Dominoes with Mia

This morning I played a matching game with picture Dominoes with Mia for the first time. I laid some out on the ground for her to choose from then put one out and said "can you find one that matches the ice skater?" Her reply without a pause was "Nope, Go Fish!" So I showed her that there was an ice skater and how to match it. The next picture was a lion "can you match the lion?" Her reply "Roar!" Haha, she did however get the game and play very well after that, with an occasional "nope go fish!" thrown in here and there, I guess we know what game she prefers :o)

Now they are in the dining room singing "Hillbilly Will" Thanks for teaching my girls Kid Friendly
love songs Aunt Kara :o)

DIY Finger Paint Review

I tried another wonderful Pintrest idea today. Annie wanted to paint and normally my rule is no painting while Mia is awake. I know, mean mommy right?
But today when she asked I remembered that I had seen this DIY finger paint and that I couldn't wait forever, someday I had to let Mia paint also. It was pretty cool and I learned a lot from my first timer experiences.
1. Wait till baby is napping, you need all hands on deck and she will just scream the entire time you leave her in the bouncy seat :o(
2. Put in small jars like the baby food jars on the web site. The muffin tin made it way to easy for them to put their whole hand in and Mia especially wanted to just play with it in her hands... which I did let her do (to a certain degree)
3. Put them outside. I started to put them outside on the picnik table and then ended up in the kitchen because Carly was awake. Because I want it to be fun for mom also I need a more controlled environment. I will put them in the yard, have all the paper pre cut (we have a big roll of butcher paper that the girls use for art work) have the hose running and give them both rags. They liked to get it all over their hands which is fun, however they kept wanting to wash their hands to get new colors and color combinations and we went through millions of paper towels. Mia ended up painting her face and stomach (they were both clothesless for this activity) and I threw them in the bathtub afterwards which was fine but hosing off would be easier.
I don't know how well it stores because I threw out what was left.
It was fun to practice their colors.
Making it was quite the science experiment it went from liquid to solid in a millisecond!
After letting it cool each one was a little translucent muffin that when I stirred and smushed it went into a paste again.
Mia just wanted to lick her fingers clean. After cooking it and using only food products I didn't worry about it too much. Im sure it tasted fairly good with the sugar in it!
All in all it was a hit! I will definitely do this one again!

There are no pictures of the girlies as they were semi nakey for this project :o)

Vacation

Ohhh vacation, you have come and gone and treated us well yet again! Our family has been vacationing at Lake Barkley for over 15 years now, no wonder it feels like a second home to us! We haven't changed our ways either except where necessary and for improvements.
Things like adding 11 children in 7 years makes you adjust your personal tanning and sleeping time quite a lot. I used to get up early because it was nice and quiet and watch the fishermen and then after second breakfast (what, you dont have two breakfast's on your vacations? Lame!) head down to the lake for prime sun time between 10 and 12 when we would head up for lunch and a game of cards or nap then head back down to the lake for more prime sun from 2 till about 4 when you would shower and play some more games until dinner unless its your turn to cook, after dinner play more games until you crash into bed just to get up and repeat it all again for 7 days in a row! Throw in some random Jet Skiing, a boat outing and a trip to "Sweet Miss Patty's" and you have the Glenn family vacation summed up. Now I get up because I have hungry babies who want to watch cartoons or take nature walks and then they are hungry again and you find its 2:00 before you make it down to the lake where you gloriously float for a few hours while they nap. Our evenings are filled with a rousing game of "whack a mole" where you put one kid to bed while two pop back up for a drink or potty and just when you think they are all quiet one more starts screaming and your game of speed scrabble has been delayed an extra 45 min or you play with a sleepy baby on your lap which is just a major handicap :o)
In the good old days there was a family restaurant called Miss Patty's that served family style buffet complete with chicken n dumplins, pickled watermelon rind, church lady pies and soft serve ice cream. It has sadly burned down ............................................................................................
..............................................a moment of silence for Sweet Miss Patty's.............................................
and now we are left to search far and wide for something half as good for our annual night out.

Because I am at a time in my life where I can't finish a task let alone a thought I will leave this post ending awkwardly as I started it 24 hours ago and my brain can no longer seem to form full thoughts or sentences.

The Husband

This feels a little like cheating because I already posted today, however I wrote that one a week ago and forgot to post it.

