grace.

i decided back in december that i wasn't making any resolutions this year.  if i've learned anything it's that introducing a new baby to our family is resolution enough for both me and our family.  and in light of that i wanted to be respectful of the fact that 2016 would just be a big transition year for our family and that it was okay just to focus on finding our new normal, meeting everyones needs, and making sure we felt good about how we spent our days.  there will be a time for trying new recipes, doing big things, taking vacations, and finding more time for myself but i know that this year is not that.  survival with a big helping of grace is my goal for this year and i hope that i find a way to remember that every day.  i love staying at home with my kids, i love being a mother, and i love our family but i could definitely find some more grace for everyone in our family as we go throughout our days, and especially when this next baby joins us.  adding ellie to our family was not a cakewalk.  it was really, really hard.  she was a hard baby and basically took every ounce of my attention which meant that at the end of the day i felt guilty for not spending enough time with avery, for our messy house, for feeding us grilled cheese for dinner (again), for counting the minutes to bedtime, and for having zero energy and time left for me and charlie at the end of the day.  

i'm mentally preparing for the same situation this time around, while hoping for a slightly easier going baby, too.  but i'm hoping that if it is just as hard (or harder) this time, that i remember that it's okay.  that these times will pass and that what matters is not what we accomplished at the end of the day but that we all treated each other well and that everyone goes to bed feeling loved.  

so, i'm making 2016 about "grace" and hoping to grant everyone a big slice of it. 

... grace for the messes that avery leaves all over the house.  she has a habit of playing with all the things, all the time, in all the rooms.  but she's playing, she's learning, she's occupying herself, and she's learning to clean up after herself. 

...  grace for the two year old that needs to be held at the most inconvenient times, and gets frustrated at me and at her sister, and at herself.  she's two.  she's learning.  she needs a hug, and a tissue, and for me to sit for a minute and read her a book.  

...  grace for the two year old, again, when she cannot sleep.  she's not a good sleeper.  she's never been a good sleeper.  one day she will sleep.  i must remember that this is hard for her, too.  

...  grace for myself.  i need some time to myself.  not much, but a walk in the mornings, a hot shower, and a cup of tea (or soon beer!) at night make me much more able to take care of everyone else. 

...  grace for the dog because he's a puppy for goodness sake and he's going to chew things and he needs exercise and he's learning and trying, too.     

...  grace for the times when it seems like avery and ellie cannot play well together for even 30 seconds.  they're both learning and figuring out how to play with each other, what is acceptable and what isn't, and how to stand up for themselves.  it's a process and sometimes it's a messy one.  

...  grace for my husband.  he works hard.  he needs time for himself, too.  and he is a great dad.  i am so glad he's the one holding my hand at the end of the day.  and we both could use some time together, without the kids, whether it's brunch or a fire after the kids have gone to bed or falling asleep while watching modern family.  

...  grace during those morning hours when everyone is crying and upset because they're hungry and whiny and not happy with whatever breakfast is being served.  it will all get better once they eat and i get some coffee.  

...  grace for the messes that will inevitably pile up:  the dishes in the sink, the bathrooms that need cleaning, and the laundry piles that seem impossible to fold at times.  they do drive me crazy but they also mean that i was spending my time taking care of the people that matter most.  the messes are worth it.  and they will all get cleaned up eventually.  

...  grace for the newborn baby that is coming soon and will probably cry for no reason, want to be fed 12-14 times a day, have a hard time sleeping, be woken up by our loud house, need a million diaper changes, and steal countless hours of sleep from us.  because it's a newborn, you know.  and really, we are the luckiest to be adding a new person to our family who we get to learn about and teach things and watch grow up.  and we know just how fast that time flies, even when there is a lot of crying involved.  

so here's to 2016. i'm hoping it's filled with lots of hugs, "i love yous", and spontaneous kisses.  i hope that my kids know how much i love them and how much they love each other at the end of each day.  i hope that we read lots of books, play outside a lot, grow a tiny garden, make messes and learn more about each other.  and i hope we remember every day just how lucky we are.     

hello?

it's been awhile and i won't even attempt to say that i'm back to blogging but i have missed keeping a record of our family's life.  so i'm going to attempt to do just that every once in awhile.  poor ellie has had rather sad documentation of her life compared to avery and while i know she's loved every bit as much i would like to actually have a place to look back on her growing up because i know i sure won't remember it all!  so, here's what's been going on in the past year: 

