Living it Up

We’ve been trying hard to have some good fun times before we leave Connecticut. Mother’s Day was sweet; a calm day that ended in a nice hike with a water interlude.

We hiked up near a stream, but neglected to bring a swimsuit. Undies sufficed.

Mimi’s so funny. She gets really excited around other kids, but is definitely awkward, especially around big kids. For instance, she was trying to play with these big kids, and yelled over to us, “Mama, these are my friends!” Um, yeah. Sure.

Orin examining the clover

Orin was cool as a cucumber, as per usual.

Mimi wanted me to come in the water with her. She said “Mama, you take your socks off, you take your shoes off, and you take your pants off!” I declined the latter.

Doesn’t she look like a big girl? Also, she named the kitty on this shirt ‘McGilliKitty.” We joke around sometimes and call her funny names like “Silly Pants McGee,” or “Goofy Girl McGillicutty” and she heard ‘McGilliKitty’ instead. So cute.

The kids alternated between walking (Mims), Ergo front (Orin), Ergo back (Mims), and all-terrain jogger (both!). So nice that they are flexible.

My amazing girl completed this 35 piece dinosaur puzzle with NO help in about 10 minutes.

Other than our Mother’s Day fun, we’ve been just sort of mentally getting prepared to move (read, not yet packing!). But really, we’ve been doing lots of planning, organizing, and getting rid of things. This weekend will be intense packing.

The kids are both doing well. I’ve been trying to give Mimi lots of extra love and attention, because I think she’ll feel the impact of this upcoming move. She continues to be amazing with letters and is handily reading three letter words, which I’m told is more advanced than her almost 5 year old friends who have had two full years of preschool. Orin is happy as ever and doing great. He loves to watch his sister and she can get him laughing like no other. He’s on the verge of crawling, still up on fours and rocking. He can scoot around pretty well on his belly, however.

That’s all for now. I’ll maybe squeeze in one more post before we set off for the land of beer and cheese (says the dairy-free nursing mother….).

Big Announcement

The Beans’ East coast adventure is drawing to a close! It is with some parts joy and some parts sadness that we announce our move back to the good old Midwest. Andy was offered a great job in Madison, WI. We’re moving at the end of May. Moving has sort of become a lifestyle for us, it seems. We’re hoping this Madison thing works out for us for a while. Moving is tiring! But we’ve certainly become much less attached to ‘stuff.’ Our motto of late: Lighten that load!

We’ve been pretty focused on planning this move recently, but have also had time to reach some milestones. Orin, now almost seven months, is up on all fours and rocking. He can (somewhat) successfully go from a sitting position to hands and knees. He’s pretty proud of himself.

So happy about being up

Mimi has been a sweetheart lately, and is pretty excited to move to ‘Esconsin.’ I’m torn up about taking her away from her little group of friends, with whom she was all set up to attend preschool in the fall….sigh. We had it worked out so perfectly! Ah well, we’ll have to figure something else out. It’ll be quite the change for us at first – we’re quite used to playing with friends almost daily.
Here are a few random pictures from the last few weeks.

Here’s a dress that I wore when I was little. She loooooooved it!

Mims and her best bud, Lena (sniff, sniff!)

Not hard to get a grin outta this guy

Sweet big sister reading Orin a book

Two cuties in the grass

I’ll try to sneak another post in before we head out!

A Whole Bunch of Things

Whew! A lot has happened in the last few weeks. We returned a few days ago from our MN/WI trip. The trip was extremely successful; we packed a whole lot in and enjoyed it all.

But first, a photo of the kids before our Easter celebration at a friends house (the day before we left).

Little daydreamers? Taking after their mama...

Orin on Mimi's lap

The next day, the kids and I flew alone to Minnesota. They were amazing on the flight. I was a very happy Mama. We spent the first few days with Pops and Gra-Gra and kept ourselves quite busy.

Posing at the Como Conservatory. Mimi is always excited to try out different chairs and benches, for some odd reason.

Watching the fish with Pops

The poor zebras and giraffes were living inside because of the cold. My sensitive little flower was not thrilled about the odor.

We had to hit the Teddy Bear Park in Stillwater.

She loved these big steps but was ambivalent about the actual teddy bear.

"Pops, you coming?"

Yup.

After a bunch of other fun things, the kids and I made our way over to Menomonie to see the Beans and meet Daddy who had been working in Madison for a few days.

