It's about time...

...we post some heart-warming pictures.

 Mount Royal, Montreal, QC

  Mount Royal, Montreal, QC

Montreal Temple

Montreal Botanical Gardens

Even more from our trip to Montreal...

A Baby Sister

The probability of it happening wasn't very high and neither Talyn nor I particularly wanted a baby on leap day - but it still happened. Barely. It was 11:00pm in the hospital when Talyn mentioned that she hadn't even had the urge to push. She had pushed for 30 minutes for both Alena & Reasor, so there was a good chance that Elsie was going to be born after midnight. Not 5 minutes later and after a full minute of pushing, our third child came into the world. Don't worry, I'm not going to give any more details about the birth. That's Talyn's story.

Now we're officially outnumbered. I don't have a very good idea what it's like yet, since Talyn's parents are here for a week to help out, but I'm optimistic. Alena & Reasor love having a baby sister. They're excited when she opens her eyes, show concern when she's crying, and give her lots of hugs and kisses.

Visiting Mommy & Elsie at the hospital

This first video is a little soft, but if you listen carefully, you'll hear Alena talking to Elsie and Reasor repeating every word.

Reasor started calling himself "Baby Reasor" a couple months ago, and we were afraid that he would be jealous of a new baby in the house. Of course, it's only been a few days, but it seems like he loves having a baby sister. Here, he's showing us that he can be a good big brother by reading her a story and giving her a "good night, sleep tight" hug.

When Reasor was born, Alena took the change in stride, like she does with most things. But for the past few months, Alena has been very excited and always said that she wanted a baby sister. "A baby girl was my choice," she told me after I broke the news that it was a girl.

Alena showing Elsie all of the new baby toys

Though having a baby at anytime is no small undertaking, I've found that this time has affected me the least. I found myself less anxious about the pregnancy and less changed by the birth. Maybe it's because so much of my time and energy is spent with Alena & Reasor, or maybe it's because we're getting more and more used to having a family.

Favorite

Alena: Reasor likes Mommy AND Daddy, but I just like Mommy.
Talyn : Why do you like me?
Alena : Because I like your voice and I like the way your skin feels.

This explains her petting me like a kitty cat.

Quotes

Alena: Good thing you got married so now you can sleep in the same bed.

Bugs & Books

In preparation for Reasor's 18-month doctor's appointment, Talyn & I decided to count how many words Reasor knows. We stopped counting after we hit 50. He's a smart little boy, and he seems to be progressing exponentially! One of his favorite words is "bug". Everything that is little is a bug to him. Specks of dirt floating in the water, a mark on the wall, a small piece of peach skin he pulled out of his mouth, etc. This time he did find a bug, but it was on the outside of the window:

Alena has been learning the alphabet and how they form words for the past couple years, and she read her first book just a couple months ago, just before her 4th birthday. As you can see, she loves the fact that she can read all by herself. She certainly loves to read books. (be forewarned, this is a long video, but it's worth it)

Antecedent

You might look at this photo and assume the children are growling like a lion or such like. Not so. This is what my kids do when they are instructed to say "cheese." Perhaps it's an especially stinky cheese they are imagining?

P.S. They are shirtless because they were waiting for the Dr. to come in for their physicals.

Snow Days

Snow in Atlanta is rare. Getting 3-4" in one night plus freezing rain the next day is pretty much a catastrophe. You may be thinking, "You wimps! Can't you handle a little bit of white stuff?" At first, I thought the exact same thing - and now chuckle at the fact that I have had 3 snow days and counting. But as I smiled, looking out our large picture window at the white blanket of wintry goodness, I realized one thing: if there are no snow plows to clear the roads, it's not safe - no matter how much winter driving experience you have. Not many vehicles can actually drive on a sheet of ice.

Atlanta-Journal Constitution article
[pictures]

Think about it: Up north, what happens after a snow storm? An army of trucks plow the snow off the roads and then sprinkle them with salt and/or sand. What happens if your city of 5.5 million only has a handful of such trucks? Emergency routes and interstates get the first priority, then if they have time, major roads come next. Most roads will never see a plow before the snow and ice melt. The problem is that we've had freezing temperatures for most of the past 3 days. Snowstorms like these come every 10-15 years, so buying more trucks is a waste of taxpayer dollars.

