Blogger Pages

One of the blogs that I subscribe to in Google Reader (LOVE that time-saving gadget, and thanks to Karyn who told me about it) and usually skim posted this post about Blogger Pages yesterday.  Apparently, Blogger now gives us the ability to put tabs up at the top or sides of our blogs now, like the fancy-schmancier blogs with cool designs.

Not that I have time to be goofing around with my blog design, but if I did, what tabs should I create?  Does anybody out there use Blogger Pages or tabs on their blog-just ordinary family blogs like mine?

Working on the Spoon

The Ergo Carrier

Some days I am really nervous about whether this baby will make it into the world safely, and some days I think too much about the details of what it will be like once he/she is here. If you know me, I'm sure that doesn't surprise you even though it may not make sense. :)

One thing I have thought about a lot is how I'll need an extra pair of hands to go grocery shopping and take Jonathan to school. We'll also probably want to go hiking as a family again, but one secondhand Kelty backpack will not carry Grace and the new baby. I've been looking around and watching other moms, and I decided that an Ergo Baby Carrier might be my ticket to an extra pair of hands. When one of my frugal blogs linked to a great deal on the carriers-and deals on these are rare-we decided to take the plunge and get one.

The Ergo should work from baby's infancy (with a special insert) through toddlerhood, up to 40 lbs. I can only imagine how it works as a front carrier with a baby inside, and I think I'll mostly use it with the new baby (still nicknamed Apple Baby around here,) but I decided to try it as a back-carrier with Grace.

Clearly I did not get dressed up for this...and yes, I am rather bulgy these days! Jonathan took the picture for me at the end of a long day. Grace is heavy in the carrier, but not awkward and actually comfortable. And she likes it.

Here I am giving her a few bounces. I'm looking forward to using the carrier for a long time. If you want the link to the deal, just let me know!

Jail

When Jonathan first got a Lego set that had specialized parts, Jeff and I wondered whether those parts would be useful for anything besides their original purpose in the set's directions. We must be crusty, old grownups who have forgotten how to imagine.

Jonathan has not forgotten how to imagine. Check out his Lego jail. (Anna, he built this while you and I were on the phone.) The police guy on top is looking through his telescope, watching for bad guys doing crimes.

The guy underneath is in jail, and clearly not thrilled about it.

The yellow, round/hexagonal pieces with spokes that make up his roof and floor are from the single-drum roller. This may be my favorite Lego creation yet!

Free Museum Day

Click here to find out about getting two free tickets to an amazing variety of museums on Free Museum Day, September 25th.  Hat tip to My Frugal Adventures!

Planning and Pondering

When the baby comes, he/she will sleep in the nursery (where Grace is now) and Grace will join Jonathan in his room. I have been pondering how to reconfigure his room, which is not very big, to fit both of them. We will probably sell his shelf and dresser (which were already very well-used when we bought them) on Craigslist, and find a more space-efficient shelf and dresser at Ikea or secondhand. I found a secondhand crib at a friend's yard sale.

We already love the Expedit shelf and have a big one in the playroom and a small one in the downstairs hallway. I stumbled across this photo today at Project Nursery...

and it got my creative juices flowing. That's a problem, because I have too many projects started already. But, I keep thinking about how I could modify the Expedit shelf to look something like this. I don't want to paint the wall behind the shelf, but I do already have red, yellow, green, and blue paint leftover from other projects. Hmmmm...

Packing

I have planned to post about this for over a year, and I especially planned to post about it at the beginning of a summer, not the end.  Well, summer is ending, but I'm going to post about it now anyway.  Here goes...

Packing for three (Jonathan, Grace, and myself) was a learning experience for me.  (I don't pack for my hubby.  He is a seasoned traveler and, thankfully, is great at packing for himself.)  Our family took our first airplane trip with Grace when she was seven weeks old.  I was still quite sleep deprived, but this tip from my friend, Jennie (it was you, right, Jennie?) helped me so much!  I used it again last October and in June on our family vacations.

