And then there were Three!

Three Musketeers.  Three Little Pigs.  Three men in a tub. Three bears. Three Stooges. Three Amigos. Three wise men. Three Blind Mice. Three's Company.


Three runts living under my roof.

My 20 yr old daughter moved back home with her 10 month old son (who is now 11 mths). I just love having them here every day! This does change the family dynamics, and adds chaos, confusion and expense. Adding two people to the house also makes us all bump elbows once in a while.  Isn't that what family is all about?

The conversation in the house now is consumed by sudden bursts of "No, Charlie! No!"  Babyproofing had to be done in a fast and furious way. Gates are up, remotes are hidden, legos are packed away, bathroom door is shut, etc.  There is always more babyproofing to do as he finds new things to take down and destroy.

The boy loves to destroy whatever he can get his hands on.  He is fascinated with his super awesome pinching, pulling and yanking skills.  He also has fantastic biting, drooling and chewing skills too. If there was a baby Olympics, he would bring home a lot of gold medals!

The kitchen lightswitches in this house are in the oddest place: Under the counter!  I don't know who thought that was a great idea, but there isn't really a way to babyproof them.  Charlie likes to make strobe light effects in the kitchen at all hours. So fun.  And when he's in his high chair, he can flip the switches with his toes.  He's uber cool like that!

Libby and Charlie are so close to the same size, they could be mistaken for twins.  I suppose it would help if they looked more alike, but Charlie actually looks a lot more like Gracie than Libby.  The three of them are like peas in a pod. They are pretty good buddies and the girls take care that Charlie is safe and not eating Barbie shoes or something. They love to feed him. So far, they are feeding him actual food and not Play-Doh or other bizarre things. I'm sure they'll get to that later.

With three little tornadoes in the house, I'm doing my best to be the one-man clean-up crew.  So far, they are winning the war. Diapers, food, water paint, bath bubbles, toys, crayons, shoes, sprinklers, laundry, smears of jelly, hair tangles, wet swimsuits, and that describes any given normal ten minutes of our day.

Keith and Lexie are usually sleeping or at work.  It's me against the triple tot twisters. The secret to wearing them out and keeping them happy while letting the dust settle in the house is to ignore the pile of sippy cups in the sink and get out and go!

The 4th of July - First Real Parade

Happy 4th!  I corrected a lot of my parenting wrongs today. My child is 5 years old and has no idea how to celebrate the 4th of July. Whoa, how did I manage to let that happen?  I decided to fix my errors and introduce the little ones to some good old fashioned Independence Day celebrations.

I realized that I've never taken my girls to a parade. A real parade.  They've only seen parades at Disneyland, and while those parades are awesome, they aren't the real street parade that everyone knows. My girls should experience the real deal and catch some candy from a float made of chicken wire and napkins, see the marching band walking in crooked rows, and see the big red fire engine at the end.  It's an all-American childhood kind of thing that every kid should do!

The parade was at 10am, so we had plenty of time to wake up leisurely and get across town for the parade. We got there at 9:30 and parking was looking bleak. I followed the line of traffic and people were filling in a Wells Fargo parking lot a couple of blocks from the parade route. Not bad. We parked and walked to main street. Luckily, there was a shady spot just waiting for us right at the end of the street. Score!

We had a about 15 minutes before the parade start time, and who knows if they start on time. It isn't Disneyland! Plus, we were at the end of the route, we might waiting half an hour. We noticed all of the red, white and blue that people were wearing. It was fun to people-watch with the girls. Libby saw three little girls wearing "Ponyo dresses" and she was wishing that she would have worn hers. They were cute, but those little girls were sweating like crazy in those red satin dresses and I'm glad Libby didn't wear hers. It was way too hot out for satin!

By the way, a "Ponyo Dress" is a red dress with white trim.  Libby has a Christmas dress that looks just like the  dress worn by the little girl in the movie "Ponyo".  It's a little Japanese anime movie that is super cute. We love the movie. It's sort of an environmentalist's version of "Little Mermaid".

Just before 10am, I sensed that everyone behind us in the shade was going to move around us and sit in front of the girls. So, we moved up to the curb and sat in the sun for a bit. Gracie sat in the stroller with the shade over her head and Libby sat in the shade of the stroller. Even in our make-shift shade though, it was still awfully hot. 97 degrees, but it felt like a lot more in the sun on the concrete.

The parade started on time and it didn't take long for the police vehicles to reach our end of the street. The girls loved the cop cars and motorcycles! They even loved the cops on horses! They were first, and after that, the girls didn't think much of any of the parade entries.  They were very disappointed.

There were lots of pageant princesses, but they were just girls with crowns on their heads riding in cars. Car after car of them. A few walked, one in  high heels! Poor girl.  There were cars with politicians waving.  Not impressive to a couple of little girls who don't give a hoot about who sits on the city commission.

