December 27-31, 2011

Picture-A-Day:

Finally, I have made it to the end of my picture-a-day challenge. Turns out 2011 was much more challenging for me than I anticipated. It started with my husband spending 6 weeks on the other side of the country. Which was hard, but it was for the greater good, since it was training for his fantastic job. After a year of unemployment, I don't think I'll ever take a job for granted again. However, 6 weeks as a psudo single mom of 5 - let's just say I never want to do that again. It was one of the hardest things I've done in my life. I held it together pretty well until somebody at church decided to be encouraging around week 5, and said I was doing a great job, and gave me a hug, and then I just lost it and cried and cried. After that D was on 3rd shift for a few months, which was tough on both of us for different reasons. Then he moved to 2nd which was much better. Now he's on 1st again, so it's another adjustment.

Our boys were both 1 at the beginning of the year, and had turned 2 by the end. We waded through a sea of poop (not literally, though it kind of feels like it), a lot of broken things, and spent a lot of time putting out fires (also not literally, thankfully). Many days I felt like all I did was clean up a mess in time for 3 or 4 more to be made. Many times I faced moments of panic and quick thinking as several crises were happening at the same time and I had to decide which to take care of at the same time (for example, Sage spilled milk all over the table/floor, Tez took off his poopy diaper and smeared poop all over, and the dog peed on the floor, and Jayna was crying because ... whatever). All these things happen withing seconds of each other, and I have to quickly prioritize and delegate, and decide what can wait. Meanwhile, dinner is burning on the stove because that's what I was in the middle of before all these crises started happening. Is there anyone out there who can relate? I can think of a few who probably can. Anyway, looking back on 2011, those are the moments I think of.

This year has been a whirlwind. But, there have also been good things. We went camping 3 times, one of those was in MN with my family, after attending the wedding of a dear childhood friend. We adopted our boys officially, though we've had them since they were born. We went to the beach a couple times, and the Elkhart county fair... yeah, that's all I can think of right now. Honestly, we didn't do a ton, mainly because everything was so hard with the boys. I'm relieved to say though, that in the last few months things have gotten easier. The "incidents" are much fewer and farther between. We haven't had any poop incidents in a long time (just toothpaste, and at least that smells good). They're understanding more, communicating better, and that makes things a lot easier.

I'm looking forward to 2012. We have some financial goals we've been working on for a LOOOOONG time that will (hopefully) finally be achieved. This year the boys turn 3, which was the magic age for my girls. Everything lightened up at that age, and I'm crossing my fingers that it will with the boys too. My baby brother is getting married this summer, and I'm super excited about another trip to MN. My photography business exceeded my expectations for 2011, and I'm anticipating 2012 being even better. I'll be 34 this year. Sometimes I can't even believe it. I still feel like that 12 year old girl who thought 34 was "so old." Ok, moving on:

12.27.11 - It snowed a bit AFTER Christmas, so the kids made this fantastic leafy snowman!

12.28.11 - Ok, I can handle a box of tissues, as long as it's not poop! It's true, "that which doesn't kill us makes us stronger," because after living through trying experiences, the lesser trials seem easy.

12.31.11 - my little artists at work. Sage bought herself a canvas and painted this beautiful ocean scene with an orange dolphin swimming. :)

Happy 2012. Now I can go back to posting at my leisure. :)

December 21st - 25th

Picture-A-Day: I think I can, I think I can... Just a few more days left of 2011. I'm still not used to writing 2011. My hand wants to write 2006 or 2009. Weird. Anyway, we had a really nice Christmas. I always feel a little sad the years we don't go to MN for Christmas. There really is no place like home. I'm so lucky and blessed to have no drama in my family. My mom and dad and brothers and sisters-in-law (and us) - we all love each other, love to spend time together, and maybe it's because we're all so spread out, but we always get along when we're together. That wasn't always the case with me and my bro Jake. We didn't used to get along well for several adolescent years. But the less we saw of each other, the better we got along when we did get together. Does that sound bad? I don't know, but over the last 10 years or so we've both grown up a lot, gotten married, had children. And now we love spending time together. But alas, this is an odd year, and so, not a Christmas family reunion year. But lucky us, my baby brother is getting married in June, so we will have 2 family reunions in 2012! Nevertheless, we did have a lovely Christmas at home. We spent the 24th and 25th mostly at home, doing family things together. To celebrate Christmas Eve (I feel strongly that Christmas Eve must be celebrated - probably because my mom's family has a big party on Christmas Eve every year. They have as long as I can remember. Maybe since before I was born, I don't know. But I just can not NOT celebrate Christmas Eve. So, since we didn't have any plans, I made popcorn and chili cheese dip and cookies. We played Apples to Apples Jr. Then we put the boys to bed and the 5 of us watched Elf (the best Christmas movie EVER). Then we put the girls to bed, then loaded up the tree with all the goods. It wasn't a big party, but it was fun, together, family time. I get as giddy as a little kid on Christmas morning. I got up at 6am to find Sage on the couch watching TV because she "couldn't sleep." Everyone else got up around 7. We of course opened presents, had monkey bread, then went to church. I loved our Christmas morning service. I love our church. It was a small crowd and the "band" was down to about 3 people, so we had an acoustic caroling jam session. We came home and Derrick spent the entire afternoon cooking an amazing dinner, of which I've already bragged profusely on Facebook. I spent most of the afternoon making an apple pie. The kids got Just Dance for the Wii, and we all took turns dancing. That game is so fun! Everyone loves it. Ok, here are the pictures:

