Their Sayings (Post 3)

Ainsley was surfing.  We've seen the Disney Channel's new surfer movie quite a few times recently.  

Ainsley:
Is this Reese?  [We were driving in downtown Saginaw next to the Civic Center.]
Did you see that impressive bird?  [Moments after a koosh ball beaned her in the head during baseball practice.]
You can't be mad.  I drew on my legs, but I drew JESUS!
This is my magical, fairy, baby petal.  What can I do with it?  [What??  I have no idea how to answer that question.]
Durham just scared me out of my crap!  [Almost, girlfriend.  Almost.]
Not technically.  [When asked if she wanted to head home from our walk.]
I don't want to do my best.  I just want the cupcakes.  [At the end of her baseball practice.]

Durham wanted to surf as well.  We need to work on his form.  

Durham:
Here's a ticket.  [After passing me a post-it note.]
Come back!  [Whenever Mom or Dad leave the house.]
Car go beep, beep!  [While trying to press the red alarm button on my keyless entry.]
Goodbye house!  [Whenever we leave the house.]
Come, Lord Jesus... [He takes the lead in the dinner prayer now.]
Yea!  [At the end of every dinner prayer.]
He's stuck in there!  [Upon seeing the Tropical Smoothie banana man dancing near the road.]

Wrenn is 5 Months Old

Feeding:  She's eating 5 ounces every 3 hours.  She'll usually eat 25-30 oz in a day.  We started solid foods at four months old.  She's now tried rice cereal, squash, sweet potatoes, carrots, pears, apples, and green beans.  It took her about a week to really understand how to swallow food off the spoon.  The doctor wants us through all the stage 1 foods by the time Wrenn returns for her 6 month visit.  Wrenn is still quite a puker, sliming her parents on a daily basis.   

Sleeping:  Sleeping is much better now.  After Wrenn learned to roll over we had a bit of a nasty sleeping period in which she would wake up angry about the fact that she was on her stomach.  She's gotten used to it now and spends most of the night sleeping on her stomach.  She likes to cuddle against the corner of the crib and often wakes up with a freezing cold arm because it was hanging outside of the crib slats.  I tiptoe into her bedroom about three times a night to push her arm back by her.  She's pretty good about sleeping from 11-12 at night straight through to 6 in the morning.

Naps have gotten much better.  I tend to lay her down in the crib to cry it out in the morning simply because I want to get a shower.  Afternoon naps are for snuggling with Mama.  :)

Diapers:  Size 2

Clothes:  Size 6-9, or 12 months depending on the brand.  It's been so hot that her standard outfit is just a onesie.    

Disposition:  She's quite a happy baby.  She laughs and smiles much more than the other two ever did.  I wonder if this means anything about her future personality?  I know Durham has been my serious one ever since birth.  Maybe Wrenn will be my goofy, smiley girl.  

Places:  She went on her first family vacation to Port Huron.  She's been to the library every Tuesday nearly all summer, although I rarely get her out of the carseat.  Sorry, kid.  Mama's got two other wigglers to look after.  We've been swimming all over this summer, and she seems to like floating around in the water.  She's been getting acquainted with a few of her cousins who come to babysit her while Mom and Dad run errands.  

Fun Facts:  She found her feet and loves to play with them and put them in her mouth.  She's also fond of removing her socks.  She's becoming adept at picking up toys to put them in her mouth.  She can pass a toy from one hand to another as her hands seem to fight each other over the object.  She's decided her mortal enemy is the carseat, although not every time we get in the car.  Thankfully, she was perfect driving to and from Port Huron.

She's also quite a wiggler.  She's hard to hold.  We always say we have to wrestle her to sleep when we are rocking her in the chair.  You have to put the child in a near sleeper hold in order to get her to stop wiggling and relax.

She wakes up in the morning making noises like a hurt ostrich.

What little hair she had encircling the back of her head when she was born has now all disappeared.  It's just blond peach fuzz everywhere now.  The hair on her ears has disappeared as well.  I remember her having very fine, fair eyelashes when she was born, but that must have gradually changed because she has darker, thicker lashes now.  

She'll take her hands and put them on my face to turn my face towards hers.  It's just the sweetest thing ever.    

Her favorite position

Getting close to sitting up on her own.  

