november

i feel like november went by in a flash.

it was a busy month for us.

and a couple big things happened.

like when we found out we're expecting a girl,

and when mike accepted a job offer from general motors.

but the best part of november?

it seems always to be a month that is crammed full of family.

i like november for that reason.

and thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.

we were very blessed this last month that my grandparents were able to come out to chicago to visit my family.

the week was full of custard and deep dish pizza and laughter.

my kids didn't go a single minute without having a playmate.

plus, we were able to make our way downtown a couple times.

i love downtown chicago, but it really comes alive at christmas time.

one of my favorites at christmas?

the museum of science and industry.

i would go there just to look at their trees.

and as if fate were smiling down on us,

this year was a disney theme.

and my kids thought grandma had taken them to disney world all over again,

and fell in love with christmas right then and there.

we were even more blessed that tennyson only had to go a week from the time we left chicago until the time they came up for thanksgiving.

and we were blessed to have someone to share that giant turkey with.

and the four (yes, four) pies.

ps... despite how absolutely amazing mike's turkey was, tennyson opted for the other traditional pilgrim feast of a peanut butter sandwich with a side of m&ms.

so that was our november.

on to december!

this month is going to be good.

mostly because of christmas,

a lot because of how much tennyson and maggie are loving the holiday,

with an extra topping of mike being on vacation.

happy holidays, folks.

we hope your november was as wonderful as ours.

baby number three

can i just start out by saying that i'm hoping, wishing, and praying that the next twenty weeks go buy just as fast as the first twenty did?

though i seriously doubt it is going to happen.

either way, i'm now halfway through my pregnancy.

and still i can't decide if i'm more excited to be done, or more nervous to be done.

because being done means i have a new baby.

but it means i have a new baby.

biggest news lately?

we're having a little girl!

we went back on forth on whether we wanted to find out.

well, really i did. mike didn't want to find out, but left it up to me, since i do most the preparing anyway.

so i went back and forth and tore myself up over the decision.

but ultimately, i guess you know what i chose.

and i have no regrets.

i'm sure it would have been fantastic finding out in the delivery room.

but i'm sure i would have been a bigger ball of nerves than i already am going to be.

i'd rather feel at least a little prepared,

because i get the feeling that having baby number three is already going to be a whole lot of crazy.

i'm still actually a little in shock that it is a girl.

i mean, i think that is what my gut was telling me it was,

but my gut was also being really indecisive.

it's strange because this pregnancy has actually been more similar to tennyson's.

and i was sure that craving meat and potatoes meant it had to be a little boy.

guess she'll just be a meat and potatoes kind of girl.

good news is, i'm still not really feeling baby move.
sure, i get little flutters here and there, but nothing too definitive.

this, to me, is good news. mostly because i felt maggie moving super early on, and she hasn't stopped moving since.

so i enjoy the little kicks i get here and there,

and appreciate the fact that not feeling her much now might mean that i don't end up with bruised ribs by the end.
and possibly maybe even end up with another tame kid like tennyson. though i don't have my fingers crossed on that one. i think he's kind of a freak of nature in that sense.

so here's to being halfway done.
and here's to starting our countdown to the end of march.

oh, and here's a freaky skeletor picture.
does it eliminate some of the creepiness with the fact that she's already posing with her hand under her chin?
yeah, i didn't think so either.
but either way...

i'm sure i'll have more updates in the future.

though, don't expect anything quite as thorough as with my other two.

they keep me way too busy to be able to pay much attention to this one.

eighteen months

maggie is eighteen months old today.
she seems so much older than that to me.
i don't know if it is a second kid thing, or if it is just maggie, but time seems to be moving slower with her.

my real hypothesis is that it's because she's so dang smart.
maggie already has upwards of one hundred words.
lately she's started using two word phrases.
her favorites are "right there" and "that one" and "no way".
last night she got into bed and looked me in the eyes and said "shirt off".

she also knows her shapes.
she's got square, triangle, rectangle, circle, and star down.
she sees letters and she tells me "abc!"
she can label most her body parts.

her one deficit? animal sounds.
every animal says "moo".
except the dog. that one does manage to get out a "woof" now and again.

maggie's favorite tv show is mickey mouse clubhouse.
she knows the names of every character and sings along to the theme song.
she loves pixar movies and winnie the pooh.
she likes to eat cheese and shredded meats. and anything that contains chocolate. her favorite food? it's a tie between pirate's booty, fruit snacks, and peas.

her favorite thing to do is read.
already she spends long stretches of time pulling out every book on the shelf and going through it page by page.
lately her favorite activity is to bring you a book and point to every picture in it asking "wat dat?".

maggie is a natural big sister.
she has a baby doll that she smothers in hugs and kisses.
she'll bring it over and tuck it in for good night.
yesterday she got really mad at the doll because it wasn't eating the roll that she was offering.
so we do still have some things to work on before baby actually comes.

there is a poem by henry wadsworth longfellow that perfectly sums up our little girl.

