because she tried convincing me that her generation of folk doesn't trust the internet, but with our guidance, she will figure it out soon. We told her to call us if she has even the simplest of questions about the program, and we're confident we can help her transition over. I know once she learns it, she'll be glad too. Shawn and Kim Thompson also came for New Year's. We have a tradition going with them for the past few (4 or 5 maybe?) years of getting together to bring in the new year. They came back to Iowa during Shawn's break from school and spend Christmas with their parents (who live in Mason City and Greene), so they get together with us for New Year's. They came on Thurs the 31st and stayed overnight. Martha, Shawn and Kim joined us for a few hours at Bethany Bible Chapel's New Year's Eve celebration, which was really fun. There was tons of yummy food to munch on, games to play, and silly home videos to watch (small groups made videos). We only stayed a couple hours so we could put the kids to bed around 9:30 pm and we stayed up and played Balderdash. The first day of the New Year was a delicious one. Martha made a favorite recipe of Dave's, her egg/cheese/bacon frittata, cinnamon coffee cake, and I cut up and served red juicy grapefruit, melon and strawberries. What a great way to start the new year! New Year's Resolutions? That question got asked many times. Dave started working out in December. He's following a year-long fitness program that he used years ago and really likes. He actually started in the last two weeks of December to get his body used to working out in the morning. Three times a week he gets up early and goes to the rec center and follows the weight-lifting routine. He is enjoying the work outs, he says they're not too strenuous and it starts fairly easy. He enjoys the feeling of being sore and knowing he's making progress. Me? Nahhh, no new year's resolutions. I'm gonna have another baby, there we go. But I'm very proud of Dave for sticking to his plan so far, I guess my resolution will be to support him in his effort. I know I play a big part in his success, being OK with him being gone three mornings a week. At least its not in the evening.

Calvin's 2nd birthday...

was barely a celebration. He woke up and climbed into our bed, Dave and I started singing him happy birthday, and he yelled "mo! mo! mo!" (no, no no) motioning for us to stop. I guess he doesn't like singing, lol. At least that early in the morning. We had nothing special planned. The night before we had gone to the grocery store and gotten some cake mix and frosting in a tub. On Monday, his birthday (December 28th), we baked the yellow cake and I frosted it using green food coloring to make the frosting colorful. I stuck two candles in the cake, lit them, and everyone sang happy birthday while he blew out the candles himself. He wasn't satisfied just blowing them out one time only, however, so we re-lit them a couple times and let him blow them out over and over, which he just thought was super fun. I had to re-lite them at least once for a photo op, the camera wasn't ready at the right time. He didn't mind doing it over again. Violet was the most excited about his birthday, she kept trying to smother him with love and get in the way when the camera would try shoot at him, she stuck her head in many pictures which turned out to be a little annoying. She kept whining that she wanted her birthday to be here and was barely handling the fact that Calvin's birthday is "before" hers. Well, in order of the months and the way it "seems", yes, his is in December, and hers is in January. She's keenly aware that she's older than him, and knows he turned 2 and she is turning 4, but she still wanted to celebrate her birthday first. Too bad, girl, that's how the calendar works. We let Calvin have a big piece of cake on his high chair tray similar to how a kid eats his first birthday cake. He didn't want anything to do with the cake itself, he just used his fingers to swipe off all the frosting and suck it off his fingers. And we didn't even have presents ready for him. In the coming years, I'm going to have to make a conscious effort to plan for his birthday, since it is only 3 days after Christmas. Not exactly the best birthday timing, but oh well. He didn't even care or notice about anything birthday-related. He just had fun with what we did, and we have great family time. Rachel was with us, she enjoyed celebrating his birthday with him too.

20 week ultrasound

I had my 20 week ultrasound this morning. It was originally scheduled for 8:30 am, and I'm so glad we were able to move it to 11:30 am. Dave and Rachel both wanted to come with me so that meant taking the kids along. Since we were up so late last night coming home from the swimming pool they slept in a little later. The u/s felt like any other u/s I've had before. We told the u/s tech that we wanted to keep the sex of the baby a secret so she didn't even look herself. Baby is developing great! They estimated the weight at 12 oz and predicted a due date of May 19th, which doesn't really change anything since I'm "due" May 16th. Or maybe its the 14th. I can't exactly remember, it has been calculated a couple times. Baby is well developed, all bones and body parts are totally formed. Approx 10 inches in length. We saw the heart beat, complete skull, back bones, ribs, hands, legs, feet, face profile, eyes, stomach, kidneys, the mouth moving around and sucking. The placenta is located on the front of my belly so I suspect that is why I haven't felt the baby moving that much. Violet was curious about the picture on the screen, she asked a lot of questions. We just told her it was a picture of the baby moving around and even though it was hard to see, the baby is really happy and healthy right now. Last night when we went swimming, Violet asked me if the baby inside my tummy was going to go swimming too. She thought that was really fun. :)

