Traditions

Our children are incredibly blessed to have such wonderful, loving grandparents.  It's so neat to see relationships between each child and grandparent building.  Traditions are another thing we see emerging.  I caught some of this little tradition while celebrating Thanksgiving at the Fitch side.  Grandma Lola helps the girls in a Christmas cookie baking adventure, to help us transition from Thanksgiving celebration to Christmas spirit.

Oh friendly tooth fairy...

Olivia needs a visit once again tonight.  She was brave and nearly pulled this one out herself.  Mommy only had to take over once Olivia saw blood.  Her nervous, anxious, tearful mood changed instantaneously once that pesky snaggle-tooth was out.  She was suddenly all smiles and couldn't stop looking in the mirror and giggling, watching her tongue peek through that gigantic hole in her mouth!  Speaking was another fun little adventure.  Way to go Olivia!!!

Little Swimmer: Olivia

The girls have been taking swimming lessons for the past few weeks.  We have seen major improvements in their water comfort and swim-like abilities.  I will feel a lot more comfortable letting them hang out by the water next summer!  Can you believe Olivia says that she enjoys swim lessons more than dance?!?  Here are some terrible pictures of her in action.  (It's nearly impossible to get a decent shot through a double-paned window!)

a kick-board pro

again

My daughter... practicing diving?  who knew?

Olivia is the northern-most child...with her trusty noodle:)

More than meets the eye

It may appear that we're just washing dishes, but there is much more happening here.  These are some of the mothering moments I try to cherish and file in my mind and heart's "hard drive".  I don't want to forget these special moments... Yes, it's special because Olivia wants to help with chores, but also because it's a few moments of one-on-one time with my eldest child, a rare occasion.

How does a mother explain her yearning for alone time with each individual child?  I sometimes moon over those short 22 months that we had alone with each other.  Of course we are tremendously blessed to have our three little cherubs, but I do miss my baby Olivia.  I pray for wisdom in raising her, and also that I don't push her to mature too quickly.

I may be being a little bit too sentimental...it's been known to happen:)

Pot Pie

Who's a fan? I am, I am.  The rest of my family?  Not so much, so I'm enjoying leftovers.  But just wanted to share how especially beautiful it turned out.  I'm willing to make homemade pot pie for anyone who loves it as much as I do:)  Just throwing that offer out there...

The base recipe is here, with my own modifications, specifically substituting beef for the chicken.

Inside this pie is where our leftover roast ended up:)

Noises

Hope no one is longing for a deep, thought provoking post.  I simply don't have the capacity to think deeply when there is all this activity around me for most of my waking hours.  Plus, we're just far too busy making...ahem, tooting nosies.  Hee hee!

More Olivia Art

Olivia has presented us with a few more treasures we just HAD to share.  

This is her depiction of Jesse the Cowgirl, from Toy Story.  There is even a lasso, a cactus, and Bullseye the Horse!

This one is obviously the Nativity Scene.  She included with Baby Jesus, Mary, and Joseph a camel, the Star, and angels.  (I think this picture was for Olivia's Daddy:)

The View from Here

As long as I've known Matt, he has played guitar.  It's a talent of his that I enjoy more and more all the time.  Music is a huge part of our life and our family, so I was really glad when Matt decided to store his acoustic guitars in our living. room.  It's just another quality that makes our family a "little different"...good or bad:)  When Matt was playing around on his new instrument the other night, I got out my violin and played along a little.  The kids were wide-eyed and silent with jaws on the floor.

He's practicing Christmas tunes:)

His eyes glow red like that in real life too!  Ha!

Snow Angels

The kids could not wait to get out and play in the first snow of the season today.  We built a snowman immediately and also had a snowball "fight" and buried Olivia in the snow.

Gazing outside anxious to play.

All bundled up

Olivia has that look on her face like she's about to hit her sister with a snowball...

Practicing her aim.

Sylvia wants to practice too

Frosty!

This was the scene out of our front door this morning:

        

That could only mean one thing....

Sylvia LOVES the movie Frosty the Snowman and asks to watch it ALL year round.  It just doesn't seem right to watch it with no snow outside.  The girls discovered the winter wonderland this morning and Sylvia was more than excited to watch her favorite Christmas time classic.

Little Dipper

We could call Joey our little dipper.  Not that he resembles a constellation at all, but he does love to dip.  We've seen Joey engage in the most revolting dipping...hot dogs in yogurt, grapes in ranch dressing, pears in refried beans, watermelon in ketchup.  The list goes on and on.  Today for snack, I gave him no options.  He was forced to dip his carrot sticks into the french-onion veggie dip.

mmm

ahhh...nummy

Avocado

While I made guacamole the other night, the girls were very curious about the avocado.  Have they never seen the strange looking fruit/vegetable?  Guess not!  Once I got it sliced open, there was much nose-wrinkling as they gazed on the enormous pit and green mush I proceeded to scoop out of the bumpy black skin.  They love to help in the kitchen, so they were all about stirring up my guacamole, but were not in the adventurous, trying mood.  Best they would do was smell it.  I tasted it and it was delicious!  Went great with the turkey taco soup.

