Pinkeyes, Clothes cleaning, Pigs

The crud continues. I have pink eyes - yes plural. Ugh. I'm goopey and droppey and I resemble a barncat too much for my own liking. I stayed home for portions of each day this week just in time for Friday and for Eleanor to puke on the counter so we could figure out who stayed home with her during the day. She watched Frozen twice in one day.

On Monday, Matt and I spent some time together. We went out to breakfast, had an unofficial state of the union meeting for our house and home. We also went to the hospital to check on Mom - she had shoulder surgery - which she's needed for some time but finally confirmed with an MRI last week. I'm glad she will be recovering but I feel the timeline and her patience will not exactly work in tandem. For the remainder of the day, I worked to get the kids' clothes in order. Grady has hit a growth spurt. When I took him in last week they weighed and measured him - he is in the 96th percentile for weight, 20th for BMI and over the 99th for height. He's officially in 3T clothes, with some 2T jeans. His shirts had become belly shirts and it was time for everything to be transitioned out. When we lined him up on the ruler a couple weeks ago, he's just a little shy of E's 3 year old line - and he has almost 7 months of growing to do before we mark his own 3 year line.


I've been trying to purge clothes and items - the house is so cluttered, I need my own personal assistant to go through, clean house, and then also provide personal training for me! Meanwhile, I just want to sleep through the night too! I'm happy with getting things clean and out - giving to a friend with a new baby and whatnot it's amazing how all the clothes and items have been taking up space and so consuming for the past three years! Ains is working her way through some of the girl clothes but I just pulled a 3 month onesie out of her wardrobe this past weekend too - her percentiles were on par with the bird-baby... 2% for BMI, 11% for weight and 65% for height. She did get in a few 12 month shirts but we won't be trying pants anytime soon! She's starting to walk with her walker too and occassionally standing alone without assistance. Her dad and I have a bet - walking before or after her birthday - I think she'll be after and that's just fine with me. She's been taking more and more stairs lately and will sneak up them when no one is looking - because that doesn't give me a heart attack.

This weekend Matt spent time at the farm butchering pigs. He loves this and Dad got more fun tools for their "butcher" shop this year... giant carcass splitter (not official name), commercial grinder, if we ever build a house, I'm sure we will have to put a meat room on the back of the garage for him to be able to house all this fun. He was pretty happy with the bigs this year and all the items that we got.

MJR: Okay, we got chops, bacons, italian, brats, country, breakfast, we still have 20 pounds, was there anything else you wanted to do?
ALR: Seems like more this year.
MJR: Yeah, they were bigger pigs this year. They were beautiful pigs. Wait until you see these chops - they are sexy.
ALR in her head: sexy - I don't think I've ever described a porkchop as sexy, in my life. Who have I married?

MJR singing "Let it go"
EER: Dad! That's Elsa's song.
ALR: I knew you were going to get in trouble, I didn't even sing it the first time and was told to shush when it was on. 
Later that day, EER singing.
GRR joins in: Let it go.
EER: Grady! You don't sing Elsa's song.
GRR: Cold never bothered me anyway.

Sick, 85, Exploding Kittens, Butchering

The sickness has started in the house, despite my best efforts and attempts to homeopathic things as much as possible. E, despite few accidents, is no longer in pull-ups and diapers ALL the time. She hasn't had one single overnight accident yet - and I'm so proud of her. Even when she got sick at night, she did as best as she could! The girl was home a couple days with some bug. Matt got something too so the two of them watched Frozen together. Matt was a little appalled at the storyline, forcing a girl to become a shut-in and all - but E is in love with Anna and Elsa. Just as E was good enough to go back to daycare, Ains was not. I stayed home with the crankiest baby in the whole wide world. We did take her and Grady both in as they both seemed off - G had a bit of an ear infection and a couple days later, Ains earned herself some antibodies as well due to no improvement. Meanwhile, Matt's abs are in the best shape of the past 5 years because he is coughing marathon viking coughs all the time and all through the night.

We celebrated Great Grandma Dar's 85th birthday with her. E and G were pretty excited about playing with her cousins and sharing cake with Grandma - Ains just crawled all over the place. 85 seems hard to believe - somedays 36 seems incredibly old but the changes that Grandma has seen over her lifetime, even over the past 35 years or past decade - she's lived well with a true love of her life, 5 children, 13 grandkids, and 14 great-grandkids.

We also had Wes and Kristi over for extended play of games and dinner. Eleanor adores Peyton and I get a kick out of watching their 3 play with E & G. For the age differences, they do really well. We even played Exploding Kittens together a bit, Michael won every game! I was impressed! I enjoy Wes and Kristi for their candor, sense of humor, unknowing advice they give and their love of my children. They are so different from each other and I appreciate how they honor and respect that within their marriage. I like whenever we can get together.

We also kicked off butchering season. The kids and I stayed home while Matt went out to the farm and butchered a cow with Dad. He boned up on some videos ahead of time but was pumped about breaking the beef down and will be processing jerky for some time.

Eating cheesecake
ALR: oh, it's so rich.
EER says with a bit of a whine: I want a drink of milk!
MJR: That's what mom means when she says it's rich.
EER: I know but I love it!

New year. Capitol. Owley

2020!

The year of clarity, right? Wrong, the year we pay more in daycare than our mortgage... funny, not funny. It's hard to believe it's a fresh new year. We kicked off the new year similar to last year, we headed to Wes and Kristi's for a little party. We last longer this year than last. Ains started getting fussy and we decided she'd had couldn't have any more fun or she wasn't going to be any... so we drove home, swung by the capitol to see the new year in lights. E really gets into the capitol, she likes the size and pointing it out.




We brought the year in slow... hung out at home and played a bit. They olders are starting to play a bit on their own. Don't get me wrong, it's not this harmonious hand holding kumbayah moment where they tell each other how wonderful they are but there will be 3 to 5 minute stretches of play where no one is poking, biting, hitting, sitting on, or pulling each other's hair. It usually can last a bit longer if Ainsey keeps her button nose out of it, but that girl is usually on a mission.

We've been sorting out toys from Christmas and playing with some opening others and actually looking at what we got. Our kids are pretty lucky so Christmas was a blur of overwhelming and to look at and appreciate the gifts was necessary.

We also fully appreciated that Ainsey is 10 months... she's waving, sputtering on with her sounds, pulling herself up, standing, doing very little furniture cruising but it's starting. I looked at her the other day and she's grown into her face and body a bit and I realized my tiniest baby is not that much of a baby any more. I'm not sure I'm in love with that. She's been having teeth issues - they seem to be bothering her a bit, she still only has two. The other thing bothering her is her brother and sister constantly taking stuff out of her hands - she will now fuss at them when they do, get owley, and she's even been known to wave her hands in agitation at them. I thought E was going to be our sass one - I think Ains may be a spitfire too. And if she doesn't keep me up at nights, the thought of two fireballs might.

ALR: Do you see it Eleanor?
EER: I do! The Christmas tree is gone.
ALR: Yes, because it's a new year. Now it says 2020.
EER: 20 20! Yeah!
MJR: You know that she doesn't know what that means.
ALR: Yeah, it's irrelevant but she seems excited.
ALR: Grady, do you see it.
Silence.
ALR: Eleanor is Grady awake?
EER: Yeah.
GRR: ya.
MJR: Obviously Grady is not as excited about the new year.

Olders getting dressed
GRR comes downstairs very proud of his choices: Look! My Shirt! My pants!
EER comes downstairs equally or more proud of her choices: Grady, you look nice, but I look beautiful.