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Sunday, July 28, 2019

OrangeKitty, Housework, Zoo, Superhero

Was a busy weekend.
Matt headed north to help his parents with their house and remove siding and I kept the kids. Matt said it was good to see the progress and was happy to help. The kids and I headed out to the farm. E refound her orange kitty and the animal is so dumb it didn't run. She drug him all around and it's not like she held him in a civilized manner but instead put him into a dangling headlock. She also carried him a fireman's hold over her shoulder quite a bit. I'd feel bad for the kitty but when she would put him down, he didn't run. He'd lay down beside her. She was given the rule by Grandma to keep the kitty on the rug but she had her own interpretation of what a rug was. I'll hand it to her that she took advantage of Grandma and Grandpa. Grady liked the kitties too but he pretty excited about the sandbox and the cows. E wasn't too sure about feeding the cows and kept a reasonable distance but Grady was watching and thought it was fun when they'd get close.

Ainsley is still rolling pretty well. She rolled the first day at the new job - in the office. She's reaching and grabbing and starting to have good control. Will even pull the bottle to herself - it's hard to believe she's 5 months old already. She's officially fulltime at daycare. It's weird to not have her talking at me for a good portion of the day. Her favorite thing is to yell and be heard, lately. She received a little going away gift and balloon from the office - they were sad to see her go.
The week was pretty lowkey - we went to the zoo with the family for Farm Bureau's picnic night.
We ended the week with a low key meal. 
And a super hero.
ALR: Grady, are you finishing your meal?
GRR: Yeah.
ALR: Can we take off the superhero mask?
GRR: No, Mama

Wednesday, July 17, 2019

Summer things

It is officially summer - our lives are about pool, popsicles, parks, and itty bitty ponytails!
Ainsley has been doing well at work - they seem to adore her. She's not the best napper and will cat nap once in the morning and once in the afternoon but the girl does keep sleeping through the night. I hate to complain because she does sleep through the night well but I'm getting deep into doing all sorts of things at work. It's been great - hard to believe it has only been a couple weeks.

The kids have been working on their trike/peddling issues. E is hit or miss.
Grady just mostly sits an rocks but he's super proud of himself. The kids also have been helping Matt out. G and E washed the cars this past weekend. E's come a long way since last summer in her washing abilities. Grady just mostly washed the concrete but he was super proud of himself.


We also went to member's night at the zoo.


At Sam's Club
MJR: We'll go down this aisle. I think we need something.
EER sees "it"
EER: MINI WHEATS!
EER: I WANT MINI WHEATS!

Leaving the store, still holding on to the mini wheats


EER: Where's John?
MJR to ALR: She has a favorite check out person?
EER: John's not here!
ALR to MJR: Should we be concerned she has a favorite check out guy or that she's pissed he's not here to serve her.

Tuesday, July 9, 2019

Fireworks, Fish, and Fish

What a weekend. I won't lie, by the time Monday came along... and everyone went to daycare. Yes, everyone, I was a bit glad. In an attempt to start transitioning Ainsley, she is going to daycare on a 1 time per week basis. It's helping me accomplish more in work as I'm getting busy and loving it and am also mentally prepping for the mom guilt of not being with her each day.


Back to the beginning, we started the weekend off with the annual tradition of 3rd of July fireworks at the farm. The seemed to go over better this year... we had the two oldest outside to enjoy things and Ainsley slept inside. Sure, they liked the smoke bombs and whatnot but their favorites this year were finding the little army soldier parachute guys. They would hunt them down and then carry them around in their pockets! Our show got a little long for them as it crept past 10 and they were tired and got a little antsy. E and G spent the night at the farm and we took A back home.

On the 4th, Matt and I slept in until 9:30 (Ainsley woke up at 5 but went back to sleep). We hadn't slept in that long in forever - we even went out for "breakfast/lunch" before meeting up with everybody again. As a treat that night, we went to Krolls, which always seems to be a hit with our family. No waiting really for a table or food or if there is a wait, it's not bad. E always has the soup and loves it. G will eat his stuff fairly well too. A slept on the booth behind us. We ended with a shake split between all of us. We didn't even try to do the capitol fireworks this year... maybe next year, or the year after.

