Grace

Grace mastered tying her shoes this weekend. She's so proud of herself and so are we!

Lydia is 3 months old!

I'll keep trying to get a picture of Lydia smiling. As soon as she sees the camera she gets really serious. :)

It is hard to believe that Lydia is already 3 months old. Where has the time gone? Lydia continues to be a very happy, relaxed and content little girl. She has been spitting up a ton but isn't acting like it's bothering her at all. I would be more concerned about it if she was being fussy but she is always smiling and cooing so I'm hopeful that it's just a phase. She is rolling from her back to her belly, giggling, "talking" and sleeping through the night for the most part. She usually goes to sleep between 7 and 8 and wakes up to eat around 4 and then sleeps until I wake her up at 6:15. I am thrilled to say that she is over her hatred of the car seat! She rarely complains in the van at all. If I hear anything from her it is a coo as she talks to her doll. She continues to like being swaddled to sleep and takes naps in her bouncer seat. She loves her baths and is all smiles while she's in the tub. She gets about a thousand kisses and hugs a day from her brother and sister and enjoys being entertained by them. She is very quick to smile and giggle at them. I'm not sure how long Lydia is right now but she seems to be getting so tall. A lot of her 3 month clothes are getting tight on her little toes. She has had a very smooth transition to the babysitters. I love Martha (our babysitter) because she is extremely organized and has the same child-rearing style that we do. She believes that children thrive on routine (as do we) and she has the same discipline style that we do. She also is very strict that no child is allowed to touch Lydia...it won't be such a big deal when she's older but when she's this little it makes me feel way more comfortable while I'm at school. If she wouldn't have that rule she'd have kids wanting to hold and kiss Lydia the entire day long and that would bug me quite frankly. :) Obviously it's very important to be on the same page as your childcare provider and I feel like we got lucky finding her! Plus she texts so she can give me updates as the day goes on. :) How fast the past 3 months have flown. Here's hoping that time slows down a little!

Back at it

I have been back to work for 2 weeks now. I would love to get to stay home with the kids for 6 months but I'm thankful I can take off more than 6 weeks. The mornings started out a bit rough for all of us because none of us were used to waking up super early. I feel like we have it down pretty well now and the kids are all back to their normal morning routine. Steve and I wake up between 5:30-5:45 so that we can have ourselves ready shortly after 6. Grace has to be up by 6:15 so she can be ready to go and eating breakfast by 6:30. While I get Grace's hair done and make sure she's dressed Steve gets Lydia dressed. At 6:25 I have to be sitting and feeding Lydia so she's done by 6:45. At 6:25 Steve wakes Samuel up and gets him dressed and he's sitting and eating breakfast by 6:35. We are getting coats on, getting Lydia in her car seat, grabbing book bags etc. and out the door by 6:50 so I can be out of the driveway by 6:55. I get to the sitters by 7:10 and am to school by 7:16 (it is so helpful having her 2 blocks from school.) That is how our mornings go and yes, we have it down to the minute. One thing that has made going back to school much easier is that I get to go nurse Lydia over my lunch break. I nurse her right before we leave in the morning so she's usually hungry and takes a bottle around 9-9:30 and then I get there at noon right when she's getting hungry again. I feed her and then get to put her down for her afternoon nap. It's awesome! She then sleeps most of the time until I pick them up at 3 and eats right when we get home. More on Lydia to come in her 3 month post...

I have to laugh when I hear moms (usually with boys) say that they have no clue what happens at school because when they ask them they always get 1 word answers. In my world I hear EVERYTHING that happens at school. Here is a conversation Grace and I had on the way home last week:

Me: How was preschool today Grace?

Grace: Good! We are sitting at different tables now. I sit at the yellow table with Nora, Hannah and Kirsten. Jack sits at the blue table with...(this continues through all of the tables in her class)...We were worried that Jack was going to be sick today but he was just running late. We did centers and Miss Vicki came from the library and read to our class and Mrs. Hotmire's class came down to listen too.

Me: That's nice. What centers did you do?

Grace: Housekeeping, rice table and play-doh. I played with....(she keeps going and going.)

Me: That sounds like fun. What else did you do?

Grace: We had gym and we got to run back and forth first. I was afraid I would trip on my jeans so I rolled them up so they wouldn't go under my shoes. Then we all got in a big circle in the gym and held on to a parachute and had balls in the middle and we all shook and the balls went flying everywhere!

