It's Lilac Season!

Also, pushing Pink Pink in her stroller to see the horses at the old fashioned gas station museum is SERIOUS BUSINESS.

Teething in Princess Tents

I'm sorry for the picture overload today... I had a hard time deciding which ones to post, so I am just posting them all. This is from the day Anja found and opened the new box of Annie's Cheesy Bunnies. These two were so proud of themselves!

And did you know that Greta loves to eat?

Yesterday we got a visit from our friend, Mrs. Watson, who is Joannie and Jill's mom. She was coming over to return a cake pan and bring by some chai mix that Joannie got for me but had forgotten to bring over when she came. By the time she got to my house though, she had decided to bring us a bag of frozen chicken nuggets, a box of frozen chicken fingers, a bag of the yummiest oranges I've ever had, and a Disney Princesses tent. The girls love it all! This is Greta enjoying a nugget. I think they might have drugs hidden inside or something though... She's looking a little crazed.

And here they are, eating the oranges in their tent! The top is open and Anja likes to be inserted through the roof, by me. Over and over again. Haha! However, she also likes to have piles of books delivered to the tent door (also by me) and she will sit in there for very long times looking through her books and talking to herself. It's very cute.

As you can see, Anja has really been enjoying the oranges. She calls them "O-em" and asks for them all the time.

And other than receiving gifts from friends we've been spending a lot of time in our yard and on short walks. With the exception of the past two days when winter returned, we've been playing outside every day, which is a fabulous difference from last spring when Greta was a very newly born baby. This is Anja's Nature Bowl. She wants one that's pink and felted but this is what she gets for now. In it you will notice some rocks, a pinecone, leaves, sweetgum spikey thing, some milkweed seeds and lots and lots of dandelions. My oh my, how this girl loves dandelions!

And in order to better do her collecting while we're out, I made her this bag:

It's the "Hobo Sack" tutorial from MADE, and it's really easy. Of course, mine doesn't look nearly as good, nor as cute, as the ones that the tutorial comes from... but whatever. It'll do the job. Right now it's holding a book, some woodland folk, some gnomes, an orange, and--you guessed it--LOTS of dandelions!!

And other than all this, I have calculated that Greta has been teething SINCE CHRISTMAS. Yikes. Looking back, I think Anja was only a couple of months older than this when she got her molars (which was, by far, the worst experience of MY life) so I'm wondering if that is what's made this week so particularly awful. No sleep. Lots of whining/crying. Many, many instances of walking around with her face squished up, sort of half-crying, and her eyes so squinty that she can't see where she's going so she falls down and then really starts wailing.... *sigh* Also lots of chewing on her hands and biting other people. Do you want to hear about last night?

Okay, I'll tell you. So last night Greta was mostly awake until 1:00 when I finally decided to drive her. I got home at 2:00. She woke up before I'd even closed my eyes. I thought I'd do some walking around downstairs with her and I left the room not knowing that Anja was awake and watching me--oops! As soon as I left the room Anja flipped out. ...which of course, woke Greta up the rest of the way. And Martin too. So then we were all up, Anja's hysterical, Greta's just fussy and tired, and the only way we can get anyone to calm down or go to sleep is to go for a family drive at 2:00 in the morning. So we go. We got home around 3:00, Greta was asleep, Anja still awake.... not a big deal, except she didn't want to go back to bed. Finally, we convinced her that we'd all pretend to be puppies and cuddle up in bed together. That made her happy. Before going up I BEGGED her to go potty... no go. She insisted she didn't have to. So, we went to bed. ...Half an hour later, Anja wakes me up needing to go potty. So we go downstairs, go potty (which includes completely undressing, since she's in zipup PJs, and also includes going through all the choices of diaper cream/powder, application of chosen product, then putting the diaper back on, and dressing) then go back up to be puppies, but she's decided that's no good anymore. It takes awhile, but I finally work it out of her that she doesn't want to be puppies anymore, she wants to be cats. Well. Cats it is. And then the alarm went off way too soon.

