Babylegs, take 2
Here’s Olivia again. She put this on for church this morning and I couldn’t resist taking a shot of her. She really loves those things! I guess I need to get her a couple more pair in other colors so she will be able to match whatever she’s wearing instead of just wearing them with pink.
Filed under Stacey | Comment (1)“Yeah, sure.”
This is Ian. He’s 2 years and 8 months. He’s quite a character. He was a bit slow to talk, but now he talks all the time and we can understand about 95% of what he says. I think he’s well on his way to following in his sibling footsteps – the footsteps of never stop talking, I mean.
And yes, his face is messy. It almost always is, because he’s almost always eating. He really likes food. In fact, it’s not unexpected to find him standing in the kitchen with the fridge door open, looking for his next snack. He was sitting at the table just finishing lunch when I took this. He also needs a hair cut. That’s something we are working up to.
He’s very ornery and does just what he wants to do. But, when he does something he knows he shouldn’t, like coloring on the walls, he will come and find a parent to confess immediately after he does it. What’s up with that? Also, when he’s doing something he shouldn’t, and I correct him and ask him to stop, he very cheerily says, “OK!” Or oo tay, if we are being specific.
One of Ian’s funniest speaking quirks right now is in the title. He almost never just says yes to anything. He always tacks on “sure.” Ian: juice. Me: You want some juice? Ian: Yeah, sure. Or… Ian: Potty. Me: You need to potty? Ian: Yeah, sure. Like, “gee, now that you mention it, I do have to potty.” I remember Olivia did something similar. She started the answer to every question with “no” even when she wanted to answer in the affirmative.
Ian’s favorite thing right now are his Hot Wheels. And a big, ugly plastic elephant. Hearing him say elephant is the hight light of my day. I can’t even begin to spell how he says it. You’ll just have to trust me that it’s way cute. Or you can call and ask him about his elephant. I’m sure he’d be happy to chat about it. But, the cars? They go everywhere. They go to the store. They go to church. They go everywhere. The cars definitely serve a good purpose. He can name them by color. Tom loves that Ian knows his colors already. I don’t even know if it’s already. I don’t pay much attention to all of that “they should know XX by XXX” stuff. I figure they will know it when they know it. I don’t know of any adults who are unable to name colors as long as they are able to see them. So I don’t worry.
The other thing about Ian, that I often actually forget about, is his hemophilia. When Noah was Ian’s age, we had just gotten rid of the port and were just starting peripheral infusions (sticking into a vein rather than using an artificial access device). Noah required EMLA which is a topical numbing cream (that should be offered to every pediatric patient who is having blood drawn in my opinion, but that’s a whole different story). I was finally able to get Noah to give up the cream about 2 years ago. He’s 8. I really don’t like it because it has to sit for an hour to be fully effective. We did try it with Ian once when he was little. However, he was so traumatized by needles by then, that it did not good. He fought just as hard. So, we decided that if we were going to have to fight anyway, we might as well get him used to the needle stick. We infuse him once a week, and while he doesn’t like it, we are usually able to get him infused with just one stick, and he recovers emotionally, very quickly. It helps if we offer him candy. A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, right? Well, I’m very proud of him and how well he handles dealing with his hemophilia at such a tender age.
Ian has definitely made his mark already, and he is well on his way to becoming a very interesting adult.
Edited to add….
He came to me looking so cute and CLEAN, just after I posted, that I just had to grab another shot and add it, so you can see that he can indeed have a food free face.
Filed under Stacey | Comment (0)Easter
We all got up and got dressed up in our spanking new Easter garb. Then I needed to grab some shots of everyone looking all clean and matched. We were headed out side but then when we walked into this hallway of our church, the murals changed my mind for me. I could only grab a few quick ones as it was between services and tons of people were walking through. When it came time for the group shot, an unlucky friend happened to walk by and we grabbed him (thanks, Dan) and I shoved the camera into his hands. I had a long lens on so it was a bit tight to get us all in the frame, but Dan did a great job given what he had to work with.
Here are the girls. Olivia is the only one who loves her dress. Hannah was really unhappy when we bought hers, despite the fact that she originally chose it from the rack. Emily isn’t too thrilled with hers, but was willing to do it for me, since it matched the other two.
