It's That Time Again!

Football/tailgating season is upon us again.  As my sister and I drove along 19th Ave. toward the dome on Saturday and saw the NDSU flags flying over the parking lot it almost felt like we had just been there although the last playoff game was in December.  After finding a parking spot somewhere in West Fargo we arrived at "The Huddle" where Justin and Ben had been tailgating for a few hours already. 

I admit that I had a lot of apprehension about having both kids at the game all day but, at least for the day, it went better than I anticipated.  Ben has grown up since last year and was agreeable to being pulled around in a wagon for much of the day.  He also (gasp) ate a full meal.  Tessa seemed slightly overstimulated but didn't react in the usual baby way of screaming and having a meltdown and instead looked to be in a daze and eventually fell asleep while drinking a bottle.  Neither of them pooped during tailgating. Yes!  I hope the weather stays nice for at least a few more weekends so they can enjoy the experience.  I'm really looking forward to the future when they can be part of the pack of kids that is always tumbling around and playing ball in the ditch between the lots. 

Here are a few pictures. 

 

My dad took Ben walking and they visited some friends who had green cupcakes as you can see from Ben's face.

 

Yes, this photo is proof that Justin survived his Alaska trip!

 

The tailgating portion ended with chaos as a gust of wind sent our tent flying over the trailer.  It was like that time I went to We-Fest and there was bad weather the 2nd to last night and our screen tent/shade for drinking complex went airborn and ended up mangled over a fence. I don't think it's getting fixed...

 

BEADS!

 

A nice break on the changing platform in the bathroom!  Tessa currently loves all things bathroom and toilet related so this was perfect!

2.5

 

I've never been the kind of parent who lists her kids' ages down to the month, at least after a certain point.  Of course, in the early days I count the weeks as they pass.  I admit that I lost track of Tessa's "week birthdays" much faster than I did of Ben's.  And of course between the ages of one and two kids change so much and there is such a huge difference from month to month that I would refer to his month age.  But since he has turned two I usually just say he is two when people ask or say that he turned in March.  This weekend we visited my sister and new cousin Claire and she turned one month old on the 7th and that is Ben's day too!  I figured out that he is 30 months old, which means he is two and a half!  Wow! 

 

We took their picture together that day. 

 

We actually got a few good shots of all three of them together before Tessa took off.  On Ben's half birthday, he still loves tractors and trains and all sorts of vehicles, he is always on the lookout for the garbage and mail trucks around town and he loves to watch movies including Frozen, Finding Nemo and The Land Before Time.  He loves to eat...uhhhh...chips and cookies?  Sorry, it's the truth.  And I am amazed every day at the verbal explosion that is happening as his vocabulary continues to grow.  I think it's safe to say that he can hold a conversation!  He can tell me what he wants!  He has certain favorite books memorized and says the lines before I read them! It's wonderful to behold.  He is still in diapers and I am gearing up for another attempt at the three day training method, but it has to happen on a weekend when Justin is here to help me and the weather is not beautiful which were the downfalls of the last attempt.  He loves "hold Tesssaaaaa" and lumber around carrying her in front of his body.  She thinks this is a normal interaction and laughs as I come to her rescue. 

 

Here is a Justin update.  This is what the map of his location from two days ago looks like.  It appears that they are still rafting and have been stopping on islands.  I'm sure it's like that time I went on a canoe trip down the Missouri River with my friends from law school and we camped on an island with a sandy beach, grilled hot dogs and played bocce ball with cases of beer strategically placed around the camp.  Or not...

 

 

OK, that was a short post but I have to get outside and do something.  I had a screen shot of my weather.com app but I noticed it had our address on it so I deleted it but the point was that today, Monday, it is currently 86 degrees and tomorrow and for the rest of the week the high temp is in the 50s.  Blaaaaahhh.  I should be on the deck soaking of the final days of summer heat.  I don't even know what Ben has for jeans and pants that fit.  I know he doesn't have any new ones, and he has several pairs from his cousins but I have to find the ones that will fit and I also think I am making a trip to Old Navy tonight.  And socks...he hasn't worn them for what seems like months. This came on way too soon.

