Happy Birthday Avery!

Happy Birthday to our big 4 year old! We had a little family party with Grandma and Grandpa about a week and a half before Avery’s Birthday, but since I’d been telling her we’d let her have some friends over for her Birthday this year, we had a little party for her on her actual Birthday too.

Avery found this game on Sesame Street where you do a little dinosaur excavation. She loves it, so we based her Birthday party on that game. First we colored pictures of pteranadons. Mostly this was just to give everyone something to do while everyone got here.

Then we all headed outside. I found a pteranodon skeleton model kit at a toy store and a cool recipe for sand clay online. Pretty much the whole idea for this party comes from this website. We made sand clay and covered the bones in the clay and let it dry overnight. Avery helped with this part. It was fun. Then we laid out a sheet on the ground outside, dumped the rest of the 25 kilo (55 pounds or so) bag that was our only weight option for sand (many thanks to Rachel F. for letting us haul it home in her car so we didn’t have to figure out to get it all the way back on a tram) and buried the bones in the sand. Everyone dug out a couple “fossils” and pulled the sand clay off them to reveal the bones.

And then everyone helped put them together to make a dinosaur!

And then we went inside and had cupcakes. Avery helped make those too. She picked out the haribo gummies she wanted on top at the store and she helped put sprinkles and gummies on top of the cupcakes. Evelyn helped too, but she’s not a very sanitary helper. I’m pretty sure she licked her fingers before and after every cupcake she touched. We saved her additions for after the party.

|And then presents!

She had a pretty good day! Happy Birthday little Avery!

Read Full Post »

The creation and demise of playdough

I made playdough today. It was really pretty. See?I made a valiant attempt to keep the colors from being irreversibly mixed.

I failed.So Daddy had the brilliant idea of turning it into planets.

I suppose I knew that the colors wouldn’t stay separate forever. I just hoped it would be a little longer than an hour.

Read Full Post »

Picture of the Day Finalists

My year of taking a picture every day is done. Overall I think I did alright. I only ended up with 225 pictures instead of 365, but considering I had a baby and moved three times in that year, I’m okay with that. I picked my ten favorites. Since I took a lot of pictures of the kids, they’re divided into two sets: my favorite 5 kid photos, and my favorite 5 other photos. They’re in chronological order. I hope.

Other:

End of the Trail Statue

 

Summer Peach

 

Budapest Chain Bridge

 

Winter Activities - Colored Pencil Shavings

 

Salzburg Christmas Market Ornaments

Kids

 

Avery's Cowboy Hat

 

We Love The Beach!

 

Blessing Day

 

AAAAHHHHH!

 

Happy Girls

Read Full Post »

Ramblings on Motherhood

So here I am at 1:30 in the morning, sitting with an almost asleep enough 2 week old and considering my life as I know it. Evelyn was in bed and asleep at 11:30. Unfortunately she was not at midnight, so I’ve spent the last hour and a half walking, burping, feeding, refeeding, burping again, and bouncing, trying to figure out what will let her sleep. Finally, during our last walking session she let out a big burp, got the hiccups and settled down. Poor kid. I knew she had something in there she needed to work out.

Two weeks into having two kids I find myself tired (but not as tired as I probably will be in another couple weeks), kind of stressed (but not as stressed as last time around), and a little more calm than I thought I would be. The calm might have something to do with the fact that I got to leave the kids home with Grandma and Grandpa and go spend an hour and a half eating Italian food all alone with Ivan, but I think I just feel a little more like I know what I’m doing this time and that’s a big deal for me.

It’s interesting having two kids. I found myself missing Avery the other day. She’s around ALL the time and she’s been really cranky the last few days, but I’m usually pretty busy taking care of Evelyn and I haven’t had the time to spend just with her lately that I used to. I miss playing with her. I got to put her to bed tonight. Ivan’s been doing that a lot lately. We brushed her teeth and read a story, and then we played the itsy bitsy spider and similar games for a few minutes before I tucked her in and heard her little “ni ni” (night-night). It was really nice to lay down with her for a few minutes and play. She can be pretty cute.

I think my two little girls are pretty precious, but just so you know how tired I am… I tried to spell “bed” in the first paragraph of this post b-e-a-d. And that was only the first typo. Feel free to laugh uproariously at any more you may find that I didn’t catch.

I’m kind of curious… any of you mothers out there that may read this… did you have troubles with breastfeeding? This time around was much better. It’s still a little uncomfortable, but by 2 weeks the pain of breastfeeding was pretty much gone. I did blister and bleed a tiny bit this time around, but nothing compared to when I nursed Avery. With Avery it took a good three weeks before the pain was gone and I was comfortable with nursing and I bled for several days. It was a little traumatic.

Nursing is hard, and I have to confess it’s not my favorite thing to do. I’ve talked to lactation consultants any chance I get, but for anyone thinking about it… I definitely think it was worth it. The first few weeks are bad, but it gets better. Not to judge formula feeding in any way… it’s the right choice for a lot of people.

I think the little one is asleep enough to move and I think I’ve rambled long enough. To sleep…

Read Full Post »