"there was a little girl

who had a little curl

right in the middle of her forehead.

when she was good,

she was very good indeed,

 but when she was bad she was horrid."

i think it's called being spirited.

truth is, we are glad maggie is around.

although sometimes we may forget it,

most the time she's the cutest human being on the planet.

when she's dancing and twirling and giggling around our living room,

i just can't imagine life without her.

three and a half

just like that, another half a year has gone by.

i feel like it is easier to believe this time than it has before, because tennyson has changed and grown so much in the past six months.

his vocabulary has expanded, he's started eating new foods, he's learned how to use the potty, and he's even outgrown a size of clothing (finally!)

our biggest change in the past six months is that tennyson is now a preschooler.
tennyson loves preschool.
every morning we pull out his coat and backpack and he excitedly runs toward the bus.
he learns so much while he is there.
he has learned that he's a boy, that his name is tennyson, that he is three.
he has learned that he likes cantaloupe but really doesn't like oranges.
he's learned how to branch out and talk to people other than his parents and grandparents.
and as much as he loves preschool, he really loves coming home to see his "gaggie".
they hug and kiss and hug and kiss and you'd think he'd been gone for more than just three hours.

tennyson's favorites...
movie: the little mermaid and anything with mike and sully
tv show: mickey mouse clubhouse, special agent oso, curious george
food: grapes, apples, fruit snacks, granola bars, oreo cookies, chicken and french fries
drink: "brown pop" (root beer)
toy: action figures
song: "twinkle twinkle", "wheels on the bus", "head and shoulders"
book: the very hungry caterpillar
activity: playing on the ipad, running

tennyson is one awesome little boy.
he's such a good brother.
he's incredibly smart.
(did i mention he can spell and write his own name?)
he's silly. sometimes even on purpose.
he's a joy to have around.
we just love him to death.

apples and autumn

i love the autumn time in michigan.

i really think it is one of the things i am going to miss most.

i feel like we kind of get the best of both worlds here.

we have the nice wooded areas to really appreciate the changing of the leaves, but we also have the wonderful sprawling farm towns where the barns are nestled in the tall corn.

i know for sure one of the things i'll miss the most is our cider mill.

i know there are other cider mills in the world. i pray we will end up in a place that has one nearby. but this one will always hold a special place in my heart. this is our fourth year going here. i mean, we've been coming to get apples and pumpkins and donuts at our cider mill since tennyson was just a chunky little thing.

tennyson is quite a bit older now and has more hair and less fat, and we still can't get enough of this place.

this year he helped us pull the wagon as we walked around the apple orchard. he climbed the giant dirt hill with the rest of the big kids and went down what has to be the most dangerous slide i've ever seen. he went off into the inflatable playground on his own while we ate our own lunch. and he wandered along picking apples from the bottoms of the tree (which were in much better shape than the rotted ones from the ground that maggie kept trying to throw in our bag).

so now we have about a million pounds of apples sitting in our kitchen.

i have a batch of applesauce in the slow cooker, and about a hundred different apple recipes waiting to be tried.

tennyson and maggie are in heaven because i've been letting them eat an apple whenever and wherever they want and i don't get mad at them if they only take three bites and then leave to go back to play.

and the windows are open and the cool breeze has been coming in all day and the leaves are starting to change colors and halloween is just around the corner.

autumn in michigan sure is awesome.

potty post

can we just take a minute and celebrate the fact that both (yes, both) my kids just peed in the potty for the first time ever tonight?

and ignore the fact that immediately afterward, they did this?

i'm about ready to throw all our bath toys away.

they never stay in the bath.

but since they both peed in the potty, i guess the toys can stay another day.

nothing can ruin my good mood tonight.

preschool can be rough

remember that scene in arrested development where george michael comes home from school to the tune of charlie brown music and then this happens?

tennyson looked very similar after school today.

i guess he played hard.

preschool can be rough.

(and ps... if you haven't watched arrested development... shame on you.)

tennyson the preschooler

today we sent this kid off to school for the first time.

can you believe it?

