Petroleum: The WORST KIND OF JELLY

Hey so guess what Emerald Mans did.

She smeared vaseline in her hair and on her face.

Truly the light of my heart, that child.

I don't have a picture, but I can tell you that it looked a little like this:

Also, we have washed her hair four times, and now it seems to be mostly normal.

Magic and Madness

From Thursday (7/18) to Monday (7/22), our family spent quite a lot of time in close proximity.  There were moments, yes there were.  For the most part, the bad moments centered around the fact that Em hates the car and simply does not travel well.  

Having trouble with the motivation to pack:

(Who does Harper look like? My vote is that she looks like her dad.)  

We drove Thursday night the first leg of our trip to St. Augusine, Florida.  We were already tired, after packing all day and leaving the house at 10:30 at night. We stopped in Marianna, Florida at 2:30 a.m.  Em had already gotten carsick on the way there, poor kid. Once in the hotel, no one (except Harper) went to bed before 4 a.m.  Then we were up at 7!  It was time for breakfast, showers, and packing for the next leg of the trip. We left at 11.  Rob left half of his clothes at the hotel!  Good start, Mans Family.

Em fussed and hollered for the first hour.  We stopped and decided that we would move her carseat to the center of the back seat so she could get more air, which hopefully would help with her carsickness.  It helped a lot!  But unfortunately for Harper, she could reach far enough to poke her the face. We finally made it to our destination in the afternoon.

Saturday morning, Jeff and Rob got up early to take their dad fishing for his 60th birthday present.  Lori and I took all FOUR of our kids to the beach, a 45 minute drive. We met Rob's mom there and had a great time, except I had forgotten to pack some essential parts to Harper's bottles.  So Lori went to the store and got poor Harper a bottle so she could eat!  We stayed on the beach for about 1.5 hours, until Harper and Em were just finished with the whole thing.  Em was so cute on the beach!  Rob's mom has all those pictures, but as soon as I have them I will update.  Later that afternoon, we drove back 45 minutes to Lori and Jeff's house to get ready for the birthday dinner. The men were late getting back from fishing, so it was hectic to get all the kids and adults ready. But we made it out the door on time and drove 45 minutes to dinner. Em proceeded to act her age (1 year old) at the 2 hour dinner.  We took her on lots of walks outside and basically traded off babies so we could eat a little bit of food.  Then everyone drove 45 minutes back to Lori and Jeff's house.  We went to bed exhausted.

Sunday morning, all the kids slept until about 8:30, except Harper slept until almost 10 a.m.! The kids went to the park with Rob and Lori while I packed up some of our stuff.  Then we all got in the pool and had so much fun.  Next it was time for showers and a 2 hour drive to Gainesville to see Rob's grandparents. Granny was thrilled to finally meet her tiny namesake. We had such a nice visit with them.

Saturday night and Sunday afternoon we did the trip again, but in reverse.  I have never been so happy to be back in a house that I'm allergic to.  

Overall, it was a horrible and wonderful trip, full of magic and madness. I have spent countless hours trying to get out of this trip, but now I can say that I'm so glad that we did it. I wish we had had more time with each family member, and that might have made all the driving worth it.  But I'm glad we went, and it was great to have everyone together to sing Happy Birthday to Dietz.  It was wonderful to see Rob's grandparents with the babies, and to realize that life goes by so fast. In a summer that has been so overwhelming and stressful, I'm glad we had these moments to remind us what's important.

Em fell asleep eating pretzels after the beach.

 Emerald Mans explains the world.  Or explains that she would like (another) snack.

Granny and Grandpa meet Harper Lilyan.

Entertaining the wildebeest.

Family

Emerald helps Granny with Harper's bottle.  I drink and look at pictures with Grandpa.

Perhaps I drank a lot of wine on this trip...

Cousins!

For the past few days, we have been traveling the southeast with our children.  We are home now, and yes, the trip went about like you would expect, with the addition of a carsick toddler.

Anyway, I will post all the exciting details later.  One big highlight of the trip was that Em and Harper got to visit with their cousins!

