So two of the last things I go to do on my maternity leave was attend Luke's Thanksgiving feast (a first for me! I've never been able to go to this one, just his Christmas parties!) and go visit Santa. (I also realize I never posted Halloween pictures. So sorry.)
I could tell he was really excited for me to be there at his feast, he kept showing me things and wanting to share his food with me. The feast was on a Friday, which is the day that Elyse's grandparents come and visit her. They stayed at the house with both girls, so I was able to go and focus just on Luke. Not something that happens a whole lot these days.
Santa! This is actually the best Santa picture I've ever gotten. Sure Evan isn't really smiling, but Luke doesn't have his scary smile on, and the girls are DARLING in their matching outfits. I had one of the "elves" take a family picture of us before we left. Evan still isn't smiling. Luke doesn't like to stand too close: he's got a rather large personal bubble space. Elyse isn't falling out of my arms, I promise. But I love this picture and the fact that I didn't know Santa had popped into it until I looked at the camera.
And I am unashamed to reveal that I put up my Christmas tree well before Thanksgiving. Like, the week before. I've said it before, I truly feel like putting it up actually makes Thanksgiving MORE festive. I LOVE it! The kids were with their dad on Thanksgiving, so that morning I had us do thanksgivings at breakfast before they left. Evan piped up that we should hold hands and say a pray. Luke jumped at the chance to say it, and it included thanking God for being our hero and rescuing us. *cue momma tears* I am so thankful for these sweet tender hearted children of mine and I pray that they always are for the God who IS our hero and rescuer!
So, I worked two days last week, and then Thursday night a giant winter storm came in. It went from temps in the 70's to below freezing. Thursday I left work early due to sleet, and when we got to the house that afternoon, we didn't leave again until Monday afternoon. That is a looooooong time to solo parenting. I called it marathon parenting. The kids were troopers though. We watched lots of movies, played, and I got out my sewing machine. I felt bad because in the last few weeks I've actually had several people request sewing projects from me, but I had to turn them down due to lack of time. Plus the cradle is in the spot where the sewing machine used to be, so setting it up on the dining room table has cause quite the clutter. But I needed something to distract me from the bickering that was going on. ;) The only real hiccup in our 4 day entrapment was the fact that my microwave died. Three minutes in to cooking baked potatoes for dinner Thursday night, it just....died. No spark. No funny noises. No beeping. Just.....stopped. Not having the time to properly bake them in the oven, I had to scramble for dinner (pancakes), and have been using the oven and stove ever since. Monday night Dad took me to Home Depot for a new one, and hopefully he'll be able to finish mounting it tonight (yes, it's an over-the-range microwave, which I now know are MUCH more expensive than countertop ones. yay!)
Luke is such a funny kid. I managed to get one of the funny things he said while we were home post on Facebook: "Mom, I don't think I want to eat treats anymore since they don't help us grow. I'll just go ahead and try to eat my chocolate Santa that is up on top of the fridge." And he also tries to boss Evan around. Which doesn't work out very well: "Luke was telling Evan that she could only have one cinnamon roll for breakfast and he could have two. When she inevitably tattled, I tried to get her to see that what he says isn't the final word by gently asking her who was in charge. "Nana's phone." Uh, excuse me? When I corrected her and told her I was in charge, and that I was the one who said how many cinnamon rolls she got, Luke shouts "I'm so cross at you!" Happy day 2 of cabin fever!"
Elyse slept a lot through our time (surprise surprise) at home. When we woke up Friday morning to a white world the kids wanted to go out in it, of course. They lasted all of 5 minutes in the cold, especially once they realized it was not snow- just straight ice.
Tummy time! When she is actually awake, I do try to make her do a little exercise. My sweet 8 week old is getting so strong!
It was cold. I couldn't bear the thought of this sweet yawning girl all alone in the freezing dark. Soooo.... I let her sleep with me. It had NOTHING to do with the fact that this way I also didn't have to get out of bed to nurse her in the middle of the night. :)
Two of the things I worked on. I put my house shoe next to the quilt top for size reference, and if you look closely I put Elyse's name on the top of it. I bought batting and backing yesterday, so I should have it completed soon! It's made of flannel, something I've never worked with before, and it's my first ever quilt. Exited for it!
This cardboard rocket has been in Luke's closet from last Christmas, I believe. I knew it would be huge so I'd procrastinated on putting it up. Well, day 3 made me cave, and the kids LOVED it. Unfortunately they loved it a little TOO much and it made their selfish sides come out. After a couple of hours they were fighting hard core over it. Monday morning I finally had to disassemble it and put the whole thing in time out because I couldn't handing the fighting anymore.
Monday this girl finally got a bath. She's done so well lately on not spitting up as much, so she wasn't really stinky and I hated to get her wet in such cold weather. But, Monday I couldn't handle the greasy hair anymore and we just got it done. She smelled so good! But, that only lasted a few hours. Yesterday morning I woke up and she had spit up in the night (which was all in her hair) and then right before I loaded everyone up to go to Cindy's she projectile vomited everywhere. Boooooo.
I not only got out my sewing machine, but Monday I got out the camera. These are taken with my phone of the back of the camera, hopefully one day I'll take the time to upload them!
And finally....Monday afternoon:
We were free! Not really. It was so stinking cold and still really icy in places, but we busted out of the house with Nana and went to the movies to see Frozen. It was SOOOO cute. I thought it was both girls' first movie, but Ashley gently reminded me later that Evan's first movie was a Harry Potter movie. Where she exploded out of her diaper at the beginning of it and I sat there with poop on me. Only a mom, amiright? Maybe it's more telling of how much I love HP...... Anyway, let the record stand that Luke's first movie was Mama Mia, Evan's was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, and Elyse's was Frozen. That's one for the baby books, eh?
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