Quite the busy week

This week has just been full of interesting things. I finished the bunk bed last weekend and the kids have just loved it to pieces since we assembled it. The set of stairs as opposed to a ladder is a total winner. They both run up and down it just for the fun of it multiple times a day. The bed ended up a tad higher than I expected it to be, but with the railings, the kids seem to do really well on it. We've already outlawed jumping on the top bunk, so without that it feels alright safety wise. I certainly was concerned about it once we had it all setup and the kids were going wild, but as expected they calmed down and that helped me to relax a bit as well. Genevieve took one very slow motion tumbled off the staircase one day and that's all it took for her to be careful on it. We've done some very fun things with it already, such as some good old indoor hammocking yesterday. The kids loved it so much:

Another thing I did this week is get well on my way to finishing Genevieve's bed. I'm just building her a platform bed to slide under the bunk bed. It'll only be about 18 inches off the ground, if even that. The wood is all cut and sanded and I'm just waiting for a good time to to stain it and then it can be assembled. I have some polyurethane on order that won't come for a few days, so I'm not in a huge rush to get it done. For the moment her mattress is just on the floor and that works just fine. She looks so ridiculously tiny when she's asleep on a full-sized mattress, but it's awesome at night when we're doing our bedtime routine and reading stories. We can all pile on that bed and it's fun.

Our apartment started to feel like a construction zone this week because we took down both the toddler bed and the crib in order to put the kids' room together. They hung out in our hallway stacked up all week and the wood for Genevieve's bed is half in our living room and half on our back porch. It was getting a bit crowded, so Bill and I tackled another somewhat big project, re-organizing our storage garage, yesterday morning. That makes me feel so much better. The toddler bed found a home in the back of that, as we won't need it for a long time, our bikes are able to just be wheeled in there now instead of getting stacked on top of everything, and we can actually walk in and out. What a relief! The crib is just stored in the corner of our office for the moment, but that's fine until we want to pull it out. It'll be a while because I have an awesome mini crib my friend lent me that will last for probably six months.

Since I was in the middle of several projects, plus trying to read my book club book for the month before I had to take the book back, I figured heck, why not start something new? I had seen a tutorial to make some of those gauze blankets that are all the rage for a way cheaper price than they come at the stores, so I've been working on some of those. I've still got several to make, but they are going to be amazing and those lucky souls that I give them to, plus my baby here in a couple months, are going to be very happy. :)

Oh, and one other very exciting thing happened this week. I did my level best to break my pinkie toe walking it into the leg of my desk on Friday. Oh did it hurt! Still does, actually. I don't think it's broken but it's got a lovely bruise and is super sore when it gets bumped or moved around. It doesn't really matter if it's broken or sprained or just bruised. I'm sure it'll take a while to feel better. For now I'm just avoiding my children's feet as much as possible. It's amazing how many times they step on mine in a day. Please ignore my somewhat chubby pregnancy feet anyway in this picture. I just feel like showing off the impressive bruise. It was a bit darker the first day, but I don't often get good bruises, so this one is impressive. Case in point, the headboard of the toddler bed totally crashed on my shoulder yesterday while we were moving stuff around in the storage garage. There's a huge sore spot there without the slightest hint of color showing.

And finally, amidst all the rest of the craziness going on around here, the kids just continue to do amusing things. Case in point, the way Genevieve decided was comfortable to play a game on Bill's tablet:

Or the way they watched a movie together one day this week:

Teaser

The loft bed is essentially done! I'm just waiting on it to dry before we assemble it and I have to cut the slats to hold the mattress tomorrow. It looks great, but since I haven't taken any pictures of it and am not going to until it's all assembled, everyone will just have to take my word for it. :)

Next on the list: build Genevieve's platform bed to go under it. Well, for now it'll just be a mattress on the floor until I save a few funds to get the wood, but it'll be super cheap to build, so no worries. It's going to be this bed sans headboard. I was about to say I wasn't going to modify it at all this time around, but actually I'm going to change the legs for something nicer, so nevermind. Good times.