Jennie suggested packing each day's clothing in its own Ziploc bag.  Outfit, undies, socks, and everything (for both kids) goes in a bag labeled with the day.  When everything is in the bag, I can squish the extra air out with my hands or use a straw.  It makes the kids' clothes take up so much less space, and I can put a whole week's worth of clothing in the suitcase like a little filing system.  I also include an extra bag for PJs, one for toiletries, and sometimes one for replacements, like a pair of jeans or a spare shirt for each kid.  I took a picture after packing the kids' stuff and before packing mine on our last trip:

Packing this way allowed me to pack all of their clothes, a week's worth of disposable diapers for Grace, and all my stuff, too...all in one suitcase!  And it helped me stay organized during the trip, which is not a natural tendency for me.

I bought and labeled Ziplocs just once, on our first trip as a family of four, and now I just keep the bags in the suitcase so that I can use them each time we travel.  I keep thinking that Jonathan's clothes are going to get too big to fit into Ziplocs, but so far they have fit.  It has helped that we have traveled during warm, shorts-weather months, and not when he would need jeans.  I'm sure I'll have to modify the system for jeans and for a third baby, but for now it's working great, and I appreciate the tip from Jennie.  Hope it helps you, too!

More Exciting Development

A few days ago, Grace decided she was willing to take some steps while holding someone's hands. Until recently, I don't think walking had even entered her mind. Those of you who have cracked the baby milestone books might know that many babies can be expected to bear weight on their feet and be happy to be propped up that way. Until recently, Grace would just raise her legs and want to be put on her bottom. But now, I think she might imagine that walking could be in her future.

She is her own girl on her own schedule, and we have just soaked in what seems to be extra time to enjoy her as a baby. But, I must say that I am excited for her to walk and excited to do a bit less toting her around. Between her weight and my baby weight...well, it all adds up! Whew!

Here she is walking with me. I had Jonathan grab the camera and take pictures when the exciting event occurred.

Getting a little more confident walking with Jeff.

Well, she's not walking here, but it's a fun picture of my dad with the kids...and the skull wearing Jonathan's glasses. Historically, my dad has not been big on real smiles in pictures, but I caught him twice in a row here and had to include both!

Walking with Dad and Jonathan. (Perhaps this shirt is too small for her!)

Walking with my mom.

Today, Grace was willing to walk for a few steps holding just one of my fingers. A few times, she has asked to do some guided walking. (Not with words, of course, because she barely uses any words, but she does use lots of noises and signs and emotion to get her point across.) When she stands on her own, you can bet I'll post about it!

Grace Climbing on My Grandma

Brotherly Love

(I didn't stage this, seriously.)

She's One of Us

Making Their Days

How to make Jonathan's day:
*Tell him he doesn't have to make his bed.
*Let him eat breakfast in his PJs.
*Give him his cereal before his fruit.

How to make Grace's day:
Leave the back door open so that she can listen to the crop duster in the distance while eating her breakfast and respond to her zillion exclamations of "Ohhhh!!!"

The New Glasses Age Him...

Jonathan's new glasses came in the mail yesterday from Zenni Optical. This was the first time he chose his glasses on his own. At first, I let him look through the children's glasses, and he chose glasses that reminded him of a zebra. Mean parents that we are, Jeff and I decided to take a different approach in order to avoid the zebra glasses. Jonathan said that he wanted glasses that were rectangles and not circles or ovals, and also they should be rimless at the bottom. So, we made a list of acceptable frames, and he chose his favorite pair from the list. It was a hard decision, but here they are:

We think he looks awfully grown-up and conservative. Jeff misses the funkier ones he wore before. Our little boy is growing up. He's come a long way from that first pair, the Fisher Price glasses that were only available in a model called "Jelly Bean."  Here's a video clip I posted on that day, May 10, 2007, when he was two.  I laughed and cried when I watched it this time around. (Remember, he had "I" and "you" reversed until he turned three.)

