merry Memorial weekend

Our three day weekend was bustling but fun, not to mention Iris' birthday on Sunday.

We partook in a small ice cream social at the Wards', backyard water play, gardening and house work, the South Hills Memorial Day Parade, time with family and friends...

From 05/28/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

From 05/28/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

From 05/28/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

From 05/28/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

From 05/28/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

From 05/28/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

From 05/28/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

From 05/30/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

From 05/30/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

From 05/30/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

From 05/30/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

From 05/30/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

From 05/30/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

Jack's favorite part of the parade was the military trucks, as we had explained to him earlier in the day about what Memorial Day was. Abigail's was this car.

From 05/30/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

It's back to a 1:3 adult:child ratio here tomorrow (which will cut back considerably on my time playing with photo editing and writing posts with a million photos). At least it's a short week. And at the end of it, we have the heavenly lake waiting for us-- hooray!

first birthday celebrations

From 05/29/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

From 05/29/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

From 05/29/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

Besides a few books, the walker wagon was her gift-- from everyone.

From 05/29/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

And evidently FOR everyone.

From 05/29/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

From 05/29/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

It really is a big hit.

From 05/29/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

Giving the birthday girl special love after church (...where the lady of honor fell asleep in Dad's arms. You can do that on your birthday).

From 05/29/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

My friend, Carol, from church saw me taking pictures and said she'd take one of all of us. I actually cropped this quite a bit, as there was a great deal more of our neighbor's house (Carol is 75 or so and took a mighty fine picture).

From 05/29/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

After super-long naps all around (the kids played hard at the outdoors McDonald's Playplace for a while after lunch and were beat- it was ninety degrees!), Mike grilled out hotdogs and hamburgers, and we had watermelon, corn on the cob and baked beans.

From 05/29/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

And a "cake" similar to what I made for Jack's birthday- very appropriate for Memorial Day weekend, too boot. I forgot to mention to Mike that the lemon yogurt in the fridge was for this, so we substituted with the key lime on hand- not a bad switch.

From 05/29/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

Iris really only had the berries coated in a bit of the key lime mixture.

From 05/29/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

But...

From 05/29/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

she...

From 05/29/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

loved...

From 05/29/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

them.

From 05/29/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

From 05/29/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

And devoured them.

From 05/29/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

Iris. I think you missed some.

From 05/29/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

From 05/29/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

From 05/29/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

Video-conferencing with Grandpa and Grandma Ryan shortly before cramming fistfuls of dirt into her mouth. I guess she didn't get her fill of cake. At least she got what she wanted out of it-- a bath on her birthday.

one

From the first day of Iris

From the first day of Iris

It's hard to believe that we first beheld our teeny tiny third baby one year ago today. And it's now hard to imagine day-to-day life without her. Though she's been having a rough go at things lately with being sick off and on and lacking sleep (we've been trying the girls together for a few nights now, which has hindered already deficient sleep), she still remains such a pleasantly-dispositioned little doll. And a very talkative one. Mike and I are always surprised by her ever-growing vocabulary and her ability to communicate earlier than the other two. She's not walking yet, so that's something her 'blings still have on her.

From 05/29/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

From 05/29/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

{a birthday greeting from Jack this morning}

Perhaps we all dote a little too heavily on this baby of the family, but she's brought so much exuberance to our lives in her twelve quick months. Too short, they were!

We love you, Iris Faustina! May you have a very blessed first birthday!

change of plans

Though our visit to the zoo with a group of other Catholic moms this morning didn't pan out quite as we'd panned (Iris threw up on her outfit five minutes from the zoo and on her back-up in the parking lot, when we decided to head home), today still beat the last five by about tenfold.

I told the older kids, who were disappointed not to be visiting the goldfish again (or the elephants, gorillas, etc), that we'd put on swimsuits and play in the backyard with the pool and hose when we got home. That mostly made up for it.

From 05/26/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

From 05/26/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

From 05/26/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

From 05/26/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

From 05/26/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

And after days of dealing with a super headstrong girl, me being in tears after the kids retired to bed on multiple nights, and just being down on my luck in general for like a week, Abigail was a little angel to me tonight, sitting on my lap and telling me she loved me. I needed that.

