around the house...

LindyJean loves corn on the cob, avocados, having her photo taken, being in just a onesie, playing in the dirt, and imitating Bitty.

Munching on canteloupe, pre-breakfast snack, LindyJean insisted on sitting in a big girl chair like Bitty. It's funny; she's doing a lot of things earlier than Adelaide because she has Adelaide's example to follow. Additionally, she's real keen on being every bit as capable as Bitty at most things.

A sure sign you got a "walker" on your hands... goodness gracious, this turned into an UGLY bruise.

Just after we've gotten over the 2 week stint of vomiting, diarrhea, and obscene quantities of cranky & whiny sicko behavior - Adelaide wakes up from her nap with these all over her body!!! Are you serious? I have no idea what they were, but our doctor neighbor came over and dosed her with benadryl and said she'll either be fine in 24 hours or you'll need to call the pediatrician. Thank the good Lord she was fine. I could likely not have handled much more illness.

Life as Me...

A post for JoMama...

No photos, I apologize you're stuck with just my frivolous word smithing. Life has been most fabulous and, simultaneously, completely hellish as of late. Let's start with the shitstorm that arrived after a near full week sojourn provided to me by my most lovely ma-in-law and handsome husband (more on that later).

I managed to delete our entire library of family photos... yep, massive blunder. Thank goodness we pay for Carbonite and I was able to recover them, however it took an entire week for the back up system to download the 40 Gb of 10,980 photos and tied up our computer for SEVEN days. Which made Mr. Stagg even more annoyed by my monumental screwup. It also has caused me to fall seriously behind on my bookkeeping for the business as I did not want to restart the computer to boot to the Windows side of my newly partitioned Macbook (which I had to do b/c Intuit does not seem to think it necessary to make a usable version of Quickbooks for Macs... I hate Intuit.)

I broke my toe. As if it's not hard enough to waddle around hugely pregnant, I've clumsily added the bonus of an unexpectedly painful broken pinkie toe. Awesome! Even if I was not totally knocked up with our soon to be third baby (in four years), there is not much that can be done for it - except that you can visit the chiropractor and she can snap it back where it belongs (which, at the time, hurts so bad you want to punch her in the face, but within 12 hours makes the toe/foot feel MUCH better).

There are a number of small blunders that accompany these big two, that added to the aggravation of the big two, but I am not going to recount them. Not so much as to save you the boredom of reading them, but so that I might not plunge back into the pit of despair over what an idiot I can be at times. I am not sure if I am just realizing what a moron I am or if pregnancy not only makes you temporarily crazy/super-dooper hormonal and whale-like in your proportions, but also just plain stupid?

The good news... as we are nearing the end of this third pregnancy adventure, I was gifted 4 days to myself at home. Eric took Bitty and they went camping for 5 days (I'll get a post up soon, now that I can use the computer again) and Trudi, my ma-in-law, took LindyJean for 4 days. Let me tell you, it was FABULOUS. You get in the groove of mothering your children, pampering your husband, keeping house, and whatever else you add to your schedule and you do not realize that you are NEVER alone. Never left to your own thoughts and devices. Anyone who thinks they have no free time and is childless, has NO idea what they are talking about. I am also convinced that everytime you add a kiddo, you can look back and say to yourself, "What the hell was I doing with all that free time before 'what's his/her face' arrived?"

I had dinner with girlfriends, went to my book club, shopped, cleaned my house (and it stayed that way for days, not minutes), lounged about, read, gardened, caught up on all my bookkeeping chores, worked a day at the winery, cooked, and enjoyed myself immensely. We are very early risers in our household and I even stayed in bed reading one morning until 9 am. I highly recommend an "at home alone vacation" for all mothers. It is like someone hit the reset button and you have a new lease on life. Yay!

However, the return to reality can be a bit rocky. The quantity of laundry, whininess, and general chaos that returned with my loving children & husband was a rude and unexpected ending to a beautiful sojourn from my real life. However, I must say I am very glad to have them back and it's never boring 'round here!

Visit from the cousins.

Trying to get children under the age of three to pose for a photo is near impossible - below is as holding still as we were able to manage. LindyJean is an escape artist and Bitty refused to smile. Notice the older girls smiling, being cooperative, and generally lovely!

Nataley, Alayna, & Bitty are enjoying their after meal treats and one another's company. The girls were here for a week long visit to Eric's parents and got a lot of time with Bitty. She loved it and they thought she was a kick in the pants.

Apparently, at the ages of 7 and 9 the novelty of blowing bubbles still has not worn off... hooray! Who am I kidding, I am thirty and still find them nifty.