*Going through this post right before I'm publishing it, I realize that almost every picture is of my children eating. Does that seem a little bit gross to anyone else?

Easter: Part Two.... and some other stuff

We had a really delightful Easter. The longer we are married, the better the holidays get. Much more laid back, much more child-focused. We ate lamb at my parents' house (yum!) and grilled steaks here at our house (yum!) and it was such a beautiful day, the girls were able to play outside all day long. We ate outside with Martin's family in our somewhat scummy backyard that will hopefully become beautiful once all threats of freeze and frost are gone for good. Hopefully not too long! I am itching to start planting veggies and flowers.

Why don't my kids ever look at the camera?!

I would like to say how my heart is going pitter-patter right now, as I've just put a batch of bread out for its first rising, which means I'm done needing Anja's "help". So she went straight over to her own little play kitchen and now is baking her own bread there. Love it!! She changed aprons and everything!

We went for a windy walk this morning and it was the best walk I've gotten with the girls this year so far. Usually Greta freaks out before too long, but this time we went kind of a long way, and she never even fussed! When we got home she went straight down for a nap very happily. A nice start to the morning! I think, believe it or not, that she is STILL TEETHING. She just gnaws on her fingers constantly and unless she's distracted, she fusses and fusses. She's not been sleeping well AT ALL lately. On the one hand, it's great--we'll get all the teeth in in one go and be done with it. But at the same time, this has been going on for WEEKS, and we could all use a break from Greta the Grouch.

Yesterday Anja got out her tea party stuff and set it up on this box. I provided the tablecloth, and eventually provided A LOT of towels. Theodore showed up for the party, though he wasn't invited and wasn't very warmly welcomed either. It's funny that sometimes Anja seems to find the cat a lot more annoying than her baby sister. Poor Theodore.

From the tea party to the idea to go outside and play, Anja improved her outfit a little bit by adding this woodland hat, these argyle knee socks, and of course, her purple shoes. Then she carried her Easter basket around the yard with her and did a little gardening. More pictures of all that on Facebook.

Martin works until 6:30 on Monday, which means he doesn't get home until AFTER 6:30 (obviously) and usually he doesn't leave the office until about quarter till 7. So I don't know what my brain was thinking last night when he got home and instead of saying "let's have dinner and get the girls to bed" I said, "Let's go for a walk!" So we loaded the girls into the wagon and took a family walk up 9th street hill. It was very, very fun, and the girls were very, very tired by the time we got home! Anja threw a little bit of a fit, so we decided on a family drive, which was excellent, and both girls fell asleep and Martin and I had our nice coffees.

Greta LOVES the wagon. And Anja insisted on pulling the wagon herself for most of the time.

Easter: Part One

Happy Easter to all! Here is a photo documentation of our holiday so far. Last night we set out cheese and carrots for the Easter Bunny, alongside a basket of empty eggs to be filled and hidden in the yard. (I have no problem with imaginary characters such as the Easter Bunny and Santa Clause. What I have a serious problem with is REMEMBERING them... so Anja saw me buy all of our Easter candy and helped me make Martin's gift. So we had to tweak old E.B.'s job a little description a little bit... we left all the supplies out for him and he set it all up in a fun way to find it in the morning. Except for a couple of little gifties they didn't know about.)

Three of the Easter baskets turned out looking like this. I found some pretty good tufts to dig up in the dark!

But this is MY basket. A basket of floppy, wilty, and old dead weeds.

The setup for the morning. I hung up the girls dresses with their baskets and shoes because Anja was so excited to wear it all. She'd been asking ALL WEEK to wear her white shoes, and she knew that today was the day! So, this setup makes it look like a much bigger production than it actually was.

This is what I gave Martin.

Look at these cute little gnomies and how they fit so nicely into the felted eggs! Each girl got three.