Swim night

Dave was looking through the Cedar Falls Rec services online and reminded me of Sunday night swim nights at Holmes Elementary. We decided it would be super fun to go, so we packed up the family, brought Rachel along with us, and had an hour and a half of fun in the water. We were the only 5 people in the whole pool so it was nice to be all alone. The three lifeguards on duty played cards near the pool and watched us. They let Violet wear her life jacket (normally that isn't allowed) so she could swim anywhere in the super big pool. She could touch in the little hot spa everywhere and quickly got bored. She swam all around in the large lap pool (all the lane lines were out), watching Rachel and I do silly things off the diving boards. Dave created a few big splashes. I held Calvin to let him watch Dave and Rachel do flips. His reaction to the first flip he witnessed from Rachel was "Whoaaaa!!!" I did a few flips, I know, I know, I'm 20 weeks pregnant. Didn't really stop me though. I suppose it would have been dangerous but I knew what I was doing. Baby is fine! We had a LOT of fun. We stayed out entirely too late, making a trip to the post office and the grocery store on the way back. We picked up some groceries and stuff to make a cake for Calvin tomorrow. We got home and unloaded the groceries, and both kids ran around the kitchen like CRAZY monkeys eating what we had left for bananas. Got them to bed finally by 10:30. We're all tired and my back is especially sore, maybe I can score a back rub from Dave later.

Calvin turns 2 tomorrow

I can not believe it, time has just flown! I know, that sounds SO cliche, but its true. I remember the day in the church nursery when I told someone that it was his first birthday. And some how it is now his second. He's close to 30 lbs, give or take a pound given how squirmy he was when we tried to weigh him. We don't really have birthday plans. We'll make him a cake and celebrate somehow, with just our family. My sister Rachel is staying with us for awhile, she is back in Iowa for a few weeks until she moves to New York in the middle of January. She can help us celebrate.

Vla-vla

Calvin came up with a word for "Violet" in his own vocabulary. He says either Vla-vla or La-La. I think its so cute! He likes to go around the dinner table and say "Hi Mama, Hi Daddy, Hi La-La." :)

I tried, but Calvin proved it was time.

He climbed out of his crib yesterday after his nap and opened his bedroom door looking very tired and lost. He has never done this before. So, in my attempt to keep him contained, I removed the wire mesh mattress support that was suspending his mattress about 6 inches off the ground in his crib, and lowered the mattress to the floor so he wouldn't be able to climb out. I thought for sure that would buy me a few more months before I had a kid who could escape their bed. Nope. He climbed right out of it after his nap today. I guess its time I just give in and get him his own big bed with guard rails and some how block off his bedroom door so we don't have a wandering kid around the house before we wake up in the morning.

Return of the "Hop Truck"

Have I written about this before? I can not remember. But the "Hop Truck" has returned. A few months ago the kids got attached to this card board box they climbed in and (Violet mainly) pretended it was a car they could drive anywhere. It became so fun that we cut doors out of the side so they could open and shut them. The box was eventually destroyed from so much use and it ended up in the recycling pile. Another FedEx delivery provided the perfect opportunity for another one. I thought they had long forgotten about the beloved "hop truck" (Violet came up with that name and I have absolutely no idea why), but when she caught site of the big empty box in the kitchen, she immediately said "A new hop truck!" and it was almost love at first sight. She climbed right in it, pretended it had a steering wheel and said she was driving over to a friend's house. I cut some doors, drew on a steering wheel with permanent marker, and today we spent an hour taping colored paper on it to decorate it. She helped Calvin put stickers all over it and she took some time to write "Hop Truck" on the door and also write a bunch of other things, drawings, etc...all over it. Calvin is starting to "get" these games she invents. He often tries to play along but ultimately frustrates the living daylights out of Violet because he's not "playing it right" and she freaks out. *sigh* Some times they play so well together, other times they're like two feisty cats in a cage.

