The proof is in the dancing

Here is a video of one of the happenings in our house this morning.  If you listen closely you'll hear her singing....and a bit of my singing too.  :)  The reason you hear me telling her to keep going is because I stopped dancing because the camera was starting to shake.  And she wouldn't take a bow because another song came on and she proceeded to dance to that one too.

The video is wider then my screen on my blog, so if you want to see the full width and Emmy actually centered in it, click on the video and the youtube page will open up.  Enjoy!

Oh the Hilarity....

Some of the funny, hilarious, whatever tidbits happening in our life right now:

- Mari had her new glasses for less than 3 hours before she got hit in the face with a whiffle bat and had to have them adjusted. 2 days later she got hit in the face again while wrestling with Peder.

- Any time we are in the car, all 3 kids sing along to the radio.....every song. It amazes me that after hearing the song once the kids know half the words to a song.

- Our house is full of giggles lately. Our kids are all developing their senses of humor and OH MY GOODNESS, do they find each other hilarious. Sometimes they are a lot like their mom, dad or Grandpa Warren, and they find themselves hilarious when no one else does.

- All three kids had blood draws today for their allergies....no tears whatsoever. They all were VERY brave and did a wonderful job.

- Peder starts kindergarten a week from Thursday and the girls start Pre-K two weeks from today. How did this happen?

- On the slightly crude side....Emmy was sitting on the toilet this morning before her flush and she farted.  I said, "Did you tooter?" And her response was, "No, my butt coughed."  I seriously could not stop laughing.

- We're doing a lot of singing and dancing around the house and while driving around on our errands. I will leave you with the one song that gets us ALL (yes, Jake too) dancing and singing along to the radio...(YES, we have WAY too much fun in our life! :) )

Vulnerabilities

So I read this book "The Gifts of Imperfection" by Brene Brown.  It was interesting.  I didn't get as much out of it as I thought I would, but it made me think, so that was good.  (Or maybe not....sometimes I think too much.)

Anyway....something she talked about frequently....or at least stuck out to me was vulnerabilities and how we tend to hide them.  Are you a vulnerability hider?  I think everyone is, it's just how much so.  Brown talked about how there are three areas in which people are the most vulnerable: dancing, singing and laughing.   I found this SO interesting.  I know there are people who don't like to do these things because they are embarassed, but man alive, I am not one of them.   Here's a bit about me on each of these topics

• Laughing - I snort when I laugh.  Sometimes really loud.  I get teased about it, I get egged on to try to get a snort.  Friends and family judge how funny something is by how many times I snort.  Sometimes I'll try to hold it in (which essentially means it is delayed, they always come out), but HECK, IT'S ME!  It's who I am.  I didn't used to snort.  Something happened during my pregnancies....it started after Peder was born and got way more prevalent after the girls.  I'm the girl who laughs so hard she snorts.  I'd rather laugh so hard I snort then not laugh at all.
• Singing - I sing A LOT.  I sing to my kids, I sing in the shower, I sing along with the radio.  If you're driving down the road and you start laughing at someone who is jamming along to the radio, it's probably me you're laughing at.  There are pictures of me unabashedly singing my guts out on facebook.  Yep, I'm the girl who can't carry a tune but sings at the top of her lungs.
• Dancing - OH MY GOODNESS!  I love to dance!  L-O-V-E IT!  We have dance parties around our living room and kitchen.  If I hear a song I like while at a store or restaurant I will start singing and dancing along.  I'm pretty sure I get this from my mom (She was SO embarrassing when I was a kid! LOL).  I have memories of dancing around with my parents when I was growing up and one of my favorites is dancing around a cabin we rented to the song "If I had a Million Dollars" the summer before I left for college.  Right now my workouts are to Just Dance 2 and Gold Gym's Dance Workout on our Wii.

Apparently these are not my vulnerabilities.  I'm a free spirit.  I don't embarrass easily.  I will NEVER be ashamed of having a good time through laughing, singing or dancing.   These things help to get me out of my head when I'm thinking too much, when I'm very grumpy or when I'm just having a hard day.

This is my current favorite song to sing and dance to.  I crank it every time I drive to school.  Don't let a moment slip away!

My baby boy is 5!

Can you believe it?  Peder is 5 years old today.  FIVE!  Seriously, how did that happen.  He was snuggling with me this afternoon and overflows all over the place when he sits on my lap.  Was it really 5 years ago that I could hold him in one arm  and he would sit so easily in the crook of my arm.

