Thankful on Tuesdays

So much to be thankful for lately, but I am definitely needing to remind myself of that.  Lately it's been easy for me to look at a lot of areas in our life that our lacking (for whatever reason), these posts are such a good way for me to remember all that we have been blessed with.  And at church this past weekend, I was reminded of the importance of Lucy and Hank watching Ben and I exhibit thankfulness in everything we do.

A semi-succesful garden! Our spinach, broccoli and tomatoes produced pretty well.  Green beans all got eaten by bugs (despite organic spray), carrots just never seemed to fully develop (Lucy is eating the 1 carrot, out of like 10 that I've tried that was actually tasty), and our peppers never grew over a foot... not sure what happened there.  Looking forward to trying some new veggies next year!

A fun night out with this "model" couple.  We went to Bonge's for Katy's birthday (a summer bucket list item!)... thankful for good friends, a good babysitter, and good food!

Amazing friends who are like family that spoil Lucy and Hank rotten!  Thanks to Aunt Bethy, Weezy and Gimpy for all the fun new stuff!

Two things from this picture: New running shoes! There is nothing like a sweet new pair of shoes to help motivate me to go to the gym. And new floors!

Our absolutely amazing, wonderful, generous, awesome friends, Heather and Christian who helped Ben lay part of the floor while I was out of town one weekend and then came back two weekends later to finish.  That's right, you read that correctly... I was off laying around with a bunch of girlfriends, while Ben and Christian worked on the floors and Heather watched Lucy, Hank and Henry (their son), all to surprise me when I got home.  I mean, I can't think of anything sweeter.  So thankful for Ben and so thankful for Christian and Heather.

Potty Success! I still wouldn't call Lucy fully potty trained, but she has made some great strides in the past couple months.  I still give a lot of reminders, but Lucy has gone on her own more and has gotten into a routine poop schedule.  I may give more details on this in another post, but for now I am seriously just so thankful that we are moving forward in this area.  (We were riding the train at the mall here to celebrate Lucy going poop at the  mall!)

And of course, I am always thankful for these babies. Seriously... daily I give thanks.  I am one lucky mom. (They were both cracking up in this video... it was adorable.)

Kruithof Visit

A few weeks ago (maybe I should actually be using the term months, I think this visit was back in August!) our good friends the Kruithofs came to visit. It was their first visit since they moved back from Grand Cayman and I am so looking forward to lots more, frequent visits now that they are in the states.... Grand Cayman was just a bit far to make monthly visits to.

Katie, who is one of the best photographers I know (despite her attempts to deny this) took lots of fun pictures from the weekend.  We did however forget to take pictures while we were jumping on the trampoline... Lucy loved jumping with Kiki and Brenty.  So sorry, that is not pictured here!

Saturday night we headed to Symphony on the Prarie for a Tribute to the Beatles.  We had a great time, although the park was packed, so I felt like we spent a lot of our time getting in and out.  Maybe we'll try a less popular group next time we go!

Love these two!


 On Sunday, we had a slow start to our day with a pancake breakfast, but then took Katie and Brent to downtown Carmel to walk around the neighborhoods and grab lunch (this is one of our favorite things to do and was on our summer bucket list, so we were glad to take them there).  We got lunch at a little custard shop, and despite dropping a chili dog all over myself and the inside of the store, we had a good time.

Preschool!

A few months ago I approached a couple friends with the idea of starting a cooperative preschool.  I had wanted to start getting Lucy involved in a more play groups and I also wanted to have a bit of a break during the day, so this seemed like a great way to get both of those things for free!  I don't know a ton of moms whose oldest is the same age as Lucy, but fortunately each of the other moms that I asked were excited to join and we were able to form a group.  We have 5 kids in our group
From left to right - Lucy, Ben (whose parents are in our small group), Ellie, Hallie and Addie (at least I think that's the order they are in, they are identical twins, so it's a little tricky telling them apart!)