These conversations can last the entire 15 minute trip home and then some. I think she seriously takes me through a step-by-step of the day. I know who says what and if anyone was being kind of naughty (her words, not mine.) Her teacher emailed me last night and it made me laugh out loud because it was "classic Grace." Here it is (side note: Grace had gotten a fairly nasty paper cut at school and it was bleeding bad enough that she needed a band-aid. No worries; Grace told me that she didn't have to go to the office by herself, Olivia went with her. :) Told you she's pretty detailed!):

Sarah, Just checking on Grace and her little finger. She didn't get upset when it started to bleed but she got pretty pale. After I got it cleaned and got a band aid, she sat on my lap for a bit and then seemed fine. She told me she would tell you all about it when you came to the sitters to feed Lydia. :-) She was so sweet today, she told me she was grumpy last night and I told her I couldn't imagine her being grumpy. She said, "yes and I was a little sassy this morning and my mom told me I better not be sassy at school!" She looked at me with those beautiful eyes and just smiled. Just so you know, I am so in love with her I can't stand it. She is the best! I hope you all have a nice weekend and thank you for blessing me with your daughter. Love, LuAnn

We love her teacher! :)

Samuel is transitioning to being back at Martha's very well too. He had a few tears a couple of days but typically runs off saying "Is Jacob here?" He has 2 other little boys there that are very close in age to him and he plays until exhaustion sets in. Martha always calls him her little piggy because he eats more than any other kid there, including the 4 and 5 year old kids! She's always amazed because not only does he eat more, he eats it faster than any other kid. If you know Samuel at all, this will not shock you. It makes me nervous because I honestly don't think he chews half the time. He also takes a nap right after lunch. Martha has 3 pack n plays set up in a bedroom in the basement. They are almost always asleep by the time I get there at noon but once in a while they will be messing around chatting with each other (not unexpected from two 2-year old kids and an 18 month old.) If they carry on for awhile Martha will go to the bathroom upstairs and open the laundry shoot which goes directly to the bedroom where they are and say "boys, it's time to quiet down and take your nap." It's hilarious because you can hear all of them immediately hit the deck and get totally silent. We laugh and call it "the voice of God" because the boys have no clue how she can know what they're doing down there. :) Samuel is also a constant talker. He is still not real plain but is getting better. He's obsessed with Steve's helicopter he got for Christmas and is always wanting to "pay with helicokter." That one always makes us laugh. :)

Overall I'd say it's been a pretty smooth transition from being at home to being back at work. It helps that I really enjoy my job and co-workers and that I get to feed Lydia at noon. More on Lydia to come...

Oh Grace

We were on the way home from a friend's house tonight and Lydia was screaming (she is still in the "I hate my car seat" phase). We were listening to Pete the Cat and Grace started making up her own lyrics to the chorus which made me laugh out loud:

I love my Lydia. I love my Lydia. She's screaming so loud. I can't hear anything.

So funny! :)

Christmastime

We had a busy and fun Christmas! It felt like we were constantly going for about a week so it's been nice to just relax the last few days. Here's a little of what we've been up to:

We did manage to get all the grandchildren together for a picture at my mom and dad's. Unfortunately I didn't get one of all the Hastings grandchildren. Hopefully I'll remember next time.

Grace, Samuel and I had fun making these reindeer, snowmen and Santa cookies to leave for Santa on Christmas Eve.

I wish I would've gotten a better picture but sometimes it just doesn't work out when you are in an audience. Here is Samuel as a sheep at the Christmas program at church.

Again, sitting in an audience doesn't allow for the best pictures! You can see Grace if you look in between the girl in the front and the microphone. She was an angel.

This is Grace's preschool class at their Christmas program. The church was packed in the evening so you could hardly even see her but luckily there was an early program too that wasn't quite as packed so Samuel, Lydia and I got to sneak to the middle aisle to get a few pictures.

Silly Entertainment

Here was our entertainment for the day. :) Hope you enjoy (and hope it works)!

Mmm...peanut butter

I made homemade peanut butter this weekend and it is awesome. I didn't take a picture of mine but here is a picture from the blog I got the recipe from. I left mine a little bit more chunky but only because my food processor is not super high tech and I didn't feel like sitting there manually holding the button down for 4-5 minutes. :) Anyway...this doesn't take long and is so worth it!

Homemade Peanut Butter

3 cups dry roasted salted peanuts
5-6 tablespoons oil
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 tablespoons honey

Heat oven to 350 degrees F.

Place peanuts on a cookie sheet and bake 10 minutes, or until lightly toasted.

Combine peanuts, oil, sugar and honey in a food processor; process until finely ground (4-5 minutes). The honey is optional but it adds a great sweetness and then you don't need as much sugar. You really can't mess it up...just keep dumping until you're happy!