Wordless Wednesday

Monkey see...

                                                                       ....Monkey do.

Wordless Wednesday: on the Seine

Wordless Wednesday

The Tale of a Dresser. Or, How to Make a Nesting Mama Happy.

             Once Upon a Time, there was a dresser. Just an ordinary dresser, given to a young couple by her parents when they no longer needed it. The young couple DID need it, and were grateful...and the young wife kept thinking to herself, "One of these days, I'm gonna re-do that dresser!"
                          There wasn't really anything wrong with it. It was just, well, a bit outdated.

Fast forward a few years. The young couple moved to a new state...and in the process of moving and then sitting in storage for 4 months, the dresser received a huge gash across its top.

(It's kinda hard to see in this picture, but look at the top left area...the gash was at least 1/4 in. deep, too.)

 Since the dresser now HAD to be re-done in order to be useable attractive at all  appealing as bedroom furniture; the wife began to plan. And the husband began to sand.

And the children were put in a cage until the project was completed (KIDDING!! we don't have a cage in our yard...just a little trampoline B got for her birthday from my parents. They love it.)

The wife tried to help with the sanding; but after a half-hour one afternoon which gave her some lovely contractions, she decided to wait on her husband to finish. So she waited each day while he was at work....rather impatiently, albeit silently. She was mostly just happy that the dresser was being sanded.

Finally, the wife went to that wonderful, big orange store and bought a paint sample can of grey paint for $2.47. This made the wife very, very happy.

                                 And then the painting began...which also made her very happy.

(I think this face is genetic...although she is MUCH cuter when she makes it!)

   The wife had been having some more lovely contractions that day; but decided that either she was just going to feel this way for the rest of her pregnancy, or the baby was really going to come early...in which case she'd very much like to have the dresser finished. So she painted. And then she and the husband grabbed some sand paper, and distressed the dresser a bit. And painted the once-bronzeish feet bright red, cause that's just fun.

 

      And then the husband muscled the dresser upstairs by himself somehow (mostly), and they put it in its place; and that made the wife very happy, too. The wife likes to think that the dresser is also pretty happy with it's new look.

Very happy, indeed.  

26, 27....32 weeks.

Hi, Babylove. It's been...way, way too long since Mama has done one of these updates. But you've been BUSY! And by busy, I mean that 3 days after we got home from your Grammy and Grandaddy's for Christmas, we got on an airplane to fly to Paris, France for 2 weeks. See, your Daddy is half-French...your PePe is Parisian. It's a part of who you are. And we had the chance to (finally) go over and visit for a good long time. So we went. It was a great trip, Babylove...you got to do so many cool things! I can't say you SAW them, because, well...you didn't. But your Daddy and brother and sister and Aunt CeCe and Grammy and I did. See? You went to the Eiffel Tower...and watched it sparkle from the windows of our apartment.

                                              ...All the way to the very top of the Tower!

And you went to the top of the Arc de Triumph.

We walked along the Seine to Notre Dame, and chased pigeons in the Tuiliere Gardens. You went with Grammy and I to the Louvre, and sat with me in Monmarte while my picture was drawn by a French artist. Pax sat with us, too...he didn't quite trust the artist and thought we might need some protection. We ate lots and lots of delicious pastries, rode the metro, and walked down the Champs de Elysee. And you and I took naps, Babylove...doing all this at 6 1/2 months pregnant was super fun, but not always easy :) My ankles were huge by the time we landed back home again. Since we got back, we've mostly been unpacking boxes, organizing our new home, and refinishing furniture. Those last two pictures, the ones of you and me and your big sister, are from this last weekend-I'm 32 weeks pregnant now. 8 months-ish. They moved my due date up a week, because of your size...I KNEW you were bigger than the other two! My belly is now bigger than it was when I delivered your sister AND your brother. And I have 8 weeks to go still...it's hard for me to imagine how big we are going to get! They tell me you will come around Easter, now. A week earlier. I'd like that very much, Babylove...I'm so ready to hold you in my arms instead of in my belly! Although your room isn't quite ready yet, it WILL be. Soon. And soon, we will have a name for you, too...

Of Birthday Cakes and Beds.

      Obviously I've been MIA for...well...a long time. There are lots of good reasons for the lack-of-blogging; but instead of going into all that right now I'm just gonna jump into some of the posts that I HAVE to get on here before it's too late...like my daughter's 2nd birthday. Because, being the 2nd child, if I go any longer without blogging about it I may hear about it when she's 15...(You don't love me as much as you love Pax! You blogged about HIS 2nd birthday the day after it happened! sob, sob...you get the idea. Pretty much we're just doing our best to raise a secure daughter who only flips out occasionally as a teenager...and blogging about things on time (ish) falls into that category. Betcha didn't know that, did ya?)

