Love at first Hike

Here are some photos of Jonesgirl’s first hike.  She did great although she did get a little fussy toward the end. Who can blame her?  The boys had a blast and found lots of rocks to climb and there were ledges and cliffs I hardly expected.  We only ran and got our camera at the end so I didn’t get to take any pictures of the scary parts :)  Don’t worry, Nana, all were safe. And are safe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ladybug’s Latest

 

Ladybug is now 6 weeks old.  The time, she do fly! She still has really bad baby acne. (You can’t tell in any of these pics, it’s worst when she’d been crying or nursing)  I’ve been bathing her more frequently which has been helping (duh, I guess).  For the most part she had been sleeping 8-10 hours a night for about a week.  I had hardly noticed these amazing feats, but in the words of Joni Mitchell, “You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone, they paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”  Last night she decided to get up at 2:30am.  She started out with the crying and so I stumbled to her room to find her in only a diaper.  Surely, you know that I didn’t put her to bed in solely a diaper.  No, I put her to bed in one of those baby sacks they have.  You know, the nightgown deal.  She had wiggled out of the sack and out of her blankets to the corner of her crib.  Crazy girl.  So, I fed her and attempted to put her back to bed.  She wanted none of that.  So for a couple of hours there was crying and holding and backrubbing.  Finally, she went back to sleep, and I stopped crying.  Thankfully, dad was here to help….Ah, yes, there was a day when Dad was absent for the nightime bonding with J-man.  Glad those are behind us. Also the days of the Baby Sack are apparently behind us, at least until she plumps up a bit. 

As you can plainly see, she is a real champ at lifting her head. I personally think she could take anyone in her age group in the lift head category.  Some would attribute that to a somewhat teeny head, nonesense, says I.  In this picture here you can also see her lovely flowing locks.  (Flowing might be an exaggeration).  And yes, it looks lighter than before.  I love giving her a bath because then her hair sticks up all cute-like a baby chicken.   She has great big beautiful (in my humble motherly opinion) dark blue eyes.

 

J is certainly in wuv with Ladybug.  Some things he says a lot, and by a lot I mean constantly with little pause:

• Mom, it’s a BA-by!
• He wuvs his wittle fingers (any body part will do)
• He’s so so sweet. (in a high-pitched sing-songy voice)
• When you’re done feeding her can I hode the baby
• It’s baby JO-see
• De Baby is cwining for you mom.
• He wants his pacifier

It’s been fun with those two so far.  Saturday night Banjo held her in his lap while I read our chapter of Peter Pan and she fell asleep.  That was some heart melting activity right there…

 

 

Even in his sleep…

L’il J is on the go.

We’ve been pretty busy lately. The Pastor was preachin’ mornin’ and evenin’ this week. 

Sunday we had a little birthday lunch for our friend.  So a couple of families were here for lunch.

Monday we got to go on a hike with dad….and another fun birthday party.

Tuesday Ladybug and I scooted off to the midwife and that little adventure tuckered me out.  Yesterday afternoon I was toast.  And that brings us to today.  We’ve been catching up on schoolwork, laundry, cleaning and look, now blogging. 

The kids have been getting to bed late for all our busy-ness and so it is good to have a chill out sorta day.

1sts with 4

OK.  I must have really eaten my wheaties today because I tried some big feats with all four kids, solo.  I mean for normal people this is not amazing but for someone who has severe parental freakout anxiety it was a big deal.  First, we went to the grocery.  My motto was Slow as she Goes.  Slow, slow slow.  Slowly drive to the store, slowly park it, slowly get everyone out of car…you get my point.  It went amazingly well.  I had a shorter list than usual so I hope I didn’t forget to buy food for several nights this week.  People have survived on saltines and diet cokes for days, right? We should be fine. 

Came home, unloaded, ate lunch, nursed baby, suited up…..wait for it….went to the pool.  I know, by myself and I totally freak about these situations.  Well, what makes it easy is that Ladybug sleeps in the carrier great and J-man is still afraid of water. Awesome for me.  The two big boys can swim back and forth in the shallow end and me and J hover round the edge. There were kids there they knew today so that was even better.  Legos and Star Wars talk ensued to the merriment of all.  And then it thundered, that’s our cue.  I think the other people there thought I was an idiot or a freak (well, they’re right)  And now we are home, Baby is still snoozin in the seat.  We’re all dressed and ready for a little rest.

I have 2 goals for the rest of the day. Clean the kitchen and prep dinner for dad (as I will be out) and fold the laundry.  Those are big goals, but they are at least measurable, at the end of the day I will either feel joyfully triumphant or an utter failure.  Whatever, I am just going slow and avoiding the mental meltdown as much as possible.

easily distracted

That’s me, today.

Nana came, we took the children to the pool.

We came home, we unloaded new furniture. 

We ate dinner…somewhere after that…Dad and boys went to prayer meeting and I wandered here and I wandered there.  There is a load of laundry halfway out of the dryer, dishes are halfway done, kids are somewhat in bed, I said I was going to feed and change LB about a half hour ago and I came in this room for some other reason, not sure what.