First things first, a Grandma Bean bath

Our friends Jenny, Phil, Rowen, and Jack made the trek allllll the way down from Michigan’s UP. Our kids are roughly the same ages and we were SO happy to have them play together.

Andy and Phil wanted to slide alone, but we convinced them to take the girls down, too.

Some baseball on a beautiful day. Rowen connected and hit one out of the park. Notice Jack Pine chillin' in the grass?

The girls are getting into a pond, in case you couldn't figure out what was going on in this photo.

Don't you want to give him a squeeze??

Working together

20 week age difference

We also had tons of fun with Mimi’s cousins. Mimi ADORED playing with her three older cousins and had a blast following them around, or running after them as the case may be.

Hunter teaching Mims to put her head underwater

A sweet shot with Aunt Amy

After lots of exhausting play, it was time to head back to Stillwater to welcome Cowpa and Tooie, who had flown all the way from Tucson.

The boys checking each other out

Everyone gets in on the playtime

A few days later we added a few more folks to the circus – Todd, Kris, and their girls. Including my newest niece, Greta!

Orin holding court with the big girls

Telling them a thing or two about being a boy

After a quick visit with the Wisco Nickleskis, we headed back to Menomonie to get ready for the main event – Mimi’s birthday party! Graciously and generously hosted by the Beans. I was quite busy and did not take photos; there was a photographer there who did a beautiful job, so I’m not too worried. Here, though, is the result of a full day of partying:

She was busy with a sheet of stickers, finished that up, carefully put it down next to her, and closed her eyes. Not even enough energy to move her backpack off her lap.

After a short nap in the car, it was back to Stillwater for this!

The chaos level in my parents normally calm, serene house was raised by about 1000 percent.

Lining up the littles. Ages 4, 3, 2, 5 mos, 5 weeks. Notice how the 2 year old is taller than the 3 year old...

The babies were really into each other. Orin showed his love by rolling over Greta. Greta showed her love by not protesting.

Here's a nice one of Orin, Tooie, and Kate

Cowpa, Tooie, and their great-grands. Um, and Andy.

Friends Brenna, Josh, their daughter Sloane, and Brenna's Mom Becky (Mom2) came to play.

I was really inconsistent with my photography! Did not take enough Menomonie photos…ah well, guess we’ll just have to go back

By the end of the trip, we were all pretty exhausted and thankfully had Andy with us on the return flight. It was a piece of cake, the kids were wonderful.

In other news, Orin had his first taste of solid foods last night. He fed himself some roasted sweet potatoes. It was hilariously cute.

He had fun!

The kids went to the doctor for their 3 year and 6 month checkups. Mimi is just shy of 30 pounds and just over 34 inches. Orin is 20 1/2 lbs and 28.5.” That puts Mimi in the 6th percentile for height and weight and Orin is in the 90th for weight and 97th for height. Sheesh. Mimi’s hemoglobin is slightly low, so we’ll be shoveling leafy greens and beef (locally-raised and grass-fed, of course) down her gullet and watching for any odd bleeds or excessive bruising. The doctor wasn’t too worried, so that is reassuring.

And that about sums it up for the last few weeks. Here’s to a few calm weeks ahead as we settle back into our normal (ever-evolving) rhythm.

And Away We Go

The third birthday has come and gone, and now we’re on to our next exciting thing, a trip to MN/WI. The kids and I leave on Sunday, and Andy follows a few days later.

Mimi’s birthday was fantastic. We had a full, fun day. No gifts or cake, but lots of special time with Mama, Daddy, and Orin, as well as special activities and time with friends.

Some playtime with Daddy to start off the birthday in a silly fashion

We headed out to a restaurant for breakfast with friends, and Mimi was serenaded by the entire wait-staff. She was quite gracious about it (ie: didn’t just stare down at her plate the whole time). After breakfast we headed home and Mimi and Daddy walked to the park for some playtime.

There was a carnival in town; Mimi spotted it immediately and had been wanting to ride the Ferris wheel. Luckily, the last day of the carnival coincided with Mimi’s birthday – a ready-made birthday outing! Our sensitive girl wasn’t keen at all on the noise, but she willingly powered through and was pretty thrilled with the Ferris wheel.

Her first impression of the carnival

Ready to go

I couldn't get a good shot of them on the ride; Mimi's too short to be seen. But here's a shot after of her yelling "we were taller than the woods!"

It’s hard to tell from the photo, but the merry-go-round? NOT such a big hit.