I'm not an avocado expert, but I believe it was a bit on the ripe side.

Chime in, anyone who knows anything about avocados.

Boy Toys

What a blessing to get to experience mothering girls and a boy!  I can't help but notice little differences in their development.  The girls seemed to be quite similar in their play styles.  Joey, on the other hand, has shown us an original approach to play.  It much more...well, boy!  Below are a couple of pictures of him with a plane and mini-van.  These toys got virtually no use out of the girls.  Our boy can't get enough!  He insists on pushing them two at a time, complete with sound effects.

Love the pink hat buddy!

Those tootsies must be cold...he will NOT leave socks on.

Sylvia's Art

It's challenging, but fun to see another child go through the various stages of learning.  We've noticed Sylvia's drawings of people getting a little more detailed.  These mini-magna-doodles are a life saver for us.  They go EVERYWHERE with us!  Check out the latest edition of Sylvia's "person drawing".

Disgruntled because she forgot eyelashes. (Apparently they're a BIG deal to her)

She decided it was okay as-is and smiled for me:)

Lake Visit

The little kids and I took Great-Grandma Evelyn lunch today...chili from the freezer, low stress:)  It was great to sit and catch up with Grandma while the kids zoned out to Super-Why on PBS.  Grandma fell last week and broke some ribs, so we wanted to lend a helping hand.  She is doing remarkably better than a few short days ago, when she could barely move a muscle!  As usual, she still found it necessary to spoil us with some goodies from her freezer.  Side note: as a child, visiting Grandma and Grandpa Fullmer always meant we'd be eating well, with a selection of anything Hostess or Sara Lee as well as POP!  Grandma is the same in that respect, she pulled some frozen treats out for the kids and even offered them pop.  Thankfully, the weather is still gorgeous here, even at the lake.  So we hung out on the patio after lunch and watched the bubbles float across the road and over the lake.  I was on mission for Mom, who wanted to know just how Grandma was doing...but as usual, we were the ones blessed by the visit.

Grandma let the wind blow her bubbles.

Joey ate more bubbles than he blew.

Here is the bubble-pro in action.

Just a funny face I had to share.  (pretty sure the bird in the picture was unintentional)

New Guitar

For my birthday I decided to take a break from buying hi-tech digital thing-a-ma-widgets and get an acoustic guitar.  After all, it had been a good 6 years since my last guitar acquisition.  I was lucky enough to find a nice used guitar in my price range online, though you can't even tell it's used.  It is an electric-acoustic with a built-in tuner, which I think is pretty awesome.  I haven't played guitar in quite a while so it was great to play again...my fingers are quite sore.

It's a Fender!

Busy, busy, busy!

This week, I'm just doing my best to keep our crazy schedule straight!  Matt's MIA as this week is parent-teacher conferences in Spencer...and when he is home, he's absolutely wiped out, mentally and physically drained.  Thankfully, he'll get Friday off to recuperate from all his long hours.  Today found me at a MOPS meeting.  I'm new to the group, but feel so blessed already as the ladies in the group were super-inviting and welcomed me right in.  It was also very convenient because they had childcare during the meeting:)  I also baked ham balls, prepared enchiladas for Matt and the kids for this weekend, and have a turkey-taco soup in the crockpot for the kids and I to enjoy tonight.  Before tonight's meal though, I get to go talk to Miss Schimmer, Olivia's teacher, about her progress in kindergarten.  After the conference and supper, I'm going to Bible study.  My, oh my...I'm going to fall into bed tonight and sleep hard!

Sorry for no pictures or reports on the children's happenings...they just haven't done anything even remotely interesting or picture-worthy in the last few days...JUST KIDDING!  But we have been too busy to catch any of their antics on film.  Maybe we'll do better next week:)

Did I mention Thursday is one of my laundry days?  Duty calls.  Until next time, God bless YOU!

Floor plans

As you may have seen, we visited Dyersville the other day to check out model homes, model modular homes.  The more we research, the more it seems this will be a good option for us in our house-hunting quest.  We'd love to get some input from any of you.  Every little tid-bit of information helps bring us closer to a decision and ultimately our home!  Please share if you are so inclined:)  Also, check out a couple of the floor plans we like (by clicking on the link) and tell us what you see as pros and cons of each.  We like the Talmadge II, the Carlisle, and the Fullerton.

Hoarders?

Every week, when I'm pulling off bedding to go into the wash, Sylvia and Joey end up with piles of "lovies" sitting outside of their beds.  It's almost as if each week, they've managed to fit one or two more friends into bed with them.  Not to mention, they are both fitting themselves, their blankies, their pillows, and all their buddies onto crib-sized mattresses!  How this is even comfortable for sleeping, I'll never know...but that is what they prefer:)  Check out the piles.

Sylvia's pile

Joey's pile

After I've washed their bedding, these piles get tossed back onto their beds, just as they like it.  I've even tried to keep some of Joey's out, but he notices right away if there is one missing and begs us to find the missing lovie!