Marianne at Four Months

Dear Bug,
Four months!?! You are such a fun and squishy little girl, but you are growing just a little too fast. Just today you rolled over from your back to your tummy for the first time. If I wasn't there to see it I wouldn't have really believed it, because your belly is quite the obstacle. You've been doing belly to back pretty regularly. Other amazing feats of your short life include laughing (a magical little squeaking, grunting, gurgling sound), being able to grab little toys, being able to bring toys to your mouth, thoroughly enjoying bath time (and almost growing out of your little bathtub), being able to lay on the floor in the boys room and play/look around happily for at least an hour while everyone else plays, too, and being so strong. You love to stand and jump and if you don't want to lay down you will try your hardest to sit up by doing power crunches. You have also graduated to your own bed in Bekah's room! You are such a good sleeper and sometimes you even like it better if I just lay you down when you're grumpy so you whine a little and then go to sleep. You love the sound of Daddy's voice and you'll crane your head around to find him and then give him the biggest smile. You'll do that for me, too and it makes me feel like the most special person in the world.
Yep, you really are an amazing and happy little person. You love to listen to your brothers and sister talk to you. You smile so big I think your cheeks must hurt, but you just love any and all attention. Jacob is really good at making you laugh. He tickles you and makes funny noises and I'm afraid you just can't help yourself. You also laugh when I kiss you under your chin or rub my nose on your belly or tickle your collarbones with my fingers. It's such a beautiful sound.
Well, Marianne...here are some pictures of you, chub and all, just so I can have some proof of your delicious rolls. Your thighs are second only to your double chin.
Love, love, love, you,
Momma

 Mom...can we be done yet, please?

 Alright that's it!!

A Holiday Smorgasbord

hey there santa baby!

My kids are in the garage taking apart a printer that went defunct. Their arms are black from the ink, but they're being nice to each other and having a good time, so I'm not complaining...Meanwhile Marianne is asleep; she is such a good chunky baby!

It's the perfect time to blog... :) And there is so much to blog about! My sister Amy and her family and my Mom visited the week before Christmas, then Jacob had his birthday party and turned the wise old age of six, then of course we celebrated Christmas, and then we went to visit my parents and Tyler and Gina in SV for New Years. So from all of that here are the not so brief highlights:
* Amy made an adorable chefs hat for Marianne. Why? Why not.

I think it emphasizes her chubby cheeks. While Amy was here visiting we decorated sugar cookies, played scrabble of course, played on my new (eek!) Silhouette, did some face painting, fixed hair (aren't we all so cute looking!)
and ate homemade sopapillas...Everyone loved holding and talking to Marianne. Joshua was especially awesome with her. I had two huge paintings to work on while she was here, so that sort of ate up a lot of time, but it all worked out in the end. Here are all the girls:
*Jacob turned six.

He is truly an awesome kid. He asked for a birthday party this year and I relented, on the one condition that he would actually enjoy his party and not get obsessed about his presents. (Flashbacks from a four year old's birthday party gone sour...). It sort of worked. Mostly. We had a Bat party, complete with doing spray paint bats, a "night vision" (flashlight) bat hunt, and of course a sorry looking bat cake. (Colonel ate part of the cake while it was cooling and I had to make do with the remains that he hadn't touched. Bad dog.)
*Christmas was wonderful. We stayed home, which we love to do, although this year Christmas eve was all on our own because everyone else did their own thing, too. It was a little different but really special. The kids acted out the nativity,

we had a special candlelight dinner, Bekah read "The Night Before Christmas,"
and kids actually fell asleep at a decent hour. Christmas morning was full of the usual excitement, even Santa visited!

Everyone made out like bandits...Bekah got a sewing box complete with all the sewing necessities, and some rollerblades, Jacob got a Trio Castle set, and Beau got the jet from Cars2, along with Lightning and Mater. Rus got a new pair of binoculars from his parents and an old Stanley jointer plane from me, and he made me a beautiful jewelry box that originally started as a juniper log out at his parents house in Edgewood. It is really beautiful. We had a nice morning [no fighting], enjoyed church [I enjoyed it at least on the stand leading music the whole time; Rus was in and out the entire meeting with Beau/Marianne], took family pictures [they even turned out good],
and had Christmas dinner at Carla's house [where our kids were not completely rotten].
*We enjoyed a couple of days rest/fighting with our kids here before loading them in the ManVan and heading to Sierra Vista. The seven+ hour drive down was painful...Rus bought a dvd system for his van before we made the drive back home. We enjoyed stopping by his parent's home in Lordsburg both on the way down and back. In Sierra Vista we cleaned out my parent's shed (actually really fun, I thought), went swimming at the Cove (love. the. Cove.), went to Kartchner caverns, ate out at Texas Roadhouse, went roller blading, went to see Mission Impossible with Tyler and Gina, went shopping (just the girls), had a moustache party,

and even stayed up until midnight so I could make out with kiss my husband. Jacob loved seeing the bat poop at the caves, Bekah was a swimming/sliding/fiend at the Cove, Marianne got spoiled and kissed and hugged by everyone, and Beau was just a happy/contrary/mean/wonderful kid.
And now it's 2012. Last year started with pages of resolutions...then I found out I was pregnant and those resolutions are exactly where they started - on paper. We did do a lot of amazing things, from remodeling and moving to having a new baby. This year I'm hoping to be a little less ambitious and thus a little more successful.
Happy new year to you too!