Oh, and building a bed during my third trimester? Surprisingly not that bad. The first few days I worked on it were hard because I was moving a lot of wood around and that made me tired, but I actually ended up finding some more efficient methods of doing some things since my back or legs or some other body part would get tired and sore more easily. Bonus for me!

Happy Mother's Day!

I like Mother's Day. It's nice. It doesn't make me feel inadequate or like I'm doing a terrible job. Yesterday was a good day. Everything wasn't perfect. I have a really strange cold that is playing havoc on my ears. Yet church was nice. I got to work on Spencer's bunk bed during the afternoon and chat with Bill while he made a delightful dinner. The kids were somewhat crazy, but honestly, that's the phase they're in, so it's pretty normal. Life is pretty ordinary right now, in that good kind of ordinary where lots of things are right and the things that aren't I can handle. I'll take it!

Real adults

Bill and I have entered the world of real adulthood. Why, you ask? Weren't we already adults? I mean we're in our late 20s/early 30s, so doesn't that just automatically happen? Well maybe, but yesterday we made a defining decision that makes us actual adults. We went out and bought a minivan. lol!

See this is the thing. He and I regularly get mistaken for early 20s or sometimes even teenagers. I think I do less now because I usually have a couple of tagalongs with me and of course I'm pregnant, but honestly, if I didn't have the kids and wasn't wearing my wedding ring, I wouldn't be terribly surprised if I got sidelong looks wondering why I was so young and pregnant. This isn't a bad thing, I know. I appreciate that in 20 years if we still look super young that others might be jealous. I hope the young genes stick around. I like them. By the same token, it's nice to be taken seriously. If I roll up in a minivan and my two and soon to be three kids hop out, there's no question I am at least somewhat capable. :) But when we explode like sardines out of the tiny Elantra? Yeah, that gets no respect.

Hahahaha! Whether any of that is true or not, I'm really excited about the fact that we got our van now. We had planned to wait until after next year's tax return and get a new-ish model, but after talking through our Dave Ramsey financial advice influenced goals, we realized we were going about this purchase all wrong. I had a couple good conversations with my mom and sister this last week that triggered a great conversation with Bill about what we really wanted and needed at this point. So rather than getting suckered in looking at pretty new van options, we decided the best idea would be to get a van not necessarily much newer than the Hyundai we already had, with a reasonable number of miles on it, and have it get us through the rest of grad school and hopefully a while longer. At some future point we can upgrade if we like, but for now it's really just that we need more seats and cargo room than in our current vehicles, not that we needed an upgrade or could even really afford one. I have been feeling uneasy about the whole purchasing a vehicle thing for a while now because it didn't feel like the financial part was going to work right, but this all fell into place literally Friday night. We ended up searching online for a few hours that night, found a promising van fairly close by, went out there Saturday to test drive, and ultimately negotiated what felt like a very good deal on it that we were able to pay for with the cash we've been saving. What a fantastic feeling!

So there you have it. We are official minivan owners and quite pleased about it. And now for a tip or two on what made the buying process way easier. First, shopping online is wonderful. We didn't have to drag the kids from dealer to dealer and deal with asking the salespeople to show us what they had. Since it was last minutes, we took them with us. Instead we just went in, said we wanted to test drive this one vehicle, and then negotiated from there when it fit our needs. If it hadn't been what we wanted, we would have just left and gone to our next option another day. Two, we had a plan for what we wanted to spend, so nothing they said made us suddenly interested in blowing our budget. Three, we did our research beforehand on this particular vehicle and what Kelly Blue Book said it was worth. The dealership was one where they claimed they set good prices so no negotiation was needed, but they were still way higher than they ought to be. Since we printed off the KBB report and brought it in, we had a place to negotiate from and were able to come up with a deal that worked for both of us. Knowledge is power! Four, I'm pretty sure bringing along two little kids made the whole process go faster. No salesperson shooting the breeze just because, dragging stuff out. It still took a lot longer than I expected to do the paperwork, despite not doing any financing. My heavens, they need to speed that process up, but we made it through. :) Anyway, it was fun and I really appreciated being armed with some understanding of how to negotiate. Thank you Negotiations class in my Master's degree program!  You have come in handy yet again!