The day went surprisingly well.  We decided that we would have "learning objectives" and a theme each week to try to give a little structure to our days.  My theme was "On the Farm" and I was in charge of teaching the letter A, number 1, the color red and the shape circle.  A lot to fit in, but we all agreed that our main focus would be having fun with the kids and getting lots of play time in.

So to fit all that in, here's what my day looked like:

• Welcome/Free play time
• Read two farm books, one of which was about an apple farm (apples worked out well - they are red, shaped like a circle, and start with A... boom)
• Looked for red paper apples throughout the house and then glued them to a tree
• Snack time (apples and cheese sticks and goldfish)

 

• Sang Old McDonald and Baa Baa Black Sheep
• Glued cotton balls onto 1 sheep
• Free play time in the back yard, the kids LOVED Ruthie and chasing after her.  We also got to look for red tomatoes in the garden, just like you would do on a farm (which worked out really well!)

We had a lot of fun, and Lucy has already been to two of the other houses and had a great time too.  It's definitely a lot of work when you have all of the kids at your house, but getting a bit of a break on my off weeks has totally made it worth it!

It has also been great practice for me to start getting used to the idea of Lucy being away from the house as we get closer and closer to the school years.  I'm so used to being able to influence every decision she makes and how she interacts with others, so it has been weird for me to lose control of that. I didn't realize how difficult it would be for me to leave her, but I'm learning to let go as each week passes!  I'm not going to lie though, I really do miss her when she is away.

Generation Photos

Oh man, I think this is the longest time I've gone between blog posts! For some reason life has seemed so busy lately, but I'm not sure where all the time has gone! I need to do a recap post ASAP... a weekend away with some girlfriends reminded me of the importance of writing down all these memories so I can be sure to hold onto them forever! 

So, here I go, one update at a time!

Several weeks ago we went over to my mom's for a gathering with her two best friends, Joanne and Donna and all their families.  I grew up with these women and their children, so it was cool to see all of them again and how their families have grown.  I love the relationship my mom has with these women and it has shown me the importance of having and holding onto close women friendships in your life.

Each family, from left to right: Sue and fam, Donna and fam, Joanne and fam.  Four generations of family.

This one includes spouses/significant others and my grandpa!

Love this picture... mom's irritated, Jadyn's being dramatic, Lucy and Jordyn are side-tracked and Hank is just being Hank.

We even got a few pictures with just the four of us, but it was hard to get everyone looking in the same direction!

One of my favorites! Love this little guy so much!

More Lucy Pictures

I'm discovering I've got a couple problems...
1. My kids are just too darn cute
2. I am liking my new camera way too much
3. And I have trouble narrowing down which pictures are my favorite
So this post is just a bunch of random cute pictures of the kiddos, nothing that exciting, but I need a way to organize all this cuteness! 

I took these first couple pictures when Hank was getting his photo shoot.  Lucy wanted her picture taken too, of course.  These first two are my favorite!

 



Ponytail... enough said... 

 And a couple sibling pictures to throw in the mix.  Mimi bought these chairs for Lucy and Hank, and they love them!

 And finally a few sibling pictures from our photo shoot day.

 Ok - hopefully I can contain myself these next couple weeks and take less pictures.  Seems like most moms have the opposite problem, so I guess I'm glad these days will be well documented!

Cousins

Lucy and Hank are lucky to have so many fun cousins. 

Some who are older, wiser, and live nearby to help make tents in the backyard...

And some who live a little further away, but are so much fun when they visit!

Hank 9 Months

Stats:
Weight - 21.3lbs, 77%
Height - 29in, 76%
Head - 17.6in, 41%

Hank has grown and changed a lot this month.  He has been loving cruising around and uses whatever he can to push and walk.  He has also been getting a lot better at standing without holding on to anything and will take one step forward but immediately falls.  It seems like he is getting close to walking - at least I'm hoping he is because the park/library/pool will be so much better with a baby who walks (rather than dragging all over the germ-y floor)!  He LOVES balls and learned to throw them this month (so funny to see the difference between boys and girls - at this age Lucy was so into baby dolls and had not interest in balls).  His favorite things to do are push his walking toy, find balls and throw them, go outside, and snuggle with his mama.

