The House

On August 31 it was our one year anniversary of the day we bought this house. Since we worked so hard and so long to be able to purchase a house, the one year anniversary was really fun for me. For us, purchasing a house was not just another big purchase, not something that happened very easily (to tell that story I would have to write a book, which I might someday, but not today) and so it has never been something that I have taken for granted.

I feel so thankful every single day. 

I don’t know how we got this house. I mean, I know how, but…It’s perfect for us. It was on the market for several months before we bought it, priced significantly higher when it was first posted. Maybe that had something to do with it not being sold? It also had an icky flooring situation in the basement, but we took care of that. I just can’t believe that nobody snatched it up before we did. Honestly, this is better than I thought our first house would be. 

This was the first house we looked at and we made an offer the next day. It was accepted within a few hours. We live in Robbinsdale, which is just outside of North Minneapolis, seriously about three miles from where we were living before. It is so much quieter and safer though. We still get to be next to North, and we are still in a very central location which was important to us. We also live one block off a parkway which connects to miles of trails all throughout the Minneapolis area. Just wonderful. 

I once heard someone say that you should never buy a house that you can’t live with just as it is…otherwise you will never, ever stop doing projects and putting money into it. I’m not sure if they meant structurally or cosmetically. Part of the fun for me of owning a house is getting to do some projects to improve it, but it’s all easy cosmetic stuff. I could live with this house, just as it is, for a really long time. However, if we stay here for a really long time we have some exciting ideas to improve the kitchen, potentially add one more bedroom, fix our two garage situation, and it would even make our yard bigger than it is. But we don’t need to do any of that to be happy here. We are just happy. 

A lot of people also talk about home buyer’s remorse, that time when you regret not waiting for something else, wanting something else, or wishing you didn’t have your particular house to deal with. I can honestly say that I have not had one day or moment of buyer’s remorse. Not one. And it’s not like we don’t have issues to deal with here. We have a bunch of doors and cupboards that don’t stay shut or just don’t shut well, we have plaster walls that get holes when we try to hang pictures, we have old plumbing that Steve has had to deal with several times and has us considering buying stock in Drain-o, a poorly designed bathroom/ventilation so that mold likes to grow there…blah, blah, blah. I don’t even care. 

I just feel so thankful every day. And I love living here. 

Our yard is almost twice the size of the average city lot, which was one of the reasons we loved it. We went from having basically no yard to a bigger than average yard. It’s awesome. Honestly, one of the only reasons we might move someday is because we would actually want to live in the country and have 5 or 6 acres, a few more animals, and some serious produce growing on our land. Right now we have other priorities that don’t include large plots of earth and growing things…we have found we aren’t super good at growing things anyway. The whole south side of our property has a built in garden that we tried out this year. Maybe when we get better at it…Anyway, we have a fabulous yard AND we have a built in playmate directly across the alley, which is something I am also thankful for on a daily basis. The girls not only have our yard to play in, they have Ava and her yard and unending hours of magical childhood playtime. I have realized that this is a rare blessing. How often do you buy a house and find a best friend for two of your kids? Not only do all three of them get along famously, I can also see them playing in her backyard from my backyard. How much better could that be? I don’t think it could be. 

Did I say how thankful I am yet? 

I am so thankful. 

Yup

Someone else wrote this, but it pretty much sums up my life:


I Wanna Muffin

If you give a mom a muffin, she'll want a cup of coffee to go with it. She'll pour herself some. Her three-year-old will spill the coffee.  She'll wipe it up. Wiping the floor, she will find dirty socks. She'll remember she has to do laundry. When she puts the laundry in the  washer, she'll trip over boots and bump into the freezer. Bumping into the freezer will remind her she has to plan supper. She will get out a pound of hamburger. She'll look for her cookbook. (101 Things To Make With A Pound Of Hamburger.) The cookbook is sitting under a pile of mail. She will see the phone bill, which is due tomorrow. She will look for her checkbook. The checkbook is in her purse that is being dumped out by her two-year-old. She'll smell something funny. She'll change the two-year-old. While she is changing the two-year-old the phone will ring. Her five-year-old will answer and hang up. She'll remember that she wants to phone a friend to come for coffee. Thinking of coffee will remind her that she was going to have a cup. She will pour herself some. And chances are, if she has a cup of coffee, her kids will have eaten the muffin that went with it.

by Kathy Fictorie
based on "If you Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff

Twizzlers and Sthneeds

This just happened. 

