Thursday, October 21, 2010

Extended Vacation, I am in love with you.

So, as you now know, we are moving! Steve has accepted a new job and we are packing up and heading "home" to Fergus Falls, MN where we grew up. Steve ended up turning in his notice to his previous employer earlier than planned to help me get the house ready to sell.. And when you leave one financial institution to go to another one, they do not let you continue to work for your two-week notice period, but rather they give you a severance and send you on your way. SO! Steve has been home with me since October 5th! Of course, initially our fourth honeymoon was spent furiously cleaning our house to get it ready for a photographer to come from our realtor's office. However, since then, we've been able to do several mini-adventures, taking in many of the activities and sites of the area before we move away (since we never took the time to be adventurous before?!).
We went to a great pumpkin patch. We'd been there before, but it is probably my favorite pumpkin patch so I had to get in a last visit (though we'll probably time a doctor visit to get here again!). Our niece Daphnie was with us for her birthday weekend, and the little girls were at their aunt's house - which worked out well considering all the running the bigger kids did.

We took a day trip up to Como Zoo. We haven't been there since Josiah was one. Eden was just barely interested in the animals (only the ones that moved a lot). Delia slept through the whole thing, as expected. We got a ton of stares for having two babies in our stroller. Welcome to the freak show, ladies and gentlemen!
Josiah checking out an ape skull.
Delia sleeping through lunch.
Eden eagerly awaiting her turn to lick the ice cream.


Josiah snapping a picture of me.
We took another day trip to Whitewater State Park, about 30 minutes from here. We'd never visited but had heard it was a great park to check out and a good place to camp. Well, we aren't quite ready to take our babies cool-weather camping, so we just went for the day. We had our first geocaching experience, and once we got our GPS figured out, it was a lot of fun. Josiah enjoyed it because he had his "own" camera to take pictures of the trip. I haven't developed those yet, but typically half of them are thumbprints ;) Eden slept about half of the time but enjoyed the walk while she was awake, and Delia slept the whole time. This was quite the feat as Steve was new to the Moby wrap and kept getting it halfway off while walking. I'm still not sure how he managed that. The best part was that we got to enjoy this awesome day out with the family AND when we logged our exercise into our daily tracker, it turns out that hiking with a 20lb pack burns a TON of calories! .....and then we went to DQ.







We took another trek out to Carley State Park - about 30 minutes in the other direction (I think?). Steve and I took the girls while Josiah was in school - which ended up being a good decision as this park was way less "park" than the previous one. We did the geocaching thing again, though it was much easier this time. It was such a beautiful day - so nice to be getting out and enjoying this before the dread of winter hits.
This hike was a tiny bit creepy - it was very much 'wilderness', with no one around but the squirrels and a random guy that drove through very slowly in a beat up green taurus. All of the old campfire horror stories came drifting back to mind. Steve said not to worry because he has a great ninja kick. I'm sure that would do the trick, honey!








Eden seems to enjoy riding along in the Beco carrier - and it is super comfy for mom or dad to wear too, which is nice. The Moby wrap has seen its days I think - it was great when Eden was so tiny, but already its harder to use with Delia. Though there are hundreds of people who have figured out how to use it for bigger kids, I think we are going to spring for a second carrier instead - we found ourselves racing to "call" the carrier - to not have to be the one stuck wearing the wrap ;) Steve did much better at keeping it on this time though, and of course, Delia slept through the whole hike.


And now the second babe is awake so I'll have to wait to post the rest of our vacation adventures. I am so loving having this free time before we make this big transition! And now Josiah is done at daycare so he will be home with us for more adventures too. Love this season of our life - too bad it is going to be so short ;)

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

The day has arrived...

Tomorrow is the big day. Things will be even more final. Big changes. Pretty much throwing the parachute out the window of the plane. Oh man. When the dust settles, I'll be sure to update you - fill you in on our littleBIGnews.

In other breaking news, Steve and I have joined Sparkpeople.com. Yep. Because we are done having babies now and therefore we are now going to embark on a lovely little journey to rid ourselves of the baby weight. We are on day three of the ever-enjoyable plan - exercising and eating reduced calorie diets... Tracy Anderson has this "method" and is sharing it with us in her post-pregnancy workout. You may think its silly that Steve would do this workout with me as its a post-pregnancy workout - but a) I need a partner so I will be motivated and b) it kicks his butt just as much as it kicks mine. At any rate, things are going well. And then tonight, the chocolate cravings kicked in. I am a chocolate girl. It is my coffee for all of you coffee addicts. After a meal at least one bite is required. And I haven't had any for 3 days. So tonight we looked up the nutritional information for oreos. Steve felt my duress and went to the store to buy a package of them (double stuff!) for us. We promptly added 2 oreos to our day's intake and more exercise to match. I'll do another 15 minutes of that crazy tracy and her blasted "method" for chocolate any day.  A perfect world involves me getting back into my pre-baby jeans AND eating chocolate.