She actually didn't even want to stay on the ride...but it was already going so she was kind of stuck.

After the carnival we headed straight to a friends house for a fun dinner. And that about wrapped up Mimi’s awesome third birthday.

On the Orin front, all is well. He’s such a giggly guy. Love it.

Size comparison - she's one head taller (he's 5 months old, by the way).

Sitting up!

Oh the smiles on this one will melt your heart

She’s Almost Three!

We’re closing in on our little peanut’s third birthday! Seems like just yesterday that friends were thinking we were playing an April Fool’s joke on them when our little one popped out on April 1, one month early. These have been three years filled with incredible joy; joy that by far dwarfs the hard work and sleepless nights.

We’ll be having a small get together with our best friends here for Mimi and her friend’s birthday – they are four days apart. The big birthday gift is a trip to Minnesota and Wisconsin. I’ll be flying with the kids about a week after Mimi’s birthday and Andy will be following a bit later.

We’ve been doing well. We’ve had lots of good days, and of course some stressful ones. But my kids are so fun to be with! We get through the hard parts pretty quickly.

We’ve been doing a bit of ECing with Orin. EC stands for Elimination Communication. Basically a way to get babies out of diapers faster

He pees on the potty about 9 out of 10 times I put him on there

Had to share the fancy outfit Mimi chose. Thanks Rowen!

Look at these eyes!

This little guy is awesome

Orin is doing a great job at sitting up. He still needs a spotter, but he’s getting there. He’s also been rolling over from tummy to back. He actually does it at night and wakes himself up. It’s kinda cute, actually. He’s also pretty humongous…he’s got to be closing in on 20 pounds, and he’s in 12 month clothing now. Sheesh.

She's not sure what the joke is

We Did it (Almost)

Andy will be home tonight! He’s been away in Germany and Paris for work – today is day nine. I feel like I’ve run a marathon and climbed a mountain. We did well on our own, better than I expected. For the most part, I think I carried out my motherly duties with some amount of grace and an enormous amount of patience. Mimi’s been an absolute angel, whereas Orin’s been somewhat of a pill. The doctor thinks Orin has some reflux issues, so that has been messing with his sleep and eating. Generally he’s doing fine; eating enough and happy as a clam except when he’s NOT! And definitely not sleeping enough. You can tell his little belly is giving him fits. Oh, also as of yesterday he’s just over 18 pounds. This is one big baby, folks.

The last little while has been quite a blur, so I can’t tell you exactly what we did. I know we spent a lot of time with friends. Here are a few pictures from around the house.

On our first night alone we decided to have a candlelit dinner to lift our (my) spirits

Mimi is so amazing with her little brother

Wearing her baby in the Maya wrap, just like Mama

How can one baby look so happy and tired at the same time?

I couldn’t get a great picture, but Orin’s really working on sitting up. He sort of slumps over and balances.

Look at my big boy!

Happy guy, tired eyes

My little rockstar letter-learner is becoming excellent at writing her name, plus a few other letters.

Getting better!

So excited to have the family back together again! And now I can collapse. Since I started this post, Andy DID make it home safely. Mimi was pretty thrilled to see her Daddy. Orin was tired….

Two in Tucson

Baby Orin and I had a great long weekend in Tucson visiting my grandparents and my parents, who are there for the month of February. Though without Mimi I felt like I was missing an arm, I still managed to have a great, relaxing time. Orin slept better than I expected overall (I didn’t expect very much), so I was able to get some rest, too. Andy and Mimi had a blast and were go, go, go the whole time Orin and I were away.

This was my view for the better part of the weekend. I wore him a lot in a baby carrier.

Taking after his sister: this is about where Mimi spent the first 9 months of her life

Just like his sister, Orin couldn't resist Tooie's hilarious Peek-a-boo.

Mom, Tooie, and I left the boys home one afternoon while we ran an errand. This is what we came home to find:

Not even the Grandpas can't resist Orin's charms.

Orin and Cowpa

We of course had to hit up my favorite Mexican food joint

Gra Gra and Orin. He fell asleep shortly after this.

Orin traveled well. He had one screaming fit on one flight because he was tired. He pretty much slept the whole time, or just hung out in the baby carrier, flirting with flight attendants. It sure is a long trip from here to there.

Right away on Monday Mimi and I took Orin in for his four-month checkup. He’s doing great and had no issues. He weighs just over 17 pounds and is 26 inches long. For comparison, Mimi was just under 13 pounds and about 24 inches long at her four-month. Orin is in the 65th percentile for weight and the 80-90th for height. My big boy! And he is so happy, he’s got this silly grunty laugh that just won’t quit.

