Mabel's 4th!

How has it been 4 years? For some reason, Mabel's 4th birthday hit me really hard. The changes that she is demonstrating lately make her seem so insanely old. Her sense of humor is really coming through and we see teenage craziness peeking out every once in a while. I'm not ready for that!

We were bad about taking pictures at M's party because we were so busy running around.  Between face paint, food, costumes, pinatas, and cake there was a lot to do!

Here are a few of the shots we have floating around.

Mabel misses the rain

Give Mabel a spray bottle and she is occupied for a good hour. Trip after trip to refill it. Everything nicely moistened. The real magic came in when she added her umbrella to the mix:

Sam, peering in

Update

We have clearly been bad about updating the blog. 

What has been going on:
- We tore out some trees in the backyard.
- Brett's cousin, Gabe, and his wife, Julie, just came for a visit.
- "Auntie Jessica" was here for a visit and is coming back in a couple of weeks.

- We are in full on birthday party mode getting ready for M's 4th.  How did that happen?
- I launched a blog (with a great deal of help from Brett) on July 1. Check it out at www.nearlycrafty.com and spread the word!
- Sam has been running around and says a few words - shoes, woof, moo, up, down, what's that?.
- M has been keeping up with her gymnastics and swimming this summer.

What is coming up:
-  M starts her new school in the fall.
- M's birthday party - cat theme.
- I am signed up to work more as a pro tem judge coming up in the next couple of months.

Mabel got a scrape on her finger...

Mabel's First Ballet Recital

No, a video!!

He walks!

Starting just a few days after his birthday, Sam is now walking.

Sam's first birthday pro pics

The pro photographers are flooding us with pics. What a nice problem to have.

Here are shots from Sam's first birthday party last weekend:

Cabo pro pics, from December 2012

In December, we'd all gone down to Cabo for vacation. It was also our 5th anniversary. So I arranged a surprise, for our wedding photographer Juan to take some pictures of us and the kids. We just received them and think they were worth the wait:

Update

Who decided to make April so busy?

We have been bonkers busy lately! This requires bullet points.
- I am on the advisory board of M's school and we had been planning an art walk/silent auction fundraiser that happened a couple of days ago. It was fun and Brett donated his 3-D rendering services as an auction item.
- Brett is back at work. 
- Sam's birthday is next week (jigga what?!) and we all know I'm birthday crazy so there has been a lot of prep going on.
- I have been writing for a blog which requires me to do at least 2 posts a week. That means I have to use my brain which is not an easy task lately.
- M is now doing gymnastics, swimming, and ballet and Sam is taking a music class and he and I go to a parent/child class every week. Add preschool and napping and we are pretty much a whirlwind every day.
- I have finally started back working out regularly so I'm at CrossFit 3 times a week.  I need to add running back in the mix, but am waiting for better weather.
- Sam has had a belly bug lately so we have been dealing with a lot of poop.  A lot.  But he is on the mend!

Alive

We are all alive and healthy just in case anyone was worried! 

Brett was home all of March and it was wonderful.  We got things done, spent quality time with the kids, and relaxed.

Now Brett is back at work and we are adjusting back to normal life. It is much harder to run kids all around town when there is just one parent at home! Mabel is currently doing gymnastics, swimming, and ballet (which we can call ballet now.) Sam and I are taking a music class and going to a parent/child course at the community college while Mabel is in school.

Small house projects

Our dining room has built in benches along the outside wall. One of which was split and missing a portion of wood, leaving a hinge dangling. With the benches a popular dog and kid perch, it was time to fit some new wood in place. Sam helped. Matching the stain and refinishing the whole area will keep me busy.


Waiting on hinges and recessed ring pulls - the store only had a single ring pull - which I put into a storage area off the front steps, replacing a simple hole that had been there. And yes, it is recessed flush.

A leisurely walk

After a big day in pre-K, Mabel and I walked the dogs. Around the block.

The lumpy fireplace

We've never loved the fireplace in the house. The lumpy, misshapen bricks and the white with soot stains bleeding through really did not do great things for the living room. Redoing the brick will be an ordeal, so we threw a couple bucks of paint on it...

Was:


Is:

Standing

The movement train is chugging along at our house.  Sam is now seriously practicing his solo standing.  He lets go of whatever he is holding on to and can stand for about 5 seconds before falling to his bum. He can also get to a stand by pushing off of something only a couple inches off of the floor.  He can push off of the dog bed and get to a stand. 

Any bets on when the walking will start?

Stairs and dancing

This week Sam decided to climb the stairs.  And he didn't do the old "i'll look at the stairs for a few days, then play on the first one for a few days, then try them" routine.  Nope.  He just crawled over, checked them out, then went up them.  He made it up about 5 before he slipped a smidge and sat to rest.  Then it was onward and upward.

Mabel started ballet class last week.  For all reading, if you talk to her about them please call them her "new gymnastics class."  She is very hesitant about trying new classes so I told her ballet was just a new kind of gymnastics to get her to go.  Of course she loves them and has so much fun...but if you ask her about ballet she won't know what you are talking about.

The weasel!

Dinner at our house

Tonight at dinner we were talking about someone who had a toilet shoot out sewer water and Mabel started to question the details of the incident.  After defining "sewer" and the like, Mabel made this proclamation:

"Toilets are for poop and pee....and heads."

Lordy. 

Motion

We officially have a crawler on our hands, people! Sam has been rolling, scooting backwards, and popping up on all fours for some time now.  On New Year's Day he finally popped up and moved his hand and one knee forward. Once. And then he collapsed. Since then he has been getting better, but as of Saturday morning he is full on crawling.  Perhaps he is a born overachiever (I hope not) but the same day he started pulling up on things. He also lets go and stands for a second before falling on his bum.

The party has started.