Keep Your Arms and Legs Inside The Ride At All Times

Laney: I'm pushing him so you can work.

Mom: Oh, how - so you're babysitting, really?

Laney: Yeah. And I can push the baby SUPER high.

Mom: Well I don't want him to go SUPER high.

Laney: When he grows up, he can go super high without pushing. Did you know that?

Mom: I didn't know that.

Laney: Go, Hagen! Right now, when he's a baby, he needs some help pushing.

Mom: Yeah.

Laney: And now that we have a swing, I don't need help pushing, because I just turned four, right?

Mom: Do you think Hagen is dizzy?

Laney: No. (looks in swing) Hagen, are you dizzy? Are you dizzy?

Mom: What did he say?

Laney: Hagen, are you dizzy? No? He says he's not.

And that's when I had to put down the camera to save Hagen.

The Month That Shall Live In Infamy

Hey y'all -

August 2013 been the busiest month of my life, no joke.

For the first week of the month, your dad was gone to Oregon for a Hydrology conference. Steve and Barb and Sarah came to visit. I did a bunch of photography stuff, including a baby session with the sweetest little 6 month-old, Willa:

...and then I shot a wedding on the weekend your dad was serving with the Naval Reserve. If I had paved a highway in Alabama all damn day, I would not have been as tired as I was after that wedding. Learned a lot, though.

Your dad and his softball team fought valiantly, but they ended up losing in the playoffs. Never fear - you dad has already signed himself back up for "Fall Ball," so we're still playing like it never happened.

 

We put together the Splash Bash.

When we found out that your school's summer program was short a field trip, your dad and I whipped up a "Dino Dig" in the park. We made homemade plain sand-colored play-doh for kids to make their own prehistoric landscape, traced 3ft-long T-Rex footprints on the sidewalk so kids could compare the size of their feet to the dinosaur's, and we buried 30 tiny plastic dinosaurs in the sand so kids could practice digging them up and brushing them off.

Right about now, the astute reader is realizing that we bring our stress on ourselves by overcommitting to - and volunteering for - crazy things. And you're right. An intervention is in order.

Then, Grandpops and Grandma CC came to visit. I think I've mentioned this before, but Grandpops' idea of vacation is only working 79 hours a week instead of 80. When he ran out of stuff to do inside my house, he detailed my car. I don't understand this behavior, but I sure applaud it in other people.

He and your dad got to work building a (very impressive, may I say) treehouse for Laney's birthday, including a swing from Ikea called the "Ekorre."

Your dad and Grandpops made lots of jokes about the Scandinavians while trying to decipher that instruction manual. Apparently, we're all a bunch of blonde, crazy drunks who like to cook up ways to drive Americans crazy with an allen wrench while we drink our aquavit. 

Grandma CC was brave enough to ask Laney to perform her stage show, not knowing that she'd bring a whole new intense level of devotion to her craft for a command performance:

The of course, there was the birthday party (The Other Brooke just shared these cute pictures with us) -

And she has no idea. 

So. Much. Shrieking.

The cupcake thief

Getting a temporary tattoo

Lovin' this party, man

Tag! You're it!

Brooke's Temporary Tattoo Parlor

There's a monkey at every fairy party. 

The latest news around these parts is that your dad has been in and out of town for the past week, helping to fight the wildfires that are raging across Montana.

I borrowed that photo from the newspaper - your dad isn't actually in that helicopter. Instead, with his background in aviation, he's been assigned to the technical crew that's getting aircraft ready to drop water on the fires. It's hard to get mad at him for missing fairy party birthday set-up when he says stuff like, "Because our crew was there, we got two extra aircraft up there fighting the fire." 

We have four more days in August, and I can't imagine what else we could pack in, but now I know better than to tell God, "I can't possibly take on one more thing."

Love,

Mom

First Day

Dear Laney,

Today was your first day of 4 year-old preschool, and I decided to continue the tradition of asking you what you want to be when you grow up. To be honest, this year's response was more shocking to me than last year's:

Your dad was especially excited about the astronaut thing, because if I asked him to pick a destination for a romantic getaway, he would probably pick Space Camp.

On the car ride to school yesterday, I said, "Laney, that's so cool that you want to be an astronaut. Astronauts have to know so much about science!" You wrinkled your nose and said, "Oh. Why?"

Of course I want you to love math and science, but I wouldn't be at all surprised should you decide when you grow up to put those signs together and play an astronaut in the TV.

Love,
Mom

Splash Bash

Hey y'all - 

A few weekends ago, I put together a fundraiser for your school called "Splash Bash" at the Splash Montana water park. I designed a flyer and started promoting the event.The problem with marketing is that sometimes, it works. We had 200 people RSVP, so I found myself needing to put together a taco bar that would serve that many people. 

I hit up Costco. Laney loves Costco because their snack bar sells hot dogs and lemonade, and she can put away an entire Hebrew National one-pounder in a single sitting, which is pretty impressive to watch.

I got local merchants to donate stuff for a silent auction, bought a keg, and browned 50 pounds of ground beef in small batches in the frying pan on my stove. Had you been a vegan walking by my house the day before the party, you might'a puked.