Friday, October 8, 2010

Ode to the New Addition

Its happening. The newest addition is bringing out all kinds of "I-haven't-caught-my-breath-in-a-year-and-this-should-work-fine" parenting tricks. With the first baby, we were ridiculously cautious. Never fed the baby a bottle that had been sitting out more than 45 minutes. Always held him with two hands. Always held the bottle, never propped it on the blanket to have a free arm. Always ran to him at the first cry. Bathed him nightly. Rocked every night for an hour. Read five hundred stories. Lullabies. Never fed him "don't-have-time-for-this-to-warm-up-more" milk. Had outfit changes daily, from a ridiculously extensive and adorable wardrobe, sometimes because he puked, but mostly just because he had great clothes. Spent maternity leave holding this one almost constantly (though not necessarily by choice). Took 500 pictures daily (so it seemed).
The second time around was a much different story. Of course, there were special circumstances which forced us to be more careful about some things. Had to mix vitamins with certain amount of milk. Had to mix this much milk with this much formula. Had to apply this cream here. Had to check temp daily, weight weekly. Changed outfits regularly - because she puked a ton but she had such an amazing wardrobe - girls are WAY too fun to shop for. Had to take a million pictures because her followers were antsy and everything was amazing. Spent months doing nothing but cuddling with her. Still had an extra arm.
Oh, but how I feel for our newest addition! Miss Delia, you have been brought into such chaos! We take your bottle out of your mouth so that with the other arm we can unbuckle the highchair straps and lift Eden down. We change your diaper one-handed so that the other arm can keep your siblings from crawling on top of you. We prop your bottle up almost always because there is never a chance for that blessed free arm and there is always something that other arm needs to be doing. We don't get to rock with you because by the time you are ready for bed, Eden is already sleeping. You don't care if we sing or not, though we still do. Instead of bedtime stories, you have heard Daddy read Harry Potter. (To be fair, Josiah got the Chronicles of Narnia during his middle-of-the-night wakings). We do take pictures of you, I swear! Somehow I just can't manage to take 'enough' while keeping your siblings off of you or off of the camera. Maybe you'll understand because I am saving you from imminent danger? Probably not. I remember how many times I got upset with my parents about how my sister, the lovely firstborn, had 10x more pictures in the albums. Oh, and some days you stay in your pajamas all day. At this point, you are still sleeping so much, so it isn't terribly crazy that you would be in pajamas, but still. And you are wearing all hand-me-downs- aside from a couple great things you received from others, your closet is courtesy of your big sister (luckily she had great stuff and its still in style!). Its not a bad thing - its saving a ton of money, and as your Daddy keeps reminding me, you don't care at all at this point. But, as a second child myself, I know how much I hated getting so much of my sister's stuff and not a ton of my own. Not nearly as much cuddle time as Mommy or Daddy would like, though you do get a good amount of being held, don't get me wrong. But maternity leave this time also included your big sister being home with us. Neither of you enjoyed sharing my arms.
Delia, the sweet baby of the family, you have a lot to deal with already. Your brother had 3 1/2 years all to himself and developed somewhat of an only child attitude. Your big sister came out of the womb feisty as all get-out and hasn't slowed down since. Its a lot to tackle, I know. I think you can hack it though ;) And do know this: even now, in the midst of juggling babies and the utter chaos of the big changes happening here, we love you more than anything in this world. You are a miracle no less amazing than those that joined our family before you. You shocked our socks off from the first (of five) pregnancy tests, and the denial stage that followed. How could this happen? A pregnancy with no doctors helping us out?!?! Clearly, you were God's plan, my dear. God chuckled a little bit the day we found out you were coming, I just know it "HA! - bet you didn't see this one coming, eh?!".
All of this to say, that its hard being the baby of the family - especially in this family, especially right now. But we will steal every cuddle, every kiss, every quiet moment that we can to enjoy you while you are still so new. We cherished every kick, every roll and punch because I knew it would be the last time I would feel that life inside of me. And likewise I will cherish every stage you go through now - the last one to have those baby coos, the 'hungry bird' face searching for your bottle, the last one to sleep on my chest. You might have to bonk your big siblings on the head so they hear you say it, but you are crazy special too.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Oh man.

So the wheels are in motion. The first domino has started knocking down the million to follow. OH MAN. Its big. HUGE actually. Its pretty life-changing. Earth shattering stuff.

And.
I.
CAN'T.
TELL.
YOU.

I don't deal well with that. AT ALL. I don't like having big news and not being able to tell everyone and talk about it freely. A few of you know, sure, but here I am still stuck. AND it actually has been my excuse for not getting to this blog for the past few days. A good excuse too. But I can't tell you about it.

OH MAN.

PS: Last night I managed to take a break and spend a few hours with a good friend while she cut the boy's hair and then colored mine and cut it all off. ALL of it off. I have had long/lazy/pregnant lady/mom hair for 2 years now - by choice, because I've been desperately tired and overly lazy due to hormones/preemies/new babies at home stuff. But now I decided I was pretty tired of it and chopped it. I was going to wait until I lost the lovely weight that is attributed to the above-mentioned pregnant/hormones/life of chaos, but I'll just have to get another new cut when that happens to because this couldn't wait. I need to take pictures and I'll do that soon....