4 little Picassos

Little miss independent

I think having an older brother that really isn't much older along with her very independent personality has made Dominique pretty advanced for her age. She talks in sentences "I don't want that", "I don't want to" (as some examples) and has very definitive ideas that she is adamant about. This morning she pulled out some dirty clothes from her hamper that she wanted me to put on her. I told her I was not putting them on her (it was bad enough that we let her wear them for the remainder of the day as filthy as they were). Well, I'm not kidding, she almost got them on all by herself. She's not even 2 yet, which means she is only 1 years old, a deceptive number for a child's age (12 months and 23 months are totally different ages). She started with her shirt which she stepped into but was unable to get over her shoulder. Then she tried her shorts and would have gotten them on except that she put both legs in one hole. She was furious. I finally found something else she wanted to wear and hid her dirty favorite outfit in a laundry basket far, far away from her little eyes. She puts her own flip flops on, often on the wrong feet and/or between the wrong toes, which causes some difficulties in walking, but so help you if you try to help her!

She also wants to attach her chest strap on her car seat all by herself, without any help. When she does it she excitedly proclaims "I did it!"

Meanwhile Ivan prefers to be coddled. He can dress himself but refuses every morning. He wants me to dress him. Today I played dumb, acting like I didn't know which way to put his shorts on or where to put his arms. He mostly did it himself today when he saw how incompetent I was. He has also decided that he wants me to feed him. Just on the foods he doesn't want to really eat. He has no problems with yogurt, ice cream or pizza. Dominique is happily chowing down and Ivan is crying out "I need help". It's laughable really, except when it's frustrating.

My exciting news is that I get to fly to Canada for 10 days at the end of the month and go to my cousin's reunion in Edmonton!!! One of my cousins is sharing her air miles to get me up there. How cool is that! Speaking of cool, I'm looking forward to it. I have been way more nauseous than with the other pregnancies. Not throwing up, just feeling sick all the time- day, night, afternoon, evening. I eat so much ginger, I think it's seeping out of my pores. It helps but only for about 30 min. By the time I fly up, this should be disappearing (I can hope right?) and I'll get to enjoy some relief from the Texas heat and see family ;) yeah, yeah.

The kids and Brian are going to hang out in Houston while I'm gone. So they will get a vacation too, only mine will be noticeably calmer ;)

Vacation!!!

Here are the pictures from the day I wrote about in the post "it's stinking hot here". Can you tell that the sun is brutal and cruel in it's intensity? Amazingly, my kids seem to take decent pictures no matter the temperature index. Kid's are amazing that way. They can endure a lot and also cry over the smallest little insignificant thing (ie. the color of his plate tonight, then the color of his sippy cup).

Well, there is relief in sight and I'm not talking about our 30% chance of rain for tonight. One of my cousins is flying me up for our cousins reunion, only I'll fly in and out from Stoon so that I'll also get some extra time with my family and niece- Imogen! ;) She just had one ticket, so the remainder of the family will be going to Houston (where I will fly from and to) to hang out with Nana and Papa and vacation there. It will be so good for all of us to get out of Abilene and wonderful for me to go somewhere remarkably cooler and quieter since I will not be wiping noses, changing diapers, feeding, assisting in the bathroom or managing anyone under the age of adult for a week and a half. I'm sure by the end of the time, I will be more than excited to see even a dirty little butt again, but the break will be nice.

It's stinking hot here

I kept telling Dominique not to eat the sand. It did give her a funny looking goatee.





I made the mistake of telling the kids I'd take them to the park today when I needed to get them out of the house. What was I thinking? The minute I stepped out of the car which was blasting cold air conditioned air on us, I knew I'd made a mistake. There isn't any shade in the play area, so I convinced the duo to have a snack on a bench in the shade, then they swung a little bit. I kept trying to lure them back to the car, but Ivan wanted to go everywhere in the play area. The park was nearly deserted and that should have been another clue that it is not hang out outside weather. There was a big brother with his little and they stayed about 5 minutes saying "it sure is hot" over and over (mostly from the adult- who carried his iced drink everywhere).

The only way to be outside is to be in water. We are fortunate to have a kiddy pool and our neighbor just gave us this slip-n-slide. Tomorrow we are going to a friend's who has an above ground pool.

I did house sit for a while for a friend who lives out of town and got to see some countryside. While it was hot out, I could take refuge in the house. It was so peaceful out there, beautiful green fields framed with forests and deer grazing in a field of wheat. Reminded me of my parent's house. After everyone was gone and I had checked everything out and turned out lights, I heard a sneeze from near the forest's edge. I shined my flashlight to see who may be lurking around and saw a frantic deer bound off. When I told Ivan about it, he thought that was just hilarious that the deer sneezed. I thought it pretty funny myself. Didn't know they could sneeze.

What do you do when it's hot out?

My uncle

Thank you for your prayers for my uncle. Please continue to pray for him. The posts have been removed due to sensitivity.

