Me: Joanna, why did I put you in time out?
Joanna: because I touched your computer.
Me: Why did you do that?
Joanna: because I was confused.
Natalie: I want my Gran.
Me: She isn’t here baby.
Natalie: But I want to love her in the rocking chair.
James: baa baa baa babababa
Last week Lisa took Joanna to her swim lesson, and she took a couple pictures and some video! To watch, go to this post on Lisa’s blog and scroll to the end. :) She’s such a cute little fish!
This was Tuesday. I was probably working on something on the computer and wanted James close-by while he was eating his toast. That’s why he’s in his high chair in the living room. :)
He loves toast. :)
Wednesday… Joanna’s last swim lesson at the Y!
We have been so pleased with her teacher this session, Miss Ann(e?). She’s like head of the department of something – very very good. Joanna has come so far in the last month!
I was very fortunate to be able to go to many of the lessons sans little kids, and they were happy to be at home with my mom. But they all came to the last lesson, and Natalie just wanted to get wet and swim! She started out in her regular clothes, but got pretty wet just sitting on the ground by the pool and putting her feet in, so I switched her over to her dress.
Isn’t she just the cutest little thing?! At one point, the kids in the lesson were all sitting on the wall, waiting to jump in, and she tried to sneak over and sit with them. Ha!
Joanna at the end of her lesson. She is such the little fish! I love how easily she’ll put her whole head in the water now.
Thursday was a lazy day for me… no pictures. I snuggled a lot with James while the girls were at school. I may have done a couple of chores, but mostly I read… a whole book. It felt good!
Friday afternoon our little friend Katie had her 3rd birthday party at a park nearby. We got there a little late b/c of James’ nap, but still had plenty of time to party! I took no pictures of my children. :)
After naps that I day I got brave and took all three to the bank and grocery store. (It’s actually not so bad, I just usually go with fewer of them!) I had James in the Ergo and the girls in the car cart. Pretty soon James will be able to sit up in the front seat of the shopping cart – I think he will love that! Anyway, so James spent most of the shopping trip just gazing up at me from the Ergo – it is so so so sweet. Toward the end though, he felt like I wasn’t paying him enough attention so he started to “talk” to me very very loudly. It was very cute but really loud! It made people smile though, which I just love.
Saturday I got to sleep in – wahoo!!! Then the girls and I went to “Abby Beesally’s” birthday party at Jumpalooza. Matt stayed home with James and it was just so so nice (for everyone, I think!). The girls are big enough to play on their own without getting into too much trouble. Natalie found a few things she could do all on her own and she did them and did them and did them, and I helped her with a few other things. Joanna didn’t really need my help at all. Oh, wait – one thing. Her buddy Anna came to me at one point saying Joanna was stuck I needed to come. I figured she needed help with something, but when I got there she was literally wedged between two big inflated walls where people were not intended to be. And she was crying kind of hysterically. After I pulled her out, I gave Anna a huge hug and told her how thankful I was she came and got me. I was almost in tears. I’m tearing up just writing about it! Joanna was totally fine, but I get scared thinking about what if she’d gotten stuck all by herself – how long would it have taken me to find her? How long until I even started looking? I love the buddy system!
On to happier things!
Natalie’s hair tie and clip got lost in all the jumpingness… oh, well. :)
At the very top of this ladder thing you can see the head of my tiny little Natalie. I could not believe she could climb up all by herself!! She did this one over and over and over and over…
I’m so impressed that Abby wrote her own name on the door! Go Abby! (Amy, I’ll be sending Joanna and Natalie over for school – when’s a good time?) :)
Pizza face:
Birthday girl with her mouth full of pizza!
Sweet Natalie and Emma.
They turned the lights out for “Happy Birthday.” It was very cool! Abby LOVED it!
It didn’t take long for Natalie to crash on the way home. I love how she’s clutching her goody bag. :)
Happy birthday our sweet Abby! It seems no time at all ago I visited you in the hospital the day after you were born. I remember your tiny feet, your big ol’ bows, and commiserating with your momma about our little babies who just wanted to cry! What a beautiful girl you are, and I’m so glad my girls are growing up with you!
Monday morning my friend Lisa called me and thankfully mentioned that we were hosting home group that evening. Whoops!! Missed that one coming! She also offered to take Joanna to swim lesson so I could stay home and clean and then have us all over for lunch so I could keep my kitchen clean! I am so thankful for good friends. Then my mom came over for an hour in the afternoon to entertain the children while I cleaned the bathroom.
