Baby Food for Elise

I can't believe how fast time goes sometimes.  All of a sudden it's more than time to start someone on the next phase of their life.  I have been putting off baby food for a long time in fear that the sweet smells of new baby will be a thing of the past.

But the waking up multiple times a night and her small size really made me motivated.  So far Elise loves the pears and apples baby food and sometimes peaches.  I can get her to eat smooshed avocado and I'm glad because it's got all that good nice fat.  We've tried things like carrots and peas only to have her lose her lunch at the next nap.
 I usually mix a little baby cereal in with it so she gets the nutrition and iron she needs.  She tolerates apple juice but really loves a little bottle of water, more as a toy than for drinking.  We captured a few of the first attempts at peaches.

In other changes, she has become too mobile for the bumbo in the center of the table to feed her, so we officially got out the high chair.  It's a little less convenient not facing her when I eat my meals and feed her at the same time, but it's fine.  She is also officially out grown the 3/4th portion of the Pack and Play so we put together the crib.  She looks so tiny in it!  Changes, changes....

The Children's Hour

I heard of this poem a while ago and finally found it.  I liked the idea that there was an hour in the day that parents and children played.  And how great that it's by someone famous.

Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day's occupation,
That is known as the children's hour.

I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.

From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.

A whisper and then a silence:
Yet I know by their merry eyes,
They are plotting and planning together,
To take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway,
A sudden raid from the hall!
By three doors left unguarded
They enter my castle wall!

They climb up into my turret
O'er the arms and back of my chair;
If I try to escape, they surround me,
They seem to be everywhere.

They almost devour me with kisses,
Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!

Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old mustache as I am
Is not a match for you all?

I have you fast in my fortress
And will not let you depart,
But put you down in the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart.

And there will I keep you forever,
Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Michelle and Mark's Wedding

 I have been SO happy for my sister Michelle.  She has found a special love with a tender and sweet man named Mark.

For her wedding, I decided to take Corynn along so we could experience the wedding and girly-ness together.  So Elise, Corynn and I headed on our longest girls' only weekend ever.  It was SO fun!

 At first, I'm embarrassed to say I was a little nervous about spending so much time together, worried about what I would find to talk about with Corynn.  But it was really sweet and easy to talk to her.  She filled the hours of plane ride with tons of observations, silly ideas and reactions to the plane ride and our time together. Thankfully Elise was angelic on the flight so we could talk and enjoy each other.  On a lay over in Chicago, we picked up this little stuffed monkey who she named Popcorn Butter Ellsworth.  We had Clark popcorn, I guess a pretty famous popcorn shop in the Chicago Airport but surprisingly Corynn thought it was gross.  We had fun buying souvenirs for the cousins and lots of treats and junk food for our trip.

Our flight stopped in Denver, though I didn't realize that and almost got off the plane instead of continuing on to Salt Lake.  Luckily we had struck up a conversation with the man next to us who was also continuing onto Salt Lake and he held us back.  We chatted with a few young guys from the DC area who were heading out to Utah for their first time skiing in Utah.  It was fun having some random travelers on all the same flights.

 We got to stay with my sister Kari and her husband Ralph in South Jordan, Utah and loved sitting around chatting and getting caught up.  Corynn loved arranging the toy room and spent a morning building with their huge bucket of Lego's.

 The next day, Friday, my sister Michelle, in all her classy style, booked spa treatments for her siblings, cousins and friends in Provo.  Here's a quick video of the nieces and Corynn getting their pedicures.

My brother Steven held Elise for me during my facial, which was again a super relaxing experience, while my nieces and nephews oohed and aah-ed over Elise.  Steven's son Cooper decided to show me how he could put his entire fist in his mouth.  :)  Too cute!  He'd fit right in at our house.

 I stepped into the pedicure room to get something and was surprised to see a room full of my cousins and aunts.  It was heaven on earth to see everyone again.  They are still SO sweet and my cousins are such tender mommies!

 That night we hung out at Michelle's home and sat around for more chatting and stories.  It was fun having Michelle tell us how she met Mark and how he simply told her they were in a relationship after their first kiss.  What a great guy!  No beating around the bush for sure.

Corynn, Elise and I had the privilege of spending the night at Michelle's condo for her last single girl sleep over.  We had fun hanging out and reminiscing.  It was a sweet sister moment that I will never forget.

The next morning Michelle went off to get their awesome pictures done.  

 We had some help from Mom and Dad getting ourselves ready.  We got Elise dressed in her dress.  A sweet girl from church gave me this darling white hand sewn and hand crocheted baby dress.  I couldn't believe how beautiful it was and since I hadn't decided what to have her wear for the wedding, it was perfect!

 My smiley Dad loved holding Elise and she obliged with lots of smiles.
 Here's a video of Dad and Elise:

The wedding was at the Provo Temple.  It was so amazing to see Michelle there with Mark, dressed in white together.  It was a powerful image that makes me SO happy just thinking about it.  The room was full of happy tears and sniffles.  There they promised to be  loyal and faithful to each other for time and all eternity.  After the ceremony, my aunt, my sister and my sister in law all made the same sign of "Yes!"