I was distracting Durham with "find the body part" questions just to get him to sit still.  It's so hard to get a 4 year old, 2 year old, and 5 month old to get a picture together!  

For comparison, here are pictures of all three kiddos at 5 months old.  

Ainsley, Wrenn, and Durham.  Wrenn is the peanut of the group.  

Backyard Play

 Summertime.

I collect coupons so we can go to the zoo, museums, on train rides, and boat rides.

We pay so the kids can go berry picking, to the Splash Pad, to pet baby animals, and see ball games.

But sometimes it's just nice to hang out in the backyard.  

The smell of sunscreen.

Freezing cold spinkler water.  

This sprinkler has seen better days.  

Catching more bubbles than your sister. 

Ainsley and Mama sneaking extra s'mores when Dad goes in the house. 

Mom's incessant picture taking.

Sand in every crevice of your body.

Sprinkler water really is freezing.  

Swinging higher than your brother who is on the same swing.  

And unnecessary flotation devices.  

 Summer silliness.

A Walk in the Woods

All too often I wake up with a feeling of dread that I haven't done enough for my kids.  What if I'm not hugging them enough?  If I start hugging them more today, they will end up being well balanced, loving adults with happy memories from their youth.  Yes, today I hug my children more often.  

These type of conversations happen nightly in my head.  One night I decide to hug them more.  The next night I decide we aren't reading enough chapter books.  The next night I decide my kids just haven't had enough positive experiences with animals.  

Last night I woke up feeling like my kids just don't get enough woods.  As in forest.  My kids should love the woodland areas.  How/what can I do to provide them with more foresty experiences?  

This is what I think about during 3 am feedings.  

And so today I had to provide a woodland experience for my kids.  What did we do?  Took a walk through the Churchgrove woods.  That's about as daring as I get when Daddy is playing softball.  I wasn't even daring enough to do it by myself.  I called a cousin to help me.  

Step 1:  Strap Wrenn to me.  

We biked the two blocks to the Churchgrove.  Kinda.  Durham was pushed in his bike thingie.  I'm pretty sure Ainsley was peddling on her own at this point, but we've really relaxed with the second child.  Durham is two and a half.  At this age Ainsley was potty trained, peddling her own bike, using utensils, climbing the rock wall in the back yard.  I suppose I should be teaching Durham to do these things right now as well, but I'm no longer in a hurry for them to grow up.  That will come.

 We arrive at the entrance to the path and the kids are off!  I had planned on letting them just run loose, but my cousin the thinker reminded me of poison ivy.  Ugh.  She's such a realist.  Perhaps we should keep them to the path then.

Go, my children!  Explore!  But stay on the path and don't touch any leaves.  

 We were bitten by hundreds of mosquitos.  We got woodchips stuck in our shoes.  Durham saw a volcano.  (It was a tree stump, but he called it a volcano.)  It was woodsy amazingness.

The expression of childhood wonder.  

 Ainsley, of course, wanted to hold Durham's hand and lead him through as if she was in charge.  She's quite the little bossypants leader.

We looked for fairies, wondered at the age of trees, found evidence of native American activity.  You know, just your average walk in the woods.

And it all ended with a few exhilarating moments on the swings.

And then we went home and ate smore dip.  Because what we lack in outdoorsy-ness, we make up for in baking.

Fo sho.

Geocaching with my Girls

My friend Kendra invited me to start geocaching with her.  I had heard about this activity a few years back.  It is essentially a scavenger hunt to find hidden canisters and boxes all throughout the US (and the world) using GPS coordinates.  Sounds nerdy?  That's because it is.  And right up my alley.

When I first heard about this, we didn't yet have smart phones.  Using the old GPS seemed too difficult and frankly I was daunted by the website.  I still don't find the website to be super userfriendly, but I downloaded an app for my phone that really helped.  It was free, showed all hidden caches in any area code I selected, and allowed me to use a compass and gps to get within 3 feet of the cache.  

Now I can't just leave the house and not take a kid with me, so I took Ainsley.

We started by using the app to choose local caches Kendra had yet to find.  We also wanted to choose caches that weren't too difficult or tiny, so Ainsley could participate without getting bored.

It should be 70 meters in this direction! 

 Most of the caches were stashed in shrubs.  We found one that was about the size of your pinky and another the size of a laundry soap container.  The small ones are only large enough to fit the paper log to sign once you find it.