2006 Nissan Quest. 

Spencer-isms

Spencer has also been doing some awesome things lately, which I would much rather remember over the crazy 3-year old rough times, so here's his list of awesome things he does:

-He has an exceptionally good memory, as I've often mentioned. He watches a movie of some kind most days for some quiet time and he has all his favorites memorized. He throws out movie quotes all day long and even does the voices. He's also started modifying the quotes to work with different situations, which is so fun to see his imagination at work doing.

-He loves to count and can count to 100 or more. He is convinced that fifty is pronounced five-tee. Five-tee one, five-tee two... It's cute.

-The bottom half of our hall linen closet is full of blankets. He loves to cuddle up in them. Sometimes he sits on top of them and shuts himself into the closet, which he thinks is hilarious. More often he pulls all the blankets out into the hallway and then lays on the floor. I can't blame them. I took a nap amongst the pile of blankets yesterday after he had pulled them out and it was fantastic.

-We didn't teach him all the niceties of polite speech until much older than we have Genevieve. That's our own fault, but now we're working on teaching him to be more polite, and it's really endearing when he pulls out his full and complete sentences asking for things. He is very articulate, so adding the polite factor into things is just awesome.

-He is a lover of all things orange, but particularly his clothes. He has an orange pair of underwear he would wear 24/7 if given the chance. Same with a particular pair of socks and gym shorts. He has plenty of clothes, but he wears those particular ones all.the.time. I draw the line at wearing dirty underwear and socks, but it's quite the battle at times.  We even bought a bunch more pairs of orange underwear and socks and he still prefers the old ones. Wah wah. lol

-He has been in a hard core mom loving phase for quite a while now. He would really love to have me be there wherever he is and whatever he's doing. It's endearing and frustrating all mixed into one. He seems to be moving out of it a bit at a time now though. He told me today he wanted to go outside and a minute later I heard the door open and close and he was gone. Whoa! Unexpected! He didn't go far and it was all good, but I was really surprised. Usually he won't go anywhere if I'm not a few steps behind. He highly prefers me over Bill at the moment and we're working on him being more polite about his requests.

-He is quite the cuddler. He gives the best hugs and kisses. Occasionally he comes and finds me and squeezes both my cheeks and plants a big kiss right on my mouth. I used to hate that kind of thing, but I've certainly gotten past that. :) Genevieve has been watching apparently, because she just did the same thing to Bill a moment ago. Cute kids!

-He is pretty proud that he knows his whole name as well as mine, Bill's, Genevieve's, and the new baby's, plus all our ages, the month we are born, and the color of our hair and eyes. He tells me at least once a day all of that information.

-He has been scared of dogs and small animals in general for quite a while, but we have the sweetest neighborhood cat that basically lives on the balcony upstairs. Daily now the three of us go outside and sit on the steps and the cat joins us. Both Spencer and Genevieve just love to pet her, and she's a really gentle cat that's good with kids. I'm super pleased that he has overcome that part of his fear now. She used to scare him a lot. Now he thinks she's great. He tells me he likes to pet her back and Genevieve likes to pet her head.

-He loves to pull all the pillows off our couch and jump onto them. Maybe one day if we have a really nice couch I won't like that as much, but who knows, maybe I won't care, because for now it's just fun. Both kids have a great time and that's good enough for me.

-He loves, loves, loves hats. He has some pretty snazzy hats that he wears all over the place--a taxi driver style hat, an Indiana Jones kind of one from my brother, a trucker baseball cap. He wears them all with such good style and taste. He's always getting compliments on his hat wearing. :)

-He has really started to get into playing with his Duplo legos. We're thinking when he is four will be the best time to start getting him actual Legos and I think he's going to be in heaven.