On Friday, we got to see KEVIN! He and Jan had come up to bring
some furniture and take some back with them. This was the first time they'd met Ainsley. We had a fish fry at our house with some of the fish that Michele and Randy have caught and some that they caught with Kevin on the 4th. We ended the night with smores by the campfire - something we'd been talking about doing all summer but finally had the chance.

Saturday was a bit of a catch up day, the kids have been off their schedule now for 2 days...so we stayed close to home. When Grady went down for his nap, Matt and E took the paddle boat out. They caught her first fish on her pole.

EER comes in: Mom, I caught a fish!
ALR amps up the excitement: OHHH!! You did! Where is it?
EER walks off
MJR: Well, that's the thing. She was scared to death of it so we threw it back.
ALR: Did you get a picture?
MJR: Yes and you'll see just how it captured the moment.

Tuesday, July 2, 2019

Pizzas and Pools, Popsicles, and Boats

With the new job, we are starting to get into a bit of a new routine. Ainsley is still coming to work with me but we are trying to get out the door a bit better and then come home at 5 - and attempt to get supper on the table. We've barely been back to work fulltime for a month - and it shows! Ainsley is great about mostly sleeping through the night - will occasionally wake-up between 4 am and 6 am for a bottle but that's pretty manageable.

A brief about the kids -
E is all about the wiggly worms - she will put a bunch in her hand, if she can find them, and wander around with them. I think the most I've counted is 7. She's taken the role of Mama Hen around the place. Will boss both her brother and sister and there's a lot of hand on the hip discussions.

G's vocab has really picked up. He's pointing at things and we can understand what he's starting to say or understand the pattern. The saddest thing is at night, when he's woke himself up from a night terror and you walk in to comfort him, he'll call out "drink!" "water!" "drink!" He usually will settle himself again but it's usually once or twice a night he'll wake up crying.
A's starting to find her voice. She's loving the tub and will kick and kick and kick in the water. She likes being sung to and occasionally I'll get a good baby giggle out of her but she's observant of her surroundings and whether she likes it or not, her brother or sister is constantly fussing or messing with her. She also had her first helping of solid food! Peas! She didn't seem totally interested but it's a start.

We are starting to see the garden grow a bit. We've got a mess with volunteer cucumbers and weeds and the kids are bit hard on things that are willing to take off but Matt got his first harvest of radishes for the season, actually in ever.

Lowkey weekend... we started it off with the kids in the pools on Friday night.. .let them run and play to their hearts' content and when they got hungry, the munched on pizzas. Yes, I'll admit it's probably a bad parent thing to do as we didn't sit down and have a meal but it was nice to not fight them to eat or sit down. Watching them run around the pools and giggle while they slide down the slide into the water made for a relaxing night.

On Saturday, the girls and I stayed home and
Matt and Grady went out on the boat. This was Grady's first time really getting to go out and do something with Dad alone. Matt said he was pretty good - reorganized his tackle box for him, knotted up the anchor, and went fishing/casted his sister's birthday fishing pole right into the lake. (They bought a new one before returning home.)

That night, we took a walk to the gas station for popsicles. It's been warm and humid so I thought the treat would be something new and fun. Popsicles melt. Grady is the worst about staying to task with his popsicle. Eleanor will do pretty well with some slight drippage but at one time I looked over and it appeared that Grady had given up eating his popsicle and was in full acknowledgement of just playing in it. They had a good time and we hosed them and the wagon off when we got home.
On Sunday, we decided to take the paddle boat out. We decided to do it bright and early in the morning. It took us a FULL hour and a half to get ready. It was agony. It's one thing to get the boat out from under the deck and quickly hose it off but another to herd the cats into the house, put on their swimsuits, put on sunscreen, find their hats, find their sunglasses because Heaven-forbid that Mom and Dad have sunglasses and they don't, rechange their diaper because they pooped, find their shoes - BOTH the left AND the right, argue with them about the shoes that we found, get them into their life jackets, get them waters for the boat ride - because if one has their water the other one HAS to have theirs, and then get the damn boat into the water. We also ended up putting the canopy on the boat three times but who's counting.

EER: I'm bleeding! I need a bandaid
MJR: Okay. Let's go get you a bandaid
EER: YEAH!
MJR: Okay, I'm going to put on a bandaid, what are you going to do once I put it on?
EER: Take it off!
MJR: No! You leave it, don't pick it.
EER: Oh, right.