recovery

On Mother's Day I decided I wanted to take a picture with all my children. I generally HATE having my picture taken, and I usually hate the result. But I've started to realize that other people do not hate the results. In fact, someday my kids might like to have a picture of them with their mom. So I sucked it up and piled us all on the bean bag chair, or "Rocky Mountain" as it's known in our house, and had Jeremy snap a few. Only two of them really turned out, so I'm sharing them with you. Even though it pains me to do so.

I'm not sure which one turned out the best. I've been meaning to post these all week but last week is a week I'd like to forget. It was LOOOONG and short all at once. It was packed full of everything but sleep. I spent more time away from my home and my kids than I normally care to (unless I'm on vacation, which I wasn't), and I had to move outside of my comfort zone a bit. And to top it off I had a cough and scratchy throat and sounded like a man all week. Listen to me, I'm such a whiner. Anyway, it was a busy and bizarre week and I'm glad it's over.

The one highlight of the week, however, was that for one whole day it warmed up enough that I could put shorts on Ryan! If you have ever seen his fat legs you know why this was the highlight of the week.
Today it's back to sweatshirt weather (on May 16th? That seems wrong...), but I look forward to warm days where I can gaze upon his fat rolls to my hearts content because they won't be hidden by clothing. And can you even imagine when I put him in a swimsuit??? My heart may stop! I told Jeremy yesterday that if we have any more babies they better be fat or I might not love them because once you've had fat (babies) you can never go back. (Which is ridiculous of course, I love all my babies.)

In other news (really, does any of this qualify as "news"?), yesterday Jeremy cut our grass for the first time this season and he cut a T into it. I remember when I was a teenager my brother, Peter, was taking his turn cutting the grass and spent quite a bit of time cutting his first name into it. Someday Jeremy and I aspire to having a lawn big enough for more than one letter, but for now I guess this will do.


I'm sure I have plenty of other things to write about, but this is all I can eek out now. Things to do, groceries to buy, kids to love on, bathrooms to clean, dishes to do (always), but I'm happy to be back to all of it. Except the dishes--some things will never change.

the last month of babydom...

Look! I'm finally getting around to posting Easter pictures. But probably only because it's better than the alternative (washing dishes). The Easter Bunny got a little smarter this year and brought very little candy (about 20 small jelly beans per kid), one dollar, and toys to keep them active.

At our house the Easter Bunny hides the kids baskets

Jeremy took these pictures of the kids while I was still upstairs getting ready for church, and when I looked at them later I felt a sense of accomplishment. I thought to myself, while looking at the picture of the three of them, "This is what I do!" That might not make much sense, but sometimes as a mother it's hard to measure what you do all day, or to see the products of your efforts. But when I look at them in that picture, I see it. I raise happy, well adjusted, well behaved, good children. That's what I do, and it's no small task. And if you do that too, give yourself a pat on the back. Or order your own Mother's Day gift, like I did yesterday.

In other sad news, yesterday this guy was officially 11 months old.

Which means today he's older than 11 months. Oh dear.

To celebrate, yesterday he spent the morning climbing up and coming back down the first two stairs. But sometimes he would only climb up one stair and come back down; then, not realizing he was already on the ground level, he would stick his leg out behind him feeling for the next stair to come down. It was very cute.

He has recently discovered that when he covers his ears the world sounds different. So he spends a good portion of the day looking like this (minus the yogurt on his chin):

I'm also beginning to suspect that he will be more mischievous than my other two (which really wouldn't be hard to do), but it's hard to tell when they are only one because at this age they get into everything. Just a few minutes ago he found where I keep the kids crayon bags, which is really exciting to him because he loves nothing more than to chew on crayons. So when I saw he had found them and was holding a crayon in his mouth I said, "NO!". He smiled and saw me coming towards him so he quickly "ran" back to the crayon bag to grab another one before I could get to him. It was very obvious that that was what he was trying to do. But he's also so good-natured that he doesn't even get upset when I take the crayons away and close off his access to them. Either that or he's thinking, "Oh, I'll find a way back. Just you wait."

He walks anywhere and everywhere--though his gait is a little weird. He doesn't bend his knees much and he swings his legs out to the side and to the front of him in a small circle. He looks more like a lumbering giant than a little baby, probably because he has a huge tummy that precedes the rest of his body wherever he goes.

He is still the most pleasant baby to have around. I never (or almost rarely) think, "Oh great, Ryan is up from a nap, let the work begin." He is pretty self-entertaining, he isn't very demanding, and everything he does is the cutest thing ever, so who wouldn't want that around? He is a blessing in my life, one of the many that I'm sure I don't deserve but have been given anyway.