Tryn walks up to me and sticks out her foot: Mom, I need the twizzlers. I have this thing in my foot.

I examine and go get said twizzlers (i.e. tweezers).

After trying for a minute or two with no success I pull out a needle.

Tryn, grabs her foot,: Oh, it doesn't hurt anymore.

Me: Just give me your foot.

Tryn: No, mommy, NO!

Absolutely refuses to give me her foot.

Me: Trynie, give me your foot.

Tryn, not kidding, reaching hysterics: No, NO, NO, NO, it's gonna hurt!!

This goes back and forth a few times. I am starting to realize that she is maybe truly terrified of the needle. 

Me: Tryn, I am not going to hurt you! It hurts you to have the sliver in right now, doesn't it?

Tryn: Are you gonna use that? The sthneed?

Me: WHAT?!

Tryn, pointing to the needle: That. The sthneed.

Instead of going for the obvious "WHAT?!" again I tried: Who told you it was called that?

Tryn, still with tears streaming down her face: You did, Mommy.

I refrain from sounding like a total moron by not saying "WHAT?!" again. Instead I start giggling really hard. I honestly have no idea where she heard that, but it sounds like a Dr. Seuss word or something.

Me: I really told you that? Are you sure you didn't have a dream about something like that?

Tryn: No, you told me.

And yes, the sliver is still there as we could not get it out with the twizzlers and really needed to avoid the hysterics of using the sthneed.

He Walks!!

Kyeson walked!!!

He's almost 14 months old (on August 12) and so we have been thinking that it would happen any day. In fact, last Sunday when we got back from camping Steve and I decided to do that make-the-baby-walk-from-you-to-me thing because both of us really wanted to be around for his first steps. He was not interested at all until Steve got out some Cheetos (no, I do NOT normally give my one year old Cheetos, but sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.) So, by holding Cheetos in view as a bribe we got him to take a step or two via lunge between our arms.

I don't really consider this walking though because he didn't do it on his own and it wasn't totally walking. It was taking a small step while reaching as far as possible to grab the outstretched hand and, therefore, Cheeto. It was a start, but lacking for sure.

Friday night, during the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games the man child walked for the first time. Steve was sitting on the couch and I was sitting in a chair near the couch and Kye had been walking along holding on to the couch. Then, without any bribes or prompting, we almost weren't even watching, Kye let go of the couch and walk to where I was sitting in the chair. It was a total of about 4 or 5 steps.

It's a sign people, a sign. We have an Olympian in our house. Haha!!!

Probably not. But wouldn't that be something if we did and that's when he started walking?

He has taken a few steps since then, but he is really just taking his time. When the girls started walking, especially Berlin, they never really crawled again. Kye still seems to prefer crawling though as it is much faster than his walking.

Truly, I am so glad that it has taken him this long to walk. It has made him feel like a baby much longer and I just feel thankful for that. It's hard to let go of the baby part of your last baby and it has been good for my soul to have him wait on the whole walking thing.

But now he's a big boy with a big boy hair cut. Anyone want to bring over their baby for me to hold? Haha!

Big Day

This last Thursday was a big day in our household.

First of all, I have been putting off cutting Kye's hair for quite awhile now. I always said that I was never going to let his hair get too long, you know, like those little kids you see and you're not sure if it's a boy or girl even if you're pretty sure it's a boy? Yeah, definitely going to avoid that. However, I was also really not excited about spending $25 for a haircut for a baby...so I finally got brave enough to cut it myself. I figured if I totally mess up I could just shave it all off. :)

I didn't have to shave it, but it took me three different tries. He was not excited about any part of it, but I just kept chasing him around until I got it all. It's also not perfect, but it's fine for now. And he looks like a totally different baby, like a real boy!