Look at him now.  Isn't he just an adorable little boy?  My gosh that smile can totally light up my day.  Look at how happy he is with his 24 mini-cupcakes he picked out for his birthday cake (he'll get a fancy Scooby Doo one for his birthday party in a couple weeks).  We were singing happy birthday to him and he just looked at me with that sweet smile of his. 

Here he is with all of his presents from our little family.  He got a cowboy hat and Sheriff badge from me and Jake, a lasso from Mari and a pair of chaps from Emmy.  He is all ready to be a cowboy.

When he was all done opening his gifts he said, "Thank you so much you guys!  I LOVE IT!  Everything is so cute."  That made me tear up.  Oh my gosh!  I am SO proud to be his mommy.  Happy Birthday to my little Sweet P.

Busy-ness, Inspiration and The End is NEAR!

As most of you know, life is chaotic in the Early household.  We are busy, busy people.  Last week all 3 kids started preschool.  (Pictures soon, I promise.)  Peder has pre-k every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  Emmy and Mari have 3-school every Tuesday and Thursday.  It was an exciting week in our house.  All 3 kids were ready for school to start and this mommy was ready to be in a routine again.  I have to admit, Tuesday and Thursday mornings are oddly quiet with just Peder to hang out with.  I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do next year with all the kids in school several days a week.

Jake and Peder are leaving for a fishing trip on Wednesday night, right after Peder gets done with his first swim lessons class.  They are heading up to Canada with my dad, my grandpa (mom's dad) and my brother-in-law Randy.  I'm sure they are going to have a fantastic adventure and I know Peder is looking forward to hanging out with the guys.  He seems to feel like a very grown up boy with this privilege to go along.  It's cute.

I spent the weekend hanging out with my Mommy.  We went to ScrapFest over at the Mall of America.  I went to a crop by myself on Thursday night and then met my mom for another one on Friday night.  On Saturday we did make n' takes, took 3 classe and did a bunch of shopping.  Sunday we spent the day doing make n' takes.  This is something we try to do every year.  We have so much fun, make a ton of cute projects and get all kinds of inspiration.  I had so much fun hanging out with my mom....I look forward to this weekend every year!

And....THE END IS NEAR!  At least of my quarter at school.  I have a final and a final project due tonight, a final tomorrow and then D-O-N-E!  WA-HOO!  I get a week off in between quarters and the only thing that we have planned is swim lessons, Jake's football game and our annual trip to the corn maze.  I'll finally be able to get the rest that my physical therapist keeps telling me to take.

We have a lot to look forward to in the next couple of weeks!

Twins Game a.k.a. My Mom's Great Photography Skills

Mom and Dad getting ready for dinner at The Melting Pot.

YUM -O!

We're gonna win Twins!  (And they did!)

Welcome to the Matrix, Mom.

Much better.

Having fun!

She wouldn't put the camera down.

So we decided to ham it up a little bit.

Shocking, I know.

We couldn't believe it!

And they wonder where we get it from....

Me, heading back down the 50 stairs from our seats.

Love you Mom and Dad!

Love you Jake!

Let's Go Fly a Kite

We headed out to a local ball field and flew kites tonight.  WAY TOO MUCH FUN!

Peder getting ready to fly his Spiderman kite.

Mari loving her kite.  Look at that smile!  She couldn't stop talking about it afterwards.

Emmy was ecstatic.  I loved all the smiles on the kiddos' faces and the giggles.

This is Mari and me getting her kite out of a tree.  I was SO impressed that I got the kite out without snapping the line or ruining the kite.

Daddy helping the kids get their kites up.

A little happiness for your Thursday....

Year in Review - August 2009

We took our brand spanking new camper up to Hayward for a weekend of camping with Jake's brother and his family.

While we were there Peder made a tie dye t-shirt.

The kids and I went to Marshall with my mom to visit my grandparents.  We hung out with Great Grandpa Earl.

Went to the park with Grandma Cindi, Great Grandma Dorene and Great Aunt Jan.

And Peder went for his first ever tractor ride with Great Uncle Jerry and Great Aunt Jan.

At the end of August we spent a week on our first ever family vacation, just the 5 of us.  We camped in the Black Hills and had an absolute blast!

Year in Review - March 2009

March was filled with fun!  Some of my favorite pictures from the month are below.

