So, with a plan to stay in one place, we are embarking on a grand plan to put down some literal roots. After consulting with a food forest designer, ordering a bunch of trees, and pricing out deck supplies, G is committed to many hours in the backyard (I have mentioned my seasonal allergies right? and needing to keep the baby alive? I did do some weeding today though…) and in the next few years we should be awash in rotting fruit organic produce.

We both do like a lot of color in the yard. No sparse, organized gardeners we.

OK, none of those are food but we do have that as well.

(Blueberries, strawberries, chives. Other food is planted, just not very photo worthy right now.)

It did break my heart though to prune one of our new peach trees. I know that you are supposed to remove all the fruit the first year and I did (well, saved one)….long term thinking, long term thinking.

(Before, and after.)

G worked a lot on the front of the house flower boxes this weekend as well. I need to get some pictures of those soon! We definitely have the most colorful flowers in the neighborhood!

G, the sole healthy holdout, isn’t really a go-all-out for Mother’s Day type. So he slept in while I got up with the kids, and only M had anything for me (some very cute pictures and a handprint they did at school). We did all go out for brunch though. And, um…I cooked dinner but he did clear the table and washed a pan.

(In his defense though, G did spend most of yesterday and today working on our backyard, which is hard for me to do what with seasonal allergies + baby to keep alive.)

So no big fancy gifts, no elaborate surprises, but I do have 3 wonderful girls and that is what matters.

I had to include that picture of Little C’s butt ruffle. At dinner it caused M to say “She is so pretty, she could capture a prince’s heart.” (Here’s hoping Prince Harry doesn’t see these pictures!)

Oh, and updates on little C. She weighed in a measly 16 lbs. 4 oz. at the pediatrician (95%) and a whopping 26.5” (>95%). Whatever her head was was over 95th percentile as well. These are 6-9 month size clothes in the picture (well, except for the dress, but we had to get that one on for Mother’s Day!) and none too soon I say. Her neck rash also turned out to be mild eczema, so we have gone from rare baths to nightly baths + a full rubdown with Aquaphor. She is the slipperiest little sucker when all greased up! On the other hand, my dry hands are basically cured. She is definitely the most washed person in the house.

So far so good with the 3-6 months clothes but I am certainly not buying any more, and I had to get a new round of bigger cloth diapers due to a small case of plumber’s crack.

This month baby C has made good friends with her hands (so fascinating!), some chewable toys (or even handy clean kid underwear if one were to, say, prop her up on clean laundry while folding…), her tongue, and in the last few days her adorable feet!

She also had her first big tub bath (um, with “help” from two sisters who are convinced that the baby wants lots of toys and noise at all times) and turns out to be one slippery kid! She does like standing with lots of support and seems to be getting good head control, but rolling over—either way—is far from her mind.

Days are spent trying to distract her during tummy time…

sacking out in the swing…

(first picture there is some vigorous thumb sucking, but I could not catch it on camera well) and going for walks.

(It was almost 70 today and during the actual walk there was a blanket on her, so no worries about cold feet please.)

Finally got her in a sweater that I 95% made last summer, finally crocheted internal ties on this winter, and sewed the one button on last week. Just in time too.

Some struggles on the photo shoots today as she just wanted to be chewing on her hands, toys, or failing those, her dress.

Then there is always the problem of not being able to actually sit up yet.

And the risk of hat malfunction.

Or just plain crankiness.

But I think we got some good ones.

This is one (mostly) happy, easy going baby. Goes to bed pretty easily and sleeps a long time (knock on wood), tolerates her sisters, gets dragged to every lesson and put in and out of the car, stroller, baby carrier, whatever multiple times with nary a complaint. She might have, and we don’t like to mention it, a bit of a drooling problem. Which causes a neck rash problem. But overall, we lucked out with this baby and just snuggle her up every chance we get!

However.

The tulips were beautiful.

The frolicking was free.

The girls love their grandpa!

And each other!

The baby is willing to be in the baby carrier.