Questions

Yesterday while we were eating supper, Violet started asking me questions about the new baby. She notices my tummy sticking out more every day and asks if she can hug and kiss the new baby. Calvin copies her, but he has no clue what is going on! She had some interesting questions, which gives insight to how a 3 yr old's mind thinks about this situation: "Does it hurt when the baby is in your tummy?" I answered no. "Where is the baby's mommy?" I said to her "I am the baby's mommy, silly!" She was like "uhhh...OH!" "Well....how is this going to work? You take care of Calvin, daddy takes care of me, who will take care of the baby? What are you going to do with THREE kids? (while she throws her arms up in frustration)" (She couldn't have gotten that from ME!? ha! I say that all the time to myself!) This made Dave and I laugh. I told her we would make it work. And I reminded her of lots of families with one mommy, one daddy, and lots of kids. Her cousins for example. There are three kids in Austin, Renee, and Wesley's family. There are seven kids in the other LaMarche family. And I reminded her that some of her friends have lots of sisters and brothers. I told her with in a family, one mommy and one daddy work together to take care of all the kids, no matter how many there were, and we love them all the same. She seemed to be happy with that answer. :) And she's been fascinated with the way the baby is going to come out. Daddy told her that God opens a little door when its time to come out, and the doctor can help. She wanted to see the door, I just told her no. I guess we'll see when the time comes how God allows this baby to come out!