-He also prefers running around mostly naked to any clothes. I can't blame him. It looks really comfy.

-He sings all the time now--primary songs, songs from his favorite movies, and little made up songs too. He has pretty good pitch, which is fun to hear.

-He is really excited about the new baby. He told me today that our baby is going to be born in about ten weeks. I had mentioned that at playgroup this morning and I was pretty impressed that he picked up that bit of information as he was playing near us. We talk a lot about the new baby and what is his and stuff like that. Spencer thinks that's pretty great. I think he's going to be such a good helper when he actually does arrive.

Genevieve-isms

Lately Genevieve has been saying and doing some totally hilarious things and I want to remember them. In no particular order:

-She is super polite. She just told Bill thank you for changing her diaper. She says please when she wants something. It's so, so, so refreshing.

-Earlier this week she learned how to do a summersault on our bed. She did it again and again and it was so fun until she summersaulted off the side of the bed. Oops. She hasn't summersaulted since, but I'm sure she'll be back at it soon enough.

-She is obsessed with facial features. She repeats over and over, "nose, eyes, mouth" and sometimes adds in hair and ears. She'll point it out on her dog, on our faces, and this afternoon on our friendly neighborhood cat that she loves to pet.

-She's taken to giving compliments. They all take the form, "Nice something." Compliment number one went to Spencer. She told him "nice ear!" the other day. She's saying it about everything now.

-She can count to three and is quite pleased about it. We count to three all the time doing random things and she's picked it right up.

-She has become quite the little tyrant when it comes to bedtime clothing. One night I even had to go put a shirt on her after she was asleep because she utterly refused clothes going to bed. She much prefers Spencer's clothes to wear to bed most of the time, though she is very fond of her purple with pink polka dot pajama shorts. Actually she also really likes cute clothes, so we probably ought to pick up some summer PJs, but for now she looks adorable in Spencer's oversized t-shirts.

-A friend gave her a huge bag of clothes today. It had two pairs of church shoes in it, one white shoes with tiny little heels. She adores them already and has worn them all day long.

-She is learning language at warp speed. She is putting together full sentences now, albeit short ones, and it is incredible to watch. She mimics everything we say and then integrates it into her vocabulary. She's got a pretty good array of words she says when things go wrong. Oops, oh geez, oopsies, etc. She says excuse me but it comes out "oh me." It gets me every time. She still talks in total gibberish to us too, which is entertaining as she expects us to understand and respond correctly.

-She's got some books memorized already and will help us read them.

-She thinks one of the best things to do is body slam us when we're laying down. It's really fun until someone gets whomped. Tonight it was me when she full on head butted me in the bridge of my nose. She and Spencer will roll around wrestling and they just laugh and laugh and laugh.

-She loves to climb up slides so she can slide down without having to go around. She is quite the little monkey. She's started exploring all the alternate ways to climb up the jungle gyms and is picking up on it fast.

-She would much rather be naked than have any clothes on these days. Sometimes she will leave one shoe on too. :)

-Her favorite movie is Finding Nemo. She requests it by asking for Fish! Spencer used to love that movie too, but now he's like, dude, I don't want to watch it again! lol.

-She's fearless but at the same time cautious. She doesn't like heights if she doesn't feel in control, which is an interesting combination since she loves to climb. It has evolved into her being exceptionally good at getting where she wants to go without much chance of falling. She is just a really good climber and I worry a lot less about her falling than I expected I would when I discovered that inclination a year or so ago.

-As her hair is getting longer the ends are curling into ringlets. I love it. Her hair is kind of a mix of blonde and red in the back so I'm interested to see what color it gets once it grows a lot more. My fingers are crossed it stays red. I think it will based off the color of her eyebrows and eyelashes, but we'll see.

-She loves eating. She also loves to sit on the table when she eats, particularly if she can swipe food from others while she's doing it. We have a constant battle going on teaching her to stay in her chair, but it's an entertaining battle because she just loves to climb up and jump and dance and it's really cute at the same time as being kind of annoying.