Peder will probably kill me over this picture in years to come, but right now I love my Princess P.  :)

I love this picture of Emmy.  She is changing her imaginary colostomy bag.  We used to use this tube of powder to prep her skin before we put a new bag on.  She went through all the steps and this picture was just a moment in her steps.

This is Emmy after her endoscopy to make sure her intestinal bleed had healed completely.  It was the first time she'd ever gotten to go home after one of her procedures and I think she much preferred it to sitting in a hospital room.

Jake celebrated his 31st birthday.  Don't you love the kids' cake decorating job?

Peder on the couch tucked in with all his stuffed animals.  He loves taking care of his animals.

I got sick and all the kids decided to "take care" of me.  Aren't they sweet?

We had a tea party.

Swimsuit Shopping

I read this over at the Cosmo Cricket blog and had to share it with you. Remember how I said a bit back about how shopping for swimsuits was a hilarious adventure. This about sums it up:

When I was a child in the 1950s the bathing suit for the mature figure was boned, trussed and reinforced, not so much sewn as engineered. They were built to hold back and uplift and they did a good job. Today's stretch fabrics are designed for the prepubescent girl with a figure carved from a potato chip.

The mature woman has a choice-she can either go up front to the maternity department and try on a floral suit with a skirt, coming away looking like a hippopotamus who escaped from Disney's Fantasia or she can wander around every run of the mill department store trying to make a sensible choice from what amounts to a designer range of florescent rubber bands.

What choice did I have? I wandered around, made my sensible choice and entered the chamber of horrors known as the fitting room.

The first thing I noticed was the extraordinary tensile strength of the stretch material. The Lycra used in bathing costumes was developed, I believe, by NASA to launch small rockets from a slingshot, which give the added bonus that if you manage to actually lever yourself into one, you are protected from shark attacks as any shark taking a swipe at your passing midriff would immediately suffer whiplash. I fought my way into the bathing suit, but as I twanged the shoulder strap in place, I gasped in horror - my boobs had disappeared!

Eventually, I found one boob cowering under my left armpit. It took a while to find the other. At last I located it flattened beside my seventh rib.

The problem is that modern bathing suits have no bra cups... The mature woman is meant to wear her boobs spread across her chest like a speed bump. I realigned my speed bump and lurched toward the mirror to take a full view assessment.

The bathing suit fit all right, but unfortunately it only fit those bits of me willing to stay inside it. The rest of me oozed out rebelliously from top, bottom, and sides. I looked like a lump of play dough wearing undersized cling wrap.

As I tried to work out where all those extra bits had come from, the prepubescent sales girl popped her head through the curtain, 'Oh, there you are,' she said, admiring the bathing suit.

I replied that I wasn't so sure and asked what else she had to show me.

I tried on a cream crinkled one that made me look like a lump of masking tape, and a floral two piece which gave the appearance of an oversized napkin in a serving ring.

I struggled into a pair of leopard skin bathers with ragged frills and came out looking like Tarzan's Jane, pregnant with triplets and having a rough day.

I tried on a black number with a midriff and looked like a jellyfish in mourning.

I tried on a bright pink pair with such a high cut leg I thought I would have to wax my eyebrows to wear them.

Finally, I found a suit that fit...a two-piece affair with a shorts style bottom and a loose blouse-type top. It was cheap, comfortable, and bulge-friendly, so I bought it. My ridiculous search had a successful outcome, I figured.

When I got home, I found a label which read -- Material might become transparent in water.'

So, if you happen to be on the beach or near any other body of water this year and I'm there too .. I'll be the one in cut off jeans and a t-shirt!

Drum Roll Please

Today's Smileys:

1. A new hairdo. This was the risk I was talking about yesterday. You'll see why in the last picture.

Before - Unstyled, before bed.

After - Once again unstyled

After, back - And there is the risk I took. Those streaks are primary red. Very subtle, but VERY fun. I love it!

2. Peder's projects from school and how proud he was of them.

His binoculars.

A frog. It ribbits at you if Peder is in the room. :)

3. My girls singing away in the car.

4. Our "train" walking into the school. Me holding Mari's hand, Mari holding Peder's, and Peder holding Emmy's. Cute, cute.