I am so proud of how patient and enduring Michelle has been through her single life to find a man who was so good and so pure to really be worthy of her.  Could there be anything more important?  I love the  phrase "Marrying the right person  in the right place at the right time."    It epitomizes how her timing didn't always fit the Lord's timing but when the time was right for both of them, they stumbled across each other to find the miracle of LOVE.

                                                     As they stepped out of the temple

                                                              A smile my way!

                                                             A video of the after hugs....

                                                              The family shot
                                                       Corynn, Elise and I are on the right side

                                                Grandpa Fielding was able to be there

                                                           Corynn, Elise and I

At the temple, my dear friend Karen who once lived out here in Virginia but now lives in Provo, came for a quick visit.  It was a short sweet time hearing how she and her 5 kids and hubby were managing.  Turns out her parents go to the same church as Mark's family and they live right around the corner for the chapel for the luncheon.  She had been visiting her parents one Sunday and recognized Michelle in their engagement pictures.  When she asked her parents how they knew Michelle, they stared blankly and said, That guy there is Mark... from down the street."  Since they were invited to the reception that evening, Karen came along and we were able to hang out some more.   


After pictures, we headed to a chapel not far away for the family and close friends luncheon.  The food , of course, was awesome catered by a cool restaurant that I'm forgetting.  Here are a few videos of the short "program".

My Pappy!

                                                          Mark's sweet father

           It was sweet to hear Michelle's old roommate sing a song just for Michelle.

After the short program, it was just nice to sit, chat, hug and get caught up with the cousins and aunts and uncles!  Such a beautiful day!     And to look over and see Michelle and Mark now newly married was just SUCH a sweet feeling, so blessed to be able to be a part of her day!

                                                         A moment with Aunt Susan

                                       My nieces Alyssa and Rachel, the babysitting duo

                                                    My brother Karl with my niece Kylie

                                          Corynn and Kari's little girl Paityn

 

                                                         Rachel and Elise- two beautiful girls



  An hour or so after the luncheon we headed over the reception at this fancy place called the Bungalow.

It was catered by Cold Stone and there were cake pops.  At one point in the evening, Corynn came screaming up to me, "Mom, there's ice cream here and huge lollipops and it's all free!"  Needless to say,  I think the nieces and nephews ate most of it.  No we tried to keep them to just one time through the line.

                                                              A hug from the princess bride

                                                           Mom and Dad in line at the reception

                                                     A moment with awesome Aunt Kari

                                                               Working on a smile

                                          More dinner and hanging out the next day after church

                                                          

                                                            Gunnar and Jacob
Video of the cousins to Ashton since he couldn't come....  So embarrassed that getting Braeden's name out seemed hard.  They are twins but not identical.  Bad aunt, bad aunt.... I know.

                                                          Gunnar loved holding Elise

                   The next day after the kids went back to school Corynn and I spent some time completely alone.  She had been a real trooper all weekend letting me get caught up with my friends and cousins.  She was very patient when I didn't pay attention to her.  I felt like we needed to do one last special thing together before the flight home the next day.  We went to a cheap clothing store called Suzy's Closet and picked out cute clothes for her.  She had fun trying on a few shirts, scarves and accesories and it was SO hard trying to put a few of them back to keep the shopping under $30. 

                    To top it off, we had a Mommy date to Chick-fil-a.
         She can be such a goofy person but I loved seeing that side of her.

                 The run way fashion show to Grandma and Grandpa balancing an orange too, not sure why. 

      
After the kids got home from school, we got a little demo of Gunnar doing some karate- even if it is sideways.  ;)    

One last picture waiting in the airport, the girls heading back home to the boys. 

Elise was exhausted after being passed around so much all weekend.  She wasn't as happy on the flights and unfortunately both flights were all full so I had to hold her and nurse her a bunch to make her happy.  The first flight to Denver we randomly were joined in our row by a guy who worked for Comcast.  Thinking that sounded familiar, I mentioned my brother worked for a company that helped Comcast.  The conversation came and went during the flight and mid-way I just FELT like I should see if he knew Karl.  When I brought up his name, his jaw dropped.  Turns out he not only knew of my brother but they periodically had lunch together and chatted it up about parenting and things.  Such a fun coincidence.  The flight went from semi-stressful to sitting by my brother practically getting good perspectives on parenting and kids finding their way in life.   He helped me out a ton by keeping Corynn entertained and talked to while I tried to keep Elise happy.

Seeing Jon pull up at Dulles with the van was such an amazing sight.  I miss them so much when we aren't together. It felt so good to be back with our own little heaven in Virginia.