-Speaking of jumping, she adores jumping and will yell "Jump!" as she makes the attempt. She has been doing it for about a month where she crouches all the way down and then jumps with all her might. Until this week she couldn't catch any air at all so it was highly entertaining to watch. But now she's figured out the mechanics and she can jump a couple inches off the ground. She just loves it.

-She really just revels in learning new skills. She is so excited to show them off to us and she just finds obvious enjoyment in life. I really hope she keeps that as she heads into her two and three year old years.

The Daily Grind

I was trying to think of what to blog about yesterday and nothing really came to mind. We've done a few fun things lately, but nothing huge. The weather here is nice as I see lots of my friends and family having last snowstorms, but that's not really worth writing about. I guess I'm mostly just consumed with the day-to-day struggles of parenthood and am not seeing much beyond that for the moment. I wake up a lot of mornings feeling fine, but as soon as the normal struggles happen I find my patience is non-existent or I just can't think of a good way to handle what is thrown at me. It's been a bit rough lately.

I chalk it up to a few things. One, my third trimester is in full force and with it all the uncomfortable symptoms. It seems there is a tradeoff between feeling rested and my body feeling good. The nights I sleep all the way through the night I invariably wake up with a super sore back or shoulders or hips from not moving around much. But if I wake up a bunch all night to adjust or go to the bathroom, then I'm not well rested in the morning and that's no fun either. As usual I am carrying this baby all in front, so my lower back is getting pretty strained. That certainly makes my patience vault less full. I have 10 or 11 weeks left, and I'm really looking forward to that time flying by. Thankfully it feels like it has really sped up. The first couple trimesters dragged a lot, but this third trimester is clipping right along, a fact that I thoroughly appreciate.

Another thing is that parenting a 3-year old is pretty serious business. Spencer pushes my parenting abilities constantly. It's amazing how very inflexible kids can be at that age. Genevieve is pushing two and joining the club with her own set of challenges. She is so independent, the trademark of that age, and the levels of frustration she feels are pretty epic. I have a hard time not laughing sometimes, though that's much better than lots of responses. The two of them alternate between being best buds and enemies who steal each other's toys with the sole intent of bugging the other, or at least that's what it appears they are thinking. It's pretty exciting around here, to say the least.

So yeah, daily struggles. Like my friend often says, the days are long but the years are short. I really can't believe Genevieve will be two in just a few months. Spencer is already nearly 3 1/2. Time is a flyin' whether it feels like it in the moment or not. Bill will be done with the master's part of his degree in December if all goes as planned and at that point we'll have been here for two years. Hard to believe.

All that being said, despite so many daily frustrations, my kids never cease to amaze me. Genevieve is a total sponge. She adores Spencer and is so adept at imitating him. She loves to do anything he's doing. Spencer blows me away all the time with all the things he is learning. He doesn't even try, he just absorbs everything around him and it comes back out of his mouth and actions in his own creative way. The kid can count to 100 for heaven's sake! Genevieve is pretty proud of herself that she can count to three. :) I'm right in the middle of all their awesome development and sometimes all I want to do is tell everyone about it so they can agree that my kids are the coolest. lol. Sometimes things are rough, but I'm really glad I'm here doing this right now. I wouldn't change the decisions that got me here for anything. It's a nice feeling to have.

This boy literally takes the lower half of his church outfit off the instant he is two steps in the door, but he was still stylin' yesterday on top. :)

This dress is to die for. Sweater dress, purple flower, cute model. Good things all around.

Good Advice

We had an unexpected trip to the pediatrician yesterday for an issue Spencer was having. It wasn't a huge thing, but something where Bill and I needed some outside advice to help us work through it. I was able to have a great conversation with the PA there about that issue plus a couple others we have been working through for a long time. It really helped me clarify my thoughts on how I want to tackle certain issues as well as provided me with much needed information that the internet and talking to other people just hasn't done for me. I love, love, love my pediatrician's office. She is great, her PA is great, and I love her nurses. We don't have too many reasons to go there besides well kid checks, but whenever we do I always get the best help.