12.23.11. - I love these ghosty action shots. The boys were working together building "train tracks" out of books, and running a truck over it. In this picture the books are all scattered from being run over a few times.

12.24.11 - I made Challah bread for Christmas. Challah is some kind of Jewish bread. I don't really know the significance of it. Derrick had a recipe for homemade stuffing, which called for Challah bread, so he asked me to make some. I made the dough in the bread machine, then baked it in the oven. It's SO DELICIOUS! And the stuffing was amazing.

12.25.11 - Christmas Day in the evening. When I was a kid my Grandma used to make all the grandkids new PJ's for Christmas. Every year when we went over there for the big Christmas Eve party, we'd all get our new jammies, and we'd all wear them home that night. Since the grandkids are mostly all grown up now, the tradition has moved on to the great grandkids. And since we didn't make it to the Christmas Eve party, they got to open them on Christmas morning along with all the other presents. So here they are in their Grammie Jammies. This is the "silly face" picture. :)
G'nite y'all. Hope you had a lovely Christmas too.

December 2nd - 19th

Picture-A-Day:
And this time Blogger uploaded all the pictures in reverse chronological order. So we're starting with today, and working our way to the beginning of December.
I am so glad it's December, I pretty much majorly failed at this picture-a-day thing. But I'm not a quitter, even if I'm a failure. So I'm doing the best I can, and I'm going to finish out the year. If you make it to the end, you'll get to read a story. Written by me. About life with two 2-year-old boys. And a few girls. If you have 2-year-old boys (or 3-year-old boys) you might not want to read the story. It might stress you out. Then again, you might take comfort in knowing you're not alone.

12.19.11 - my son (my son! - it's still exciting to say that) loves to make any object into either drums, guitars, or pianos. Here he is making guitars into drums. Love this kid. I posted a video here of him in action.

12.17.11 - Jayna had her first dance recital on Saturday. She said she had a good time, and wants to do it again, but she seemed very self-conscious. I'm working on some you tube's. I took lots of video. ;)

12.13.11 - Sage's first recital was also last week. She did great, and can't wait to dance on stage at the Lerner in May.

12.10.11 - The kids were SO EXCITED about the inch of snow we got.

12.9.11 - Daddy with his boys and his dogs.

12.6.11 - Making Christmas cookies. Even the teenager was excited about this girls night activity.

12.2.11 - Putting up our tree. The whole Christmas tree thing has been interesting this year. We debated on how to "toddler proof" - you'd think two 2-year-olds would be easier to deal with than two 1-year-olds. Well, our boys didn't walk til they were well past 1 year, so I'm pretty sure they were both on the floor last year at this time. We had an old luggage chest that we lifted the tree onto to give it a little extra height. This year the boys are not only walking, but CLIMBING ANYTHING THEY CAN HOLD ON TO. In the end we decided our fake tree is 8 years old, so if it is completely destroyed, no biggie. We'll just get a new one after Christmas when they're $20 like we did 8 years ago. We didn't put any fragile ornaments on at all. Wait, scratch that. Everything in the house is fragile with these boys around. We didn't put any GLASS ornaments on the tree, and put the "I don't care if they get destroyed" ornaments at the bottom where the boys could reach. What I didn't count on was them pulling a stool over to the tree to reach the "middle height" ornaments, which are also now all destroyed. Important things like a paper snowman Sage made in pre-school. And, ironically, THE most important ornament we have (had) didn't even go on the tree, but got broken because *somebody* (ahem... Sage) was swinging it around while I was telling her that even though it is beautiful, and meaningful, we are not getting it out this year because we do not want it to get broken. She dropped it, and it shattered all over the floor. It was a clear glass ball filled with fake snow and it had hand painted people with all our names on it (minus the boys because it's from before we had them). {Grandma Jean, don't tell Jan, she gave it to us! Just kidding, you can tell her.}
Also, the boys have pulled out several branches, and instead of fighting to get them back into their proper slots on the center pole, I just stuck them in where it looks like they might fit. I think the tree is going to make it, but we might not have any ornaments left for next year. I even made some cute felt ornaments for each of the kids (like 4 days ago), and every single one of them is now either lost or destroyed.
My mantra for this season of my life is "it's just things."

