Teething Baby

Oh what do you do with a teething baby?  One who whines and cries and demands to be constantly held?  I tried throwing her out onto the screened in porch.  She liked it for a bit, but after a while the novelty wore away and she fell back to whining.  And crying.  And wanting to be held.  Constantly.

So then I gave her a cooled pineapple rind.  That hit the spot.  That top tooth of hers is really giving her some trouble - I've never seen a top tooth take so long to come in!  She gnawed the rind down pretty well, considering she only has three teeth. But after a while she got bored with it.  And started whining.  And crying.  And wanting to be held.  And saying something along the lines of "I want some ibuprofen!  Stat!  Oh, and a salty snack, if you have one."

And so I gave her some ibuprofen.  And a nice, cold, salty pickle from the fridge.

And all was well.  (For a while, at least.)

p.s.  I think Tess looks a lot like me when I was a baby.  Do you agree/remember, Dad?

Marcus... Obama?

I found this on one of Spencer's school worksheets today.

Apparently, his name is Marcus.  Funny - he looks more like a Barack to me.

Batman Doesn't Do Church

At dinner tonight Cole leaned over to me and said, "Hey Mommy!"

"What," I replied.

In a conspiratorial whisper he answered, "I'm Batman."

To which I laughed and then realized that this was why Cole is so rotten at church: Batman is not a churchgoing kind of guy.  He'd much rather be out fighting crime and driving the Batmobile.  Instead, he is currently terrorizing the nursery, hitting and pushing kids smaller than him and stealing their toys.  (Yes, I am the mother of that child.  Oh, the joy.)

Well, too bad, Batman.  If there's one soul that needs a little religion right now, it's you.

Productive Saturdays

I like Saturdays that are productive.  Don't get me wrong - sometimes you need a Saturday off to just to relax and do nothing.  But there's something to be said about really getting down to work and marking off a few projects from the eternal "To Do" list. 

This morning we started with pancakes - green, of course.  (We also had our traditional green eggs and ham for dinner, but I forgot to take pictures.)

Tess especially enjoyed them.

Last night we hosted some teenagers and their youth leader from our church.  They were here from Ft. Wayne for a conference activity.  After I drove them to the institute on campus I swung by Menard's to pick up a few things I had been wanting to buy for quite a while: a hedge trimmer, pruning shears, and a window washing squeegee.

Lance quickly got to work using the hedge trimmers.  Now you can see our house number again!

Then I got to work using the pruning shears to get rid of these stupid boxwood shrubs that I have hated since we moved in.  Tess helped by watching me and crying when the hedger was on.

They were like octopus boxwoods, with long tentacles growing every which way.  Yuck.

Yay!  No more boxwood shrubs!  Okay, so the roots are still in, but I figured we might as well wait to pull those out until we're ready to put something else in.  And that probably won't be for another month or so.  I know the weather's all nice right now, but this is Indiana and I don't trust the weather at all.  $5 says it snows at least once again before May.

Mr. Lance helped clean up the mess with our handy-dandy leaf blower.  Jobs like this are so much easier with the right tools.

So, any suggestions for what I should put in?  It's pretty much shady all the time.  I'd love to have something with blooms.  Guess it's time to start doing some research.

After cleaning up the flower beds we got to work on the windows.  People make jokes about not "doing windows", but I have to admit there is something extremely satisfying in squeegeeing some very grimy windows clean.

Weather, Cookies, New Camera, Other Miscellaneous...

The weather has been unspeakably AWESOME lately.  We're talkin' 80 degree days with a light breeze.  Tess has been spending a lot of it out on the screened porch. 

As you can see, Josh has been spending it moping around, generally on chairs.  He's upset because I won't let him play Wii or computer games and instead am making him play outside where there's "nothing to do".  I'm a real jerk sometimes.

But Tess likes me - she even applauds whenever I come into the room.  Okay, she applauds for anyone and anything, but still, it's nice to be appreciated.

I updated our 72 hour kits yesterday.  Josh is in heaven with being able to eat all the fruit snacks, pop tarts, beef jerky, granola bars he wants.  Erlack.

I made my traditional 72 hour kit cookies today, using the raisins and instant oatmeal from the kits.  They turned out so yummy this year - raisin/appley/cinnamony with a few leftover dark chocolate chips thrown in for good measure.

Tess helped.  And approved.

Oh yeah, besides applauding Tess likes to eat her feet.  She's also starting to scoot around on her back.  I'm not quite sure if she realizes yet that she's doing it, but it's definitely only a matter of time before she's (finally) crawling.

My old camera was definitely dying, thus the reduced number of pictures on my blog lately.  For a while I really wanted a nice DSLR, but ended up getting another point and shoot.  I just couldn't justify the money I would have had to spend on a DSLR.  Plus, I found a great deal on another Canon (a brand I've been very happy with), and I figured right now a DSLR would just be another big thing to have to lug around when I was out with the kiddos.  There's something to be said about a camera that can fit in your pocket.  So while I may not take professional quality pictures, I will still get some pretty good ones.  Like this one of Tess letting us know that she definitely does NOT like grass.

At all.

For some reason Spencer petting her head didn't help.

And here's Cole, already in his summer uniform: pantsless. (In a few more months I'm hoping he will replace the diaper for underpants.  That's right - we're starting potty training as soon as preschool is done!)

I would show a picture of Josh, but he was being Josh and wouldn't let me take a picture of him.  So here's another one of cutie-pie Spencer, who definitely doesn't get as much blog time as he used to.  (I told him that's what happens when you get old.) ((Which is why you rarely ever see Lance or I on here - we're ancient.))

Joshie's One Christmas Wish

Josh: Mommy, guess what I want for Christmas?

Me: What?

Josh: A CREDIT CARD!!

Me: Not gonna happen.

Josh: But I want to buy everything!

Afternoon Sightings

I walked into the kitchen this afternoon and discovered this:

Why yes, those are Cole's hand prints.  He put them on the window and the afternoon sun cast their shadows on the window seat.  

This neither surprised nor bothered me.  As a mother of four children I am at peace with all the stinkin' hand prints around my house.  These may or may not be gone by the time we have our annual donut party.  In October.

I also discovered a Tess with crazy hair.  How young is too young for a haircut?  The girl really needs some help.

 

Of course, rubbing food in it during every meal probably doesn't help matters.

It makes for a tasty baby, though!

I also found a Cole, sans pantalones, of course.  That boy sure does love his Thing 3 shirt.  He'd wear it every day if I let him.

Tess loves sitting in the sun and playing with her toys.  And by playing I mean throwing them away from her and then whining until someone brings them back.  I refuse to do this anymore.  I keep telling her crawl and get them but she won't because she's stubborn.  And a Madsen.

Then Cole and I had a dance party.  I discovered Cole is a Bieber fan.  So is Tess, apparently.  (Video highlight: Cole singing along with the song.  Awesome.)