I've only been a parent for three years yet I've discovered that it's really hard to get good advice about parenting challenges. Or not even parenting, just taking care of my kids' needs. Everyone has something to say on a subject, but it's a lot harder to find someone or a place that has information that actually pertains to a particular issue rather than just opinions or anecdotal information about how it worked for their kid. I've certainly run into things that are different than the typical child experience most people seem to be having, and had so much bad advice given to me on those topics. It has given me pause to think and make sure I don't flippantly pass out advice myself to others as if what I do is the gold standard and will definitely work for everyone else. It just isn't the case. Each kid is so unique and sometimes we struggle with things with our kids that are just different than what others experience. It's a good lesson to learn.

But back to actually getting good advice, I really, really, really appreciate the occasional gold nugget of information or person I come in contact with that has really insightful, useful things to say that help me out. It really makes this parenting maze easier to navigate. So here's to good friends, good doctors, and finding the right people to help when challenges pop up. It makes those moments when parenthood seems really lonely and hard to find the answers a little easier to bear.

Easter

We had a fantastic Easter this year. The young women in the ward hosted an Easter Egg hunt Thursday. The kids totally got into it. They both got a bunch of eggs, including Genevieve snagging one of the golden eggs that had $5 in it. Score for her! They made quick work of all the candy.

Saturday morning we headed to a park in town for the annual Clemson City Easter Egg Hunt. Basically they use a bunch of baseball fields and scatter hundreds of eggs on each field. Then the kids break up into age groups and one after another go clear their fields. It's pretty fantastic. The oldest kids they make a course in the woods next to the park. This year it was just horrible weather. The hunt ended up getting pushed back an hour, but we were already there so we kind of just wandered around. Thankfully the rain let up but it was cold and blustery. Everything was soaked. The kids did surprisingly well having to wait that long. Spencer was pretty bothered, but he found ways to entertain himself, like climbing all over bleachers and jumping off stairs. Genevieve found every single puddle and jumped in it. That girl!

Sunday some of our friends invited us over to their house for Easter dinner. It was so nice of them! They have a tradition where instead of hiding eggs they just hide the whole baskets and the kids have to go find them. Their yard is just a bit woodsy, so it it's perfect for it. We just had a fantastic time at their house. They have two primary-aged girls that just love Spencer and Genevieve and towed them around the entire time we were there. The kids got more and more comfortable the longer we stayed. They had a couple other families from the neighborhood over, so it was fun to get to know them a bit. We had a really fantastic meal and then mostly lounged around on the back deck chatting while the kids played and consumed huge quantities of chocolate and candy. Can't ask for a much better Easter as a kid. :)

Her adorable Easter outfit from Grandma Suzanne. She was so ridiculously tired after church and she would not take her hand out of her mouth for anything. I don't blame her. I get tired after church too. :)

Literally 30 seconds after we got in the house Spencer had his shoes, socks, and pants off, so this is the top half of his Easter outfit. He has a really cute 3-piece suit I'll get a picture of another time that was supposed to be for Easter but he wore it last week because he saw it and loved it so much. He has good taste.

It really does get better and better each year the kids get older celebrating these holidays. Last year Spencer literally picked up one egg at the city hunt and was content with that. This year he thought it was great fun to run around picking up particular colors, and Genevieve caught on plenty quick and was all over that too. Now to just hide the rest of the candy and only let it come out very slowly. My goodness they were so wired all this weekend!

Reading

Spencer has a phenomenal memory and loves to read books, so he has tons and tons memorized. Here's him reading one of his recent favorites. Bill and I both think that when he actually decides he wants to read the words he'll learn to read in a snap. He's memorizing these books essentially by accident now, but I can only imagine the things he'll accomplish when he starts putting his mind to doing things. I love watching him develop all these new skills and talents! 