MinionTim

We moved!  And as of yesterday, we have the internet. We are having trouble with the wireless, so I'm currently tethered to our modem with a cable!  How did I ever live this way in college? Anyway,  I also ordered a new iPod (see previous post), and we are getting new phones this week too (my phone pretty much died for real while we were moving...)! It's an electronics windfall at our house.

We are going to name our new network (when it is set up) MinionTim.  Yes, from Despicable Me.  We are definitely parents now.

Rob lost his keys this morning, but I have confirmed that they are not, in fact, in the trash. Hopefully there will be an update on this development soon.

New place is pretty nice, the back yard is GINORMOUS.  I love the yard, I like the house in general, but I kind of dislike the kitchen.  There's not a lot of counter space, for one thing. I have put our folding table against one wall and prettied it up with a table cloth, so I use that for extra space.  For another thing, there is no dishwasher.  Unless you count the blonde haired dishwasher named Keri. But I like that the new place is almost just as big and is cheaper than the old place.  Just needs a little love.

The new place interior is painted white.  Like, WHITE. It was pretty disorienting at first, and somewhat insanity inducing, but now we have things on the walls and it's not bad at all.  We have the place pretty much set up, with the exception of the office and the small piles of boxes stashed in corners throughout the house.  We definitely could not have survived the move (actually, whether I survived is somewhat debatable...) without our friends who all came out and helped us/kept our dog and kids/got real sweaty in the July heat.  We plan to have a big party to thank them pretty soon.  In our big back yard!

I'm deathly allergic to the new house, and am constantly taking large doses of Zyrtec, Benadryl, and Sudafed. I vacuumed out the vents yesterday, but I'm unsure if it helped. I think I need to see a doctor and get something that will work, without making me have questionable driving abilities.

I am doing good in school, and typically get my assignments turned in on time.  I am no longer so overwhelmed that I lay on the floor and cry (true story). I only skipped one class and it was "because I had to have a root canal".  Hopefully Karma won't bite me in the ass on that one anytime soon. I feel like I deserved that little break.

The kids are good.  The kids!  Gawd, I have two children! Em loves the back yard, and Harper is smiling and keeping a regular sleeping schedule. 9 hours last night! Woot! Harper loves Emerald SO MUCH and smiles when she is around.  And Em, while she does enjoy smacking Harper in the head at least once per day, protects her little sister from the big kids at Amy's house.  Sisters!  It's completely insane and totally hard, but some moments make it worth it. It's a good thing, since I regularly threaten to send them to live outside.

Here is an update in pictures:

1.  We got a water table and a crazy sprinkler:

2. Sisters!

3.  Em eats at the table like a big kid!  She now has a booster seat though.  Sometimes you just have to restrain a wildebeest.

4.  Harper might have felt a little neglected during the move.  But in reality, though I broke EVERY PARENTING RULE IN THE BOOK, Harper was watched like a hawk.  And maybe I'll write my own rule book now.  Or maybe just a pamphlet.

5.  Harper has a serious side and a happy side.  And she looks so much like Emerald did at this age. Genetics=Amazing.

Harper at 8 weeks:

Now, Emerald at 8 weeks (blast from the past):

Happy Tuesday everybody! Now that I'm back online, maybe you'll hear from me more, but don't hold your breath.

Fun Facts

1:  We are moving in one week.  To a place down the street which has cheaper rent, only 1 bathroom (we really only use one of the two we have now...), and a HUGE back yard.  I have declined to participate in moving.  I will just meet Rob and the kids at the new place. He has assembled an army of people that love us enough to schlep our stuff down the street.

2:  Em has febrile seizures, and after her first one this past Thursday, had her first ride in an ambulance.  She was with Amy when it happened and it nearly scared everyone to death.  Now that we know what they are, I am hoping that will be her only ambulance ride in her lifetime.  But a blue baby that is foaming at the mouth-that's a scary reason to call 911.

3:  I'm behind on my homework.  Surprise!