... ellie is 18 months.  crazy town.  i love this age so much.  she's a running, climbing, following her sister around all day, talking up a storm, crazy toddler.  charlie and i die over how cute she is daily.  she's imitating everything that her 'cool' big sis is doing these days including her newest phrase "knock knock, who's there? pee" that she definitely picked up from avery.  she's also stubborn, brave, and still very much attached to her mama these days.  she knows what she wants and how she wants it and she will let you know exactly what that is.  and (knock on wood) she is finally, finally sleeping in her crib all through the night.  it only took us a year and a half to figure that one out.  she wakes up at the crack of dawn but i can deal with a 5:30 wake up time as long as she's not in my bed thrashing around like a fool for hours each night.  

...  avery is three and a half and growing by the minute.  she is pretty opinionated about things these days too and like most three year olds has zero patience for things like waiting for things she wants, sharing toys with her sister, and picking up after her own giant messes.  she seems so old to me these days and she'll start preschool in the fall.  i'm both excited for her and so sad because how in the world is she old enough to go out into the world without me.  she's a pretty great sister most of the time and over the past 6 months they have started to play with each other a lot more.  i find it pretty adorable and usually waste all the time that they're happily playing sneakily watching them from the other room instead of getting anything done.  

...  we recently put dunkin to sleep, which was the hardest decision i've ever made and thing i've had to do.  charlie and i miss him like crazy.  he was the best and the house seems so empty without him following me around everywhere.  

... i'm so excited that it's finally summer, my very favorite season.  we're busy enjoying things like flip flops, dresses, open windows, fires, grilling, the water table, running around without clothes on (the kids, not me), and growing our first garden.  we don't have a lot of plans this summer and i'm trying to really enjoy the last bit of completely unscheduled time that we have before after starts school.  i know after that we'll "only" have summer's off and i'm really going to miss the freedom of these before-school days.  

...  we took our annual trip back to maryland in june to visit family.  it was really great to see everyone and we even squeezed in some beach time one day but ellie not the chillest traveler during our second leg of the journey and we were all happy to get back home just to get back to our normal routine.  i'm usually complaining about how short those trips are and this one was only a week, compared to the last two years when we've stayed for two weeks, but with ellie being so difficult i was basically counting the days until we got back home.  hopefully she'll be a little more laid back next year.         

lately ...

... i love summer.  seriously i cannot say that enough.  i think i could happily move somewhere where it never got below 50 degrees.  it's actually been hot here (for my standards anyway) and we've actually had the ac running.  we usually keep it off if it's below 90 but we've been in the mid-upper 90s these days.  we've been playing in the water table a lot.  both avery and ellie are big fans.  ellie can't really hold her self up yet for long periods of time but she loves splashing away and avery usually does a pretty decent job of sharing with her sister.  she only dumped a bucket of water on her head once! 

...  blueberries were on sale the last time we went grocery shopping.  i feel like this never happens so i bought a bunch and we made blueberry pie.  and then we ate it for breakfast for the next few days.



... sleep.  oh infant sleep.  this is just about the only part of parenting in the first year that i don't like.  sleep is so amazing when it's good and so awful when it's bad.  i'm trying to transition ellie to her crib after 8 months of cosleeping and i'm not sure if it's harder on me than on her.  i physically miss her when she's not in our bed although i do love not sleeping in one position all night long and waking up with my arm asleep.  there's been a bit of crying involved in this transition and i hate listening to her cry.  i just feel awful.  and guilty.  but, i think she'll sleep better on her own and honestly she's waking up after every sleep cycle if i'm not physically next to her so i know she needs to learn to put herself back to sleep.  this is just a hard topic for me and i'm hoping she makes the transition okay.





...  i gave the kids their first dual bath the other night and it was amazing.  i don't know why i didn't do this months ago.  they both really enjoyed it.  well, avery didn't enjoy when i washed her hair but she never does.  i'm hoping this will make bath nights a little easier on all of us, especially when charlie's gone.  the non-slip mat made a huge difference for ellie in the tub since i didn't have to worry about her falling all over the place.





