(1) Shutterfly has been mocking me, MOCKING ME, with 50% off discount codes for photo books for months, and then just last week I minimized all the windows on my home laptop to find THIS as the background image randomly selected from the 6,000 or so images in my pictures folder on my computer and I knew it was time to finally start the kids' photo books.
2012 Christmas Bear perusing her personal photo book
The crazy thing is I love those books. And the kids really love those books. Claire sleeps with hers often and we get them off the shelf and go through them together at least once a week. I always order my own copy and I know I will treasure them forever. But they are such a pain in the ass to make that I've been a terrible procrastinator this year. Part of it is my perfectionism. Part of it is simply how much I put into combining their pictures with selections from my blog posts and funny little quotes and sayings I've written down over the year to try to capture them in all their 3-year-old or 6-year-old glory. It's the place where ALL of that goes, in an artfully presented full-color format, so I can move on to the next year without worrying about separately saving anything else from the year before. And as of this weekend, I'm 4 months into Claire's and it is such a relief to me. 7 more months to go, then on to all of Landon's, but the important thing is I've started. Let the stress dreams about background images begin!
(2) We attended Claire's parent-teacher-conference at school yesterday and after hearing about how much she loves school, her friends, her teachers, and her Montessori "work" (basically, if it's related to school, Claire loves it), we were regaled with stories about how much Claire is looking forward to the arrival of her baby sister who is coming "after Hawoween". Apparently all the babies in the classroom are now named for her sister, all the girls in her class have named their baby dolls at home after Claire's future baby sister, and ALL the kids, boy and girl, wear the big bouncy balls under their shirts as soon as they go outside so they can have a baby just like Claire's mommy. This may be the closest I ever come to being famous.
(3) After months of saving for and then searching and reviewing and agonizing over ever play set sold over the internet, I finally ordered our backyard playground (seriously, the agonizing- the set we finally ordered has 57 online reviews and I could probably recite them all to you word for word). Then the government shut down and I kind of freaked out over the purchase, but all 750 lbs. arrived anyway, 4 weeks ahead of the delivery schedule, messing up my perfect plan for it to arrive when my dad and brother were in town to see the baby (they need projects like they need oxygen, so now I need to think of something else for them to do- outdoor lighting, perhaps?).
750 lbs. and 1,000 pieces
We purchased "the park" (as the kids have dubbed it) with the first official disbursement from JP's swim school as a "we survived the summer" gift for ourselves and the kids. He worked his ass off this summer, almost literally (he lost 20 lbs. in the first 6 weeks and made himself quite sick, but he's better now), and I did pretty much all the home and kid things by myself for 4 months, and the kids were so good and helpful and forgiving of their occasionally short-tempered mother, so we thought the play set was a good reward for everyone. The kids have an awesome thing to play on when the pool is closed for the off season (we don't have a heater) we can say "go outside and play" any time we want the house to be quiet.
JP put most of it together by himself, with the occasionally assist from Landon and helpful commentary from Claire, until the torrential rains came and made him stop. He's about 75% through and should finish up the first day it stops raining. We can't wait!
(4) I took a "Week 36" belly picture yesterday and when I went to pull it off my phone I saw that it had been helpfully filed in a previously empty "Panoramas" folder. I was torn between insult and respect, and then ate all the candy corn in the house in response. We'll see who's a panorama, iPhone, we'll see.
(5) When I went to get the kids up this morning I saw the light was already on and could hear excited whisperings going on inside the room. I opened the door and found them fully dressed and their beds neatly made. They both squealed when I walked in and quickly explained that Landon had pulled up both their sheets nice and straight and they each did their comforters and then Claire arranged all the lovies on top. I saw that Landon's Iron Man, monster, and seal were lovingly tucked under a small blanket on his bed, and Claire's baby and 15 assorted animals were arranged in a long line across her bed. This is going to be a very stressful week for me at work and it was an incredibly sweet way to start it out. Love those two.
Full contact affection (really, that's a hug)
#4 has me dying. iPhones can suck sometimes! Your two little ones are such gems. I can't wait to see how sweet they are to baby 3!
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