I was supposed to go to work today, starting a noon. Our road, of course, was not clear, but at least the two major roads I take to work had one clear lane in each direction, though quite slick. When I made it to work, crews were working on clearing off the ice sheet that covered the entire lot, and I was told that the department had decided not to open for the day.

Meanwhile, I've had tons of time to spend with the kids and play outside in the snow. We love it. Snowstorms are manageable when the roads are cleared for you. When they're not, just hope you don't have to go anywhere.

Christmas Pictures

Here are the pictures that belong with the December 26 post. I'm posting them here because then people using Reader can see them too. Merry Christmas!

Reasor enjoying a Christmas orange

Alena enjoying her new kitchen

Christmas Snow Angels

Reasor, in his Halloween costume which is the warmest outfit that fits, looks in the window.

Preschool Field Trip

This morning we had an incredible preschool field trip. I'll let the video speak for itself.

Wind Resistance

I love to watch my kids when they want to go faster. They both duck their head and look at the ground as if to improve their aerodynamics. Alena does it running and Reasor does it crawling. It's especially exciting to watch them almost crash into walls and things only to look up and change course at the last second.

Weather Weenies

On Saturday night, we went to Stone Mountain for the laser show. We were sitting out on the grass watching when it started to sprinkle. Several people got up to leave and I thought, "What weenies that they can't handle a little sprinkle." Within minutes their judgement was supported. It began to pour We're not talking just any rain. It was big-dropped, get-soaked-to-the-bone-within-5-minutes kind of rain. The kind in which you'd skip down the street for fun. Anyway, we had remembered an umbrella...in the car. I thought about going to the car, but it would have taken us 10 minutes to get there, and by then the rain would probably be over. So I held a frisbee over the baby's head and Kevin held the nursing cover over Alena. OK, I tried to hold a frisbee over the baby's head, but he kept grabbing it and putting it in his mouth. He was not bothered in the least by the rain. He didn't even seem to notice it. The people behind us (who had 3 umbrellas) were bothered that he was in the rain. Not enough to lend us an umbrella though. Just enough to mutter about us just loud enough for us to hear. Ah, people and their obsession with wanting to enforce their weather weenie-hood on babies all the time. It made me smile a little bit. But not as much as the rain itself. I love being outside in a downpour. So invigorating.

P.S. Dear Reasor's grandmothers, It was like 85 degrees still. No one was going to get hypothermia from this.

P.P.S. As you can see from the photo, by the time we got back to the car, the rain had pretty much stopped.

Chumpy

Currently Alena's favorite adjective is "chumpy." Rather than try to define it for you I will give you a few examples of how she uses it.

"Daddy, where did you put that chumpy thing to put on the chips?" (a chip clip)

"Mmmmm.... This is chumpy." (Cereal, crackers, chips, apples)

"Mommy, this guy is chumpy. Chump chump chump." (A dinosaur finger puppet)

Because...

Alena, her arms full of toys she was taking to the toybox from the couch after I asked her to: Mommy, don't ask me to put away the blankets.

Me: Why not?

Alena: Because ... I love them. And I need them to be cozy on the couch.

The other day I found her during quiet time like this:

P.S. Personal confession: Sometimes, before falling asleep for a nap I place the book I've been reading on myself in such a way that when someone comes across me sleeping they think I just fell asleep reading and they won't know I just decided to take a nap.

Birthday Morning

Don't get too jealous parents out there, but when Alena wakes up in the morning, she's in the habit of coming into our room and sitting quietly in a corner until either Reasor or I wake up. If it's Reasor she runs to his room to play with him. If it's me, she excitedly tells me she's going to her room to get dressed. Today Reasor was up first. She was playing with him when I got up and headed over to my closet to get dressed. She heard me and ran in. When she saw me she stopped, put her hands behind her back, cocked her head and said, "Happy birthday, Mommy." I think it was my favorite birthday greeting ever.