There must have been three or four clusters of Boy Scouts walking. And a couple of Moms groups pushing strollers and pulling wagons. We waved, but Gracie and Libby were more than tired of these not so exciting parade entries. Where's the good stuff?  Where are the floats?

Some soldiers!  Yes! Now that's exciting!  A big vehicle pulling a tank went by and the "Young Marines" walked by holding up a huge flag. We all clapped and cheered for them along with the crowd.

And then a semi-truck with a flatbed came along. That was exciting too. Guess who was on the flatbed, yup, more pageant princesses. How many girls are in those crazy pageants anyway?

After an hour, no marching bands had gone by and nobody threw candy.  The girls were hot and bored. This wasn't at all as good as a Disneyland parade and they let me know it. I dare say, I've raised opinionated little girls. And they sure aren't shy expressing their criticism to their captive audience: me. They begged to leave. We are at a 4th of July parade and you want to leave before the end?  I blamed the heat and agreed to start hiking back to the parking lot and prayed the whole way that my van wasn't  hauled off by the tow truck pirates.

Whew! It's still there! We drove up the street and there was a great All-American dream come true - I know the girls will love this! I pulled into In-N-Out and ordered burgers, fries and pink lemonade. We came home and enjoyed our 4th of July treat! Ah, saved the day!

Five Generation Photo Shoot

One might think that in order for five generations of one family to get together, the family tree would have to be very twisted.  Or a long line of teen moms.  But, we are just your average ordinary family. One of us just happens to be a very healthy determined 103 yr old.

I am the generation in the middle.  I am a grand-daughter and a grand-mother. I am a mom and a daughter. I am the middle one and it is incredible! The middle is the best, just like the stuffing in an Oreo.  That's me!

My grandma is the head of this five generation thing we've got going on. My mom is her daughter and  then me. My daughters are the 4th generation and they each have a baby boy. Five generations that branch out two ways. Pretty cool!

To celebrate the new 5th generation baby, my mom and grandma drove all the way from Wyoming to visit the new baby in San Diego.  Three week old Henry was pretty excited about meeting his great grandma and his great-great grandma. You could tell.

We had a five generation visit and photo shoot 8 months ago right after Charlie was born. Now Henry is here and we decided to do it all over again. I'm so glad we did! Luckily, both Charlie and Henry are good weather babies and the grandmas were able to travel to see them.

This photo shoot was no easy feat. First of all, the grandmas had to travel over a 1,000 miles just to be here (one way). I take that back. First, we had to plan this whole shebang! We struggled with picking a day to do this. We didn't want it too soon after Henry's birth; gotta give baby and  mama a chance to recover and get a few hours of sleep! And we had to dodge the busy social calendar of the grandmas. They had a window of opportunity to travel without missing out on some festivities at home. We also needed to schedule a date with the photographer. The hardest thing to work around was the work schedule of Katie's husband, Andrew. He was on paternity leave up until the day before the photos and he didn't know what his schedule would be. We wanted him there but we had to take a gamble and just hope he would be available for the photos. It turned out that he wasn't able to be there, but we sure tried.

We also had to pick a place to shoot these photos. This was an important thing because we wanted the pictures to be pretty, but we had requirements for the setting and since none of us are familiar enough with San Diego, we had to sort of shoot in the dark to pick a spot. This wasn't easy. And let's just not even talk about how hard it was to find a restaurant for after-photo-shoot dinner!

We all had to have something photo-worthy to wear. The grandmas had their blouses and slacks all clean and pressed and ready to go. They didn't need to shop before the trip for anything new, their closets were stocked.

Lexie and I weren't as lucky. We had to go shopping! We both needed something to wear and all of the kids needed something too. We took the kids to the mall in Escondido and we just hoped we would find something. It's a big mall with lots of stores and a nice play area.  As soon as we walked in we found a store to explore called H&M.  Neither one of us had ever shopped in an H&M store before; I vaguely remember seeing an ad for it online. This place was so awesome!  Lexie found an adorable dress that fit her perfectly. And she found some cute white jeans and a navy blue Tshirt for Charlie. I found a white sun-dress for Gracie.

On our previous shopping trip to find photo shoot clothes, we found a pair of shoes for Charlie and a blue dress for Libby at Gymboree at the Temecula Mall, but the shoes were pretty casual and they were more just because Charlie could use a new pair. And the blue dress wasn't really on my mind for the photos because I really wanted the little girls to match.

Since Charlie and Lexie were wearing blue and white, I thought Gracie and Libby could wear blue and white even if they didn't match each other. Good plan.  I didn't find anything new for myself, but I know I have something in my closet even if it isn't jumping out at me saying "Pick me!".  With little ones, our shopping trip was cut short by boredom - boredom multiplied by three!  Off we went to the play area. We only went to one store but it was a huge success. We also picked up lots of other things besides photo-shoot outfits. Score!

