blue

paparazzi

4/26

just another sunday...

we don't really celebrate easter in my house, but we did go out to lewis ginter botanical gardens for a little water play, since this was opening weekend for the pop jets in the children's garden.  i, of course, forgot my camera.
however, we came home and spent the rest of the afternoon in the backyard, which gave me plenty of photographic opportunity... of half-naked children.

helping daddy water the garden

picking a flower for mom

the eldest, pushing his sister around

now the younger son is doing the pushing

back  & forth

happiness

earth conscious

a few weeks ago i finally replaced my clothesline, the top of which had been damaged in the blizzard of 2009... the weekend that my dad passed away, in fact.  which was, in a way, fitting, as it was my dad who helped me put it up originally.
anyway, it was rather appropriate that the weekend following earth day would have lovely weather for line drying!

4/23

b-earth day

earth day is always a special day in our house, because it is also the husband's birthday.  today he turned the big 35 (the whippersnapper) and we had a nice low-key celebration with another family, hamburgers and chicken on the grill, a cake that fell apart, and LOTS of lettuce.
i tried to get a shot of the birthday boy, but no cooperation...  so, instead, you get to see the younger son taking what i am pretty certain was the only bite he had of his burger.

the creek

today we went to a friend's house with the best backyard in all of RVA.  it was a little cooler than we had expected, but the boys still ended up down at the creek.  unfortunately, i'd left my camera at home and had to use my phone to capture the moment...

200

it's been 200 days since i became a mother of three
200 days, one foot in front of the other
surviving
struggling
still looking for that new normal

reeling from how quickly 200 days have passed since the night our family expanded...

photo by Patience Salgado

the stand

i can't take it...  baby girl started pulling up the other day.  at first she was just trying to climb up the ledge at the door of the sunroom, but yesterday she actually pulled up completely on the couch.  according to the husband, it was not her first time.  i couldn't get to the camera then, but caught her today trying to check out daddy's new video game.

so much for trying to really savor the babyhood of our last offspring.


(and yes, that is a xmas stocking in the background.  i tried to put them away a few times, but the boys kept putting them back up.  whatever.)

head[s] to toe[s]

i love when the boys huddle together over a DS game...

so much sweeter than the fighting that's usually going on!

and the husband took this photo of the younger son's foot, which i just love for some reason...

the only way it could be better is if he was curling all but the big toe down (like a thumbs up with your foot) so that i could send it to my mom and torment her with it...
i am a fabulous daughter.  ;-)

where's waldo?

remember this post?  well, this is how that room *usually* looks:

oh, who am i kidding...  even this is cleaner than usual.

bonus points if you can spot baby girl crawling across the floor! 

swinging

a couple of times while the boys have been enjoying the new trampoline, i've taken baby girl out and put her in the baby swing on the old playset that conveyed with the house.  

she seems unsure of how she feels about it...  sometimes there is laughter:

sometimes there is... tolerance?:

(and this look on her face reminds me so much of her papa.  i wish he was here to see what a beautiful granddaughter he has.)

and then occasionally we get my favorite expression~ her tongue in the air like a dog in a car:

pure joy.

time warp

baby girl, wearing a dress and sweater that were mine when *i* was a baby girl.

i had been waiting for the weather to warm a little to use this outfit because the dress is really thin cotton, and it looks like i waited a little too long...  at least for the sweater (which was knit by my grammie).  oh well~  at least i got it on her once.

and even though she was mid-movement with the right hand causing that crazy blur, i had to use this picture for the left hand's finger-crooked-over-the-nose-with-thumb-in-mouth pose.  that's mama's girl.  ;-)


and for your viewing pleasure, here's another angle, in color:

*NOW* it's official...

regardless of the warming temperatures and the budding flora (and the subsequent neon green coating on the world), it wasn't really spring until i could start breaking out the uber cute dresses for baby girl...

4/13

the birds and the dinosaurs

i lied.  i didn't really give birth.  my kids hatched.

the eyes of april

i love the way my kids' eyes look in the sun and how it brings out so much variation, but i just can't seem to capture it on film...  today's attempts:

baby girl taking a break from the post-work snack:

and with the eldest, i really liked the shadows:

wish

remember how it used to be

when the sun would fill up the sky

remember how we used to feel

those days would never end...

remember how it used to be
when the stars would fill the sky
remember how we used to dream
those nights would never end...

it was the sweetness of your skin
it was the hope of all we might have been
that fills me with the hope to wish
impossible things...

lyrics from To Wish Impossible Things (The Cure, Wish)

'tis a handsome face...

it's electric!

baby girl seems to take after her brothers, having an affinity for chewing on cords.  the boys have already practically destroyed every corded Wii controller we own, although baby girl leans toward USB cords and daddy's electric guitar cord.

shocking!

it's funny that just after the husband and i were remarking to the mother-in-law about how weird our children are chewing on cords, i log on to my local parenting forum to discover a friend commenting about the same thing!  several other moms chimed in, so it looks this habit isn't as abnormal as we thought...

and, yes, i did eventually take the cord away and replace it with something more appropriate for chewing...

expectation

i'm sure you knew it was coming...
the obligatory jump shot on the new trampoline:

assistants

after seeing how much the boys enjoyed some friends' trampoline, we decided to get one of our own.  initially i thought to make it a gift for the eldest's birthday (end of september) and see if the grandparents & uncles wanted to chip in.  the husband thought it was better to go ahead and buy now to use through the spring and summer, and since we found a good deal online (family donations are still appreciated!), we ordered it at the end of march.
it finally arrived yesterday, and thankfully the rain cleared up so the husband could go ahead and assemble (uh, "thankfully" for the super-excited eldest, maybe not so much for the husband).

i think there will definitely be some rowdy boys (and sisters) playdates in our future!
(and oddly, when i think of that, i get this stuck in my head...)

the boy who lived...

the husband has started reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone to the boys, and got through a few pages outside while enjoying today's gorgeous weather!

check out younger son's ink, courtesy of the eldest.  LOL

discovery

i left baby girl in the sunroom for a few minutes this morning while i got a drink.  when i left, she was on her tummy...  when i returned, i found this:

she sat there for close to 10 minutes picking up the goat & pig and either chewing on them or banging them against the barn.  then she rolled to the side, grabbed that threading bead you see in the background (green "car" with smaller red/orange/yellow beads) and sat back up.  

if she starts crawling today as well, i'm going to freak the eff out.  

nom nom

all she wanted for her half-birthday was two front teeth...

and just because i love her expression:

i can't believe baby girl has been with us for 6 months...  

it's that crazy time vortex that surrounds parenting~  each day passes so slowly, but the months and years go by too quickly.

you know what i think?

you r a jerk

not really, though.  it *is* april fool's day, after all.  ;-)

i love this sign.  the eldest wrote it on the back of a drawing that my mom did when she was here waiting for baby girl to make her grand entrance.  he wanted to hold it up whenever someone was being "jerky".  i was cleaning off our dining room table this week (yes, mom~  we can see the table now...  we might even eat there one day!) and found it again.  it makes me laugh.