And four of us got new hats at the street fair.

Which is good, because some of us can really carry off a hat.

Big C is definitely crafty—puppets, drawings, little things made out of pipe cleaners, etc. etc. she is constantly reclaiming things from the recycling and trash to make little crafts. She is also adept enough with the sewing machine now that she is (mostly) allowed to go into the sewing room and experiment (the mostly is due to an unwillingness to clean up afterwards, boo). As with last year, she handcrafted the birthday presents for M and I wanted to show her off a little bit.

First up, a stuffie made following some directions from a sock creatures book received for Christmas. The dress is her own design though.

Also, she used Power Point to create some sheets of paper dolls:

Finally, C fulfilled one of M’s birthday list wishes (the list was very strange this year, including “rainbow toy that you can’t take apart, rainbow coloring book, treasure box filled with gold and other fancy stuff”….)

This is of course, “black folder with a flower on it”. Hard to find in stores, yet requested by M. How much it will hold given that it is construction paper held together with scotch tape, who knows. But her impulse to make M’s heart’s desire is so sweet and her gifts so clever I felt they deserved their own little blog celebration.

First up was a huge party at the local jumping place. With M’s whole class invited as well as all the similarly aged neighbors and several other friends, there were a lot of goody bags to fill. Er, a lot of fun to be had!

Jumping, sliding, goldfish eating, sitting in the big puffy chair to open presents, and hiding with her daddy during the singing of Happy Birthday.

We had a planet/outer space theme including the awesomest cake ever from a friend who makes cakes professionally:

3 tiers with the sun and galaxy and rice krispie treat fashioned planets all around—check out that little rainbow on the earth! That is there because M loves rainbows, which is also why I requested a surprise inside the cake…

(*&(*@&(#*$& I know. Awesome cake right? Anyway, M had a blast and even baby C held it together pretty well.

A little forced toe nibbling helped.

The next day (the actual birthday) I attended birthday circle at M’s school, where she walked around the sun holding the earth 5 times.

Although her favorite part may have been wearing the plastic glove to hand out carefully baked dairy free banana bread.

Later that night we re-sang to her with some cake leftovers (although the kids preferred to eat planets this time) and opened family gifts. Who’s a princess?

M is such a fantastic kid. She wakes up every day full of energy and happiness and pretty much ends the day that way too. She always wants to hold her baby sister, reads to her, “bounces” her (um, we try to limit that one), brings wet wipes for diaper changes, picks out outfits, etc. etc. She is convinced baby C loves a game she calls “nothing, something” in which she pretty much just yells those words again and again.

She loves all her friends at school and would play with friends all day if possible. I think she is pretty much responsible for all the hugging that happens there. Her teacher wrote in her spring report card that having M in her class makes her like teaching more (and this is a great group of kids and a great teacher). She is so proud to show us all her work every week and is super proud of starting to read. M is a terror on her bike (training wheels are long gone) and scooter and has more bruises up and down her legs than just about any kid, but always jumps up to try again.

She loves her dad (although I think he would prefer fewer surprise attacks when he is working), is learning how to swim on her own, plays 4 songs on the piano and has composed 3 others, and would follow her big sister to the ends of the earth. Although she won’t eat many vegetables, she loves oatmeal at breakfast, salmon at dinner, and spinach pie any time. Oh sure, she has her moments, but for the most part our lives would not have been nearly as joyous without this little firecracker. Happy birthday M!

The tie-dye set even almost worked.

This one just observed…maybe next year Little C.

Easter morning had our annual neighborhood brunch in the street + egg hunt event. I made the traditional Christmas morning cinnamon rolls which the arrival of a certain baby delayed this year…

And that is pre-frosting. Yum. Needless to say, they were the first item finished on the brunch table.

Egg hunt competition was fierce, although one of my kids traded money from the eggs for a Squinkie that someone else got in an egg. Go for the money kid!

Meanwhile, Little C enjoyed the wind in her hair, and being the object of “pass the baby” as each neighbor wanted a turn.