My mom tells the story of her best birthday ever being when we girls made a bunch of junk (my word, not hers) out of paper for her. It was her best because we had made a big deal out of it. Today I'm starting to understand how exciting it can be when your child makes a deal out of your birthday. It's already been more exciting than last year when I had the biggest party of my life just by having my three-year-old tell me happy birthday. (This in no way discounts all of you wonderful people who made my birthday fabulous last year, you just have a major disadvantage. You're not my three-year-old daughter.)

Oh! By the way my daughter turned three. Just because I didn't blog it doesn't mean it didn't happen. This blog isn't even my family journal so I don't have any guilt issues about not blogging it. However, I'll throw in a few pictures, because she looked cuter at her birthday events than I will at mine.

Love

I love listening to Alena watch Super Why. Today I heard her shouting from the other room, "And Anena with evy-thing powa!"

Fashion Sense

This is the outfit Alena chose to dance and "play soccer ball." Then she stood in front of the window and asked me if I'd take a picture of her looking out the window.

Toddler wisdom

"That's not Elmo. It's just some eyes. And some paper. We color on that paper? No. No no. Don't color on that paper." ~Alena

A Little Ray of Sunshine

Update:

During our dinner prayer I prayed that Alena could find a friend. She joined in saying, "And my friend is Mary. Mary is my best friend!"

Friends

"Look! There's my friend Ivy!" Alena said to me excitedly yesterday during sacrament meeting. It was another pretty little blonde girl with curly hair. It wasn't easy to explain to her again that Ivy was far, far away with her other friends.

She was telling me today about nursery. "...And that boy played with the other girl."

"Who did you play with?"

"Um, the car, and the red car."

"Did you play with any kids?"

"No. Not any kids."

Yesterday after church at the pot luck she whispered in my ear, "But where's my friends? Where's the little girls?" I pointed out some children playing and she happily ran around with them, coming back to me periodically to tell me in the happiest voice she has, "Those are my friends!" As I watched I noticed that, while the kids were happy to let her run with them, none of them were actually interacting with her. Still, it was the closest she's had to playing with kids in the last week and a half, which is a really long time in toddler time. (I know, I know. Parallel play. That's what kids Alena's age are supposed to be doing. She does some of that, but she had also developed some actually playing with kids, and that's when the biggest smiles and the happiest giggles happened.)

Last night during Alena's tantrum I was praying to figure out what I could do to help her feel better. The thought came to me that she needed a friend. Kevin and I moved across the country, but we got to bring our best friend with us. Sure, we'll be needing some more friends, but we're good for now because we have each other. Alena moved across the country and she got to bring her parents and her unable-to-play baby brother. None of those things really counts as a friend. Then in addition to that, a phone call or a letter from or to her old friends doesn't hit the spot for her the way it does for people who can carry on a telephone conversation or read.

Then to make things even worse, when she asked to call Lily on the phone this morning we discovered that our phone still isn't making outgoing calls, making her second request (a call to Reuben) also unfulfillable.

I told Alena we could go for a walk to try to find some friends. She asked if we could just walk to Lily's house. She eventually settled for going on a friend hunt. We didn't get very far since I forgot the baby carrier in the car that Kevin has at work so Reasor got the stroller meaning we could only go as far as Alena could walk in the time between feedings.

Outside we found: some men re-shingling a roof making too much noise to talk, one man mowing a lawn with headphones on, and one porch swing. Alena asked to swing on it. I said she could if we asked the people inside the house. We met Mary. She said we could surely swing and apologized that her youngest grandchild was 6 years old. She did say that we could stop by to talk from time to time though.

Alena was really quite disappointed when we had to turn around to make it home in time for Reasor to eat ("But I want to find some friends!"), but she saved her tantrum for our own backyard where she was playing by herself while I fed the baby.

I guess we'll have to have another post for the happy ending, which I'm sure will come for a friendly girl like Alena. For now, I leave you with this.

Who's this?

Or rather, what is she eating? If you guessed a turkey neck, you are dead on. I think that's enough proof that she is my daughter.

"Is it yummy, Alena?" "Yes. It is very yummy."