Oklahoma/Texas

I wish I had brought along a computer so I could have blogged more accurately. We got home from a week-long trip in Oklahoma and Texas. This will be logged from my brain which has a very poor memory, which is also trying to recover from a week of intense travel and less sleep than desired. The time in Oklahoma was spent celebrating with family to honor Rachel's graduation from her Orthodontic residency at Oklahoma University. She completed the 30 month program with excellent reviews from her professors. She is so passionate about orthodontics, I know this is the right field of medicine for her to practice in. We scheduled our flights to leave on Thursday evening last week the 10th. We flew from Waterloo to Minneapolis, then Minneapolis to Oklahoma City. It was a rush getting to the airport for some reason, even though we had all day to prepare, pack and load the car. Life with kids just seems to do that and operate that way, no matter how much fudge time you allow in. We pulled up the van just in time to check our luggage. Dave got the kids inside the airport, I parked, and ran inside. Just as we got through security and into the line where we boarded the airplane, Dave realized we forgot to unhook the car seats and bring them with us. Oh noooo!! How annoying. We were stuck...the security people wouldn't let us back through with 8 minutes to departure. So that was it, we just had to deal with it the whole way there. And it wasn't fun. We made sure to purchase four airplane seats so the kids would be sure to have their own seats their car seats could be strapped into. If anybody has flown with kids, yes, its a pain to lug along the big car seat (not to mention two of them) but its SUCH a blessing once you get on the airplane. Kids just know (well, mine do) that when they're strapped into their car seats, that is as far as they can move. The air travel to MN and OK was a struggle the whole time, Violet and Calvin were buckled in their seats, but with a pathetic lap strap that they could both wriggle out of. They were difficult to keep in one place and neither slept a wink even though we got in late around 11 pm. Both were whiny, tired, cranky, and miserable. I had counted on them getting sleep on the airplane (the 2nd flight was over 2 hours and it could have worked beautifully but nope). I communicated with Rachel and my dad (who was already there) that I'd need their help. I asked them if they could run by Walmart and buy two car seats for our kids and leave them at the airport for us to use when we got our rental car. Thankfully, they made time in their schedule to run that errand for us. We could have rented two car seats from Hertz but I never like to do that, who knows what their history is, they could be gross and peed on, and could have possibly even been in an accident and nobody would have known. Not safe enough for me...if anybody knows me they'd know I am a little on the particular side when it comes to car seat safety. Anyway....that problem was solved. Besides, renting the car seats was $26 a day ($13/day for one) and we needed them for 6 nights. That would have been more expensive than buying two new ones for $52/piece. And the beauty of buying them was the ability to return them when we got home. So essentially they were free. :) The three nights we spent at the Hilton hotel in Oklahoma City went by slowly. Even though the kids got to sleep by 11 pm or midnight each night, they some how woke up at the crack of dawn by 7 am each morning. Don't they realize there is always the option to sleep in!?! Apparently not. The first morning was a little tense between Dave and I. Neither of us do well on low sleep. I think we got maybe 4 or 5 hours, since neither kid slept soundly through the night. I think Violet had a night mare, Calvin lost his pacifier, etc...I'm sure there was more, it is all a blur. One nice thing about Dave's status with the Hilton chain of hotels is that he got coupons for free breakfast each morning. It was a full buffet with cook-to-order eggs, all free. So we all ate big breakfasts. On Friday we kept ourselves entertained by going to the mall about 10 min north of the hotel. There was no way we were going to spend all day cooped up in a hotel room. Dave shopped for a blazer to wear at Rachel's graduation ceremony, I shopped for maternity jeans and a winter coat to accommodate my large belly the whole winter. We got lunch at McD's on the way back from the mall and the kids took naps from around 3-5 pm. Friday night was Rachel's graduation party. It was so fun. We all dressed up and had a party with her friends and family. My grandparents were there from Arizona, my great aunt Lucy drove up for the party from Little Rock, AR. Jay and Molly drove from Iowa, and my parents came too. Violet was in some crazy social mood, running around and talking to everybody she could get to talk back to her. She even climbed up into the department head's lap (Dr. Currier) and played some little silly games with him. She bounced around from lap to lap. The meal they served was really delicious too. The first course was a salad, and I've never seen Violet dig into a salad before like I saw her eat it that night. It was a regular lettuce salad with ranch dressing and other things, crunchy little chips, some nuts, I don't even remember what was all on it since I was busy feeding Calvin, but she kept taking huge bites, she almost cleared her salad plate. I didn't know she even liked lettuce. She's always turned her nose up at salads like that. I guess I should start making those more often. :) The night was fun. All the graduating residents did goofy things on a slide show, comparing their professors to famous celebrities and saying what great teachers they are and the individual things they did to progress their studies in the program. The 2nd year students put together a slide show for the graduates, funny pics and songs. The night ended with a yummy chocolate fudge torte cake thing, I don't even know what it was. It wasn't a cheesecake, but it looked like one. It was really late by the time it was over. Calvin was glossy-eyed and just wanted to sit in his stroller and be wrapped up by his blankie and hold his kitty. Violet remained social until the moment we left, and then by the time we got to our hotel room, she was a crying mess. Saturday we spent with family again, we met for lunch together at a BBQ place with Rachel's friends and our family. Dinner was a different place. I got a chance to get away with Rachel for a short time and drive around to look at some pretty neat Christmas light displays. The hot thing this year is to use LED Christmas lights and wrap them around every square inch of the tree trunk and all the branches. All the rich neighborhoods had fabulous light displays. Sunday was our day to travel to Texas. Since we were so close to Dallas (where Dave's sister Lisa lives), we thought we'd take a couple extra days and visit them. We scheduled our flights to