Boys are so much easier to shop for! I wanted to get Tom some plaid shorts, too, but I figured he wouldn’t wear them. He told me this morning that he would have. It figures.
Here’s the whole clan. Olivia really wasn’t beheaded. Just looks that way. After we took it, I became aware of our surroundings more and realized that, like 40 people had stopped on either end of the hallway to allow our pictures.
And this is how we started the morning… with Emily driving us to church. This was the first time Tom rode with her. It was entertaining for me to hear him teaching her. He also wasn’t used to her unique way of stopping and starting – especially at the traffic light that is on an incline.
After church, we had just left overs for lunch because we wanted to get to the skating rink by 1. They were doing a free admission session. Tom was going to go, but Ian fell asleep, so he sacrificed and stayed home with him while I took the kids. After the session on Friday, today was pretty hard for me handle. But, I survived.
We had Easter dinner for supper tonight. We had a ham (doesn’t every meat eater?), scalloped potatoes, and green beans. It was yummy. Olivia ate a ton. Guess she really liked it.
Filed under Stacey | Comments (2)Yummy Dinner
This was dinner tonight. I got the recipe for the made from scratch mac & cheese from Ree at The Pioneer Woman. She has great recipes and really cool photography. I made some chicken and garlic sauteed green beans to go with. It was yummy.
Today, Emily and I went shopping. We found a dress that I adore and she won’t refuse to wear. Sigh. It matched the other two girls’ dresses. She said she feels like a little girl in it. I’ll post pics tomorrow. I’m so glad the weather is, while not really fantastic, at least not terrible for the boys to be wearing their new shorts outfits. I’m really excited to go and celebrete the resurrection of Jesus. What a wonderful sacrifice He made for us!
Happy Easter!
Filed under Stacey | Comment (0)Olivia & Ian {Photopress}
I really need to just take more fun pictures of the kids. So, this is the first of what I hope to be a regular occurrence – a photo post. These will just consist of a series of shots showing some activity that is happening in the Rainer household. This was Olivia and Ian playing outside. Olivia was riding her new bike that we got for $11 on clearance. Woo hoo! She was VERY excited to have her very own 2 wheeler, even if it really has 4 wheels counting the training wheels. I predict by summer’s end, she’ll be riding like a pro.
Babylegs
I’m trying to get something up everyday. This is what came off my camera when I emptied the card (well, not directly… I played with it a bit). This is Olivia. A couple of weeks ago, as we were getting ready for church, Tom noticed a couple of big holes in her tights. He was going to go to the store and get more, but come on. She’s 5. I told him he might as well buy about 10 pair so we are good for the next couple of months because she puts holes in them the first time she wears them. In fact, the offending pair she was wearing that morning had only been worn a couple of times before. To fix the problem, I put a pair of Ian’s old Babylegs on her. For those of us who grew up in the 80’s, these are like leg warmers. Well, not like. They are the exact same thing that we wore 25 years ago, but made for little ones. My use for them for Ian was that I could have him in just a diaper or underwear for quick access during the infant potty training, and still keep his legs warm. They work very nicely. They also are great for wearing in the cold months under pants. Those short little pant legs get hiked up a lot during baby carrying and especially during baby wearing. The Babylegs keep them covered and cozy.
Sorry. Back to my story. Ian’s Babylegs are a white, light blue and light brown argyle. Olivia was horrified to be wearing “BOY” Babylegs. Please just ignore the fact that her dress had blue flowers on it, so they were actually a very good match and looked totally cute. I promised her I would buy her some “girl” Babylegs as soon as I could, and that mollifed her…. a little bit. These are not something readily available, so we had to order them online. I ordered from my good friend Jennifer’s sister’s online store (did you follow that?) Sprouting Up. She sells all kinds of really cute stuff that I’d be buying tons of if I still had a tiny, diapered baby. Olivia doesn’t get the whole online ordering process. She expected that since we ordered and paid, we should have them right now. I have to say, Becky did a great job of getting them to me lickety split. Once they arrived, Olivia decided they went best with the skirt in the picture. She wore the skirt and Babylegs everyday for a week. Then, after I told her she couldn’t wear the skirt anymore until it was washed, she still put the Babylegs on under everything she wore. I finally got them into the wash yesterday… along with the pink skirt. Good thing she has a pretty new dress to wear to church tomorrow for Easter, or I’m sure she’d be wearing exactly what you see in the picture.