November 13th

Picture-A-Day: these are out of order, but I don't care. it's a pain in the *butt* rearranging pictures on blogger. so, here they are:

11.16.11 - I found a bunch of colored flash attachments. This is the red one (obviously). I was trying the different colors out, I like the red for Christmas.

11.30.11 - I taught the girls how to make paper snow flakes. Jayna cried and cried that she couldn't do it. Her first one fell apart because she cut up the one side that holds everything together. But she persevered, and she came up with a really great one in the end.

11.29.11 - First snow accumulation of the season. And our Jack-o's are dying! They're still out there. I like to let the kids throw them at the tree in our yard to smash them up. It's fun. But I also like to make it kind of a family activity, and honestly, I just never think about it when we're all together. Which is hardly ever. We'll do it one of these days, or else they'll just go in the compost without getting smashed.

11.25.11 - Alyssa's going to hate me for this. Shhh... don't tell her. The girls have been getting along so well lately, it makes me happy.

11.24.11 - Thanksgiving Day at aunt Dana's. Baby girl is growing up. It seems like yesterday she was a shy, sweet little 5-year-old.

11.22.11 - She fell asleep and one by one the dogs came to cuddle with her. I'm not much of a dog person, but I do love how they love to cuddle. If Pippin sees a person with a blanket, he's right there. And they're WARM!

11.21.11 - They're finally outgrowing some (only some) of the toddler craziness. I brought out some duplo's (the giant lego's), and they built towers for about 30 minutes. They had such a good time. I'm amazed they can focus on one activity for more than 30 seconds.

 

11.20.11 - Yea for potty training!!! We're rarely home all day or even long enough for him to wear undies around the house, but he loves going pee on the potty (I think he's just in it for the M&M's, but that's ok with me, I'll take it). He goes way more than he probably really needs to. I can not express how ready I am to be done with diapers! It's been over 6 years since we started the diaper game. That's a lot of butt wiping.

And, I'm done with November! December is exciting. I love Christmas! I love everything about it - music, lights, decorations, the festiveness. Now all we need is a good snow storm between now and the big day. I'm ready. We got a couple inches that one day, but it's all gone now. December just doesn't feel real without snow. I don't know what I'd do if I lived WAY south and had to wear shorts and t-shirts in December.

November 11-12

Picture-A-Day:

11.11.11 - On Veterans Day the girls' school put on a beautiful program honoring veterans. I think Veteran's Day seems more significant during war time, because we have seen so many men and women we know coming and going in the war. Also, the principal at the school is a Marine veteran, so he is particularly zealous about Veteran's Day. I'll admit, I'm not the most patriotic person. I tend to have a more global perspective on the human race and cringe at the idea of thinking that our country is somehow "better" than others. But this VD ceremony was so moving, it gave me a new appreciation for what it really means to serve in our military. There were about 5 guest veterans there, who each spoke for a few minutes about their experiences. All of them are somehow related to the school - one man, probably in his 60's had grown up in the 'hood in Elkhart. His daughter is now a teacher at Mary Beck. Another man, I'd put him around 35-40? went to Mary Beck as a child, and now has children who go there. I think it made it very real to the kids to be able to see these people who were once in their shoes, in their neighborhoods, in their school, and how they grew up to be honorable citizens, serving in the U.S. military. I got teared up a couple times. A group of 6th graders had a flag which they folded and presented to one of the Vet's. The kids sang patriotic songs - many familiar ones (can't think of any at the moment), and another one that I'd never heard before that gave me goose bumps, the kids were singing with such feeling. It talked about how we may be of different races, different beliefs, etc, but "we are one nation and we are one land," - I don't know, I just love that. And it's especially powerful coming from such a racially diverse school. Many students even speak a different language. My kids are somewhere in this crowd, but I couldn't see them very well.