Before:

 

After:

Then. Then, my little baby girl Trynica lost her first tooth. This was a big deal for both of us. Tryn has been wanting to lose a tooth all year, ever since the beginning of kindergarten and realizing that her friends were starting to lose teeth. At least once a week Tryn would come up and ask me to feel her teeth to see if they were loose. Finally, one started to get loose. Then another. And it was actually the second one that fell out first.

It was a big deal for me because I was pretty darn sure that I would never ever pull out one of my kids teeth. Ever. The only nightmares I ever have, that I've had as long as I can remember, are about my teeth falling out. Or crumbling in my mouth and turning to dust. I had a really hard time losing my teeth as a kid, I never liked it.

During the last week, when the tooth was getting really loose I actually had a hard time wiggling it because it would make me feel nauseous. Steve tried pulling it out on Wednesday night and I couldn't even watch.

Thursday night, of course, Steve was gone and Tryn was pretty determined to lose a tooth. She sat at the dining room table for 20 minutes after she got ready for bed just pulling on her tooth. She got it so loose that it was only holding on a little bit on one side and I was afraid that if she went to bed with it that loose that she might swallow it during the night. So I pulled it out. You probably don't understand what a big deal this was for me, but I would say it was equally as big of a deal for me as it was for Tryn. And it was a big deal for Tryn. Check it out:

Camping

We took our first ever family camping trip. Well, almost. Steve and I went camping one other time for one night when Tryn was a baby, younger than Kye is right now. Then we braved one night with one kid. This time we braved two nights with three kids. So...the best way to tell is just to highlight some things.

* First, getting ready to go camping is a lot of work. Wow. I have always thought that getting kids ready to go somewhere for the weekend and just packing their clothing was a lot of work. Packing food for every meal, dishes, cookware, bedding, etc., now that is a lot of work.

* We went to Savannah Portage State Park and it was beautiful. It's in the very heart of Minnesota, north of McGregor by 15 miles or so. It was amazing to be on lakes where there was not a house, person, or boat in site. They also have this small hidden lake that you can hike to that has a bog boardwalk trail. The ground of the forest there was just thick deep moss that they built a boardwalk on top of so that people can hike out there. We saw some super cool plants that I have never seen before. It was awesome.

* Kyeson really loves to be comfortable and really doesn't like to be uncomfortable. This means that he likes to sleep in his bed and nowhere else. Not even in the car. He took a 30 minute nap on the way up to the campsite, which the trip was an awesome 2+ hour opportunity to nap that he did not use to his advantage. This also lead to a crazy bedtime in which we helped him fall asleep no less than 8 times. One time included Steve and Kye taking a midnight walk down to the lake, one time included trying to just let him cry for awhile, and ended with Steve rocking him to sleep at 2am. We got 4 hours of sleep the first night.

* Berlin loves to be outside. I mean, she loves it in a way that I haven't often seen a little kid love to be in the outdoors. When we take trail walks she runs most of the way, which is really great because she also has to stop and look at every other plant, flower, rock, or stick. If she walked it would take us forever to get anywhere. It's so fun to see her so happy though. She also learned how to climb trees near our campsite which she just thought was so awesome. This was a log she tried to climb while on a hike:

* I have more mosquito bites than I ever remember having in my life and I think I saw more bugs and spiders this last weekend than I have seen in years. So many bugs. There was a couple of times when I thought the kids might actually start going crazy and running around like banshees because they were so frustrated about the bug situation. There were also spiders in every toilet stall which made certain little girls very nervous. :) We went through three bottles of bug spray in 2 1/2 days. Ew.

* Trynie mainly just loves to swim. She also struggles with liking to be comfortable and not liking to be uncomfortable, but she really, really, really loves swimming so we made sure to do that every day.