We don't see them often and it was a very nice visit. They are good kids; well-mannered and patient with the little ones. Bitty speaks of her cousins, "The little one and the Big one" (not sure why she began calling them that, but the "little one (Nataley)" is not fond of the moniker), very regular and it makes me wish we lived closer and that Staci & Boss would hurry up and procreate so my kids have someone to play with. :)

Cute kids

Here are some photos of my family cheesin' it up (a recently learned skill by LindyJean).

Cheese!

She really hams it up when you point the camera at her and then insists on seeing the photo as well.

Bitty just looked so happy eating her tacos... she adores tacos.

... gone fishin'

Eric is a brave man. He took a five day fishing & camping trip to the St. Joe River, Idaho with just himself and Bitty! He was not particularly diligent about documentation, however I am in no place to criticize at this point and there is enough photographic evidence to prove they were there.

Cousin Cambria and Adelaide (Cambria is Eric's cousin Travis' daughter, she is 8 or 9.)

Bitty and Uncle "Randoon" on a trip into the town of Avery one day... checking out the fishes and feeding them.

Because the year has been unnaturally cold and wet, the river was too high and too cold for Aunt Mameka to feel comfortable throwing the girls in it, so she bought them a pool to dink around in.

A lot of time was spent puttering about looking for wildlife apparently. Here was a big 'ol bull moose they spotted. Bitty keeps telling me to "keep my eyes peeled" for deers, coyotes, moose, bear, and a host of other creatures.

Mud puddles are fun!

The blissful babe whose mother is bothered none whatsoever by a little mud, even the consumption of it here and there!

They had a movie date... it was a gorgeous day and had just spent about 2 hours indoors eating popcorn & watermelon and watching "Despicable Me." It was time for some sunshine. They wanted a little water and I made them a mud puddle.

Adelaide's favorite was the sensation of the mud squishing & squashing between her "toadies."

Jumping, jumping. I did not get anymore photos of just how muddy they got, as I was trying to get LindyJean to stop eating the mud like it was chocolate, however their hair looked like dreadlocks and they were covered!

They required a full backyard hosing/shampooing. This is the dejected "that was freezing and really stunk" photo.

Here we are after I said, "Smile and pretend like we are still having fun!"

Crawfish Boil

Lisa & Brian (our neighbors) attended a benefit auction for our local hospital (Lisa is an OB/GYN who attends at Prosser Memorial) and bid on & won a package for a crawfish boil at a local winery, Columbia Crest. They invited us to attend and it was a perfect evening - excellent company, ideal weather, & scrumptious food.

Here is Rob, our host, showing the girls a live crawdad. Mind you, we did lobsters on Memorial Day Wknd, so they were a little cautious at first...

... which quickly turned into full blown crawdad mayhem. They were picking them up and squealing and generally having a fabulous time. Tossing them in the bucket like rocks and grabbing new ones, I can tell you that PETA would not have been pleased.

This is just such a pretty picture of Maggie! Nice camera work Eric.

Feasting... we had boilt crawfish, taters, andouille sausage, & corn accompanied by cajun rice and hush puppies. For dessert, they prepared Bananas Foster!

I have yet to decide whether this photo is gross or funny.

The menagerie of vittles.

And this one definitely falls into the just plain gross category. She has become the MESSIEST eater on God's green Earth. Most days I have to put her in the sink after each meal.

4th of July Weekend

The holiday was spent galavanting at Nana & Grandad's...

After 'assisting' (translation; hosing down Nana & occasionally the plants) Nana in the watering of potted plants, Bitty decided that her wet clothes were burdensome and removed them entirely. Then she declared it was time for a "naked 4-wheeler ride," donned her ear protection, and was on her way.

Saturday morning we attended the Soap Lake 4th of July parade. They had bed races and soapbox derby races. It was quite entertaining.

Nana snaps a successful self-portrait!

Post parade, Aunty Staci decided the girls needed a new palate experience and they tried cotton candy. LindyJean hated it, Adelaide was in hog heaven.

Gimpy Grandad & pregnant Jo force everyone to take a break in the shade after wandering aimlessly about the festivities for a while. LindyJean is apparently trying to eat her foot.

Nana's strawberry patch was in full swing and she & Bitty picked a slug of berries for a delicious fresh strawberry pie. Nana's hands turned pink after washing them, Miss Adelaide found this fascinating...

Particularly when Nana showed her your face can turn pink too!

4 wheeler ride!

Adelaide likes tall, handsome men. Cowboy Ben (who fits the bill) has a herd of approximately 100 cattle down the road from Mom & Dad's. They give him a hand every now and then and here they are watering the cows. Adelaide excitement to ride the Ranger down and gawk at Ben's cows was palpable... she had met him the day before and couldn't stop talking about him, his cows, cow-dogs, and horses.

Here is the gang ready to enjoy fireworks. The kids stayed up until 11 pm, a first! I paid for it during the following 3 days. :)