I have been thinking a lot lately about how wonderfully perfect my husband is for me. In small group a while back we read the book "Just Do Something" by Kevin Deyoung. It is a very good book although I am fully convinced I could have written it myself ;o) It was just my kind of thinking... and perfectly enough it is Joe's way of thinking as well :o) There is a chapter in it about getting married that summed up says, find a girl you like and marry her. We talked about the thought that any two Christians can have a successful marriage. I get the idea behind the thought but there is just something perfect about being married to someone you just "get". I brought up the fact that there are lots of males in the world that I think are wonderful people and I totally understand why their wives married them and consider them to be quite a catch, however I can think of tons of reasons why I could NEVER be married to them myself :o) I suppose that is why you date and fall in love and hang out and your thinking and desires and dislikes and quirks become similar more and more along the way until the wedding day when you become one and the oneness just continues down a path until one day you look like one another :o)

With Joe being home more often than not since graduating, following a year of him being gone more often than home I have really enjoyed having a buddy in the house. There is adult conversation and tag team parenting and its all leaving the girls very high maintenance :o) However so worth it!
I am also learning how to live with him around more often. He is here, doing things I normally do and getting into stuff he normally leaves alone. I do believe he even read my blog for the first time ever a few weeks ago. He also says things like "don't you dare blog about this" which makes me laugh because its usually something I would never blog about anyway, I just love that he is somewhat aware of this little corner of my life.

Yesterday he had a day of appreciating a truly long day for no reason at all other than the sheer fact that your 3 children seem like they have multiplied into 30. You know those days where they just seem to talk more and get hurt more and need more and do more and make more messes and bedtime cannot come fast enough and for some reason dinner doesn't get eaten until its dark outside and your brain no longer works so you dirty double the amount of dishes? That was our yesterday. We survived and I like to believe he appreciates me more now because of it.
He was still wonderful though, he kept the kids while I ran a few errands and helped Kara pack for vacation which she didn't really end up needing but it was a good excuse for us to fold laundry, snuggle Carly and chat for a few hours.
 He helped me make dinner and as I fought to let him stir the pot and give his opinions. Its amazing how much I feel like the kitchen is my domain (except dishes, he can always wash the dishes). I had to continually remind myself that even thought I wouldn't have chopped that so small or stir that so often or used that spoon that it really didn't matter, especially because I was so tired and it was a new recipe that I was totally and completely changing myself!

He also had the idea to hang a record number of picture frames on the walls  that have been boxed up since we moved 2 years ago and he was so very patient with me and let me rearrange them on the floor 95 times before he hung them up. He even used rulers, levels and math to hang them exactly the way I wanted them! Wow, Math, my brain hurt while I was standing at 11:00pm bouncing a crabby baby and he was doing math and hanging pictures on the walls... I guess that is where our perfect similarities end, I would have gone to bed hours ago with crooked pictures hanging on the walls :o)

The Darling Mermaid Darlings

Did anyone watch the show Pushing Daisies? I loved it, it was quirky and cute and had the lovely Kristin Chenoweth, and the Darling Mermaid Darlings which is what watching my girls in the pool makes me think of every time :o)

 We have been enjoying Joe's moms pool a lot this summer. I am DYING that I haven't been able to jump in with them for the past 5 weeks, just following doctors orders :o( I have been sitting in the shade with Carly Baby and cheering on the girls as they test their bravery. Last summer Amelia had no qualms in the water and at a mere 12-15 months old she preferred being under water to above. She would pitch herself out of my arms and hold her breath as she dove underwater. By the end of the summer I could let her stay under for a few seconds before pulling her back up, it was such a crazy thing to see. It made Joe very uncomfortable and would make me swim with her. Therefore it is not surprising that this summer true to her Crazy Woman nature she is jumping in, diving under, belly flopping, leaping off of her daddy's shoulders & wanting to be pitched across the pool by anyone willing. She wears swimmies and paddles her little heart out but after she gets tired she cant paddle past the slight current made by the filter and its quite amusing to watch her float in the current around the pool. Annie has always been my more timid one. She has loved the water for the past few summers and enjoys playing on the steps, floating on her back with her swimmies and just generally playing around. This summer she has perfected jumping off the steps with just enough force to allow her chin to go under but not her head and there was no convincing her to jump off the deck or let her Daddy throw her up in the air... until now! The child has started running and jumping into the pool, letting her head go under water and is swimming face down "underwater"! Then just a few days later she asked to take her swimmies off and jump in to Joe without them. She jumped in and proceeded to swim underwater to his waiting arms! The very next jump she wanted to see if she could swim all by herself to the stairs, and she did! She can swim about 3-4 feet underwater before she starts to get nervous and comes to the surface quickly, however she has not figured out how to doggy paddle yet so she just treads water with her nose barely above the top until we pick her up :o) And her latest trick is that she is able to lock her legs and stand on Joe's hands raised all the way above his head! If he's not careful he is going to have a cheerleader for a daughter and we all know he would rather have a softball/soccer player ;o)

I wasn't going to post this without pictures, but the good ones are all on Joes moms phone and so they will have to come later...