Hooray for mellow babies!

The Easter Bunny had also graced our table that morning, leaving surprise balls for the older girls. No pictures of the aftermath, but much fun was had in unraveling them.

In other news….

M is enjoying her piano lessons—after just her second lesson she started composing her own songs. Need to get a photo of those. I have been playing a little bit too—although given a 20+ year break since my lessons ended it is slow going.

Our keyboard currently lives under our awesome family photo from the shoot in January.

Little C continues to work on neck strength, is balding a bit, and welcomes any new friends.

Oh, and has chubby wrists.

Size-wise she is somewhere around 16 lbs. (using the very scientific weigh self + baby, minus weight of self method). So we may not be long for the 3-6 month size clothes either. Sigh. She is just a bundle of squeezable cuteness though.

Look at those arms! Look at those cheeks! Look at that sweater vest I knitted and then realized she was almost to big for!

She does have some quirks, one of which is linty fingers. Every day I have to scrape lint out from between those fingers and I don’t know where it is coming from.

Little C is an incredibly easy-going baby who smiles and smiles. She is babbling up a storm (in addition to her early repertoire of grunts, sneezes, and chortling sounds) and has been known to “sing” through big C’s whole violin lesson. She doesn’t seem to have a regular napping schedule yet, and attempts to get her to sleep for my volunteer time at C’s school each week have failed miserably. During the Great Books discussion group I lead for some 3rd graders she has been OK, but listening to C’s class do book reports (what can I say, I have focused my volunteering on an area dear to my heart—reading!) has been touch and go. Little C threw up all over my shirt and pants during one kid’s book report last week, and I have had to call big C out to do her reports while I try to change a diaper in my lap or nurse little C. I am all for nursing and public nursing, but somehow nursing with C’s classmates seems a bit iffy.

Anyway, where was I? Oh, easy going little C. You need to be easy going to put up with these big sisters. There are many fights over who has gotten to hold her more.

M is quite a good helper though—she will wet washcloths for diaper changes, pick out outfits, and during her two days off of school last week read books to Little C while I did my exercises.

Ha ha, love that one.

She seems to have settled on a 7:30 bed time over the past week or so. She is a great nighttime sleeper (knock wood!!) only waking once or so to eat before morning. However, this has also seemed to require some fussiness right around dinner time as she starts to power down. Nobody’s perfect.

Little C really does feel like a Christmas gift to our family.

During the week Little C and I try to get out for 3 long walks (3.5-4.5 miles depending on whether the neighbor and her baby are walking with us) and do errands on foot when possible. I have also managed to run twice! 3 miles each time, not easy at all but better the second time. Little C is still too little for the jogging stroller so these runs will be infrequent for now, but hopefully I won’t backslide as much as I did with each of the other girls. The rest of the time she seems to spend in the car, picking up the girls from school, taking them to various lessons, etc. Both have swimming (on different days due to my own screw up), C takes violin and French, and M started piano this week. And of course regular orthodontist visits…

We made it through the science and art fair last week and M passed her speech therapist evaluation last week (but will probably still have some laser surgery on her tongue in the next few months. Darn tongue tie can grow back apparently!) Next up is Easter with our neighborhood egg hunt and friends over for dinner (“Feaster”), then M’s 5th (!!) birthday and party. After that it will practically be spring break, visit from grandparents, and then 4 month birthday…goodness.

Admittedly, this picture is almost a month old, from mid-winter break. Out and about trying to burn off some kid energy.

(Yes, one is in hat and scarf while other has removed her coat. Sigh.)

Big C’s science fair is coming up this week—she experimented with liquids and electricity. G supervised of course.

Sometimes they wear things I made. Knit hat from the knitspot.com Fall in Full Color club. Go Canton, OH based designers!

And the surprising long term favorite red riding hood cape, made several years ago for fairy tale day at school, yet often used as actual outerwear by both kids.

(Incidentally—those purple boots are on of my best purchases ever…need to find the next size though!)

