We've been busy lately!

Time with Daddy is precious these days, and also few and far between. Last weekend we were able to spend a whole weekend with him! Thanks to Grandma and Bumpa, we were able to stay in a hotel and go swimming! They LOVED the water!

Goodbye Cheri

Today we go to celebrate the life of our good friend, Cheri. She has been a good family friend of both of our families since before Erik and I were born. This is a bitter-sweet day for us because we know that she was ready, that she is now pain free, and that she's not suffering anymore, but at the same time, it's hard to say goodbye and hard to really wrap my hands around the fact that she's gone.

This is a picture of Cheri and my mom a couple years ago. They were great friends.

I came across this picture the other day of Cheri and Maida when Maida was born! Cheri came to the hospital to visit us. She had such a big heart and was there for Erik and I through a lot of things.

We're going to miss you, Cheri.

Skogen Roux

I can't get enough of this little boy.

After two years of imitating everything his big sister said and did, he is finally branching off and finding his own person. I am really loving this stage and enjoying this time of getting to know our Skogen Roux.

"Mom, do you want to hear the story of how I got pregnant?"

This was a real question, followed by a real conversation, that I had with my four-year-old daughter yesterday.

I have no idea what your four-year-old's talk about, but Maida loves to talk about such things.

I really wonder (and worry about!) what she tells her friends and her teachers at preschool. Conferences should be quite interesting this year!

Our pediatrician says a good imagination is a sign of intelligence. However, I think this almost extends beyond imagination - this is an obsession!

95% of the time Maida has a doll stuffed in her shirt and when I ask if she's ready to go somewhere or do something, she'll reply with something like, "Uh, well, I'm having a little bit of back pain with this pregnancy, so I better just sit and rest for a while."

The other day I walked in to find all of her barbies with things stuffed in the belly of their clothes to make them look pregnant.

Most of the time I try not to have these types of conversations with Maida because I don't want to encourage it. However, for some reason yesterday I decided to say, "Yeah, tell me about how you got pregnant," and then I recorded everything she said.

For the baby book, here is Maida's story of how she got pregnant...

"Well, okay...I was asleep one night and my husband woke me up, put me in the stroller, and went down the ramp. Then we got down to the bottom. When we got down, he got me out of the stroller, opened the back down, slowly lifted me up and laid me down on the laying down seat. So then he buckled me in, shut the door, and said good night. You know, my husband stays up all night, so of course he did that. So, yeah! My husband shut his door and then pulled out. Well, the hospital is three blocks away, so we went brrrrroommmm and then we were there. He took me out and put me in the stroller. He rammed me because he was in a hurry. Then he brought me into the hospital and they cut my belly open and put the baby in. We then went home. He put me to bed and then put himself to bed. And then he, ah, well, the baby was kicking, so he laid down and fell asleep. Well, the next morning I woke up to something kicking in my belly and I was like, “Holy crap! What is kicking in my belly? A bundle?” So later my husband came home from work and said, “What’s on my head?” and I laughed like this: HAHAHAHAHAHA! And then said, “Baby, you just have a headache!” So he went to sleep and I was like, “Wake up! Wake up!” It took, like, forever to get him up, but he had to go to work, so I had to get him up. I took his temperature and it was 115! But he left for work and as he was walking out the door, the baby kicked and I said, “Honey, are we having a baby?” and he said, “Yeah! A baby girl!” He found out it was a girl when he was at work. I told him to call work and say, “I can’t come to work cause I just went to Mayo Clinic to get a baby in my wife’s belly.” And work was like, “What?!?!” So my husband told me a story and put me to sleep on his lap. When I was asleep he said, “Wow, things are complicated.” So he woke me up and brought me to the Mayo Clinic. He told me he thought I had Mastitis, and I did! So the next day he bought me a breast pump and put me in bed cause I needed to rest. When I woke up, though, my hair was all frizzy from the Mastitis and I was like, “Okaaaay.” So then my other kid came up to me and said, “Are you having a baby?” and I said, “Yep, a baby girl.” And then the next day, which was five days in a row of being pregnant, I brought home a baby girl from the hospital."