Filed under Stacey | Comment (0)Roller Skating!
First things first. Forgive the picture. That’s just the best my phone could do under the way low lighting situation we were in.
We went skating today. The kids are always getting passes from school to go. Today, we actually went. The nostalagia for when I skated started at the door… when I paid $19 AFTER I got credit for the three passes. It’s $5.50 to get in (that’s what the pass covers) and then $2 skate rental. Sheesh!! I remember paying like $1.25 to get in an an extra quarter or fifty cents to rent skates. Anyway, this was Olivia’s first time every on roller skates. She really didn’t like going out on the floor at first. So, I had her do carpet skating for a while until she wanted to try the floor again. It was about 2 hours before she’d let me take her back out. But, then she decided she liked it much better and had me do it a couple more times with her.
But, for the most part, I was on my own. That meant I could skate my little heart out. And, while I heart did enjoy it, my legs started complaining rather quickly. Man, I’m old and in bad shape!! I’m a bit nervous about how sore I’ll be in the morning. I just didn’t realize how different the muscle use is from every day walking to skating around. Regardless of the pain, I had fun. I only fell once, but I fully blame Noah. We were skating while holding hands, and he fell right across my path. I’d done a good job of straddling the mess of him limbs going every where, but then he hooked his skate into mine and that was the end of it. Thankfully, I’m well cushioned. It makes the landing softer.
Hannah, Noah and Jonah all had a fun time. They did a skating unit in PE this winter and enjoyed taking what they learned out into the real world. I think I will see about trying to get out to the old roller rink more often. I really fell I got a great work out. I could do with a few more of those.
Filed under Stacey | Comment (1)Food Fair Fun
So, the other day my church had the food fair. This is basically where a bunch of people bring their best dishes and then people pay to come and sample all the different food. This helps raise money for the group of kids who are going to Costa Rica this summer. I happen to be one of those kids. :) It’s a very exciting trip, from what I’ve heard, and I can hardly wait to go this summer. We will be there for a total of 10 days and will be doing various activities during that time. One of the main things we do is put on a VBS for the little kids who live there. We will also be doing mini sermons and street preaching, or going door to door and telling people about God. The trip is kind of on the pricey side, so the food fair really helps to raise money for us. It’s our biggest fundraiser, and super important. It was also a lot of fun. After church, we had to set up about 20 tables with chairs going all along them, and then direct people and set up extension cords and lots of other stuff. It was a very busy and eventful afternoon, but was totally worth it and a ton of fun. I’ll be leaving for Costa Rica on July 9th, and won’t get back until the 17th. So, prayer would be greatly appreciated, as I prepare to go on the trip. Well, thats all for now. :)
Filed under Emily | Comment (0)Emily, driving.
This was actually a couple of weeks ago. Today, she started her actual on the road driving course at school. I went to pick her up and decided she could drive home. We actually needed to stop at the store first. By the time we walked into the store, I had so much adrenaline pumping through my body that I could hardly see straight. The first time out, she did fine, I was relaxed. All was well. But see, there was TRAFFIC this time. So, between the car she almost rear ended, and the post I thought she was going to hit in the parking lot at the store… well… let’s just say I think I took a good 5 years off my life span. She did much better on the way home. She was listening to me better. Granted, it was only a half mile from the store to home. Still. I think we will survive this.
And please don’t remind me about the car I hit the first time my dad took me out driving.
Filed under Stacey | Comment (0)Snow in April!
This was my view from the front door this morning. What in the world?? Being from Kansas, in April, I was already contemplating going swimming, NOT thinking about snow men.
I took the kids shopping this weekend and we got Easter outfits. The boys all got shorts. A long time ago, back when I was a kid, shorts were completely weather appropriate on Easter. I certainly hope the next few days bring about some change so my poor boys don’t freeze!!
Filed under Stacey | Comment (0)