Today's Exciting Development

Grace walked behind her walking toy for the first time today. We are all pretty proud!

Independence Day

Grace received this dress a few days before the 4th in a bag of hand-me-downs. Great timing, yes? And she could just barely squeeze into it!

I am still not a chef, but I did manage a fruit pizza for the 4th of July. The key to a decent-looking fruit pizza is fractions and geometry. Luckily, I have experience in the area of 6th grade math that comes in handy making fruit pizzas.

Mom and Don came over and joined us late in the afternoon for some water table time, water balloons, and dinner.

He is pretending that he is snorkeling. He said he was an Aqua Raider, or something like that...

Everybody looks very serious here, but I think it's because Jeff was filling a water balloon. After a good visit with Mom and Don, we put Grace to bed and set off fireworks with our next-door neighbors. We hadn't all planned on pooling fireworks, so we ended up with way too many and stayed up way too late setting them off. We had a good time, though. The 4th of July is one of the few times that lots of neighbors on our street are out and about in their front yards instead of out back, and it was good to see everybody.

Links

I just opened my Google Reader and found some links I thought you might enjoy!

Body Book to Make for Your Baby (hat tip to Money Saving Mom)

How to Keep Your Kids in Bed (different than what we did, but I thought it was a good post.  These parents had adopted 3- and 4-year-old girls.)

If You Give a 13-Year-Old Boy a Cookie which led me to...

If You Give a Child a Cell Phone

I guess somebody could write a version of this entitled "If You Give Amy a Blog."  :)

11 Years!

Happy 11th anniversary to that boy that I met on a TWA flight almost 12 years ago.  I'm so thankful that God brought us together, for the adventures we've shared so far, and for the many more to come in the years ahead.  I love you!

Tips to Share

I saw this post on 20 Potty Training Tips.  I thought it was a good list...hope it is helpful to someone out there!

So Far, So Good

I had an appointment with the midwife today, and everything looks good so far.  I get really nervous about these appointments, so I was very relieved to hear that little heartbeat and know that things are progressing well.  With my two little helpers along, I thought that my blood pressure might be a little high, but it was fine, too.  The midwife said I should drink more water, and with these three-digit temps around here, I know she's right.

She thinks it's a boy.  I do, too, but I should remind everyone that the midwives thought that Grace was a boy (based on her heart rate) until she was born.  Even during labor, they were saying, "I still think it's a boy!"  We are so thankful to have a baby, and we don't have a preference on gender, either way.

Our next appointment will include the ultrasound.  So, I should let you know that we are not planning to find out the gender.  I know this will frustrate some of you, dear readers, but you probably aren't surprised, are you?  We are excited and thankful to see the baby wiggling around soon and willing to wait to find out whether it's a boy or girl.

Thinking About Our 5-Year-Old...

This afternoon, I had the task of explaining the BP oil spill in the Gulf to Jonathan when he asked about it.  I think my explanation made sense to him, but we'll see.  It was more complicated than explaining what a murderer was when he saw the word "murder" in the newspaper earlier this week.

At his most recent gymnastics class (he's in the little boys' class) I met a little 5-year-old girl in a different class who had her own cell phone.  I'm guessing he'll have plenty of kindergarten classmates with cellphones.  Also, of the three boys in his gymnastics class, he was the only one without a mohawk.  I am not kidding.  I asked him what he thought of his friends' new haircuts, and he said, "fun."  Which, in Jonathan-speak, does not indicate any desire to have a mohawk of his own.  He got his hair cut yesterday, and I asked him if he wanted to do anything different, but he said he wanted the regular cut.

More Time with the Nieces

Just 'Cause They're Cute

These are from a couple of weeks ago, but I had to include them. As you've probably noticed from other posts, both kids really like sitting and playing at this spot at the bottom of the stairs below the gate. I'm not sure why they do, but it's a great place to keep them corralled for pictures, too!