11.12.11 - Stuff A Bus! Every  year our friend John organizes this event and coordinates with the IBEW and our church to get volunteers. This year he also added the boy scouts to the mix. What a fun way to serve the community, by bring different organizations together. We stand outside of Martin's grocery store passing out a list of needs, asking people to buy a few extra things to be donated to a local charity. This year the food went to the Salvation Army. People are always very responsive and that bus gets pretty full! It's a fun time, and a pretty easy way to teach the kids about serving in the community.

November 2-9

Picture-A-Day: Here we go. Hopefully I can finish up November in time for December. It's fun writing about my family again. I've missed this. It's hard to believe how much they've grown in a year.

11.2.11 - I got to go on the Kindergarten field trip to Kercher's Farm with Jayna. SO FUN! She's so beautiful.

 

11.3.11 - I'm pretty sure this is the day I got my new camera because I have 85 pictures from that day. It was hard to choose, because there were some fun ones. This one cracks me up though.

 11.4.11 - Watching SYTYCD (know what that stands for?), practicing their moves.

 11.5.11 - who knew you could still harvest fresh spinach in November?? Thank Bill Gates for spell check because I always spell spinach wrong.

11.7.11 - I had a photo shoot at this park in the late afternoon. It was right after the time change so we forgot how early it would start getting dark! I like how the lights are reflecting on the water.

11.9.11 - You might not know this, but Derrick played Tuba and Trombone in high school. I guess lately he's had an itch to play music again, because he decided to buy a trumpet. It's more melodic than the Tuba, not to mention much smaller, lighter, and less expensive. So far he can play Happy Birthday. It reminded me of my friend Heidi's dad (hi Heidi!) who used to play Happy Birthday on the trumpet at every birthday. He probably still does, for all I know!  I had forgotten all about that until Derrick busted it out. What fun.

October 22-31

 Picture-A-Day:
End of October, yay! It's been a very busy fall for me. I've slowed down in the last 2 weeks though, got caught up on some things around the house, and am finding myself with some free time in the evenings. (gasp! free time?!? seriously?!?) Not exactly free. There are things I COULD and probably SHOULD be doing - like cleaning the floors or something. But that's boring. I'd rather blog. :)

So, when last we left, we were at Pumpkin Day. My mom and dad came down for the weekend of Fall break. The Saturday after pumpkin day I had the opportunity to do a family photo shoot on the campus of Notre Dame. I'd been on the campus a couple times, but never had the chance to really walk around and see how beautiful it is. It is beautiful. See here for an upwards shot of the famous Golden Dome.

10.22.11 - Sage and G-ma Mary at ND, it was a beautiful fall day. I love this picture, they're so cute!

Later that afternoon we took the kids to the park. Love these funny girls. 

10.23.11 - trying to learn about histograms. boring. :/

 

10.31.11 - Trick-or-Treat! This year the boys were big enough to do their own trick-or-treating. It was so fun seeing them get into it. I had to help them at the first 2 houses, and after that they were off and running. They were kind of in awe that they could just walk up to someone's house and get candy. And I have to admit that as a parent, trick-or-treating is kind of weird, isn't it? I never thought about it as a kid, but once a year you put a costume on your kids, take them knocking on doors begging for candy? So weird. Recently I was teaching the girls about how you're never supposed to take candy from strangers, and if a stranger invites you to their house to give you candy or cookies, you should tell them that you have to go home and ask your mom first. Sage said "Except when you're trick-or-treating, right?" I felt awkward, but my answer was, "well, yes, mommy and daddy are with you when you're trick-or-treating." Which is true. But it's still weird.

I can't believe I'm just now blogging about Halloween. If it weren't so close to the end of the year, I'd give up altogether on this picture-a-day mumbo jumbo. I've all but given up on it already, I only actually have pictures for about 12 days a month. But I'm going to persevere and continue the facade of picture-a-day for the rest of this year. So stay tuned, November is here.

October 4-12

Picture-A-Day: We've had lots of fun in the leaves this week! It was the perfect fall week - lots of leaves, and lots of sunshine!

10.4.11 - playing with friends

10.5.11 - little dreadies!

10.7.11 - happy 2nd birthday (guitar in hand)

10.8.11 - feeling artsy before a family portrait session. LOVE fall!