5. An evening out of the house.

6. I love the girl that did my hair. I will be going back to her at least until she graduates.

7. All packed up for scrapbooking tomorrow night.

8. Goofing off with the kiddos this afternoon.

9. Lots of giggles in our house.

10. ScrapFest information is up. WA-HOO!

Keeping it up

So I've decided to keep up the power of positive thinking. This is something we discussed at book group this week and I'm implementing it to make it through the pain and my days. Biggest thing: I'm going to think positively about their being a cancellation at the doctor's office so I can get in before July 22nd. Let's go positive thinking!

My smiley moments for the day:

1. Waking up in the middle of the night to Peder crawling onto the couch next to me to snuggle. This morning he told me he had a bad dream and told me he was happy I was on the couch to snuggle with.

2. Waking up in the middle of the night to Jake snuggled up next to me on the couch. He came downstairs to go to the bathroom and told me he missed me and wanted to cuddle for a bit. (Can you tell I have very sweet men in my life?)

3. Getting the pictures I ordered in the mail. 630 pictures for Peder's scrapbooks. I am now caught up on printing out pictures for Emmy and Peder through December 2008. Now to get started on printing off some more Mari pictures!

4. Having Savory Chicken (formerly Egg Noodle Chicken) by Kraft for lunch. It's a childhood favorite of mine, kind of a comfort food, and the kids LOVED it. Now Jake is the only one in the house that doesn't like it. Good thing we have lunches without daddy 4 days a week.

5. Being able to hang outside with the kids, even if I only observed from my hammock (and had to be helped getting into and out of it, etc.).

6. Getting lots of love and affection from all my kiddos during random "pauses" in play time.

Mari was my biggest snuggler today. She threw an absolute fit when she couldn't get into the hammock right away.

The girls.....I love getting lots of love!

Mari being so cute.

7. Peder's never ending energy...and the lovely outfit he picked out by himself today.

8. Emmy's crazy hair. Her hair is ALWAYS a mess, even when it's combed.

9. Eating supper outside.

10. Overheard conversations with a 3 year old. Peder's quote of the day, "Daddy, is my poop swimming?" Sorry if that offends some of you, but I thought it was HILARIOUS! I'm still laughing about it and that's why it HAD to be on my list today.

Time Out Grandpa!

Peder sent my dad into time out yesterday. I'm still not really sure why, but Peder was hilarious. "Grandpa TIME OUT! Go sit in the chair! No playing! NOW CRY!" HILARIOUS! So Grandpa went to the time out chair and pouted. He instantly got comfort from the girls. It was one of the funniest things I've seen lately....and I got it on camera! Love you Dad!

Easter Egg Hunt

We had a busy weekend, but also had a ton of fun. On Saturday we went to the Big Lake Women of Today's Easter Egg Hunt. The kids seemed to have a good time and Mari won a prize. Emmy freaked out a little bit at first because they said parents weren't allowed in the hunting area (it was enclosed by a fence). That didn't last long...especially for me, when I heard Emmy screaming and saw the panicked look on the Ambassador's face. Mommy to the rescue. All 3 kids got a bucket full of eggs and then enjoyed lunch out with Grandpa and Grandma.

We also had a baby shower on Sunday, but I'll post pictures from that tomorrow. For now you get some kiddos on the search for candy filled eggs.

Peder waiting to get started.

Mari just wanted to run away.

Emmy snuggling with Daddy before the hunt.

You can see all 3 kids in this picture. Mari is in the middle, then Emmy is in the background a bit and Peder is just to the right of her and parallel to Mari. Emmy was not happy and this picture was the beginning of the melt down.

Mommy to the rescue, now she's happily putting eggs in her basket.

Peder proudly displaying his basket full of eggs.

Emmy with Daddy and a basket full of eggs. This is actually fun now!

Grandpa helped us open up all the eggs and dump out the candy and stickers that were inside.

Emmy very happy with one of her eggs.

Not the best picture of Mari, but I'm pretty sure she was asking for help opening an egg.

Not the best picture of me, but the kids and Grandpa are having fun opening up eggs.

Our cute little family still working on finding out what we have in the eggs. Peder has already dug into the candy.

Baskets full of candy. Mmmm, mmmm.

Mari showing me the prize she won. Mickey, Minnie and a school bus that drives by itself.

Mari and I walking back to see everyone else. She was very excited about her prize.

Mari running from Grandma and squealing with delight.

What a fun way to spend the morning! The kids had a blast and so did we. And I have to say, I thought I had the cutest kids there!