9 months is a long time

Funny pregnancy stories:

I ran into a lady at the YMCA who recognized me from subbing her water aerobic class several times during my pregnancy with Dominique. She said: "I know you, you're the lady who is always pregnant". I laughed and told her I was pregnant again. She got all apologetic and said- "well I mean you teach the pregnancy water aerobics class". But I told her that that was fine, that we were excited about the pregnancy.

Then a night later, Ivan asked me if the baby was ready yet. I told him no that it would be a while and he said "will the baby be ready tomorrow then?". It will be a very long 9 months for him. I tried to tell him it would be after Dominique's birthday, summer, fall, his and my birthday and Christmas, but that is so far for him he can not even imagine it.

He has assured me that he will babysit when we have the baby. Now that is too far in the future for me to imagine!















This photo is dedicated to Papa Terry- "the rat takes the cheese" or maybe it was a cute little boy with the munchies.

Friends and fun

Well we made it through Sat. and all our functions, had a nice peaceful Sun. and get to enjoy another day off for memorial day. Brian is mowing the lawn, so Ivan is occupied as chief observer over the next couple of hours. Dominique is on my lap, 'cause she can't stand me being on the computer without her on top of me. I'm not sure how this arrangement will be once my belly takes up my lap, I'm not too crazy about it as it is now.

We got to see some friends yesterday, so I thought I'd post pictures with friends. A while back we went out of town to our friend's who love music and jamming. They invite musical friends out, feed us and they play for fun. The kids brought out some instruments too- a toy piano, drum and percussion pieces and their toy stick. It's nice when they can feel a part of it. Whenever Brian has a gig, Ivan wants to go and play too- and this time he got to.

Dominique and the girls. Mercedes is on the far right, she lives across the street from us and her cousins are the two sisters to the left of where Dominique is. Ale on the end just "finished" chemo which successfully treated her leukemia. She got it when her mom was pregnant with Ana. We have been unofficially adopted into their family.

Ivan loves planes and is of course flying to Canada here. I'm not sure if Dominique is remembering how loud flying is. Their friend Patrick is hanging on for dear life. I told him Ivan doesn't have his flying license.

Today

Sweetest moment today: Dominique came up to me and gave me a big, long bearhug and heartfelt kiss.




Most formidable moment today: I managed to get 4 kids down the street to the dollar store in a wagon and a toddler bike, in and out without anything at all disastrous occuring- it was actually fun for us all.




Worst moments today: all the moments that became a tearful screaming fest (2 or 3 for Ivan over such important matters as the contents of his lunch, Caleb over not getting to ride the bike first, Micah over getting told "no" when he dumped a clock in the toilet, Dominique when she was told to get off of mommy- that mommy is not a jungle gym and another meltdown when she was forced to undress for bath time). The little fashionista doesn't like to take off new or "cute" clothes.

Funniest moment today: we can't remember exactly what Brian said to Ivan-but Ivan's response was "dad, that's cheesy" and it totally fit. I wish I could remember what it was. Sometimes you just need a portable recorder.

I found out that I have an extra long weekend. I won't be keeping the boys Monday and tomorrow I get to have the car- so we can go somewhere- probably the grocery store and maybe a friend's. I actually enjoy going to the grocery store with the kids. There is so much to see and new things to introduce them to or help them learn and it's nice to get out once we've been "in" several days.

We have a crazy, crazy Sat. shaping up with 3 activities again! Morning, afternoon and evening. Hooray for Sundays!

The morning after

The morning after the grands left, Ivan wanted to know where they were and when they were coming back. They were hear a day when I had the foursome and since it was our first pretty hot day, I put up the pool. Terry got suited up also and let Caleb dump water on his head, much to Caleb's delight. Ivan thought it was too wet of an activity! It is hot here today. Yucky hot, don't go outside unless it's in a pool hot. So I set up the pool again. Not sure what I'll do all summer with them. It was ok in the morning, but by afternoon it is miserable. The air conditioner is running and we don't open the blinds. It makes the house a little gloomy dark, but more bearable temp. wise. Brian is watering the lawn as we speak. It's still green, but getting rougher on the feet. Amazingly, our garden is doing great. We are already eating spinach and squash from it and the plants are huge and healthy. He planted it in a shaded area next to the shed under our pecan tree. Hopefully we'll get produce all summer and maybe peaches from our tree this year! All the seeds packets that we planted from say "full sun", but they don't mean West Texas sun. Ours had full sun the other years and all afternoon and evening the plants got baked. Now they get a few hours of sun in the morning and shade for the rest of the day along with the 100+ temps. I know for all of you defrosting up north, this sounds wonderful and I thought so too my first summer or two, but now I realize it's just insanely hot.

#3

Baby # 3 is on it's way. We've told you all early since we're bad at keeping secrets. She or he should be due right about Brian's birthday. What is the likelihood of another birthday baby?