The Easter Bunny left Anja and Greta a letter on the plate where we had left the carrots and cheese!

Can you say SUGAR HIGH!?

And this one is completely drunk on chocolate!

Egg hunt in the yard. Anja was SO EXCITED. Some of the eggs had mini chocolate bars, some had little felt flowers. She loved the flowers best! Mmmmm... it warms my heart!

Greta was a good participant in The Hunt.

All of the gnomies in their eggs!! Martin ordered these when he got their play kitchen and I'm SO GLAD he did. They are wonderful!! And they are such perfect church toys---Anja took them all to church with her in a tiny little basket and they were the perfect church companions.

In a little bit we'll head up to my parents house for good food, then come back here later in the afternoon for the Schap side celebration and even MORE good food...... aaaaaahhh, I am getting full just thinking about it all!

Working... Working...

Tomorrow is Easter! One of my very favorite holidays. I will have definitely have an after-Easter post about the grass baskets, the kitchen accessories, and the egg hunt with my adorable little daughters who will be wearing adorable matching dresses and adorable matching shoes. Hooray!

For now, let's just say that I am ready to be done with thrift stores. They are getting SO EXPENSIVE! I spent $15 at Goodwill today and I barely got anything. Isn't that RIDICULOUS?!?!?! It made me so angry! In fact, I saw something there on the shelves with an old garage sale-ish price tag reading "25 cents" and Goodwill was charging 99 cents!!!!!!! That's TERRIBLE!!!

I am embroidering my very last felted egg, have dug up many tufts of grass, in the dark, with a flashlight holder who is much more interested in hunting for possums than shining light on the grass where I'm digging (ahem, Martin), and now have to gussy up the table and and do some major cleaning because I was informed today that a very nice person, but a non-family member, is going to be joining us. Yikes! That means I have to try to make my house not smell like an animal shelter and look like an abandoned storage unit!!! Eeeek! Oh, speaking of really awesome cleaning mistakes.... today I spilled some green food coloring on the counter and what did I use as my cleaner of choice? VINEGAR. How stupid am I?!? And not just at any time of the year either, at EASTER, the day after Martin and I were just talking about how we tried to dye eggs one year and it didn't really work because we'd forgotten the vinegar. UGH. Needless to say, I have a pretty big green splotch on my [horrible, white] countertop now.

Back to work!

At Home on Good Friday

This picture was not taken today, it was taken a few days ago. It came out with my kids looking like lobotomy patients but really they just wouldn't look at me because the sun was in their eyes. Like their matching shoes? Thanks, Grandmamma!

So.... my felt eggs are turning out okay... I ended up only making 7, instead of the 12 I'd planned on. The problem is not in the felting or the decorating... it's that they take DAYS to dry!!! But most of what I have finished is now dry and today I started decorating them with embroidery floss, and they aren't bad. And they seem to be big enough for at least a couple little chocolates or trinkets. We will hide plastic ones for the egg hunt in the morning for the girls because I don't think these wool ones are bright enough for the girls to find. I'm VERY excited for their egg hunt. And their dresses. And the food that we are having at all of our gatherings. And the TRUMPETS (!!!!!!!) at 9:30 Mass..... Easter morning is far and away my favorite Mass of the entire year. Christmas is good, but Easter is tops.

So, on this Good Friday, just like last year, I didn't go to church. I can't believe I've had two children for more than a year now and I am still afraid to leave the house with them by myself. Ugh! Some things I am able to do, but church is not one of them. In the end though, staying home was probably a better Good Friday for me. Instead of worrying over my bored/cranky/crazy/biting children (we had LOTS of biting today... more on that later) I took on my greatest homemaking "cross" (which has been sitting undone for MONTHS) and was actually able to be mindful of the hour. I think it was for the best. Later on in the day I talked to my friend Joannie who said that her mom said not going to church because of children was just "a different Holy Week." And she's right. So that made me feel much less bad.