The party was a success, if for nothing else, Hagen learned to patiently wait his turn at a keg, which will come in handy in college:

The most fun part of the party, of course, was the swimming. Hagen doesn't mind at all when he gets a face full of water, so he and your dad spent a lot of time on the bear slide:

He was only disappointed when Dad had to take a break from sliding and told Hagen he couldn't do the slide by himself 'til he's two.

We raised a few thousand bucks for the school, had a great time swimming, and now have a freezer full of taco bar leftovers that should last us well into 2015.

Love,

Mom

P.S. The only part of this party I delegated (weeks in advance) was drinks for the kids. Three hours before the party, I got a call that the other mom volunteer had decided that making iced tea for that many people was too much work, and she couldn't possibly do it. I'm not even going to get into my reaction to that, because it involved a lot of dirty words and eye rolling, but I'll share this last-minute idea that I came up that saved the day, in case any of our readers might be throwing a kids' party any time soon:

2.5 gallon water dispensers. Cut an "X" in the top with a knife. Insert funnel. Pour in juice concentrate. Instant juice bar. I made 8 kinds of juice, put them all at kid level, and the kids got to mix n' make their own drinks. 

Laney's Fourth Birthday

I talked to Peg Peg last night, and told her all the stories I've yet to post on the blog, and she said, "Don't worry about all that - just get to the birthday. So, per her request, I'm skipping the past few weeks and cutting straight to the good stuff. I'll recap the past two weeks later.

Dear Laney,

You turned four yesterday. Because Grandpops and Grandma CC are visiting from Missouri, and Hagen's been having trouble sleeping, our family's been playing musical beds for the past week. The night before your birthday, our bed roulette landed you in the big bed with me. You woke up yesterday morning, blinked your eyes, and asked me, "Is it my birthday today?" "Yes, Laney. Today, you are four." You gasped in delight and then whispered, "When can we have cake?"

Dad and I unveiled our present first thing in the morning: a new pod swing to hang under your treehouse.

You love it. Hagen loves it more. It's already a problem.

For a year or so, you'd been saying you wanted a princess tea party. Sometime last month, that idea got upgraded to Fairy Princess Tea Party.

We've been so busy lately that I didn't have the time to over-produce this party like I did last year's Pirate Party. But because we had three grandparents on hand, we were able to slap together a pretty great fairy bash.

We had a tea party table with a canopy and cushions and tissue paper flowers. Your dad and grandpops had built a treehouse in the backyard, and we used it to support a "secret" fairy tunnel. Your dad's original idea was to mount a zip line from the TOP of the treehouse to the telephone pole at the opposite edge of our property, but since I don't like to greet guests to our home with a liability release, that idea was nixed.

And of course, there was a fairy dress-up station.

Grandma Sue made pimento cheese and turkey finger sandwiches and cut them out with butterfly and heart-shaped cookie cutters. Grandma CC made chicken salad that we stuffed into crescent rolls, and I hollowed out watermelons and filled them with fruit salad. There was pink lemonade and iced tea for the kids, and a bucket of cocktails and beer growlers for the adults. Grandpops grilled cheeseburger sliders.

All of the kids seemed to have a great time, There wasn't a single tantrum or shed tear.

One, two...

Three!

We had ice cream cupcakes, which were a hit. 

You don't get your hands messy if you don't touch it.

Hagen had his own, but we soon noticed that anyone who left her cupcake unattended was subject to a missing dessert:

This was the first birthday that you've had presents from your friends to open. In previous years, I'd begged other parents not to bring gifts. You just had so much stuff already, and I didn't want you to think that birthdays are about stuff - I wanted you to look forward to birthdays as a time to have fun with your friends. But this year I gave up the fight and kept my mouth shut, except to have a talk with you before the party about how presents are a way that people show you that they care, so even if you open a gift and you don't like it, you need to say thank you, because you're thanking them for caring enough to want to do something nice for you. Then I crossed my fingers and prayed that you wouldn't tear open one gift after another while shouting, "BORING!" "Boring" is a word I wish I could erase from your vocabulary, especially since you don't really understand what it means but are happy to shout it at random.

I also worried that present time would be awkward, because what kid wants to watch another kid open presents? I guess I underestimated your friends, because your super-sweet new pal Emmy came up to me halfway through the party and whispered, "When is she going to open presents?" Apparently, other kids DO enjoy watching the birthday kid open her gifts.

Basically, I needn't have worried about the whole present thing, because watching you open them surrounded by your friends was one of the cutest things ever. The best part was that each girl had made you a homemade card or colored you a picture or written you a note, and wanted to sit down with you when it was her turn to "read" you what she'd written or tell you why she'd colored you that particular picture.

When you finally came down off your sugar high and we were getting ready for bed, I asked you what your favorite part of your birthday party was, and then tensed myself for your response. You thought about it a second, and then decided: "My friends all playing at my house." I agreed with Grandpops when he said: "Best answer ever."

Happy birthday, big girl. 

Love,

Mom