The big girls got haircuts yesterday and each received some decorative braiding…

These pictures are from lunch afterwards, where the waitress came over to complement how well-behaved my kids were. Always nice, especially when I am out with all three by myself. And when the rest of the day is complaining and fighting However, we also had an older couple come over and ask if the baby was a girl too. When I said yes, the husband replied “Oh, that would just break my heart.” Sometimes I hate people. Sigh. Please don’t share your weird sentiments right in front of my lovely kids. Because who wouldn’t be overjoyed with this third daughter?

Who was off the charts for height and weight at her two month check up, weighing in at a hefty 13 lbs. 13 oz. We are not convinced that unassisted sitting will ever be possible.

Hee hee. Just kidding. We all love to rub her belly, squeeze her thighs, and watch her cheeks jiggling in the stroller as we go over bumps. She is a smiley girl and still sleeping great at night. Now if only M would stop waking me up every night to take her to the bathroom…

Poopy diaper calls (ok, so it isn’t all happiness and roses)…

Someone turned 2 months (!!) old today, celebrating with a walk outside and a bath (although after these pictures, so excuse the somewhat dirty hair). We visit the pediatrician tomorrow to discover measurements and get many, many shots.

Poor little C has had a cold for the past few days which has led to some sobbing uses of the nasal aspirator. Nasal aspirator technology has vastly improved since I was shopping for big C, although I did bypass the battery operated one that Target had for $25. The cold doesn’t bother her much except for some sudden phelgmy coughy thing which causes her to projectile vomit up all of the milk she has just drunk. When you hear the spit up splashing down it isn’t a good sign. Especially on our bed. Ugh.

Otherwise, she is a happy, chill little kid. Catnaps mostly during the day but does some good long sleeps at night, a good 12 hours of mostly sleeping with just one or two middle of the night “booby calls”. Every now and then she surprises with a mega daytime nap. I have been volunteering at big C’s school again and little C was pretty good for those, mostly sleeping. She has also been very good for her dad while I have had various dental procedures and a pedicure with the older girls for my birthday.

Little C coos and smiles at us and definitely notices her big sisters. Hard not to when they are right in your face. That is mostly M though. I don’t think she has noticed the cat even when the cat is walking very close to her head. Birthday cat is basically ignored as well.

Is that a rude gesture there? Her hands are often in a “holding cards tight to the vest” position, or whirling around practicing her hooks.

We thought the first two girls were easy, but this baby has got to be just about the easiest baby ever. Those long sleeps, not much crying… The first two required some tight swaddling, but this one is just fine in regular baby sleepers, sleeping with her hands flung up around her head. And while I recall bouncing on big balls holding the others, little C will just doze off as you are holding her. Some occasional fussiness and trouble going to sleep is quickly resolved with a pacifier (which the others never showed any interest in). She is fairly tolerant of sisterly grabbiness (there is much fighting over baby C!) The only real unhappiness is during tummy time, but we soldier on anyway—big C is especially tolerant and will lay on the floor with her, cheering every little lift of the head.

Baby C hangs out while it all happens, sometimes just giving us suspicious looks, other time bemused, but happy to absorb all the loving that the family wants to give her.

This past week was mid-winter break (not to be confused with winter break which happened around Christmas) but we have all lived to tell the tale, even had a few playdates at our house. The girls and I had one big task this week—sorting out all the kids books. Between picture books, board books, and chapter books…ohmygoodness did we have a lot of books. This is just some of them:

Well, we winnowed the collection (finding a surprising number of duplicates) and now everything fits onto the kid bookshelves and is neatly reorganized. Big C and M both got distracted multiple times during the process when forgotten favorites were uncovered. We have all the board books in low containers ready for little C to discover. And actual space for some new books to arrive. All that remains is for me to box up the giveaways and deal with them. No doubt that will get taken care of shortly. Ahem. Next up, winnowing the toy collection and cleaning up the playrooms. A much harder task but this one went well enough that I am not (too) worried.