Singing

I've been trying for years to get Spencer to sing and he just won't do it. That is, until about two weeks ago. Now he's our little virtuoso. I'm not surprised, but it turns out he knows the words to essentially all the primary and kid songs we sing them each night and whenever else we sing songs. He's been singing himself to sleep loud and proud every night for days and days now. I wouldn't be surprised if when Genevieve gets a bit older and able to verbalize this she is like, "Geez Spencer, will you just stop singing!" lol. He sings so many songs. I love it. Here's a sample.

Ice cream of their very own

We have an ice cream shop here that is a lot like Coldstone. We took the kids there last Friday as part of a family date of sorts. Spencer has been up and down about ice cream at different points in his life so I didn't know if he'd want any. We got there and started sampling some flavors and he wanted to try the bright blue cotton candy one. He loved the color and when I asked him if he wanted some of his own he gave a generally positive response. He's not always clear on what he wants to eat, so I thought, heck, let's go for it and see if he really wants it. We ordered a cup of blue ice cream for he and Genevieve to share with mini marshmallows and sprinkles in it. It was their very first ice cream of their own we've ever bought them. Big milestone here, folks. He loved it! That kid inhaled the ice cream and was so wired and happy afterward. It was fun. Genevieve has been going through a bit of a stage where she says whose everything is, so Spencer's this and Spencer's that and Mommy's this, etc. She kept saying Spencer's ice cream and we reassured her that it was hers too. She was only too happy to eat her share of the bright blue stuff. Bill and I both tried it and hated it, but blue ice cream is blue ice cream and I can't imagine any kid turning it down no matter what the flavor. :)

New Clothes, Easter Eggs, Hair Dos and the Finished Mini Crib

Grandma Suzanne sent a bunch of new clothes our way last week. We haven't done a fashion show of all the new clothes, but I'm trying to take pictures of the kids as they wear new outfits. They are just darling. This morning they were kind enough to pose for me. It's so hard to get either one of them to stop long enough and then smile to get a good shot, so I was super pleased to get such a good shot of Spencer.

We went to our ward's Easter Egg Hunt today. The young women hosted it and it turned out fantastic. The kids had a ball. Last year at the city Easter Egg Hunt I think Spencer got one egg. He was totally satisfied with that. Yeah, this year he and Genevieve were both all over hunting eggs. They came back with quite the haul. Genevieve even found one of a few golden eggs that had $5 in it. Score for her! They immediately wanted to play with the new playdough when they got home.

Genevieve's hair is growing like crazy. Poor child, her hair grows in really crazy directions all over her head. Hopefully when it thickens up it will lay a little more flat, but for now we can do some ridiculously awesome after bath hair dos on her. She loves it.

My friend is letting me borrow an adorable antique mini crib for baby #3. It was a bit rickety and needed a coat of paint when I got it, so I finally got to working on it yesterday and today. Two coats of white paint later and some 1x2s attached to the length of the crib in case our older kids decide to hop in sometime, and it's much sturdier. We thought about putting some corner braces on to make it even more sturdy from twisting, but decided it's not going to have that kind of stress on it, so for now the 1x2s should do the job. It's stinkin' adorable. It's about the size of a bassinet, so it will hold him probably until he's six months old, which is great.

We don't have a place for him set in stone, but the mini crib fits nicely by my bed for now and we'll start it out there. It's so lightweight and narrow that we could easily just move it to a random room when needed once he arrives and we see what kind of sleeper he will be. Spencer slept in our room for his first four months and that worked really well. Genevieve was in her own room probably at three weeks old. She was much too loud a sleeper and she and I both woke each other up. So who knows how #3 will be. I'm flexible. He can sleep in our room or in the hallway or the living room. Eventually he'll move in with the kids, but not until he sleeps through the night and also not until they figure out how to go to sleep faster. We're working through that now. Hopefully by the time he arrives they won't stay up as long each night. Who knows. They'll have new beds sometime soon so that will be a change and we'll see how it affects their going to sleep at night. Teaching little kids to go to sleep on their own is quite the experience!

Living Room Camping

A picture of both kids smiling. Hallelujah! They loved, loved, loved having the tent set up in our living room.  