Otherwise I would have had to tell everyone to go before they left the house. It was that bad. :)
This is a terrible, dark, grainy picture, but I just wanted to give a reference to basically what our little gathering looks like. (Natalie’s up on the couch reading her Bible!)
There were seven kiddos there. James (asleep the whole time) plus two Vandenberge girls, two Watson boys, and my girls.
They spent the evening going back and forth between the playroom and the front entry. I’m not exactly sure why this “room” holds such appeal, but it does!
Here they are having a little Bible study of their own!
It was so so sweet to watch them play. The big kids (Aiden, Anna, Joanna) swapped off being the teacher/leader, and the little kids (Seth, Natalie) followed them around. Emma played and played and played in the playroom and pushed the stroller and carried around bags. She wasn’t big on the games of the other ones. I am just so impressed at how well they played and got along. They were noisy, sure, but there were no major screaming issues or sharing issues. They were just so sweet!
At one point they started singing “Jesus Loves Me” so I grabbed my camera but I only caught the last few notes of it. It was the sweetest sound to hear those babies singing that song. They jumped right into “Old MacDonald had a farm” under the direction of Anna. I will put up that video in a separate post. It’s pretty cute. :)
My mother has an addiction…
…to matching dresses for my girls. She brought home a couple of matching sets for the girls last week. They wore this super-cute yellow set on Saturday to Ray’s 1st birthday party!!
I took zero more pictures at the party, but it was sooo cute! Ray did a great job digging into his birthday cake, and he tolerated opening presents. :) And he didn’t cry when everybody sang to him – a great party! I should have taken a picture of our gift to him but I didn’t. My friend Candice makes the cutest little snack bags so I bought a couple snack bags and one sandwich bag from her for Ray. Then we tucked some little goodies in each bag that would be a little more exciting for him. You can check out Candice’s bags here at her Etsy shop. She has such cute fabrics! And she has two boys so her “boy” fabrics are just the best! Ray got a baseball bag, a paw print bag, and a transportation bag from us.
Anyway…
Since it was Mother’s Day, I had to show off my “Mommy bling” from dropping all the kids off in nursery/Sunday school.
And this brings us to our next set of matchy dresses from Gran. Are we a handsome bunch, or what?
And then it was Daddy’s turn to hold the kids, but everybody wanted to be in his arms.
Matt knows he’s supposed to smile and not talk when it’s picture time, but this is still what I got. :)
Later we popped over to Mamma and Pop’s house to drop off the cards that the girls made. I took some pictures of James looking so stylish.
Isn’t he so so handsome?!
Last Tuesday we picked up our CSA box, and there was so much goodness in it, I wanted to have some for dinner.
So… I fried some zucchini (I could eat that stuff all day long; my family is lucky they got any.) I also baked some kale “chips”. I steamed beet greens and boiled beets. I also nuked some corn, which actually wasn’t in the box, but it was in the fridge and everybody likes corn on the cob.
Here are the beets; they didn’t make it into the first picture because it turns out that beets take like nine million years to cook.
Mmmmmm…
This was not at that same meal, but James got to have his first Cheerios last week. Mostly he just moved them around the tray and onto the floor, but I think he ingested some. :)
And a couple days ago I let him have some toast for the first time. He LOVES it! The boy really loves feeding himself, and he gnawed on every last gloppy bit of his toast stick.
He’s sitting in his high chair, polishing off half a piece of toast right now. Yum.
Last Tuesday was the parent’s tea at Joanna’s school for the three year old classes. We had cinnamon roll thingies, grapes, and lemonade! (or tea or water)
Joanna scarfed hers! (Look at sweet Anna in the background!)
We got to sit with our big ol’ kids (and little babies, as the case was) and talk and eat. It was nice.
Then they got up and sang a song for us. I really wanted them to do it again because some noisy kids were yelling through the beginning part and I couldn’t concentrate. :)
Look at all those cute preschoolers! Joanna is sixth from the right, FYI.
I can’t believe how big she is. And I can’t believe the school year is almost over. BOO HOO! Only two more weeks till “summer!” We are going to miss the routine of school this summer, but I’m planning some things to get us out of the house and put a little structure into the days. I’d happily stay home all day, day after day, but alas, my children need more stimulation than that. :)