Freedom

 

I often find myself looking upon the expanse of my living room and feeling overwhelmed and hopeless because of the toy explosion that lays in front of my eyes.  Lately, I've been trying to change my outlook toward the small irritations of life. A few weeks ago I saw a photo somewhere, either in a magazine or in a news article, of a few young boys in a refugee camp in Iraq playing with empty cans.  The photographer asked them what they were doing and they said that they were pretending the cans were cars.  The current problems and wars and terror of life in Iraq and so many countries in the Middle East are difficult to fully absorb without falling into complete despair but that photo comes back into my mind every day, usually whenever I hear about ISIS and see the awful footage of beheadings and mass killings and sometimes when I catch Ben playing intently with his favorite toys.  I haven't been able to stop thinking about those boys and how I wish I could give each of them just one car or truck or tractor or train.  It makes me just well up with emotion when I see Ben playing with his toys and choosing a favorite to have in bed with him when he goes to sleep and thinking about what it would be like to lose everything we have and to see him and Tessa in a refugee camp, playing with whatever junk was laying around and still finding a way to have fun.  It's just wrong that he gets to have a full farm of toy tractors and equipment to match Grandpa Tim's, and the cast of the movie Cars in toy version and a train set and piles of books and a bed with Thomas sheets.  And more important, much more important, he and Tessa are safe from atrocities against them just because of their religion or where they live. (It is so much worse that what you see on the mainstream news...I knew but really realized this when I searched Google for photos of Iraqi boys in refugee camps to try to find that photo of the boys playing.)

 

Seriously, this is a deviation from my usual lighthearted B.S. but what would that be like?  The moms of those boys are probably the same age as me.  How would it feel to be trapped and left to die on the side of a mountain in 100 degree heat with no water or food? To witness beheadings and torture? I'm on a large local moms Facebook group with many posts a day from moms, many of who are so high strung about things that just don't really matter.  Today I saw a thread with about 20 replies about moms worrying about whether or not they could send bug spray with their kids to school because the mosquitos are bad and how the teachers want it applied in the morning before school but the day is too long and once a day isn't enough...and someone found a spider in their grapes from Walmart...and someone was mad because they had a long wait at the pediatrician's office...and when I am in a mood like I am now after seeing footage about an American being beheaded in Iraq and seeing those pictures that I just saw and can't not think about how those displaced and terrified families would love to have kids at school, eat grapes and be able to see a doctor. 

 

My mom recently acquired a framed Norman Rockwell poster of "The Four Freedoms".  These were painted in 1943 to represent four universal human rights that should be protected for every human. They originated in a speech by FDR in 1941. Very idealistic, and obviously not happening universally. But, somehow, I got lucky and was born in a place where I have these freedoms. 

 

 

 

 

 

The Trees of the Field Shall Yield Their Fruit

"I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees their fruit." Leviticus 26:4

While I have been otherwise occupied with my "living in town" existence, harvest has started out there in the fields.  It is a time of action and sensory overload and a very defining time of year in areas where agriculture is a dominant industry.  Back in 2006, when my more forward thinking law school classmates were wearing suits and working in law firms for the summer, I chose to study abroad in Norway and finish the summer by lifeguarding in Fargo at the pool I had previously worked at.  I often wonder if those decisions were detrimental to my long term success but while I was living them those days were some of the happiest in my life.  One hot evening in August I was stationed high on the water slide tower and my nose caught the very familiar smell of freshly cut wheat and I noticed a haze hanging over the flat expanse of Fargo and I knew what was happening.  When I returned into the office for my break, I started gushing about how good it smelled and how pretty the hazy sky looked and was met with complaints about allergies and dust generally blank looks.  If it's not ingrained in you, it's hard to understand.  I should have waited to talk about it with my one farm raised co-worker, with who I regularly shared stories, laughed hysterically, and commiserated about the pre-teen horrors of getting dropped off at the swimming pool in a grain truck in front of all the town kids, waiting for 45 minutes to get picked up from basketball practice because some farm machinery crisis was occupying our families and losing various cats and kittens to their perilous existence among tractors and trucks. 