I brought their pillows out and they just loved it. 

Pillow, dog, blanket = happy Genevieve.

Spencer giving Genevieve a kiss. What a sweetheart!

Just chillin' in Spencer's sleeping bag. We need to get her one sometime very soon. 

They seemed to think this little fleece blanket sewn into a sleeve worked pretty well as a sleeping bag. It's supposed to be a sleeping bag liner, but it's a bit snug. 

He brought all his guys in to play with. Happy boy.

Jumping and Dancing

Genevieve has recently decided Spencer's clothes are super comfy to wear, so she always brings various articles of clothing to me so I can help her put them on. She has really cute clothes of her own, but that doesn't stop her. She looks so, so, so much like Spencer when she's wearing his clothes, especially since they're not even very big on her, which is startling. 

She and Spencer both have taken to jumping off high surfaces onto pillows, the air mattress like in this video, or they even just run and jump and bounce off the couch. It's hilarious. It does leave Bill and I wondering what it'll be like once we build the loft bed though... Should be exciting. hahaha!

Also, in case you are wondering, this is what dancing means to Miss Genevieve. She's quite the entertaining little lady.

Talking

Based on my vast experience with two children (note the heavy irony of that statement), I've decided my kids talk early. Whether that is a true statement or not doesn't matter because really I just love watching them develop their vocabulary and I like that it starts so soon. Genevieve has started putting together some two-word phrases to go with her decently large one-word vocabulary. It's fantastic to see her picking up so many new concepts and verbalizing. She'll repeat anything we ask her to say. Lately she's been picking up new words from Spencer, which I particularly love to watch. She is quite a bit more interactive in her speech than Spencer was at this age, so that's fun too. He was very into labeling the world around him. He had a massive vocabulary of nouns and adjectives at a very young age and an incredible memory, so he picked up words lightning fast. Genevieve likes to talk to get her point across and generally to get something she wants. Her vocabulary is also jumping in leaps and bounds. It's definitely the age. She's 19 months old now, which is the same age Spencer was when she was born and I remember he was so much easier to talk to at that point because of the large vocabulary and understanding.

So here's a few things Genevieve has been saying lately that I like:

-back on - she has gotten super particular about choosing clothes and especially shoes. If we take something off, even to change her diaper, that she wants on, she very forcefully tells us to put it "back on!"

-Daddy sleep or Spencer sleep - I came home yesterday to find Bill asleep while Spencer watched a movie and Genevieve playe around him. She saw me, pointed at him, and said, "Daddy. sleep."

-out - this means pick me up and/or get me down from this chair, I'm done eating. Another word she uses very forcefully. :)

-cookie, candy, graham cracker, cracker, milk, juice, water, fish (goldfish), snacks (fruit snacks)... - The little lady enjoys her food. She eats like a champ and let's us know if she sees something she wants. She eats lots more things than these, but the snacks have way easier words than like spaghetti casserole or currey. :)

-shoes, boots - what 19 month-old has multiple words for shoes? lol. She loves her shoes, Spencer's, mine, Bill's. Doesn't matter, she wants to wear them all.

-car, tree, flower, dirt - she likes to label things when we go outside too.

-guys - refers to the duplo figures. She and Spencer fight over them like any good sibling would.

-Spencer, Genevieve, Daddy, Mommy - She has our names down great and she'll repeat names for other family members, though I haven't heard her say them on her own.

-Bless you - whenever we sneeze she's all over making sure we're polite. :)

-please, thank you, you're welcome. We didn't teach Spencer these niceties until he was a bit older. It's delightful to hear her itty bitty voice be so polite.

Those are all I can think of for the moment. I'm sure she has more, those are just what come to mind at the moment.

And in other news, she also has very questionable taste in clothing, though very definite opinions about what she wants to wear. :)

 And I can't end without a picture of Spence. We have a hard time getting good pictures of either kid since they never stop moving, but I caught this one last night when we were doing the bedtime routine.