   Blythe actually had the longest birthday she will probably EVER have this year...we started out in Paris, left there about 12 Paris time; flew to Chicago; then on to the Valley of the Sun. We landed here about 10pm our time, which would make it about 5am the next day Paris time...and, actually, she wasn't born until 10:45pm so really-she wasn't even 2 yet in the States. I don't know how much she actually enjoyed flying all day long (and waiting, and flying, and waiting some more..) but she sure knew it was her birthday! She kept singing, "Happy to me, Happy to ME!" all day long. Which is the toddler's rendition of Happy Birthday, of course.

  The day before we left, we had a little celebration in Paris with Adam's parents & sister, my mom, and the four of us. It involved a tower of macaroons with candles on top that looked absolutely adorable but tasted...well...odd. They were from a little gourmet store and Rebecca and Celine (my mother-in-law & sis-in-law) had picked out a box that had flavors like "orange blossom with anise" that we just weren't gourmet enough to appreciate...but it sure LOOKED adorable!! I had decided that we'd do a little family thing the weekend after we got home, so I didn't have to pack presents there & back. I also knew that we'd all be jet-lagged (just HOW jet-lagged I had no idea) and that I would be 7 months pregnant; so low-key was the way to go. It was just going to be our little family and my mom, since she was staying until Sunday afternoon.

   Plans change, though. My sweet little daughter was convinced that we would be going to my aunt & uncle's for her birthday cake; because that was where we'd celebrated Pax's birthday and our cousin Joe's birthday, when we were there for Thanksgiving. Birthday cakes and "Jimmy's house" just went together in her mind. I, however, had calves the size of Texas (thanksverymuch, super long pregnant flights) and wasn't up to driving 3 hours to get there. So we invited my aunt & uncle up to a little lunch party Sunday after church; and she was thrilled! Janet and Jimmy would be there for cake!

  Friday & Saturday was spent trying to recover (we got home at midnight Friday; Pax slept until 3 am. That's pretty much how it went for the next week...B had no issues with the time-change but, true to form, my not-so-great sleeper had a VERY hard time adjusting!), going to the grocery store (not only had we been gone for 2 weeks; we'd been home from 2 weeks' worth of Christmas travels for all of 3 days before that, and moved into this house 2 days before that. The cupboards were pretty bare), and building little-miss-I'm-2-now a bed. Well, Adam did that part...I was only allowed to prime and paint. Something about being 7 months pregnant...

...but B LOVED helping her daddy build her "big girl bed"! She even picked out the paint color herself-lavender. What can I say? She knows what she wants and she'll tell ya. Kinda like her mama, that part. We got the design plans off the same site we used to build our bed & Pax's last year, as well as a bookshelf we made around the same time. Although I didn't do any of the building, this time. Adam is learning a ton about woodworking and loves it-but says he needs some clamps badly. Which if you look at the picture and know anyting about woodworking, you will be able to tell. I still think it's pretty fantastic, and one of the most adorable things I've ever seen; and-well-she's pretty happy with it!

My Mom is making her a little quilt for it which I know she'll love; can't wait to see it all finished!

Saturday, while a giant pot of pinto beans sat soaking on the stove, I made the birthday cake. When asked what she wanted for a birthday cake (what flavor? a flower, or a dolly or something else? Her brother gave her loooooots of ideas), B responded "A purple cake," I'm seeing a pattern here...

So that's what we made! I had extra cream cheese frosting in the freezer from the Christmas cookie (monster) incident (oh, I haven't told you about that? Ha! Let's just say my Small Son would get away with more goodie-stealing in the middle of the night if he learned to bribe his sister to keep her quiet. They DO share a room.) so I pulled it out, made a cake from scratch (couldn't find a mix at the store with out hydrogenated oils in it...but I learned how to substitute maple syrup for vanilla extract!), and my mom colored the frosting purple with her two "helpers" and decorated the cake. We also made a giant batch of refried beans, most of which we froze, because my kids love them and it's a way easy, good source of protein for them. And no, we don't use lard to make them. The next day after church we hurried home to meet my aunt and uncle, had tacos for lunch (I heart crockpots), ate purple cake, celebrated little Sugar B turning 2. She had a wonderful time! After which I put both my kids to nap and asked my aunt and uncle if they'd mind if I took a nap too...they stayed to take my mom to the airport on their way home. They didn't mind.

Pretty cute, isn't she? The beads and headband were Pax's present to his little sis...he picked them out himself. He knows her well! She's worn those beads almost every day since...including wearing all of them to her 2-year-old check up the following Tuesday, where my big 4-year-old boy screamed from the moment the doctor said the word "shot" until we left the room. But that's another story.. Sweetest Doll, Daddy and I are so very thankful that God has chosen us to be your parents! Your sweet heart and sense of humor bring so much joy into our lives. We love watching you grow and change, and hearing your little voice singing songs and chattering away at us. I love the way you look out for your big brother and help him when he can't find his things...and it always make me laugh that YOU know where to find his things, when he doesn't! I love watching your personality unfold, and am looking forward to having even more fun with two-year-old YOU!