First Day of School 2011

Maida and Skogen had their first day of preschool last week. It went well! Erik was off of work, so he was able to go with me to drop them off and pick them up. My parents were also in town, so they kept the other two kids while we gave Skogen and Madia extra special alone time with Mommy and Daddy. It was a very special day for all of us.

When we dropped Skogen off at his class, he just stood outside the door. His nose started turning red and I was afraid he would cry, but he didn't. We left and I'm assuming that he eventually went in because when we picked him, he came proudly walking out of his classroom, with his hands in his pockets, and with a small smile on his face. He was able to tell us bits and pieces of his day, but not in much detail. He wasn't extremely excited about school. He just acted like it was no big deal.

When we dropped Maida off, she was happy and excited to be there. Her teacher from last year told me at the end of the year that Maida came to school every day, happy, ready, and anxious to learn. That's exactly how she started this school year, too. She is such a little light and I know she will be a great friend to the other students and a wonderful student for her teacher. When we picked her up, we were walking out of the door and she yelled, "Bye Braxton!" to a boy in her class. Erik and I smiled at each other as we had just had a conversation the day before about she is such an extrovert and social one like her father. :)

It felt so good to finally start this school year. I am confident that we have the kids in the best preschool in the city and I am extremely thankful for the christian basis of their teaching.

I can't wait to see how much they learn and grow this year!

Gone Are The Days

Gone are the days of choosing a nursery color, trying to figure out how to properly wash cloth diapers, or decide when it's time to stop nursing. Gone are the days when dressing my little princess was as fun as playing house when I was little and doing her hair with ribbons and bows was a dream come true.

Within the past couple of weeks, Maida has turned into a little girl who doesn't want her hair done and refuses to wear a dress. She is suddenly a little girl who won't even play on the playground at the park if she is wearing something she doesn't like. She would rather sit in the hot car, watching everyone else have fun. The attitude, the sassing, and the tears have substantially increased. Today she sobbed for two hours because it was time to pack away clothes that were too small for her.

As with every other stage she's been through, this stage has also come without warning. Not only will it take Erik and I a little bit of time to get used to, but it will take us time to discover a good and healthy way of letting and encouraging Maida develop.

It may also take some time for me to step back and realize that she IS growing up and there is nothing I can do to slow her down. However, I had to smile when tonight before bed she asked, "Mom, will you hold me and rub me and sing me to sleep?" My little baby is still in there somewhere and I love her more than ever!

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Meet the Teacher Day

Today was Meet the Teacher Day at preschool. Erik didn't work until 4pm, so he was able to go with us.

First we visited Skogen's 2 1/2 year old room. There were a lot of parents and kids in there! Skogen was really bashful at first, but warmed up quickly. His teacher had a treasure hunt around the room for the kids to do to get them familiar with the room. At one of the stations he made a handprint to hang on the bulletin board because this month they are going to be learning that God created them. I am so glad that we have the option of a Christian preschool!

Next we learned how to check the kids into and out of preschool each day. It is a much more high tech system than I ever thought preschools had! When we bring them each day, Erik or I will check them in at a kiosk with our fingerprint. I felt so important scanning my fingerprint into the system today! I love how secure the preschool is.

After learning how to check in, we went to Maida's Kinder Challenge classroom. There are only seven kids total in her class, so the classroom wasn't as crazy. When we first arrived we put Maida's apple on the apple tree (last week her teacher wrote the children a letter and sent a paper apple for each kid to attach a picture of themself onto). We ripped out a picture from a coloring book that she got from Bible class last year because all of our other pictures were still in storage! Maida was excited to see a big doll house in the classroom and immediately made a friend to play with. Before leaving we found the kids' cubbies and coat hooks. I am so thankful for such a nice facility, Christian teachers, and did I mention this preschool is only about three blocks from our house?!!

After we got home and ate lunch, I blew up our big swimming pool with my own breath! I got dizzy a few times and my mouth got sore, but with as hot as it was today, we needed to to swimming! We put the pool right on our big deck and played all afternoon. Now my freshly-tanned-lined babies are all asleep, worn out from our big day.

We are all looking forward to next Wednesday when the kids will have their first day of school, however, we're also trying to make the most of every last summer day we have until the craziness of the school year begins!

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