Out of the Mouth of Babes

Last night as we were travelling home from our Spring Break vacation (more to come on that plus some pictures soon) we were delayed an hour by an accident on the freeway. After some Googling on our phones, Ty figured out that it was a fatal crash a few miles ahead of us that was holding up traffic. Lydia and Luke couldn't figure out why we were not moving on the freeway, so I explained that it was a sad day because there was an accident ahead and somebody had died in the crash. They asked a few questions like if it was a boy or girl, and where the dead person was. I told them that their body was on earth and would be buried, but their spirit had gone back to be with Heavenly Father. A few minutes later Lydia asked another question about where the dead person was and then said "it's actually a special, special day Mom." I asked her why. "Because her spirit is back with God again, so it is a special day." I love the simple faith and understanding of my little girl.

New this week....

My husband went to play church basketball last night and left looking normal. It's been a pretty calm season. He's only sustained a ripped shirt and a few bruises, and hasn't had anyone ask him if he "wants to take it outside right now" like last year. He returned from last night's game looking like this:

(It looks more impressive today, this was a mere hour after it happened.) If you get grossed out easily, try not to look at the next shot.

Some guy jammed his finger in Tyler's eye socket, breaking a bunch of blood vessels and giving him double vision for a while. A different teammate got his other eye with his fingernail. Apparently church basketball in Hillsboro involves some vicious, bloodthirsty opponents!

Last week I was upstairs feeding this guy, who thinks he needs to eat all day long. Lydia and Luke were in the backyard playing when I went up to feed him, since for once it wasn't raining! I heard them come in and out of the house and turn on the bathroom sink a few times, but that's pretty normal since they get dirty playing in the dirt and think they need to wash it off before they can put more dirt on themselves.

Lydia came in and asked me if I wanted to go to their picnic when I was done. I agreed, thinking they were making mud pies on the kitchen set on the deck and it was a pretend picnic to eat them. Not so! These two set up this picnic all by themselves, including washing the fruit before bringing it outside to eat (I was a proud mama that they remembered to do so!)

We enjoyed a lovely afternoon picnic of apples and strawberries together (Luke had politely taste-tested my apple before giving it to me) and chatted about springtime and what we want to plant in our garden in a few weeks. Luke also informed me that "when I was a baby I popped out of you and drank your milk. But now I'm not a baby; I'm handsome." That's right little man, you are, most especially with your jammies on backwards and wearing your sister's boots!

I love these two so much and I'm glad that I had them as close together as I did. I love that they have a playmate when I'm busy with the baby and can't play with them. They still fight about things but they've really gotten so much better at playing with each other since they started sharing a room. Sometimes it's bad that they have a little buddy though; they dream up some naughty things to do when I'm not paying attention. I was lucky this time and I hope there are many more picnics to come with my favorite kids!

Our New Life

Their faces pretty much sum it up: mostly happy with moments of uncertainty about how we're handling the adjustment to our new addition. Even Ian seems like he's not sure about this whole "being in the outside world" thing yet, as demonstrated below.

He goes between grumpy and surprised, with a lot of this in between....

complete with the "don't hate me because I'm beautiful" model pose.

Sometimes he gets so sick of this place it makes him want to vomit...okay, so it makes him vomit.

(Remember this? I fear my days of eating dairy and chocolate may be numbered. Again.)

The rest of us aren't to the point of throwing up, but we've become rather lackadaisical about personal grooming and dress standards (excluding Tyler, who actually has places to go and people to see every day.) I'm lucky if I get showered before 3 pm, and even luckier if I get dressed in something other than pajamas and/or lounge-wear. (I keep telling myself it's just because my regular clothes don't fit quite right yet...how long can I keep using that excuse?) The kids wear all kinds of weird outfits, and even go to the store in them occasionally, because I either don't care enough to make them change or I haven't done the laundry so they don't have any matching clothes to wear besides pajamas....well, at least Lydia's pj's match. The shoes though, not so much :)

It's been raining A TON here, and yes, we've even seen some of the white stuff too, so I've remained holed up at home. The kids brought home a cold from somewhere (most likely church) and now the baby has a stuffy nose, so I'm trying to avoid exposing him to more germs and exposing my kids to places where they can bring home MORE germs to sicken Ian, so we've been trying to keep things interesting so that we all don't go stir crazy.

We've been watching more movies than I care to admit lately, but we've jazzed it up a bit by having indoor picnic lunches while we watch our movie. It's the new fave at home.

This was the entertainment we came up with today. I used to put my tights on my head and run around when I was little, so I thought I'd pass down the awesome tradition to my children as well.

In all seriousness, so far the adjustment hasn't been as bad as I feared. Ian is a great baby who sleeps pretty well at night and is generally pretty content. It helps that I don't have kids who have to be somewhere at certain times, so we can pretty much do whatever we want whenever we want to do it. We all adore our little Ee-Yon, as Luke pronounces is (think of the dad in My Big Fat Greek Wedding), or our Sweet Baby E as I like to call him. (Another side note: trying to teach your preschooler letters and sounds, and then throwing a name like Ian at her that is not spelled phonetically and trying to explain why it's not pronounced Eye-An....difficult.)

Even Luke has decided that our new life is not so scary after all.