Although it's later than usual this year the garden is producing it's bounty as harvest is starting around the state.  It feels weird that I'm not at the farm experiencing wheat harvest but at least I've got our garden here to pick from every day.  Yesterday, I stopped there twice! 

It's tomato time, and this year we planted four plants.  You can see three of the varieties below:

 

They are yellow cherry, red grape, and beefsteak.  The fourth plant is a variety of heirloom tomato called "Mr. Stripey" that ripens with yellow and red stripes but they are still quite green.  Ben loves helping pick tomatoes and he also wants to hold them in each hand on the drive home from the garden.  The logical final step in this continuum would be him eating them, but I couldn't get that lucky! 

 

We only planted one cucumber plant and I forgot how productive just one plant can be.  A person can only eat so many cucumber slices, and for some reason I was reminded of refrigerator pickles.  I haven't made them for a few years. 

 

Mmmmmm....brine...The cucumbers and onion are all grown by me!  Although not every recipe asks for it, I added some fresh dill sprigs since there is quite a bit of it growing voluntarily in the garden.  I forgot how delicious and nostalgic the smell of it is.  Yummy yummy yummy.  I want to pick more and put it in a vase!

Justin's Adventure

I mentioned a few days ago that Justin was soon to be embarking on a big trip.  On Friday afternoon he departed for the mysterious and remote state of Alaska for a two week adventure.  A friend of his lives there in Wasilla, and for months they have been planning this major trip into the wilderness, where they will be hunting and camping.  Where they are is so remote that there is no phone or internet service (for the love of God!).  I just looked up some of the destinations on their itinerary and they drove on the Dalton Highway, which is listed in National Geographic magazine's "drives of a lifetime":

http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/road-trips/dalton-highway-alaska-road-trip/

This highway starts north of Fairbanks and runs straight up to the Arctic Ocean.  It was built as a service road for the Trans-Alaska Pipeline and at the end of the road are oil fields of Prudhoe Bay.  It's called a highway, but apparently much of the road is gravel!  It is over 400 miles long and there are only three populated towns along it.  Justin and Nate (our friend) only went to mile 334, the location of the Happy Valley air strip which is where they will take a plane into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  Then they will raft down the Ivishak River for several days, stopping to hunt and camp.  The map below shows these places. 

I didn't do much research about these places before he left, and I must say that I am fascinated with this highway.  I have always enjoyed a road trip and the Dalton Highway definitely would be one to remember.  I would probably have to bring my own Diet Coke though!

You may be wondering about the safety of this trip, with the bush plane, the rafting, the hunting, the camping in the middle of nowhere in a wildlife refuge where bears live, etc. Well, although there won't be any phone calls or texts because there is no service and no where to charge devices, they do have a two way satellite communicator with GPS which is able to send a message each day to Nate's wife and myself.  It emails us (I don't understand it either!) The message from today was "checking in, all ok".  Good to know!  It also sends their location in map form with GPS coordinates.  I took a screen shot of the one from today so you could get an idea of where they are.  That is the air strip.  I think they will fly out tomorrow. 




That's WAY up North! 

 

And here is a picture of what they are hunting: 

 

 

This is an image from Google.  There were many photos of hunters with their caribou but I felt weird putting a picture of a person I don't know on a blog.  So, although quite adventurous, this trip is a "thing" that a lot of other hunters have done.  There are plenty of caribou in Alaska so there is a very good chance that I am going to be tasting caribou meat in a few weeks. Yes, it's getting shipped home!

 

First Anniversary

I just realized that today is August 26th!  It is a date that shall stand out in my mind because August 26th was the day that we closed on this house and moved last year.  Yes, it's been one year.  That was one very fast year.  On this day in 2013, it was so, so hot and very humid. This year, it is unseasonably cool and raining.  Today, I have a nine month old. Last year, I was 30 weeks pregnant and on the brink of being uncomfortably huge.

I still think about our old house often.  That place really meant a lot to me.  I make myself remember little details about it because I just don't want to forget.  For example, the wiring was some sort of low voltage thing that was common in the 1940s and 1950s so all of the light switches were buttons that you pushed and when you did they made a weird buzzing noise.  Everyone who didn't know about the wiring recoiled when it buzzed, thinking they had caused it to break!  Also, there was a really creaky spot in the floor in the living room that I would always step around when Ben was sleeping.  And the mailbox was attached to the house by the front door and every time I opened the door to get it I would smell sun baked wood because the door really heated up in the afternoon sun.  Of course, I could go on and on.  I haven't forgotten you, little house! 