The day of the photo session, I found a dress in my closet that I've only worn once before. I wore it to Katie's bridal shower two years ago. I put it on and my mom came in to peek. She squinched up her face and shook her head.  Ok, that's going back on the hanger!  I tried another dress. I liked it when I bought it but then when I got it home I changed my mind and never did wear it.  My mom gave this one the nod. Eh, ok.

Then we all had to do our hair and make-up too.We spent all morning and half the afternoon getting ready!

Men  have it so easy! My husband just went to his closet and randomly picked out a shirt and he was dressed. I want to be a man in my next life!

Poor Katie. She only had an hour of sleep the night before the photos, no chance of a nap, her husband just went back to work (that was always hard for me when I had a newborn), and she didn't have a thing to wear. I don't know how that girl pulled it off, but she managed to run to Target and yank something off the rack, slapped on some make-up and she looked like a magazine cover girl. She sure didn't look tired.

We had to take two cars to San Diego. We were meeting at Balboa Park for the photos. Our photographer had one certain bench picked out for us in the park. We talked him into considering another bench, closer to the parking lot and it worked out beautifully. He was able to shoot most of the photos at the nearest bench, and took other photos just a few yards away for totally different backgrounds. Balboa Park is beautiful, even more so when the photographer has his favorite spots with his favorite angles.

The photos are icing on the cake, really. The best part is that we were all able to get together for a big visit and enjoy each other's company all at the same time. It was amazing to look down the dinner table and see so many people having such a great time, and knowing they're all family.

Bedhog

Five Years (or so) Later...

We hosted an exchange student from Germany five years ago.  Wait, maybe it was six years ago. Really, it doesn't seem like very long ago at all but I guess it was. Time flies!

We'll soon be hosting again and I was thinking about what we would be doing in the next year that would interest a teenager. Our lives have changed so much in the last 5 years. When Anna was here, we had two teenage girls, I was going to college and we were fairly new to Southern California.  Now, we have two little girls and I don't work or go to school any more. Most of our activity is aimed at the interests of the preschooler and toddler. This could be torture for a teenager!

The school year of 2005-2006 was the year we took in Anna. She was originally placed with another family but it wasn't a good match between them and she needed a new host family. Katie came home and said "Can we keep her?" My kids never brought home puppy dogs or frogs and begged to keep them, but kids, they brought home one after another after another. The other strays were always local kids who stayed for night or three. Anna stayed with us for the entire school year. She had only been with the first family for a few weeks.

We've kept in touch with Anna. She sends us the best German chocolates every Christmas! Yummy!

I asked her (in a facebook chat window) what were her favorite things we did and where were her favorite places we went while she was here.

I cut and pasted her response:

Dear Mary, I thought about all of my amazing experiences:

such as

Halloween Party & Trick or Treating

the Blocks coming over for parties or we going there

going to san diego, karlsbad, oceanside

I love the beaches!

being part of a movie

visiting Hollywood and L.A.

Quoir trip to S.F.

Sea World

Shopping in Temecula and San Diego Mall (it's so colored and huge!!!)

meeting all of katies friends and hanging out with them

making music in the band room

PROM and Homecoming

dsigning customes for mvhs performances

taking photos with you and making them pretty on your p.c.

getting your FAMILY CERTIFICATE ( awesome gesture)

being part of your homepage

Homecoming Football game at mvhs

Thankgsgiving dinner and Thankgsgiving shopping

making popcorn & cookies and watching movies

DDR - dancing

my suprise birthday party at the pizza place

mexican birthday party next door: hitting that colorful ball with candy

your graduation

trip with mrs. jeffersson to plam springs and their hills

OUR TRIP

MONTANA; WYOMING and VEGAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

mvhs swim meet and volleyball

drama performances

mvhs award ceremonies

(it was very special to me that you came there, too)

you giving me rides everywhere - thx so much!!!!!!!

it was such a special year for me... I'll never forget that time- THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!

the only thing I missed was a baby shower but since your family knows so many mommies I am sure that your exchange student participate in one of thise

and... birthday party in oceanside

love, hugs&kisses Anna

Happy Father's Day!

Yeah, That's what I meant.

Libby came up to me and said, "Mom. I have butt worms"

Me: Butt worms? (heart attack) Worms coming out of your butt?

Libby: Yeah.

Gracie: No, Libby, you have butt GERMS.

Me: Oh, thank GOD!

Libby: butt worms. I mean, butt germs.

Jah, Jah, Germs.

Me: Bathtime, let's go wash those germs off your butt. (and check for worms)