Nieces

Pictures from last night, through the nursery window. The girls are fraternal, for those of you who are curious.

And, pictures from today. Here's Darcy...

And here's Mary Ann.

My Nieces Are Here!

I won't share anything terribly detailed yet, since I don't want to steal my sister's thunder, but they are here, and everyone is doing fine so far.  We can't wait to meet the baby girls!

At the Fountains

A fun, fun time with friends!

Jonathan told Grace that he would crawl around with her. I thought that was very sweet. She didn't need his help for long, though, and was totally comfortable exploring on her own.

Jen brought a ball, which thrilled Grace.

Both of Jen's girls are super sweet with Grace.

I don't know who brought cups, but my kids loved them.

Monkeys.

Early-Morning Reading

She loves this book, maybe even more than he did at this age. Remember, Jo? :)

Happiness

Crater Lake

Finally, my last vacation post! I had a hard time narrowing these pictures down, so prepare to be inundated with Crater Lake pics...

Our first impressions of the lake. I love this pic with Jonathan. Note my pants, though. We stopped at an outlet on the way out of Bend and bought their one pair of pants that were somewhat close to my size. Jeff bought a sweatshirt, too. It's hard to find warm things at an outlet in June!

And I love this picture of my guys.

Jonathan was fascinated by this book at the park store. I think it was called something like How the Earth Works. I wish I had something like it when I was teaching this stuff! It made some pretty abstract subjects much more concrete.

Kiddos! I should mention something that you can't see in the midst of Crater Lake's beauty: mosquitoes!!! At this altitude, with all this snow, we were completely unprepared for the constant swarms of mosquitoes. It was terrible. And since we were not prepared, we had no choice but to pay the camp store's price for some nasty stuff to rub on and keep them away. I mean, as soon as we got out of our car, they started biting, and every time we opened the car doors, mosquitoes would fly in. Ugh. The repellent worked, but I washed the kids off really well as soon as we got home for the evening.

Clearly, I couldn't get enough of these daddy/daughter shots, either.

The snow trooper. Jonathan told us that a favorite part of the vacation, for him, was being a "snow trooper" and making "snow eruptions." The eruptions were the spray of snow he could make when he kicked the crust off of the snow. Vacationing with kids may be work, but they get a lot of pleasure out of very simple things!

Wizard island in the foreground, which is a small cinder cone in Crater Lake

Jonathan is standing on a fence post in this picture. Can you see it?

It was so beautiful here! So worth the trip.

Hanging out in the A-frame the day before we left. A few weeks before our trip, I found this sticker book at Target and thought it would be just the ticket to keep Jonathan happy on a long trip. I had kept it a secret until the last minute, and I let Jonathan look through it so that he could anticipate many happy hours of Lego stickering on the long drive home. He was beside himself with excitement. And, believe it or not, that book kept him happily occupied for the entire drive home, which took all day with stops. Thank goodness for that Lego book, and for the ability to read in the car without getting motion sick.

Last evening at Crater Lake

We had a special dinner at the lodge to commemorate the end of our vacation. This was certainly the best food we had during the entire trip. Mmmmm!!! I'm pretty thrilled that Grace is getting interested in using a fork. If I poke her bite, she wants to put it in her mouth. Spoons are much trickier.

Dinner art #1

Dinner art #2. I love that he can spell "Oregon" and understands how to write years, but forgets how to spell "are." Love it.

The lodge view of the lake. It was a hazy evening, but still a beautiful view and wonderful dinner.

Hanging out in the A-frame, getting ready to leave on the last morning of our trip. Note Grace's BabyLegs. We used them so much on this trip! Not always matching, but very cute.

We stopped for a snack at a yummy bagel shop in Klamath Falls, and we happened upon their parade for the Kinetic Challenge. What a fun accident!

Farewell mountains and vacation, hello Home Sweet Home!