...  avery wanted to try on halloween costumes the other day.  ellie's going to be a bear this year since we have the costume from avery's first year and i'm not about to buy another one since i'll be lucky if she wears it for 10 minutes.  she hated it but we're hoping she'll warm up to it come october.  in her defense it was about 85 degrees and that costume is pretty hot!  avery loved her leopard costume from last year and has been asking to wear it again but she keeps telling me that she wants to be a purple butterfly this year.  i'll have to try and come up with something since she's been pretty consistent.  we've been reading halloween books since june so she's pretty psyched for the holiday already.  she also was insisting that i get out henry's costume, too, but i managed to talk her out of that one.  i can only torture him one day a year.  



...  we've been doing a few things around the house this summer, too!  after not doing anything for a solid four months after ellie was born we've had the outside painted (something it needed very badly), our deck restained, replaced our storm door, replaced a few lights (4 and and more to come!), rearranged some furniture, and hung some lights on our deck.  i need to do another house updated post just to keep track of the things we've done.







...  we took the kids to heritage square last weekend.  charlie was excited because avery actually wanted to ride the rides this year, unlike last year when she would only get on the merry-go-round.  but it was really hot and we got way too many tickets so we decided to play put-put since it required a bunch of tickets.  we did this last year, too, and avery basically just ran around the whole time while charlie and i played the course.  but this year ellie was over it by the time we went to play golf so i left avery and charlie to play on their own while i went to go feed ellie.  apparently avery was hot so she only wanted to play the holes that were in the shade, which was sort of a problem since there were other people who were actually trying to play.  she came back and told me that "daddy said we have to go home because i didn't listen".  funny, only because apparently he never told her that at all.  i think basically she just wanted to eat ice cream and then head back to the air conditioned car at this point.  after lunch we headed out and both kids slept for over an hour in the car while we drove home and packed their pool stuff, stopped at target for a few things, and then headed to the pool.  

this and that.

...  between charlie traveling so much and visitors coming i feel like the past few weeks have been crazy busy.  we decided just to take some time this weekend and relax and spend time as a family.  it was really, really nice.  we actually spent a lot of it out and about but it seems that if we stay at home we're inevitably juggling the kids back and forth so we can get things done.  on saturday we decided to check out the denver museum of nature and science and i was actually pretty surprised at how big it was.  growing up right outside of dc completely spoiled me for comparing museums but this one was pretty good.  we actually got a family pass for $90, which means that this will be our go-to day trip when the weather isn't nice.  i like that it's big enough that we can make every visit different.  we were going to renew our aquarium pass but i wanted something different and i like that this will entertain us for longer than 20 minutes.  avery really does love her fish though so i wonder if she'll miss her monthly aquarium (and tiger) visits.  while we were there we also saw a show in the planetarium.  it was short (25 minutes) and about the planets in the solar system.  avery loved it and kept loudly whispering the whole time, 'i'm watching a movie'.  

...  on sunday avery and i planted some flowers while charlie and ellie played.  avery loved it and was actually really helpful this year compared to last year when she just tried to eat the dirt.  she got totally filthy, even licking her dirty hand at one point, and looked so cute with dirt smeared all over her face and in her hair.  after we finished planting she insisted on carrying the new pots to their appropriate locations and then we immediately took a shower.  now i just hope that we don't have any terrible hail storms that come through and kill the flowers like they did last year.  i would like a new roof though.  

...  ellie sits!  one of my favorite milestones and such a game changer in the world of entertaining babies and getting things done around the house.  













...  we had a really nice memorial day weekend.  we didn't do a whole lot but we spent some time as a family, went to a barbecue, hiked, and cleaned the house.  productive and fun, which is my favorite combination.  it was actually pretty chilly so we didn't even attempt the pool and that last picture of avery cracks me up.  we were outside playing ladder ball and she said she was cold so i got her a blanket.  then she said she needed a hat so i got her a hat and THEN she said her neck was cold so i got her a scarf.  and it really wasn't that cold.  the rest of us were hanging out in shorts and tshirts.





...  sometimes avery will play with ellie for short periods of time and it is the sweetest.



...  and sometimes ellie will hang out with charlie and that's pretty sweet, too.







...  and lastly, avery and i made a card for my mom and i cannot get over her 'concentration' face.  she was so into the drawing until she all of a sudden declared that she was done and wouldn't color and more.  we don't draw nearly as much as we used to and i miss it.  it's one of my favorite activities to do with her, although lately she's really into sidewalk chalk.  i'm hoping that she'll get into coloring more again but usually, unless there's a purpose, she's not just into coloring for fun again.