Easter Treats

Easter is always a fun time of year!  Corynn somehow finds the plastic eggs in my decoration box and starts holding practice egg hunts weeks before.  I don't know how many times I'd look in the backyard to see Taison and Tyler sitting with hands over their eyes, while Corynn ran around hiding the eggs.  There was nothing exciting inside but they LOVED playing this game.

We opted for a small family egg hunt this year.   We let Taison and Tyler hunt for 12 eggs a piece first.  Then the really hard to find eggs were left for Corynn and Ashton.

Elise with her chocolate bunny, which I ate for her of course!

Hatching Chicks Again!

 We did it again!  Our month of being surrogate mothers to some eggs and chicks has come and gone.  For our second year in a row we enjoyed the ease of incubating some eggs donated from a farmer to the 4-H office.  We marked the eggs with x's and O's and numbered them and then turned them 3 times a day.  This year I opted to buy an incubator online and it was about $40 for this styrofoam box.  We tried to kee the incubator at a steady 99.5 degrees and the humidity about 60%.  Sometimes I had to make sure our heater was on 72 degrees at night in our house on nights when it would get pretty cold or turn the AC on in the afternoon when our house would get above 76 degrees.   We had a variety of eggs colors including a light green egg, which was soon the favorite, being called, "Green Eggs and Ham".  We only "candled" them once this time.  That's where you take them out one at a time briefly to shine a flashlight under them while you cup the egg and flashlight closely together.  If it's a fertilized egg you can actually see a dark spot and sometimes even see it move.  We thought that egg number 1,8,12 were not fertilized.  Come hatching time those three didn't hatch plus one more.

So we had 8 chicks out of 12 this year, much better odds then our 6 out of 18 last year.  It's always a little stressful when the 18 days of turning them are up and you just wait for day 21 for little chirping to start happening.  Even this time, I was sure I had killed every single one, that nothing was coming out of those eggs.  Then once when I walked by I heard a chirp and just about died with shock.  The chirping got louder that night and by 4 AM we expected to see a bunch hatched.  No one had hatched but about 5 had broken through their tiny air hole.  They rested and worked and chirped inside those tiny eggs.  The excitement of the chicks hatching took over our Spring Break.  It was a day that it was hard to leave because the kids didn't want to miss the action.  I remember sitting down to feed Elise and Ashton calling out reports.  "Number 9 is busting out!  He's a black one!  And there's another one on it's way!"

Within the 10 minutes of feeding Elise, two had hatched and were playing soccer with the other eggs.  The first wave of hatching brought 4 chicks.  They flopped around wet and tired and we kept them in there to dry off.  The noise and action they created spurred on the other guys which came later the next day to create a group of 8, 5 blacks one, 3 other colors.

Their names were Green Eggs and Ham, Chocolate Chip, Dee Dee Luigi, Skunkie, Squeakie, Duckie (yellow), Yoda (gold) and Commander Rex (brown).

We put them in a "brooder" which is basically a clear plastic tote with high sides, gerbil wood chips to keep them clean and smelling nice, a water bowl with marbles so they don't drown when they fall asleep in it as babies, starter chick feed, a lamp, we used a 40 watt bulb to keep the temperature between 90-95 degrees.  Next week we will be visiting the farm and returning them to their farm just in time when they start turning into teenagers and getting feisty.  :)
                                                                Yoda up close

 How poofy can you get, seems to be their goal once you put them under the warm heat lamp.

                                         Our sweet babysitter Shiloh with a chick

 This year when I brought the chicks into the classrooms, I brought a dark colored sheet and had the kids sit quietly around the sides.  I gave them instructions to keep their hands folded in their lap and hold still, talking quietly to not scare the chicks.  Then I set the chicks' food and water dish in the center and put in a few at a time to see if they could get used to the setting.  If they stopped flapping around, and the kids were able to handle themselves, I put a small nugget of food in the kids' hand and removed the food dish.  After a while, the chicks would start to explore and if the kids held their hands still, they would nibble it out of their hand.  The kids were pretty excited and asked lots of questions.  After about 10 minutes, I'd hold two chicks, one in each hand and let the kids nearest me in the circle touch the chick's head to feel their super soft feathers.  Then we'd put the chicks back in their tote, roll up the sheet and send the kids quietly back to their desks.  I think the teachers and kids were glad for the little break in their day and my kids were so excited to actually have them there to show off.

We always enjoying sharing our chicks with friends, neighbors and classmates!  This year we took them back to the farmer, Smith Family Farms, ourselves and it was a neat experience to see where they were going and how they were looked after. Our sweet buds the Gregory's came with their chicks and in my attempts to get the kids to take this picture, I realized we completely missed the chicks.  ;)

                                      Ashton was a little teary about leaving them there.

It was helpful to have the distraction of seeing the other animals they had there too. Here's a video of Corynn holding a baby goat!  So adorable!

 And another video of the piglets.

I was grateful to have the noise and smell of the chicks gone but the next morning it was a little sad to have the space by the wall empty.  Ne]]]]]]]]]]
an't wait!