Hahaha, somebody suggested to Martin today that we put Anja in daycare to cure her antisocial tendencies. His answer was, "Why? So she can learn to bite?" Ooooo, wrong comeback, Martino. She already knows. And so does Greta, unfortunately. (P.S. if you want your one-year-old entertained so you can finish your blog post, just give her an empty milk jug! Genius!) Anja has gone back to being a real biter, but today she recieved the mother of all bites on her finger. Greta bit her so hard on her little finger that she had a line underneath her fingernail and it was purple on both sides. Poor thing!! I'd like to say she deserved it, but I don't think she has ever bitten as hard as Greta bites. To be fair to Greta, she didn't really do it on purpose. Anja was feeding her macaroni (I'm not sure why. Obviously Greta is capable of eating by herself) and she got her fingers a little too far in, I guess. Anyway. I felt bad for her, but I kind of secretly hope it taught her a lesson on how much biting actually hurts.

We just got back from the BEST CONFESSIONS EVER down at St. Boniface. We went to Fr. Vath. It wasn't insanely crowded by any means, but Fr. Vath's line was especially short, and we had the girls with us (past bedtime) and I have only ever been to him once before (and loved it) but again, I came out thinking that I want to start going to confessions only to him from now on. So encouraging! So helpful! He asked me if I liked to read and gave me a book recommendation. Fun! And we were only there about an hour when it was all said and done. Excellent.





Here's a shirt I made the other day:

I made it specifically for that pair of jeans I mentioned a few posts back, the ones with the zipper that always falls down. I think it'll do the trick of covering up my open fly as well as being a cute, green fabric.

We--well, Martin--got the girls (he got them for Anja, but I think I'm going to split them between the two) these adorable little "pocket gnomes" when he ordered the kitchen. They are so cute! The girls will love them.

And speaking of the girls loving things, they stand at the door BEGGING to go outside these days, no matter how much laundry is needing to be folded, dishes are needing to be washed, or crafts need to be sewn. We've been spending lots of time in the sunshine this past week. Spring must really be on its way!

Happy Mousing!

This was my four o'clock hour today:

Look at this! Both girls asleep! Amazing! For the short time that this lasted, I sat on the porch swing and wrote a letter to a friend. It was an absolutely GORGEOUS day. The girls and I walked to the post office right after lunch and that was really nice. It feels so good to get outside on sunny days after a long, long winter... and in general. I kind of don't know how regular office working people can stand it.

To welcome April and the Spring weather, (there are buds and blossoms on all the trees!!! At last!!!) a mouse has come to visit us. Apparently he feels quite at home here in our kitchen vent. Theodore sits there and stares and listens. I got down on the floor yesterday (before we knew what kind of critter we had gotten as a roommate) and heard him rustling around in there... and I smelled him. Mmm.... our vent smells like a hamster cage. Then tonight it was confirmed that, no, it's not a cute baby possum as I'd hoped for, but a little mouse who has been leaving "presents" for us in our utensil drawer and eating things like cork bottle stoppers. Arg. Why do otherwise harmless things have to be destructive? And poop on your kitchen tools?

Speaking of kitchen tools.... Anja and Greta recieved a package from their Aunt AnnLaura today which contained four tiny pink kitchen towels with cute embellishments on them. ADORABLE. And with a quickly expiring visa giftcard from Grandmamma, we went out last night and bought a little more cut-able wooden food. This set included a nice sized loaf of bread . Now, I had given Anja some of my old bread pans when we first got the kitchen, and she never played with them. But today she started baking her loaf! And she does it just like Mama (because I showed her) and puts her little towel over the top of the pan. Aaawwwww. That kitchen is going to end up being the best purchase we have ever made in our entire lives. And I LOVE how our families are so into it too. How my sister gave the girls the wooden pizza and cake sets and my mom has made them felt food, etc. Love it!

I have some good, postable pictures that are quickly becoming outdated. I'll have to make a whole picture post soon.