Iris is just fine, by the way. She just does that occasionally. Drainage?

weekly ritual

As soon as Iris heard the bath water running, she scooted in, stood up at and started slapping the edge of the tub while squealing with delight.

From 05/23/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

From 05/23/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

From 05/23/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

one {heck} of a day

I'm not staying up too late for fear that something else bad would happen. But can I just document today? As something I don't want to repeat?

The kids (and I) were in rare form today- Jack had to be taken out of church (which is infrequent anymore). I awoke in foul mood. Abigail spent a good bit of the morning in her room, screaming or being blatantly disobedient. Jack told her after she was pestering him about something, "Abigail, you're going to hell." Mike's resulting talk reduced him to sobs. Fortunately, he learns from these incidents. In general, the time leading up to naps was wrought with discord and strife and yelling and consequences. During nap time, I had to force my unwilling and exhausted self to go to the store to pick up a few things we needed for salad for our Teams meeting this evening.

At least the kids had a better evening than Mike and I, as the Ward girls ("Word Worlds") and Jonathan came to play with them while Mike and I were at our meeting. That's not saying our meeting was unenjoyable-- it was, for the one hour out of three we got to be there. On our way to the meeting, I got off one exit too early, so we pulled over to get new directions off of Mike's phone. The car stalled and wouldn't restart, so we had to call AAA. We ended up getting a new battery and were almost an hour and a half better late than never to the meeting with our bread and wilting salad. We had to leave a half-hour early to be home to put Iris to bed.

Back home, on the way up our walk to see the kids and collapse on the couch, the bag I was carrying gave way from under the bowls (paper bag... heavy bowls... very dumb)

From 05/22/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

:'( I keep telling myself, they're just bowls. At least this didn't happen when they were still full of salad, eh?)

There are plenty of the good days that I like to remember these, which seem to bring us to our knees- half in laughter. In all seriousness, I'm happy to be experiencing difficult days of this nature, as I know these don't come close with REAL trials. I'm working on being more at peace with day to day struggles and failures, knowing that to pick up my cross daily and walk with Jesus in his suffering is a blessing.

Saturday musings

This afternoon, we visited a park we'd never been to before, and there was a nice surrounding stretch of nature. The kids seemed more eager to tromp around there and pick up sticks and dandelions than to play on the graffitied equipment. I really have grown fond of this house and prize the proximity to museums and friends and parks and such, but I grew up in a rural area (as did Mike) with creeks and a lake and acres and acres of farmland and woods in which to play and explore and have wonderful memories of those times. We want for our kids to have those same opportunities to roam and discover outdoors. Until then (God willing), we'll have to seek out the sticks and streams.

From 05/21/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

From 05/21/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

From 05/21/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

From 05/21/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

From 05/21/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

From 05/21/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

From 05/21/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

From 05/21/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

From 05/21/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

From 05/21/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

She's a week and a day from her one year birthday. Un REAL. Still not walking. Fine with me.

From 05/21/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

I tried to get more pictures of Jack at the park, but he ran giggling every time I came near to him with my camera, like we were playing some keep-away game. Silly boy.

From 05/21/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

He discovered his Dad's Heroscape game today (a birthday gift from Willie a few years ago- and a game my brother also enjoys). Though he's too young to play the game by the proper rules, he's been enjoying playing with the figurines, making sound effects and zooming them all over the place, especially the dragon, which has taken preference over the T-Rex(!). He's been fascinated by the mythical creatures as of late.

From 05/21/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

From 05/21/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

Abigail, I am finding, does best when she feels useful. I've been trying to find ways to employ her and recruited her this evening to help make a batch of oatmeal bread.

From 05/21/2011 (by Eye-Fi)

I left it to rise a few too many hours. I've done this before. And fortunately, it's a no-knead recipe, so it will turn out just fine.

This post written while watching Dollhouse. Still a great show-- only two more episodes to go!