Muscles

 Tonight Jacob came up to me and asked (very enthusiastically), "Can Beau and I take off our shirts and wrestle?!" And I said yes. They didn't actually wrestle, they just ran around flexing their muscles and jumping on the couches.

Classic.

Boys through and through. 

Enjoy the pics...watch Beau - he watched Jacob and then did what he did.

Marianne at Three Months (Already?!)

Oh my...let me admit right here that I'm about to commit picture overload...but I just can't help it! Look at this chubby (or as my neighbor Nora says, "FAT!") baby! (Here's her - "Do these jammies make me look fat?" - picture.)

She is a whopping three months old as of yesterday.
Time sure flies when you have a little bug to enjoy 24/7! I wish I had her stats...but I don't. I know that she was 13 lbs. at her last check up three weeks ago and I wouldn't be surprised if she's gained a few ounces since then.
Here are some special things about Marianne:
She loves playing with her hands.

She is starting to swat at toys that hang down from her butterfly mat.
She still makes her wonderful horse noise, like when a horse breathes out its nose really fast...sort of indescribable...
She can and often does sleep through the night. Unless I tell too many people what a champ she is...then she wakes up at 2 or 3 or 4am just to remind me that she's in charge...and to get chubbier.
Marianne pays attention to everything. She will crane her head backwards just to see where a noise is coming from.
She is super strong...She loves to stand on my lap, stiff as a board, and look around.
She does not like it when Colonel (or anyone) makes loud, unexpected noises right next to her.
She sleeps on her tummy during the day and in her awesome little inclined bed at night.
She doesn't have to be swaddled to fall (and stay) asleep, and that's the first time I could say that for any of my children.
She has a beautiful smile...but she doesn't give it freely unless she's just woken up in her bed and you happen to talk to her (and tell her what an awesome sleeper she is.)
She hasn't laughed yet...I'm waiting...
She is wiggly.
She loves it when I kiss her neck, right under her jaw line. Yes she has a neck.
She loves getting a lotion massage after bath time. She especially likes her feet rubbed.

She has great hair that usually winds up in a mohawk. 

 Tonight as I took these pictures...

 She rolled over...

 For the first time!

 Good girl!

 Yep. Still in love. Still amazed. I love you Bug!

Timber, Wind & Snow, Duct Tape Barbie Clothes

 So apparently last night Timber was joy riding in Ms. Fisher Price's pink minivan. He was probably cruisin' the halls around here and Santa's crib. He showed up this morning on top of the microwave...goofy elf. (You lucky blog-readers get to see how dirty my microwave is. It's clean inside. Just kidding...it's not really.) The kids got to enjoy him all day because of the wonderful wintry conditions that prevented them from going to school. I'm not sure how much it actually snowed because the wind was pretty effective at blowing everything sideways all day. I hope you can tell from these pictures just how windy it was:

 Brrr. Seriously. It was great motivation for me to stay inside and work up a sweat cleaning my dirty, neglected bathrooms, sweeping up two massive piles of dirt, and even vacuum the cushions on my couch. Too bad all that progress will be negated by tomorrow night (that long - if I'm lucky.)

 Then later in the afternoon the sun peeked out for just a minute or two and the kids enjoyed driving their scooters through the drifts on the front porch. Yes. Scooters. Snow. Explain it to me if you figure it out.

 Then later on Bekah and I played around with duct tape clothes for Barbie. My nieces love barbies and I thought it would be fun to send them some duct tape so they could design their own fashions for their dolls. (Sorry, Katie - spoiler alert...) I played around with some duct tape we had to get the feel for it so I could give them instructions. It was actually really fun! To do it you attach the tape to wax paper and then cut it in the shape you want. You use extra strips of duct tape to close the back and cinch the waist. Then when everything is all fitted you cut the dress/shirt/skirt off Barbie an attach an extra little flap of duct tape to the slit. Then attach sticky-back velcro to the flap so that the clothes can come on and off.

 I had planned on sending these clothes to my nieces but Bekah really like them. I think it will be fun to go buy patterned duct tape (tie die, leopard print) to do some more.

Now just cross your fingers that the weather improves tomorrow...a mother can only take so much...

Snow!

This morning we woke up to a beautiful blanket of snow. My kids were dressed (with shoes on!) in record time and were out the door the second I came out of my room. Marianne woke up cooing and happy, and even Beau was in a good mood. It was a nice way to wake up, and although the serenity melted with the snow, it was still a good day all in all. I am constantly reminded (even when being a mom is hard) how wonderful these times are and how much I will miss these crazy, hectic, demanding days.
Here is a view out the back door. The cloudy sky in the top left is hiding the Sandia mountains.

 This is a view out the front door. SO pretty! I love living somewhere with trees!

 Our supremely lacking, curb-appeal-less home. One day...one day... It has so much potential.

 For some reason cactus with snow on it just looks so cool to me.

 You should hear Beau name this cactus. "Cholla!" He also knows "picky pear" and "yucca".

Bring it on, winter!

Lioness