Life has been good in this house so far even though we haven't had the time to focus on projects the way we did when me moved in the old place.  There are still items that I want to hang on the walls that are not hanging on the walls.  We haven't painted anything which means I have been living for a year with paint that I don't especially like.  And it's always a blasted mess in here...always.  But it has been really nice having the dining room and having three bedrooms and the laundry room upstairs.  The extra storage is delightful and there is still room for more crap in some closets and in our second upstairs bathroom the drawers are all empty.  Yes, empty.  My favorite thing is the suite-style master bathroom with double sinks.  It is fab!

And since it has now been a year that I have had a picture of someone else's house creepily displayed on the internet I finally changed the picture on the blog heading.  It's not the greatest picture and needs some cropping but I will take care of that later.  And by later, I mean next August.  I just like how Ben is waving at the bottom.  I also added Tessa to the pictures along the side of the blog.  She's officially part of the family now! 

And, so this post has a picture for you visual people, here is a picture of Ben after he fell asleep for his nap a few hours ago.  He loves tires and "flat tires" and some of his farm toys have tires that come off and he gathered them all up and brought them for his "nap toy".  Yes, a nap toy is a thing here. 

Aaaaah...The Simpsons

Aaaaah...the sound of that familiar orchestration of the heavens opening at the beginning of "The Simpsons" can always pull me right to the TV.  This week and next week, the FXX channel is playing a huge marathon of "The Simpsons" continuously, day and night, until every episode is shown.  There have been 25 seasons so that means there are 552 episodes.  I have to say that I am in heaven being able to have my favorite primary colored animated show to fall back on whenever I feel the need to watch TV. 

When I was growing up on the farm we didn't have cable TV.  What we had was an antenna in the attic that provided us with the major networks of NBC, ABC and CBS and lame old PBS.  It also provided a very fuzzy and questionable FOX.  And what is on FOX, might you ask?  In the 90s, it was the Simpsons and Vikings football.  It became a Sunday evening ritual at our house to have a loud game of telephone throughout three floors of our house as someone moved the antenna in the attic in an attempt to get the best picture we could on FOX.  We finally got a satellite dish when I was in 8th grade and being able to see the weekly new episodes and daily Simpsons reruns in their full, clear glory was the best part.  I know that when the Simpsons became popular in the early 1990s a lot of parents immediately banned it from their homes and I am not sure why.  I suppose it has to do with the famous "Eat My Shorts" line Bart spouted early on but compared to what I see on the rare occasions that I watch whatever DOA sitcom the networks try to push every season (they are getting very vulgar!) The Simpsons seems quite wholesome.  I think it was probably a hysteria thing kind of like the Harry Potter witchcraft freak out where many of the people who are upset by it have never actually watched or read it for themselves.   Fortunately, I didn't grow up in a censorship type of house and my brother and sister and I spent many evenings laughing at the subtle humor and cultural references that are regular features of the show.  And we were all very respectful kids who never had a stain on our records during parent/teacher conferences so there censorship people!  In fact, my lame brother was so respectful and well behaved that teachers and coaches still tell me how awesome he was (apparently more so than myself).

Yes, this show was for us like "Leave it to Beaver" was for my dad.  Just the thought of it gives me the feeling of being a kid settled in for the night to watch some good TV without a care in the world.  When I was a freshman in college, I returned from class one day to have my roommate tell me that some guy had called for me but he didn't leave a message.  I didn't know of any guys who had recently received my number or who were interested in me at all and I was kind of weirded out and fascinated about the mystery man.  Well, I found out that it was my marginally articulate fourteen year old brother calling to inform me that FOX was no longer going to play syndicated Simpsons reruns.  Oh, the horror!  As the years went by, seasons of the show started being released on DVD and they were frequent Christmas gifts between the S. siblings. 

