Sunday, October 23, 2011

Vacation at Home

For the past week, my husband has been on vacation.  Usually when he has time off work, we go somewhere.  We live far away from our families, and think it's important to see them as much as possible, so we are often traveling to visit someone.  This week, for the first time in a long time, we vacationed at home.  It was wonderful.

We got to spend lots of great quality time with the Daddy.  He was able to come to Miss's gymnastics class and to the girls' music class.

 I think he really enjoyed observing both classes.  Miss has really blossomed in her gymnastics class and both girls really get into their music class.  Miss loves to sing and play the instruments and Lass is a total ham.


Today we went to brunch, where we got to carve pumpkins for Halloween.  Miss and Daddy did all the work on our pumpkin.  Last year the Daddy did it all by himself, but this time Miss was able to really participate.

She helped scoop out the guts


and decide what type of face to draw for the Jack-o-lantern.


 Lass enjoyed wandering around and looking at some of the other pumpkins.



 Miss was even able to help cut out the pumpkin face.



 She was pretty happy with the finished product.


We also spent lots of fun time with Daddy at home.  Tonight Miss got to try out her new dot markers by drawing with Daddy.


They drew snakes and faces and lots of grapes and blueberries.



It has been a great week.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

It's a Girl!!!

Yesterday, we had our ultrasound and got to see Baby.  We were thrilled to see a healthy little one, growing and developing right on track so far.  We were also able to be able to find out Baby's gender.  Though I was pretty convinced that this baby was a boy, we were very excited to see that we are having another girl.  Miss and Lass will be having a Sis!  I'm so happy to imagine how wonderful it will be for all my girls to grow up with sisters so close in age.  Though I don't have a sister, I've heard they're pretty great.  I love that my girls will have each other.  I'm picturing some pretty fabulous tea parties, slumber parties for which we don't even need to invite any guests, and lots of great girls' days out.  They can do each other's hair and share clothes and be each other's best friends.  I love having girls.

And just in case you're feeling badly for my husband, swimming in a sea of estrogen and nail polish... Don't.  He is thrilled to have another girl, if maybe slightly terrified.  One of the first things he said after our ultrasound appointment was something about needing to build a 20-foot wall around our house.  But he loves having girls too. He's gotten very good at playing Care Bears and dress up.  And our ladies are total Daddy's girls, especially Lass right now.  

We may or may not someday have a little boy.  Of course we'd love to have a boy, though we would be perfectly happy with all girls too.  And even if we never have a son, I'm quite certain my husband will never feel like he's missing out on anything.

Our girls love to watch football with him on Saturday mornings, 

though he is not terribly happy with their choice of teams.  So far Miss has expressed her preference for "Go Blue."

For the record, when I bought these shirts for the girls, I wasn't in search of Michigan wear.  I was shopping online for a few things for Miss for school and I happened to see these on Old Navy's website.  I actually did look for Iowa shirts on there too (I'm not entirely sure I would have bought them, but I did look).  No Iowa shirts at Old Navy.

And in case anyone was wondering, when Michigan and Iowa play each other in a few weeks, the girls will be wearing neutral clothing.  Maybe I'll just dress them in Maize-colored shirts, since both teams share that color.

We try to keep our rivalry all in good fun around here.  But I have to admit I was very excited that Miss burst out singing the Michigan fight song, completely unprovoked, in Target a few weeks ago.


Whichever team our girls choose to root for (it'll probably end up to be the Badgers anyway...), we still all love to watch football together.  And they love to be outside with their Daddy.





They don't mind getting dirty or playing a little rough.  Miss loves to try to climb trees.


Yesterday we were taking a look at a house on the water.  Miss went out on the dock with her Daddy, and when he told her it was time to leave she said, "No, I want to fish.  I don't want to go!"  My hubby will teach them to fish and even to hunt if they are interested.  Miss had her first archery lesson yesterday.


I was really bothered the other day when Miss was looking out the window, watching my hubby shoot his bow.  She said something like, "If I was a boy, I could shoot like Daddy."

I was quite upset by this statement, and puzzled, because I have never said anything like this to her, nor have I heard anyone else make such a statement to her or in her presence.  So I don't know where she came up with the idea that she would have to be a boy in order to shoot a bow, or do anything else.





Right away I told Miss that she didn't have to be a boy to shoot a bow or do anything else, that she could certainly shoot with her Daddy, she just needed to get a little bit bigger.  My husband was so upset when I told him what she'd said, he took her out the next day to shoot with him.  I guess she didn't need to be bigger, at least to watch and get the sense that she was doing it.

We will always teach all of our girls that they can do or be whatever they want, if they work hard.


And they will learn to do all sorts of fun things with their Dad.




So definitely don't feel badly for my husband.  A few people have made comments like, "Oh how exciting that you're having another girl!  But your poor husband!"  Of course, they mean this with all good intentions and kindness.  But, hell no he's not poor!  To quote a song by Greg Brown: my husband is "a man who's rich in daughters."  Yes, we are very rich indeed.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Little Sister's Day Out

After dropping Miss off at school today (with no tears, by the way, hooray!!), Lass and I had a special morning out.  We started out visiting a local cafe where they have a big play area.  At first we were the only ones there and she almost didn't know what to do with all these toys to herself.


Almost.


It is so fun to spend some special time just with Lass.  She has the funniest little personality and it feels good to be able to shower all my attention on her.  She seems to just eat this up and really shines during our mornings together.

After playing for a while and having a snack, we went to our favorite local library story time.

The children's area of this library is wonderful.  Lass loves the huge stuffed animals they have (yes, that is a stuffed dog) and the cozy sitting area with bins of board books just her size.


During the story time the kids and moms sit in a circle on the floor, do lots of songs, and of course hear a story.  Lass likes to stand in the middle of the circle and dance during the songs.  She is such a little ham!  Then the librarian brings out lots of books, balls, blocks, etc. for the kids to play with for a while. It's a great time for her to play with kids near her own size and for me to get to chat with some other moms.
My littlest (for now) and I had a wonderful morning together.