4:  I CAN'T FIND MY IPOD.

5:  Harper is now 6 weeks old and smiles for real and on purpose!  She's still getting the hang of it, but it's the cutest thing since Em learned to smile for real.

A better update and some pictures coming soon. It's been a little bit of a weird month around our house!

A month!

Somehow it has been a month (technically 1 month + 1 day) since Harper joined us!  Obviously there is not a lot of time for blogging these days, since Rob went back to work, I started teaching a class, and I entered a Master's in Education program.  Yep.  I'm now a grad student.  Seems like a big step backward, but I know that in time it will pay off.  Plus, I got a scholarship, so I will get reimbursed for everything.

Harper has finally reached the 8-lb mark! She can almost wear her 0-3 month size clothes, which means she gets to wear something besides a white onesie.  For a while there, her pajamas didn't even fit.  This is in stark contrast to my new niece, Tailynn, who has more clothes than our entire family. We just weren't expecting such a small baby, so we didn't buy any newborn size clothes.  So, all we had were the ones we (thankfully) borrowed. Anyway, Harper is looking more fashionable these days.

I have been running, but I am getting very impatient with my body, because I want it to look like it did before and do all the things it did before.  But, as I said in the beginning, it has been a month.  To me, this seems like a long time, but in perspective, maybe not so much.

Okay, anyway, I know everyone is mostly interested in baby pictures, which is great, because I don't have a lot of time to write today.  This is because, turns out, in some graduate programs, you have to do HOMEWORK. Like, written homework assignments to turn in.  I am already realizing that I am a terrible student.  Oh well. Here are some pictures.  Hopefully I will be posting more detailed things in the future.

I don't get as much time with Em as I would like, but when we have a minute, we like to bake!  

So far, we have made homemade oreos, brownies, and muffins. 

She has consumed several servings of raw egg.

Good moms let you lick the beaters.  Great moms turn the mixer off first.

After Loly's goodbye party (she is moving to Boston!) in which we took both of our children to a bar,

we went to the park to chill with the elephant.

Celebrating the 1 month milestone with some tummy time.  Harper will not be defeated!

Em spent the weekend with her 2nd set of parents (Joy and Charlie), and Rob and I went to the baseball game.  Funny how it seems easy to do things with a newborn.

Harper wanted to dress the part.  This is the bowl they serve ice cream in.

Sunday.  Ahhh.  Sunday.

Hope everyone is having a nice week!

Two under two club

Hey I have two kids.  Both in diapers.  Both somewhat impatient.  Both adorable.

Last weekend I had my first time alone with both of them. (Em still goes to Amy's during the day to play with the girls.)  I thought it would be fun to build a fort on the deck and do painting with Em while Harper slept.  

The result?

 

But hey, everyone survived. And I might dare say that Em even had fun though her Dad was nowhere to be found.

I'm learning that the ErgoBaby carrier is going to save my ass at least once a day-you know that time of day when everyone wants to cry and be held?  It often coincides with that time of day when dinner needs to be cooked. 

We have a couple of new pics of the kids learning how to coexist.  And of the new kid just learning how to exist in the first place.  It's a tough game, being a baby. 

Harper looks like a toy under there.

Em wanted to play Harper some tunes while she napped...

Fisher price tunes about spiders crawling up waterspouts and whatnot.

This looks sweet, like Em is trying to kiss her sister.  

But I was there and I can tell you she is sniffing her sister.

But believe what you want. 

Hey, fun under the fort!

I will say this lasted about 30 minutes then I had to come up with something else.

Love a nap on the porch swing.

Although Em is not officially an outside baby, we do leave the back door open 

so she can just run in and out.  Whatever gets the laundry done.

Plus, look how happy she is!

I get lots of help with breakfast in the mornings.

Harper declines to participate.  Smartest person in our house, I think.

So everyone is doing well and I went for my first post-baby run today.  It was tragic, but not too tragic. Well, it was tragically short but that is ok. I think I'll do it again tomorrow.

Happy Wednesday!