 

Thoughts & Ism's

I have this baby,  she has been living in my house for a month now and I have yet to see the whites of her eyes until this week ;o) She has been living true to preemie rumors and has slept so very well that I had to fight to wake her up to feed her. This is one of the most frustrating things in the entire world when you are in such a tired, hormonal & emotional time of your life. I would have to do everything shy of hanging her upside down and when I would get her to open one eye for one second I would lay her back and she would immediately fall fast asleep! She also was not feeding for as long as my other girls did, she seemed to be done after 5 min and everyone knows it takes waaay longer to feed a newborn than 5 min! But in spite of all of this she has been fattening up nicely. We go to the Pedi tomorrow for her 1mo follow up as well as Amelias 2 year check up... prayers would be appreciated, its the first time I am doing a dual pedi appointment! :o) I am sure I will grow from the experience and be a better person because of it :o)

The job that Joe wants was posted last week so he has applied for it after many days of revising his resume and writing responses to the silly application questions. This application said things like 1.check all that apply: bachelors, associates, certificate etc, 2. Explain in your own words why you are qualified for the things checked above... duuuhhh because he has obtained a bachelors degree, an associates degree, and an electric certificate... Geesh! Now make what I wrote into a paragraph and sound very intelligent and not at all sarcastic and you have your application worthy answer! So PRAYERS are seriously wanted for this one, the posting will be taken down on the 17th.

Our small group has taken a summer hiatus (thank you small group for not showing up at my door every thursday for the past 2 months! I love you all and I LOVE LOVE hosting small group but new baby = tired mama by 7pm!) They have been playing some sand volleyball for the past few weeks. Carly and I watched from the sidelines the first week. The girls came along the next week because the set up is really nice. Its in a little valley, set apart from the rest of the park, its completely shaded and there is a small playground, a shelter and a nice big maple tree to sit under with the bebe's (of which there are currently 5 in our small group!) This past week as soon as we arrived there was a nice little pop up shower that was not concerning, I plopped down with the bebe's and started to feed Carly, the rain picked up and I decided to move under the shelter, then the skies opened up and everyone else joined me under the shelter as the rain and then hail started pouring! The wind picked up and a tree fell behind us in the woods... just when you had time to feel a little nervous (unless your Dave, then you are wishing your children weren't present so you could challenge your small groupies to a game of volleyball in a hail storm) it was done. Now that the sand was a big mud puddle and the blankets were soaking wet, people decided to leave. But not Super Dad, he already had the girls out dancing in the rain before the sky went dark and the hail came, so they went puddle hopping, playing in the wet sand and sliding down the soaking wet slides for a good 30minutes before toweling off and heading home for baths and bedtime! I am really enjoying watching my best friend be a daddy these days. We are going to miss him when he gets a 9-5 (even though we have heard rumors that the job he wants is more of a 6-3!)

Speaking of Daddys Girls. Joe's mom bought the big girls these jammies a few months ago because they say "I'm all about Daddy" and it sums them up quite well. Then Carly received a hand me down dress that matched! So I attempted to take pictures.

Ism's

Me: "Joe there is a mouse (trapped) in the basement"
Annie helping me put the groceries away grabs a can of ravioli off the shelf and says "Here Mom, smack it with this!"

Annie being very annoyingly excited about leaving for a party I suggest a game of would you rather...
Me:"Annie, would you rather be a mermaid or a princess"
Annie:"what are you talking about?"
Me:"its a game, would you rather be a mermaid or a princess?
Annie:"Neither, I want to be a little girl"
ok, try again
Me:" would you rather live on the moon or in the ocean?"
Annie looking very quizzical "I just want to live in a house!"
I give up! 

Joe getting ready to mow the yard in 100degree heat puts on an old basketball tshirt with the arms and sides cut out. Annie entering the scene surveys this outfit choice laughs and says "daddy what are you doing? Your naked is out!"
Mia coming into the room jumps up on the bed, takes one look at her father and looks at me confused and says "dada, what you doing? Mama, wook at him shirt!"
I foresee them reacting this way about his wardrobe choices many more times in his future :o) 

Mia has picked up the term "but MaaaaMaaaa" she says it when I tell her to do something she doesn't like, and she says it when she is tired, bored, happy, sad. All. The. Time! I am ready to loose it! It was a little amusing in the beginning because you could tell she didn't know why she was saying it, it is just what she has heard her sister say. Kind of like when she replies "Noooo..... toooo" Instead of "No I don't want to"

Yesterday at lunch Uncle Joe said "Mia you are a Crazy Girl" to which she replied completely serious faced "toots in your bed!"

In an attempt to sleep in this morning after staying up way too late last night I sent Annie out of our room to entertain herself at 7:30 this morning. She came back a couple of times for help with dress up clothes and once to ask me aid she could go in Mia's room who was now awake and playing in her crib. After that we didn't hear from them for at least 45 min and joe went to check on them and found them downstairs playing nicely by themselves! When they eventually a joined us in our bed and joe proposed breakfast Annie declares "we already ate! We had cookies!" turns out they needed something to eat with their tea party : ) When I asked her if she also made tea she looked at me like I was a insane and said " no way, we would spill that everywhere!" I'm ok with cookies for breakfast when they are self served and I get an extra hour and a half of sleep!