return home from OK to IA on Wednesday, so we drive in the rental car to Dallas and back. Sunday morning Rachel took us to the church she called her own for the last 2 1/2 years. It was neat to visit them and get to know the people who have been there for her and encouraged her while she was all by herself in OK. We checked out of the hotel when it was over, got lunch at Jimmy John's with Rachel, and said our goodbyes and took off for Dallas. The kids were so tired. The drive was three hours long and both of them slept the entire way. We didn't stop once. We arrived at StenErik and Lisa's apartment around 5:30 pm, and they were all happy to see us. Their apartment is pretty small. Their girls slept on the floor in the living room and they let us sleep in their room for the three days we were there. Violet told her Aunt Lisa "I am so glad I came back, I told you I would come back because I love you!" We didn't really have a schedule for the next three days. I was really hoping to relax and catch up on much needed sleep, but some how that didn't happen. It was too easy to stay up late and talk to Sten and Lisa since we rarely get 1-1 time to talk to them. The kids didn't sleep that well. Calvin learned how to climb out of the pack and play crib he was sleeping in (he could also climb out of the crib he slept in at the hotel, which made for unexpected visits from Calvin in the middle of the night), so he was one of the biggest challenges. We would put him down for a nap or bed, and he'd crawl right out and go play with Violet who was trying to sleep on the couch. Ugh...that kid. I think we had to put him back in his bed multiple times before he actually went to sleep. One night he threw his paci out of the crib and around 2 am he woke up and started screaming for it. The kid can't get to sleep with out that darn paci. Dave and I were searching for his paci at 2 am with the light of our cell phones. Finally I found it tucked underneath a dresser next to his crib. The best part of the trip to Texas was connecting on a more personal level with Lisa. We worked together to de-clutter their apartment and get rid of things they didn't use or didn't need. Her girls, Violet and Calvin also had a blast together. At any given moment, someone was always cuddling with someone on the couch, giving hugs, playing, running around, and just having fun. Violet is almost 4 (Jan 20 is her birthday!), she comprehends everything and can communicate extremely well, so she just seemed like an older kid blending in with what her older cousins were doing, not like a younger toddler who didn't get anything. Calvin played that role instead. He really fell in love with Emma. He was immediately comfortable with Emma holding and comforting him, which was weird. He doesn't warm up to people that quickly. Nice to see, though. Kristina is 11, Emma is 10, and Anja is 8. I found Anja and Violet up in their loft coloring in Violet's coloring book a lot of the time. This week was finals week for Sten (bad timing on our part), so he was often writing papers and studying and at class. We had "Christmas dinner" together with their family the last night we were there, on Tues. Lisa baked a ham, and we made three-cheese garlic scalloped potatoes, and ate green beans. It was so delicious! Our trip home went much better. The drive back to the airport on Wednesday was at a great nap time for the kids. They slept, I took a nap, and Dave (although he was really tired) drove to the airport. We got our rental car checked in, and boarded our flight. The next two flights went much smoother than the first two on our way there. Calvin was comfy in his seat and calm for the entirety of the flights. He slept the last one. Violet sat next to me on the last flight from MN to IA and she was so cheerful, saying silly things, playing impromptu games she could make up in her mind, and we both had fun drawing on our styrofoam cups that the flight attendant gave us when she passed out water. We were greeted in IA with 5 degree weather and a thick layer of ice on our windshield. Not so cool when we forgot to put our ice scrapers in the van. We had to let the defroster fun for about 15 min in the parking lot so we could see well enough to drive. Calvin was mad he had to wake up, so he cried pretty much the whole drive home. We stuck them in bed as soon as we got home. The house was soooo cold too. We turned our heat down to 50 when we were gone, so it took Violet awhile to get warm in her fleece jammies and tucked into bed. I layered on an extra blanket on her bed. Calvin was so happy to be back in bed. Violet took awhile to get to sleep. She must have been overstimulated. I think she fell asleep around midnight. The poor girl, I had to wake her up and take her to preschool the next morning. Any other day I would have just let her sleep in and skip it, but she was assigned to bring snacks for her class that day. And "snack day" is a BIG deal to her. In her class, whoever brings the snack that day also gets to be the leader in the front of the line when the class goes places together, like to the gym to play and run around, or to any other place with in the facility. She also got to select the weather on the board, write what day it was on the calendar, all sorts of very special things. Last time she got to bring the snack, she talked about that day for WEEKS. She loves being the leader, so I knew this day would be one to not miss. I woke her up at 8 am, and she just snuggled with me for a few minutes trying to wake up. I told her what that day was and how special it would be, and she perked up enough for me to get her dressed and get her to eat a bowl of cereal. Since we had just gotten home the night before really late, I had nothing planned for the snacks that she was to share with her class. We made a quick run to the store before I took her, and she wanted to bring yogurt tubes, cookies and grape juice. We got exactly that, and she happily brought along her snacks when I dropped her off a few minutes later. The teacher said she did pretty good that day, and didn't seem that tired. I was happy to hear that. They both slept good three hour naps Thursday afternoon, which was their attempt at catching up on much needed sleep. That night both kids spent about an hour in the bathtub. They were so happy to be home, and both got to bed at 8:30-8:45...a great time. Dave and I actually got a little time to sit and relax that night, even though my list of things to do was enormous. Laundry, catching up on bills, updating the budget software with all our transactions the last week, grocery shopping, filing papers, etc...the list goes on and on. So far I've gotten the laundry all sorted, washed, dried, and put away and updated the budget software but my list is still long. I knew I would forget a lot of the trip the longer I waited, so I blogged today during nap time. Violet just woke up and is snuggling in my lap so I should get off the computer. Thanks for reading my long account!