* The second night after we successfully got all three kids to sleep at a reasonable hour, Steve and I walked down to a dock (that was within site of our campsite) and listened to frogs croaking and saw several shooting starts. It was perfect. It's amazing how many stars you can see when there are no lights around.

*The first night we had to pack up our campsite a little (put chairs in the van, take down all our clothes hanging to dry, etc.) because a thunderstorm rolled in as soon as it got dark. This was not a big deal as the sound of rain falling on my tent while I am sleeping is wonderful. However, since we had all our food in two plastic bins we left them out. Well, we heard some rustling in the middle of the night and in the morning we found the plastic bag that had once contained our marshmallows near the edge of our campsite. Who eats an ENTIRE bag of marshmallows? Yuck! The second night I put all the food in one bin, shoved it under the picnic table and placed a cooler on top of it so it was wedged under there. Somehow the darn animal (raccoon we are pretty sure) still pulled up the corner of the lid and pulled out a bag of cereal and demolished a bag of unopened tortilla chips. Grrrrr. Jerk.

* Oh, and speaking of food, Steve and I decided on this camping trip that we are officially foodies. We just really like to make and eat good food. We cooked all our food over the fire, which was super fun. Both mornings we made french press coffee (a must), pancakes, and then one morning we made bacon and the other morning we made eggs and ham. For dinner the first night we made chicken and veggie kabobs with roasted potatoes. Lunch was hot dogs. Dinner the second night was a fun recipe I found for campfire mac 'n cheese where we made the noodles in a pot over the fire and then put noodles, butter, milk, and a few different kinds of cheese into foil type pie pans and cooked that over the fire. Yum. It was really fun to make the food. 

* It was super great to be away from technology. Although, I have to admit that we still didn't live without my phone. Since Kye was having such a hard time sleeping we had to use the noise/rainmaker app on my phone and place it right next to him while he was sleeping so that he would stop waking up at the slightest sounds. Since we were in view of the bathrooms I would take my phone over there during the day and plug it in for a few hours on the outside of the building and watch it from the campsite...all so we could have a sleeping baby at night. And, sadly, about half an hour into our trip I realized that I had totally forgotten my camera! So I also had to use my phone to take pictures. Worth it to not totally go without technology? Heck yes. Haha!! Thankfully, the one other place in the world besides his bed where Kyeson will fall asleep easily is this backpack that Steve carries him around in, so he did take a couple of naps in there.

All in all, we had a really great time and now that we got over and through the first experience, we will definitely be doing more camping in the future!!

Carnival Land

We love living in Robbinsdale. It's like a small town in the middle of a big city or something. For example, this last weekend was Whiz Bang Days. I am not even sure of everything that happens, but it is a four day event (Thursday through Sunday) with things like a carnival, parade, community business sales, AND a good chunk of people also decided to have a garage sale due to the extra traffic around. 

They started setting up the carnival a good week in advance and since it was three blocks from our house the girls saw it every single time we left the house. There was a lot of excitement building up to carnival time, hence this picture of the girls looking so excited while waiting in line for tickets. 

 We didn't bring our camera, so all these pictures were taken by either Steve or me on my iPhone. 

 Just waiting in line!

 Watching the big scary grown up ride that little girls couldn't go on. 

 Kye was quite the champ. After not napping well over the weekend he actually stayed awake and happy (probably way overstimulated) while we hung out and waited for the fireworks to start. So here he is waving with Steve to the girls who were on the swing.

 Did I mention Whiz Bang Days ends with fireworks at 10pm on Sunday night? We sat on the sledding hill that is two blocks from our house and watched the fireworks and then walked home. It was so fun. 

Funny things that Berlin said throughout the night: 

"Mom, look at that! I have really good eye spy (eye sight)."

"Mom, I just saw a boy walking by and his pants were falling down!" (Only we still live pretty close to N Minneapolis and his pants were not actually falling down, just belted around his knees.) 

"I can't walk anymore, I have a blizzard (blister) on my foot."