So many people geocaching had already found this one!

 As we continued our day, Kendra found most of them.  She graciously would lead Ainsley over to the cache and give Ainsley clues, letting Ainsley believe that she had found it first.

Ainsley thought she was hot stuff.  We were just glad she was having fun.  She was pretty excited that caches had been hidden in locations she's actually been to and knew personally.

Digging through more bushes.

 It was astonishing that so many have already been hidden so close to my home.  That I've driven and walked passed so many of these for the last few years and never knew about it.

Some caches are larger and contain trinkets left by former seekers.  The rule is take something, leave something.  Kendra had brought a small toy deer to leave if we found one of these.  It was always Ainsley's job to inspect the find to determine what to take.

She would look each item over carefully.  

 In the end, she always decided to keep Kendra's deer for herself.

We found six here in town, many of them at local businesses.  We were crawling around on our hands and knees next to the tourists as we searched for the caches.

Guess what?  Searching in the shrubbery.  

 Many people specifically hide caches in scenic locations to enhance the quality of the search.  We were traipsing through paths, creeks, seeing flower gardens, sitting on stone benches.  It was such a nice day.

Ainsley only wanted to hold Kendra's hand as we searched.  

 Each of the containers is a little different.  Some are camouflaged and very difficult to find.  Others seem so obvious that it's a wonder I never spotted them before.

We found another!  

 Ainsley soon grew tired of searching through shrubs, ivy, and plantlife.  She began to explore the out-of-doors on her own.  It became increasingly obvious to me that this will have to be a life-long hobby for me and my children as we travel around the United States.  Scavenger hunts in beautiful places?  I'm in.

After finding a few in town, we began to expand our horizons.  We found one at an old cemetery that almost smacked Kendra in the head as we searched.  We headed into another town to find two more.  One of the ones we found was excellently camouflaged.  Kendra and I looked and looked before Ainsley just walked up and said, "Look what I found!"  We couldn't believe it.  

Just imagine us, in all of our dorky glory, high-fiving as we crawled out of the shrubbery.  

Putting them back carefully so future geocachers can find it again.  

This was one of my favorite days all summer.  

With two of my favorite girls.

Hometown Fireworks

Have I told you about my family?  Because they are simply the greatest.  I'm talking about my aunts/uncles/cousins.  I've always loved our get-togethers over the years, and there have been many.  There are six grown children (aunts/uncles) and fourteen grandchildren (cousins).  We got together for each birthday, which meant for a while it was at least once a month.  Most of us still live near each other.  

But I'm not a child anymore.  As I get older I know we're getting closer and closer to the times we only meet once a year at family reunions.  As more time goes by, I know it'll be harder and harder to get everyone together.  

But it hasn't quite happened yet.  Quite.  

On our nation's birthday, my family once again got together to watch our hometown fireworks.  It's perfect for me and my little guys.  There's extra loving hands to help and proximity to a bathroom.  

Perfect.  

We arrived with a baby that was unhappy.  Imagine shrieking torrents of tears.  This child hates the carseat and car rides.  Even car rides that go four minutes across town.  After she calmed down, Grammy got her to chill out and take a nap. 

First fireworks.  

 And you know it's not a fireworks party without sparklers.  Daddy had to go to three different stores in town to find some.  We bought the last packages there...ultra long, ultra expensive, neon sparklers.

Nothing but the best for our kids, especially when their parents procrastinate.

It's always a crap shoot whether or not she'll burn herself.  

Durham immediately started singing "Happy Birthday" when his turn to hold a sparkler came.  It does look a little like a candle.  And it is America's birthday.  

My cousin Jenna taught Ainsley how to make fancy heart pictures with her sparkler and my camera.  Who knew my little camera could do that?  

Ainsley thought she was hot stuff.  

 Poor Wrenn just gets left behind when the fun happens.  I remember when all we had was Ainsley.  We tried to involve her in everything.  Now I have my hands full with the other two, so I strap Wrenn into a stroller or pass her off to a family member to go help my older two kids.  Papa thought Wrenn needed to be a part of the action though.

Thank goodness for Papa or she'd have never known a sparkler before her first birthday.  

As we got closer and closer to fireworks time, my sister-in-law helped us to find some ear muffs (is that what you call them?) for Durham.  His molars have been coming in for a good 2 months and have been bothering his hearing.  Our recent failure at trying to watch a parade proved that we would need to find some sort of solution for the booming fireworks.  