Before I close the computer and focus on the TV for my brief afternoon fix, I have to share something about Allan.  Yes, the forgotten Allan who used to be my #1 subject.  He has become obsessed with finding pairs of our thick ski/boot socks and carrying them around the house.  It started because I store mine in a container under the bed that is so full that it doesn't close and the lid just sits on top.  I started feeling like those damn socks were never where they belonged even though I put them away and then we realized what he was doing. 

We were gone for the weekend and when I came upstairs I found this scene:

 

That weirdo kitten had brought five pairs of Justin's boot socks upstairs from where he had them lined up in the basement (he is packing for a big trip that I will discuss in a few days) and paced them all on the couch on a blanket that we had spread out.  At first I was really disturbed because the bedroom door was closed and I didn't know that Justin had his socks in the basement.  I thought he did some sort of weird voo doo or something. 

 

Oh, and some bonus trivia:  Did you know that the composer of the Simpson's score, Alf Clausen, grew up in Jamestown, ND?  When I was in middle school we played a Simpsons medley in band in his honor.

Rapid Fire Photo Catch Up

We have done so much these last several weeks!  In the past, before I only had a few hours a week to space out with the computer, each occasion would have been a post all by itself!  I miss those days.  But this will have to do for now. 

So, two weekends ago there was big street fair in front of the State Capitol.  It's pretty neat, when you think about it, to live within sight of a Capitol building.  Often, when I drive the streets in front of or behind it, which are two main streets that many Bismarck residents drive daily, and that we also live between, I think of the book from my childhood, "Missing May", which is about a young girl who was raised by her great aunt and uncle and the way they deal with their grief after May, the aunt, dies. 



It is a very good but sad book that came from the old "Scholastic Book Order" days in elementary school.  In the book, the girl, her uncle an oddball school friend set off to meet with a person who can supposedly contact people who have "moved on" and they stop in awe at the domed Capitol building of whatever state they lived in (I think it was Virginia or West Virginia) because the oddball friend always dreamed of seeing it.  It was like a once in a lifetime experience.  And here I am, practically driving on the front lawn, every day!  I can practically say that the governor is my neighbor!

 

The kettle corn (or should I say, "korn") stand was right in front, at the top of the large "U" driveway that is several blocks long that leads to the Capitol.  I had to snap this picture since it was such a perfect day.  The other reason the street fair was memorable is because I found this fun little trinket: 

 

It's my hometown!  I love maps!  I also found a fun NDSU necklace with a buffalo nickel pendant. 

Later that week, my sister, who was 10 days overdue in her pregnancy, was induced and my niece Claire was born.  I packed up Ben and Tessa and headed toward Fargo where I spent a few minutes holding Claire and several hours attempting to corral Ben and Tessa and sitting in a labor and delivery floor waiting room playing with color crayons. 

 

Here we are!  I don't know what was going on with that mirror in the background.  It cast a very flattering light, which I suppose is what new moms need in the days after labor!

 

Next up was a visit from Ben's cousins Jack and Spencer.  Their parents came too, of course!  Spencer loves to play with vacuum cleaners and it just so happens that we have two of the same battery powered Dirt Devil so they could vacuum together without fights! 

 

What fun, what fun...check out Ben's Santa PJs.  He picked them out himself. 

 

On Saturday we went to the zoo and then on a historic "choo choo" ride nine miles south of town to a state park with an old fort and replica Indian village.  The zoo here has a trio of tigers, including a white Siberian, a traditional orange Bengal, and this oddball:

 

It is a rare genetic oddity that is white and orange (and no, it's not a child of the two others!).  There are only thirty of them in the world and they don't survive very long in the wild.  I don't know why.  They must have weak instincts or something. 

 

It is a very charismatic and entertaining tiger.  Every summer, I see many Facebook posts about this tiger giving kids a thrill at the zoo and today was no exception. 

 

Allan was jealous that we got to see his brother, who is his equal in size and strength and hunting ability!

 

Sometime in my phone photo sequence Tessa figured out how to trash the bathroom, a right of passage for any mobilizing baby!