SLEEP: He continues to be an extremely happy baby, although we have definitely had several days this month when he didn't nap well and would be cranky most of the afternoon.  I really think he needs at least two 1.5 hour naps in order to feel well rested, but lately he has been waking at the 1 hour or 1 hour 15 minute mark and I can just tell he is still sleepy.  I've been trying to brainstorm what could be causing this, but I can't figure anything out and am hoping this phase just passes.  He typically will go down around 9am and 1pm.

He also officially started sleeping all the way through the night this past month.  At the beginning of the month he was not sleeping well at night and had been waking a few times.  At first I was pretty sure he was sick or teething (he got 6 teeth this month!) but after a while I decided to let him cry it out and I think after crying for 30min-1hr at 2am, he slept on through the 5am wake time and kept doing it the subsequent nights.  Hallelujah!  I was so ready to kick that feeding.  Unfortunately that lasted for about 2 weeks and this past week Hank has been waking at 6-6:15am every morning (as opposed to 7am), which is really just an awkward time because it's not early enough that he's ready to go back to sleep after nursing, but it's definitely too early for him to be waking up.  So I've kind of been changing my approach every day this week, but nothing seems to be working - some days I go in and feed him right away and try to get him to lay back down.  Some days I let him cry for 30minutes, feed him and then get up with him.  And some days I let him cry for 30 minutes, feed him and then lay him back down.  No matter what, it really throws our whole day off and makes for a cranky mom and a cranky baby, so again, I'm hoping this phase passes soon too!

EAT - Hank is still doing really well on the food front.  He is nursing 4 times a day now and still seems to really want to nurse and enjoys that snuggle time.  He is now completely eating whatever we eat.  Usually this is a good thing and helps remind me to make healthy choices for our family as a whole, but there are a lot of times he is eating things I would have never let Lucy eat at 9 months.  I guess that's what happens with second kids.  He seems to like meat and carbs the most, but he will do a pretty good job eating other foods as well.  He does like the squeeze pouch baby foods a lot, so that has been convenient when we are on the go.  And Lucy seems to really like them to, so I love having those with me. Lately I've been having an internal debate about whether to feed more organic foods (right now I rarely feed organic), so that's something that has been occupying my mind.  We'll see where that leads!  

I took a couple pictures of Hank sitting in Lucy's chair for a better comparison shot.

And here's Lucy at 9 months...




I still think they look pretty similar!

The below picture is what this kid looks like all day long.  All smiles, and always on the move (ok, I should actually say most of the time.  Lately with his funky nap schedule he has definitely been a little more cranky)

He loves his sippy cup and I'm hoping this is a good sign for when he eventually weans.  I know we are still  a couple months from that time, but I also know it will be here before I know it!

Oh yes, and how could I forget... he LOVES the vacuum!  Seriously, I could leave these two to play with the vacuum for a good 20 minutes and they would be completely content. 

And now for some of the regular monthly shots.  The below shot is kind of a funny face, but you can see a glimpse of his top two teeth.  As I mentioned above, he got six new teeth this month.  He now has four on top and four on bottom.

I love the below face.  I think he's saying "oh no you didn't girl"...

Tried to get a couple with the bear in the crib.  You can see how that went...

I figure I need to have at least one shot of this guys pout face!

And at least one shot of his sweet hair line.

Just like Lucy, I truly fall more and more in love with this little guy every day.  I have been enjoying each stage we have gone through and have learned to let go of some of the frustrating things, knowing they too will pass!  He is such a snuggle bear and will cuddle with me tons, but also likes to play by himself and be on the move.  I'm so thankful I get to spend every day with him, watching him grow and change.