Now to just get a two year old to keep them on.  

Turns out they worked!  

 Durham watched the whole fireworks without flinching.  He kept saying, "It's beautiful!" and "Happy Birthday."

Even Wrenn watched without flinching.  

 And apparently four year olds don't need their parents anymore.  She really wanted nothing to do with us.  She wanted only to play with her (second?) cousins and watch the fireworks with the older kids.

I think she talked their ears off the whole time.  Bless their hearts for putting up with her. 

 And we were home again and tucked into bed within 15 minutes of the fireworks ending.  Fourth of July success, right there.

Port Huron

Daddy's softball adventures took us to Port Huron this year.  We left on a Friday during naptime hoping the baby would sleep the whole way there.  She's been upset about car rides lately, so we were nervous.  An hour and forty-five minutes with a screaming baby can drive anyone insane.  Durham's molars have been affecting him, especially when around loud noises.  Basically if Wrenn cries, Durham does as well.  The car trip went peacefully though.  After what felt like only ten minutes, we had arrived.  (I slept as well!)

We checked into a hotel that was in a sketchy part of town, got a few snacks at the nearest dollar store and headed out to downtown Port Huron to see the sights.  We went to Quay's Brewing Company for dinner, saw a classic car parade, and walked around by the river.  

The restaurant had a perfect view of the bridge as it went up and down for the boating traffic.  

Outside the restaurant was the perfect place for Ainsley to play in the blossoms.  

Neither kid was real enthused by the classic car parade.  

We headed back to the hotel for some swimming.  Durham surprised us with his willingness to swim on his own (with his life preserver).  We've somehow lost our infant floatie, so Wrenn just cruised around in Mama's arms.

Dried off and ready to head back to the hotel room.

 That evening was terrible.  Mama and Durham slept in the same bed, Ainsley and Daddy in the other, Wrenn in her port-a-crib.  Durham was a little confused about his new surroundings, Ainsley grinds her teeth, and Wrenn likes to be rocked in a rocking chair (which our room didn't have).  To top it off, we could hear a train passing through every hour.  Just when I got Wrenn to sleep in her crib, Durham would hear the train and wake up.  When he fell asleep, Ainsley would start grinding her teeth.  I'd finally fall asleep just to wake up to Durham sleeping perpendicular and kicking me in the face.  This went on and on all night long.  When Tim and I "woke up" we felt like we'd fought a long battle.  Needless to say, we don't plan on making new plans for more trips in which all five of us sleep in the same room until all three of them sleep through the night.

The next day was filled with softball games and swimming again.

Durham actually sat through most of one game!  Praise be!

Playing at the softball field.  

 After the kids had had enough of the ballpark, I took them back to the hotel to clean up, order pizza, and watch movies.  It was actually pretty fun!

Wrenn went down easily.  

The kids didn't fight too much as they watched the first 10 minutes of Toy Story 3 over and over again.  (Slow WiFi meant a long download.)

Durham ate nearly all of a large cheesy bread.  

Heavenly.  Until nightfall again.  Then torture.  Why must it always be one or the other extreme with my kids?

The next day was once again filled with softball.  We were at a different park this time on the river.  We also had my niece there to help with Ainsley, which made all the difference to me being able to stay for more than one hour.  What a help she was!

As soon as we arrived, a freighter went by. Durham was so excited he clapped for it as it passed.  

Wrenn saw the Bridge to Canada.  She wasn't nearly as excited.  

Durham was rocking the thug life look at the park.  

Ainsley played at the park with her cousin.  

 Tim's team played two games that day.  We were there for one of them.  Wrenn started to get fussy as the game started.  I had to strap Durham into the stroller to keep him safe while I fed Wrenn.  He screamed and cried for 10 minutes as I fed Wrenn a bottle.  Then I looked over and he was asleep.  Wrenn wasn't too far behind him.  What a nice way to end the weekend with two napping kiddos as I watch my husband play ball.

Sleepy girl in the Moby wrap.  

 After Tim's last game we strolled by the river one more time before we left.

And Durham saw another freighter.  Big time.  

Sweet Ainsley wanted her picture taken next to the flowers.  

We packed everyone up in the car and drove home.

No one even cried on the way home.  It was glorious.