 

On Saturday morning, while the cousins were playing and we were getting ready to go to the zoo, I received a text that my sister-in-law's water broke!  My brother would soon be becoming a father (why does it seem normal for a sister to become a mother but so weird for a brother to be a father?). I waited for news all day and pestered my mom mostly and my brother occasionally and as of "night night time" when I finally crashed as Justin and his step brother watched a documentary on PBS about the Bison-Sioux rivalry through the years, there was still no baby.  I woke to news that my new nephew, Arne, was born at 4:52 a.m.! 

 

On Monday I headed off to Grand Forks, and lucky for me Justin's mom was able to watch Ben and Tessa for a few hours so I could visit this guy in peace! 

 

Oh, I love a newborn!

 

When I saw this picture I took of my brother, I had a fleeting feeling of recognition and then I figured out why...

 

You might instinctively think this is my mom, but it's actually my grandma holding who appears to be my mom as a baby.  Quite a resemblance between the generations!

 

After my visit with Arne, I spent a day at my parents' house and took Ben and Tessa swimming at the pool where I practically lived and later worked when I was growing up.  It's nothing fancy but that blue water still entices me the way it did back then. 

 

Ben loved playing with the kickboards, which we pretended were surfboards.  We floated Tessa around and made her "surf" and she could stand touching the bottom at the edge and held on with one had and splashed with the other.  I'm sad that pool season is almost over.

Then we headed to visit cousin Claire.  Tessa looks like such a beast next to these newborns. 

 

My sister bought them matching pajamas with kittens on them!

After a day at the farm, Ben was filthy and I took him for an ATV ride to pick up my dad from a field he was working in.  He looks like a piglet. 

 

We tagged along to a 'seafood boil" party that my parent's friends had in their backyard and Tessa enjoyed some corn on the cob.  I am amazed to watch her eat after dealing with Ben's eating habits.

One of their friends owns this vintage car and as you can imagine, Ben couldn't get enough of it!

And finally...Last night was Justin's company picnic at a park.  We received tickets for rides at the "Super Slide" amusement park that is attached to the park and had fun with the other young kids at the picnic, especially a little girl who is only a month younger than Ben. 

 

 

Justin took Ben on the Ferris Wheel and he was kind of scared but also kind of dumbfounded! 

 

We both took our turns on the super slide.  He was scared but also didn't hesitate to do it over and over again.  He also rode a kids train but I didn't get pictures because my phone was in the stroller and I rode a spinning swing with him but in the pictures I am oozing out the sides of the chair and it looked really gross so I will spare you!  It was made for little kids after all!

 

OK, I hope I am caught up.  This will have to suffice! 

9 Months!

I knew it had been awhile since I wrote on here but I had no idea it had been almost two weeks!  The reason I have been missing is because we had visitors for most of the week last week and in between the visits my sister AND my sister-in-law (brother's wife) had babies!  My new niece was born early in the morning on August 7th and my new nephew was born early in the morning on August 10th!  I have been busy visiting babies!  So I have a lot to catch up on and I will probably do a big photo post next but today happens to be Tessa's 9 month birthday!  I have missed all the other month "birthday's" and I finally caught one.  It is 3:03 p.m. right now, which means that nine months ago I was hanging up the phone after getting my call that there was a room for us and to report to the hospital for my induction!

Tessa is a big girl now who loves to stand and cruise around the furniture and open drawers and make messes.  In the last few days I have caught her splashing around in the toilet, with one hand on the top step ready to crawl down the stairs (EEEEEK!) and with a mouth full of rocks.  She wears 9 month clothes but recently got a new 12 month sleeper and it is not very much too big!  Her brother has decided that he likes to carry her around (EEEEEEEEEK!) and I regularly catch him hobbling toward me with Tessa in a hug hold saying "Ben hold Tessa!".  At least she seems to enjoy it and is usually grinning as I try to calmly remove her from his clutches.  

She is an expert at yelling and crying with her pacifier in her mouth and often we will be in the car or will be awakened by her at night and frantically look for it only to find it already in her mouth.  She just yells around it.  She babbles a lot with her favorite words being "gee", "gaa" and a loud, tongue rolling motor sound.  She has started saying "Mamama" but I am not yet convinced that it applies to me.  She also is starting to wave and it's so cute! 