And We’re Off!

Orin and I head out for Tucson tomorrow evening. I realized that I’ll have a full day with both kids, then about 8 hours of travel with one of them. What have I gotten myself into?

Orin is doing really well. He’s so big! And he’s so jolly; just laughs and laughs and laughs. We can really get him going! It’s tough at times with the two of them, but fun. I’m bracing myself as Andy is having to plan a few more work trips in the near future.

Mimi is cute as a button. She says the funniest things! I wish we could have a tape recorder going at all times. But goodness, she’s so sweet. I’m such a lucky Mama! Not that she’s not a lot of work, but I’ve got to give her credit, she’s adjusting really well to not having Mommy at her beck and call 100% of the time. She’s just recently taken to “mothering” a baby doll, which she’s never shown interest in before. It’s too cute.

Lots to do tonight, so not much time to post but here are a few pics.

Bean pile!

Sweeties!

She's SO good with him

And off I go to pack!

We’re Still Here!

Been a while, sorry! Life has been busy and full lately. A few days after we moved into our new house, Andy headed out of town for a week. The kiddos and I were left to fend for ourselves. I won’t lie – it was hard. Orin is still so young and needy, and juggling them both was tricky. Luckily I have lots of good friends who helped me get by. Since Andy’s return I’ve been slammed with work. And there’s those last few stubborn boxes that won’t unpack themselves, no matter how hard I stare at them.

Orin is doing well. We’re slowly trying to settle into some sort of a schedule. He’s such a happy, happy guy. Seriously, all you have to do is look at this kid and he laughs at you. Sweet Mimi is working hard on being a bit more independent (read: whiny). She has pretty much dropped her afternoon nap now, but I can still get her to hang out up in her room for a while for a much-needed rest. Orin and I are going to take a weekend trip to Tucson in a few weeks and I’m having heart palpitations about leaving my girl. I won’t know how to operate without my little buddy!

Here are some shots from the last couple of weeks.

Not quite ready for the Bumbo seat yet; he's using a high-tech prop behind his head

She thinks her brother is funny

There it is!

The size gap is narrowing quickly

Tummy time

 

Some outside time on a beautiful day

 

Three Months Old

Orin is three months old today! And, to commemorate his three month birthday, he rolled over for the first time. He hasn’t really even spent much time trying, so maybe it was just a fluke. In all other regards, Orin is doing great. He’s pretty good at just going with the flow, and dang if he isn’t just the happiest little guy you’ve ever seen.

Napping in his swing

A lot has happened since my last post. Grandma, Papa, and Heidi Bean came out to see us for a quick visit. The kiddos respond so well to those three, it is fun to see them interact.

A visit from the Beans wouldn't be complete without a Grandma bath

Great big yawn from the little guy

We got to take Mimi swimming at the Beans’s hotel pool. I was really excited to take her this time; she hasn’t been in a pool for quite some time. Just lakes and ponds, but a pool is fun in a different way. She stuck her face in the water, and kicked her legs and paddled her arms, and she jumped in the pool to my arms. She was so excited. Mostly she just loved sitting on the steps and doing silly things. Like her Daddy, who did a cannonball and woke Orin.

Swimming "like doggies swim"

 

Doing some silly things with Daddy

The other big news is that we moved. The owners of the house we were renting came back early from their trip abroad (we thought we had three years) so we had to leave. We don’t want to buy in Connecticut, so we found another rental home. Moving went better than I had expected with the kids. Orin either slept on me in a sling or hung out in his carseat. Mimi had some friends around so the kids were pretty occupied (we had lots of help). We like our new house. It feels cozier and more ‘homey’ to me than our boxy salt-box style home. Five small bedrooms, too, which is a plus for us right now (one for us, one for each kid, one playroom, and one guest/tv room).

Here’s a shot of the back of the house. We woke up to a bit of snow this morning so we of course had to head out and play right away.

Mims was really excited to build a snowman "and we can sing Frosty Snowman!"

Tooie, don't you think she looks red again? Might be the light....

Lastly, BRAG ALERT – I can’t hold it in anymore – my two year old read the word FARM! She knows all the sounds the letters make and can now sound out a few simple words. I swear, we’ve barely worked with her on this – I wouldn’t even calling it working with her. Just talking about letters, which she loves anyway.