Is this nursing?  Where, oh where has my little brain gone?

Ladybug here and ladybug there

Well, well what do we have here?  I don’t think you can tell too much, but I’ll tell you what it is….Ladybug is…..attempting to twirl her hair! Where did she learn that?  What’s that, you say?  Could she possibly have seen me twirl?  Not with my super-short hair, anyway she can’t even see that far so is it nurture or is it nature?  From her earliest days, and this is one of them, she has tried to stick her fingers in her hair and rub the back of her head, in a twirling fashion, much to the dismay of her father, who thinks it most rude to twirl…especially in church…especially during sermons. I have a problem.

 

 And down here we have,  an early smile, yes of course she is sleeping but obviously she is thinking some smiley thoughts.  This is her before the onset of the baby acne.  The baby acne we are experiencing is the worst on record in Jonesville, especially for an older newbie.  I confess I’m starting to worry that it isn’t acne at all but some allergic reaction, and I can only think she is allergic to me because it gets worse around nursing. 

This picture is dark but I was playing with out the flash.  I’m having fun with my new toy of posting pictures without the help of Flickr.  Don’t worry Flickr, we’re still friends.

Photoshoot

OK well, I uploaded these images directly from my computer.  But I have to say that the process is completely different than the last time I tried and it was much easier. WordPress has made some changes because I have not been able to do this at all before!  This second picture is much smaller than I had wanted but I am going to keep playing with this so it looks like Jonesville will not be going anywhere :) on the Web.

Meanwhile Ladybug is fusspotting it away and I should probly stop playing on the compy and take care of the chilluns.  But here is your Five Week glimpse of Ladybug, in her Jammies :) more later…as I’m enjoying playing with the whole thing.  Thanks to all who offered help.

 

Sunday

OK so no pictures yet.  Maybe today?

Yesterday’s Special Sunday treat turned out to be filet’o'giant nap for Jonesey.  I went back to lay down for maybe a half hour, hour tops and next thing I know it has been nearly 2 and a half hours.  So, eat lunch-unexpectedly long nap-nurse newbie and your back at church.  What did JonesBoys do?  J-man napped, SuperT played with SuperHeroes and made sound effects, and Banjo-man read Alice in Wonderland. 

But we did have Rocky Road Brownies from my Everyday Food magazine, you can find that recipe somewhere round here. They were SO sweet, the boys loved them.  Anything with marshmallows on top is a winner for Jonesboys.  i also made the roasted chicken thighs with zucchini and cous cous for me and Jer.  It took a half hour total to make and only had 5 ingredients.  I highly recommend it.  It isn’t spectacular but it is an easy and practical dinner that you could make anytime and it was yummy and inexpensive!

Tonight’s dinner we are having rosemary fried chicken with fresh rosemary from the Farm.  It soaks in buttermilk so it is just a treat for me and Jones…picnic dinner, the boys will have barbecue chicken.  I’ll let you know how that turns out, too!  The recipe says to place the chicken on a cooling rack on a baking sheet.  What do you think?  Is that safe?  The temp will be 450?  I may use today with Dad home to clean the oven first. 

By the by, you cannot simply move your WordPress blog to blog, so I have to either stick it out here, or copy and paste my entire blog or just start over.  I would love an easier way to upload and comment on my pictures.  Jonesgirl is already 5 weeks old!  She has serious baby acne, other than that she is still pretty cute.  I cannot believe the hair on her, I am used to having baldies. 

I confess I like picking out her clothes everyday :) I wish i got a picture of her yesterday in her sweet blue flower dress sent from Chandra.  I thought she looked so pretty.  And I also have to confess I like the dresses, I thought I would hate them, but I love the way they drape.  Oh, deep down I am a girl, too. 

what am i doing?

Obviously, not organizing my time well.

re-orienting

Now that Jones is Pastor Jones I’m having to do some rearranging of our week.  Sundays are quite busy for a Pastor.  They are kindof a big deal.  We’ve always wanted to use the afternoon for hospitality but with Jones working out the kinks of sermon writing and preparing we simply are unable to host.  So I am trying to figure out how to make the day special for the boys … and girl while allowing Dad to get the preparation time he needs.  Any ideas?  I used to like a nap in the afternoon :) but I can only requre so much nappage out of the big boys and while it is a nice quiet time, it’s not something special or anything to look forward to.  Any ideas out there?

I’m off to go do some much needed ironing and to make some Rocky-Road brownies (sans nuts and dairy) I think that would really flip their lids and could be fun for all of us.  You know how I feel about chocolate.

Then, perhaps I can work on some pictures for the masses.  Which brings me to another re-orienting, I am thinking about moving to blogger.  I can’t upload pictures directly to my post, I have to go through Flickr because I can’t re-size the photos.  I’m an idiot and I don’t know how.  And from what I can tell most people have lots of pics on their blogger blogs and I’m guessing it is more user friendly.  Anyone have any thoughts out there on that? 

To the kitchen!