But...most exciting for me...she eats!  She actually eats food and seems to enjoy it.  She eats more in a day than Ben ate in a month.  She will eat a whole piece of bread, many handfuls of cereal, and as many fruit of vegetable pieces that we put on her tray,  I am just fascinated by this!  It is delightful!  Just in time too, since she consumed the last bag of frozen pumped milk in the freezer two Sundays ago.

Here are a few big girl pictures!

 

The one hand stand...

 

I took her and Ben swimming at the pool where I spent most of my summer playing when I was a child and working when I was a teenager this week between baby visits.  She could "touch the bottom" at the edge of the wading pool and loved standing there and splashing with one hand.  Ben liked to pretend he was pulling her on a kickboard (or surfboard in his imagination!).  Don't worry, I was holding her on there!

 

Her she is with her new cousin Claire!  They have matching kitten jammies!  Tessa didn't know why Claire didn't want to cruise around and make messes with her! 

 

It's hard to imagine that I was pregnant for nine months and now she has been here for nine months!  She has a doctor's appointment next week and I look forward to seeing how she has grown. 

Taming the Toy Takeover

There are a few things I have decided just to accept even though I wish they were different.  One of them is that, unless we ever have a house with 6 or more bedrooms, our guestroom is always going to look like a large walk in closet full of excess and out of place crap that happens to have a bed in it and not like a "retreat" with thoughtfully placed baskets of travel necessities and high quality linens.  Another is that the days of my carefully organized "rainbow" closet where my clothes hung in color order like the colors of the spectrum (ROYGBIV!) are long gone and never to return. I am just pleased with myself if I actually hang up the shirts that require it before the pile of laundry takes over and I am forced to put away the clean clothes.  Another is that my kids are going to see TV and lots of it because I am just too selfish to give up watching it myself.  I could go on but the topic of acceptance I am covering today is the fact that our house is going to be a domain of kids and that means toys everywhere.  Yes, we could keep their toys in their rooms but Ben doesn't want to play by himself most of the time.  He wants to play in my vicinity so that means they would be dragged out anyway.  And I sure don't want to sit in a kid's room all day because...TV?  Up until recently, we stashed toys and books (so many books!) in baskets placed around the living room.  They were always overflowing and were a huge mess.  Our TV was on an old chest of drawers which I really like but the drawers are so old and sticky that we hate to open them.  It is nice because scratches from Ben have just made it look better and more fashionably old but we have wanted to replace it for awhile and the time has finally come.

 

Recently we visited my aunt and uncle and they live in the same city as an IKEA, the place to go for cheap and arguably crappy furniture.  Yes, the longevity is questionable but right now we are not interested in long term.  We are interested in having something functional that will last until our kids stop ruining things.  Also, I want them to be able to enjoy our furniture and eat popcorn while watching movies and not worry about every spill or ding ruining a special piece of furniture. 

 

We spent a fabulous kid free afternoon at IKEA, which was as chaotic on a Monday as it is on weekends.  Among several other "must haves" that I had to have we chose this assembly from the "Besta" line and chose two baskets and two doors for the cubes.  This collection is arguably kind of "dorm room"-y but we need the organization of a dorm room. 

 

 

Yes, that is indeed a rerun of "Laguna Beach" on TV!  That moron Jason just never quit with the idiocy.  I am rolling my eyes all over again wondering what all those girls saw in him.  LC, you are better than him 1,000 times!  The books are now behind the cupboard doors and toys are in the baskets.  DVDs are in the drawers.  We still have a catch-all basket in another spot but I emptied out two other ones that were getting pretty beat up.  I will probably use them for piano music.

 

One of the best IKEA purchase, which made the chaotic, city driving adventure worth it, was this: 

 

 It's a little wooden train set!  It came with four cars and we bought the expansion cars.  The main set cost $9.99.  What a bargain for the entertainment it provides!  Those two big cars are from Target and they fit the tracks too which is excellent. 

 

 

 The only problem is a certain baby wants to play too...and she doesn't respect the track arrangement!  It causes lots of screaming, "Tessaaaaaaa NOOOOO! Tessa sit dowwwwwn!"  "Sit down" means that he wants me to move her elsewhere.