helvrum@hotmail.com – Page 69

June 23, 2014

Over The Years

My friend, Clove, recently did a post where she flashed on some picutes of the past year and wondered if she’d rememberd to enjoy herself and take it all in. It spurred me to take a quick trip down memory lane to see where we were the last fie years. And I laughed because the last five years have been a whirl wind of pregnancy and babies. So, here we were before ANY of that. We went camping with Brian and Darcy and we probably hardly packed a thing…..wine and wet suits. I got pregnant with Maggie shortly after.

And then here we are the following summer. Barry’s cousin got married and it was probably the first time we’d actually put on real clothes as a whole family since Maggie’s birth. I remember nursing in the car and in the bridal suite, but needing to practically take my entire dress off. Ugh.

One year after that and I was done nursing Maggie and back to feeling a bit more rested and working out. (Hallelujah!) This was the summer that Barry did some heavy-duty training for is half Ironman and was also in charge of a big project at work. Maggie and I went to North Dakota for two weeks to celebrate my grandparent’s 60th wedding anniversary….it was a fun, busy summer.

The following summer, and just two years ago, I was pregnant with Audrey and feeling sicky-poo. We’d gone to San Diego and I proceeded to feel nauseous the entire trip. I don’t remember much of that time, I was getting ready to go back to work in September and it was the first time that Maggie would be cared for by somebody that was not a family member.

And then last year. We were on a road trip to Montana for a couple weeks and it was a delightful trip in the sense that we outlawed any driving with the girls more than 2 hours for a while. But two kids! A year ago Audrey wasn’t crawling and was hardly eating real food. Maggie hadn’t started preschool yet and Barry hadn’t changed jobs.

Here we are most recently at Maggie’s birthday party a couple months ago. Since that picture was taken Maggie has finished her first year of preschool, Audrey has learned to run, Barry has started a job he loves, and I keep thinking I’m on the brink of being done nursing. We’ll have to get a more updated picture, but it’s pretty fun to get an idea of where we’ve been the past five years. Life certainly hasn’t been dull and not a single year matches another year. And dang, we’re happy.

June 19, 2014

What a Few Minutes Buys Me….

We didn’t leave our house yesterday except for an afternoon walk and today we’ll probably make a quick trip to the store. I’m not sure if I’m a homebody or if my girls just really need these days to be here. I’m loving it. We weave in and out of playing together, doing chores, and bouncing in and outside as the sun breaks. I know that there will come a time, down the road, where our scheduls will be full of trying to get everywhere at once and on time.

But right now? I’m thankful to have activities at home that sustain us and keep us happily here. Audrey is happy to do anything that her sister is doing and Maggie is the sweetest of sweet big sisters and loves to ‘protect’ Audrey. While I wasn’t planning on doing a blog post right now, I realized I had a minute to load some pictures because they were both ‘reading’ in Maggie’s bed. This means that Maggie tries to read a book and Audrey is constantly shushing her because they’re supposed to be asleep. It’s a favorite game and a really funny one to play with Augie.

We went to the beach the other day for a birthday party and the girls had the best time – exploring and seeing friends. There was a tiny baby pool filled with balls for a ball pit for babies, and Audrey was in complete heaven….surrounded by balls. Maggie spent most of the time playing at the fishing station with magnetic fish and exploring the beach. Fun way to have a party.

Sleeping game is over and the girls have both migrated to me, in the computer room. I better slurp up the last of my tea and finish up here. They both have little cars and are fake driving them around….with Maggie driving hers all over Audrey’s body. Funny anecdote, as partilaly documented in the photos above. Audrey loves to put on any and all shoes. She’ll lug shoes all over the house and deliver them to their rightful owner, insisiting we put them on.

Anyhow, my mom scored a pair of Toms for Audrey and Audrey, of course, loves putting them on and taking them off all on her own. Well, she’s been wearing them around the house quite a bit and Maggie asked us the other day if they were Audrey’s ‘bedroom slippers,’ which I didn’t really know how to answer. Where had she heard that phrase before? Bedroom slippers. Maggie has been IN LOVE with her nightie (as in never, ever wants to take it off or sleep in anything elese) and so the idea of ‘bedroom slippers’ probably was exciting to her.

Now Audrey is taking off her shoes and putting on another pair and Maggie is wrapping up a teddy bear in a blanket whispering sweet nothings to it. Oh, wait. Now Audrey is putting on a hat and two pairs of bloomers. My tea is done and the rooms that they’ve been to are trashed……but at least I loaded a few pictures on the blog.

June 14, 2014

Maggie Turns 4: Part One

This was the first year that Maggie truly had any idea about birthday parties and what celebrating means. For months leading up to her birthday, which happened to fall on Easter this year, she’d been quite serious about wanting a princess/ballerina/pirate party with her friends. We hosted Easter/a family party for her on her real birthday and the following weekend hosted a friends party. I think I haven’t been able to write about it because the double weekends of planning, even though this year I out-sourced a TON of work, overwhelmed me.

This is going to have to be a multi-part series because, starting with Easter, it was an action-packed day. For the past couple years somebody (our cool neighbors across the street SWEAR it isn’t them) has sprinkled our front yard with Easter eggs and left a basket and note on our porch for the girls. We, after brewing some coffee, headed outside so the girls could collect their eggs….Maggie’s level of exciement was pretty zonked at that point. Audrey was just happy to have her rain outfit on with a hat that had ears.

Then we headed inside to find what the Easter Bunny had left inside the house. It was pretty funny because Maggie was thrilled to discover that some eggs had the letter “A” written on them and they were full of Pirate’s Booty, a favorite snack of Audrey’s. I think Maggie was proud that the Easter Bunny knew to leave some marked for Audrey, so there wasn’t any “confusion” about the other eggs.

I’m pretty sure I’ve written about my Disney apprehensions on here before. I still have them, but at the same time I must confess that we’re full-on fans of Disney’s Frozen. We blast the soundtrack, role-play the story, and have seen it more times than I care to admit. I love that the story is about sisters and that the sisters are different from one another, but they share a deep-rooted love for each other. I struggled with getting Maggie the Frozen dolls, because wouldn’t a handmade Etsy doll be cooler/more eco friendly/blah, blah, blah.

I decided to ignore that sometimes annoying voice in my head and get our girl what I know she’d love, play with, and be thrilled to open. And guess what? My ‘mama heart’ was so full watching her reaction these two dolls. She got both of them, the sisters, and those dang toys have been a reminder to me that I don’t always get to decide what my kid is going to be interested in or to what degree. I can choose to be supportive or choose to nudge her in a different direction. In this case, I’m glad I decided to roll with it. Those dolls have been loved, been played with, and have not been forgotten.

There was some more present opening (not sure why we gave her more than those dolls, but whatever…), some breakfast and then a rush to prepare for our peeps to come celebrate with us. Yay for part one!!!