10.11.11 - playing in the leaves

10.12.11 - JUMPING in the leaves. What fun.

October 1st

Picture-A-Day:

(actually, 4 pictures this day) Last Saturday we took the kids to the Harvest festival thingy (can't remember what it's called). Anyway, it was in Central Park in Elkhart.

September 25th-30th

Picture-A-Day:
October is getting away with me, I need to finish September! Yikes!

This first picture is of a concert we went to last weekend. It was a Nepali folk band called Katumba (I think?). They were SO. MUCH. FUN. I brought my little girls, and left the boys home with the big girl. The instruments were beautiful works of art in themselves, intricately carved things that resembled guitars, banjo's, shakers, drums, etc. I love cultural music. I love anything "cultural" - anything that highlights differences between other cultures and mine. I love the beauty of all the different lifestyles in the world. In the end, we're all just people. But we express our lives in such different ways, and that fascinates me. I blows my mind that this group came all the way from Nepal, to little old Elkhart. They played in the basement of the Roosevelt Center, which used to be a school and is now an apartment building. It seemed so random. Apparently someone who works at the farm (where we're CSA members) had lived in Nepal for some time, and he had connections to this group. That's how they ended up in Elkhart. They were raising money to build a school. Their T-shirts said "The whole world is one single family." I love that. I bought a shirt. I don't usually buy concert shirts, because I'm too cheap. I already paid to get into the concert, and now they want more of my money?? But I couldn't resist this shirt. During the 2nd half of the concert, kids and brave adults went to the front of the room and danced their hearts out. It was fun to watch. I'm not much of a dancer, private or public. But I love to watch. And I especially love to watch my kids dance.

9.25.11

9.28.11 - Our new puppy! Derrick's been wanting another dog for years. He always said when he finished school he would get another dog. Well, when he finished school a year and a half ago, we were planning a two-week cross country trip at the end of the summer, and I said no way are we taking a puppy on a road trip. So we waited. And ever since then he's been checking the ads every now and then, looking for just the right dog. Nothing too big (he'd like a big dog someday, but wants to wait til we have some land, space for a big dog to run). Nothing too expensive. Last Wednesday he came across an ad for this rat terrier beagle mix, for a low price. We drove down to Nappanee, to an Amish-looking farm, took a quick look at this girl, and decided she would be a good fit. 

We decided to name her Ramona. We all brainstormed names for about a day, then took a family vote.

We pretty much love her. I'm not a dog person, but I might really enjoy this girl.

Sometimes it's a bit like having another toddler in the house. She's not anywhere near as demanding as my toddlers, but she pees and poops in the house, chews things she's not supposed to, isn't interested in the toys we bought for her. You know, typical kid stuff. But she hasn't been too terrible. I think she'll turn out to be a good doggie.

9.29.11 - Oh, my little drummer boy. This kid makes anything into a musical instrument. He LOVES beating on drums (or actually, beating anything onto anything else to make a loud noise), strumming guitars (or anything that might look like a guitar - like a rake!), or plunking on a piano or keyboard. He turns jump rope handles into microphones. He is a musician and a performer. I can't wait to see where he goes with it.

9.30.11 - My lovely daughter got an award at school last week. I was about 5 minutes late. I thought it was a whole school assembly, and that the first few minutes would be the principle talking, etc. But it was just the Kindergarten classes in one of the class rooms. Jayna was the first one to get an award, so I walked in just in time to hear her teacher say, "And this award goes to Jayna!" I didn't get to hear all the wonderful things her teacher said about her, but the award was for being "respectful." I'm so proud of her. 

On a somewhat-related note - at Jayna's conference recently, her teacher said she is SO quiet! She has to shush the other kids just to hear Jayna's quiet little voice. I never thought she was much like me in her personality, but I was super shy in school, and all my teachers said I was SO quiet. So, I guess we have something in common after all. 

And I'm done for now, guess I was in a chatty mood tonight. Thanks for reading.

September 19th-23rd

Picture-A-Day:

9.20.11

9.21.11 - better get as much dirt time as you can, little guy, cuz there's not gonna be any more for a loooooong time.

9.23.11 - a lovely fall boquet my mommy sent me. She figured I could use something to cheer me up after all the poop I've been dealing with in my life. She's so sweet and thoughtful. I LOVE fall flowers - maybe because I got married in the fall, and these colors and flowers remind me of my wedding. Anyway, it DID brighten my week, so thanks mom!