(and can you believe how perfectly his "alphabet cadet" shirt describes him?)

i've really been looking forward to this day.

i've told mike a few times that i feel like i should be more sad than i am. like maybe i don't have normal mommy emotions. the thing is, i know how much he needs preschool and i have high hopes for him this year.

i think we are going to see a lot of progress.

but still, five mornings a week is a big deal.

and i may have felt my mommy emotions come out a little bit as i was walking him down the hall of his school. i mean, this kid goes to an elementary school! with decorated classroom doors and posters everywhere saying "welcome!"

he's all grown up.

he's taking the bus and everything.

i was really weary of the bus, to be honest. i decided that since i was going with him to school today, that we could try it out and i would make my final decision then.

and he's going to take the bus every day. 

we really lucked out with bus routes. he's the last one to be picked up and the first one to be dropped off, which means he only spends about ten minutes on the bus. the bus picks him up at our door and his teacher is there waiting at the curb when he gets to school.

it's a pretty sweet deal.

and he pretty much felt like a king on that bus.

tennyson's classroom is awesome.

there are only nine kids in there with him.

he gets to spend the day playing with all sorts of toys.

legos, books, puzzles, letters, you name it.

plus he's got a pretty sweet snack hook up (although today he wanted nothing to do with it because... toys.)

a couple days a week he'll have a speech therapist and and occupational therapist that will come into his classroom and work one on one with him. it's going to be so good for him.

(mom's favorite part? five days a week, someone else gets to deal with his potty training all morning!)

at the end of the day, tennyson didn't want to leave.

who can blame him, really?

it wasn't until i pointed out that we needed to go find our maggie that he was ready to get on that bus again.

the whole way home he kept asking "gaggie? where are you? dada? where are you?"

and my mommy emotions struck once more when tennyson was walking home from the bus stop.

how in the world do i have a kid who is old enough to have to walk home from the bus stop?

when we found our dada and our gaggie, we went for a celebratory lunch at mcdonald's.

for the first time ever, tennyson played in the play place. as if he didn't already love mcdonald's enough already, now he knows that there are slides inside.

and just like that, tennyson is a preschooler.

if anyone finds a way to invent a pause button for time, i'd be seriously interested in investing.

exotic toledo

if there is one thing mike and i have failed at during our time here in michigan, it is sight seeing.

we've seen very little of what michigan has to offer, and it is a shame because there are so many wonderful things out there...

sleeping bear dunes, the henry ford museum, mackinac fudge, a billion lighthouses...
i've been dying to go to traverse city just to get moomers ice cream for three years now and we still haven't ever found the time to go do it.

we've only got one year left here in lansing, and we decided it is high time we start exploring pure michigan.

so where did we decide to visit first?
toledo.

totally not in michigan.

here's the thing, though. i love the toledo zoo. i've been raving about it to mike ever since we moved here. i think i've mentioned the detroit zoo a time or two, but toledo is only half an hour farther and i love it so much more. mostly because there is far too much walking to do at the detroit zoo. i like my zoos compact. please don't make me walk a mile between each animal or ride a train from one side to the other.

plus, toledo happens to have the closest friendly's, and there is nothing better than their honey bbq melt and their ice cream for dessert.

so we started "exploring michigan" in toledo.

the city did not disappoint.

we spent the first day filling up on our favorite foods, and the second day we spent at the zoo.

tennyson got to see his "quenguin" friends....

 and kiss the eyeball of pumba...

and ride on a "woah, big turtle!".

 the highlight of the zoo visit was the elephants. we got there right at feeding time and both tennyson and maggie were completely captivated by them. i don't think tennyson realized until this visit just how big elephants actually are. they've been his favorite animal for a month or so now, but i think this visit sealed the deal. plus, how can you resist the utter cuteness of a baby elephant?

(props to mike for taking this picture!)

we also got up close and personal with the hippos (another tennyson favorite) and the biggest orangutan i've ever seen in real life.

it was so nice to have a weekend away with our family. we've missed having mike around this summer, and it has been so wonderful that we've been able to find the time to do fun family outings. i love when we are all together. just one more week until mike comes home for good. and then maybe we'll spend some time exploring things that are actually in michigan. i can't wait. 

meet me halfway

the stars lined up perfectly this summer.

mike was able to stay in michigan for his internship,

mike's brother got an internship in wisconsin,

and my family went to utah for a week in july which left their house open.

a house which just happened to be the halfway point between michigan and wisconsin.

so we packed up our car and met halfway. totally perfect.

the only unperfect thing was that we had planned on going to a park or the zoo,

and it decided to be october outside instead of the end of july.

my poor nephew didn't have any pants with him, except a pair they had just bought that was a couple sizes too big. not that he really seemed to mind.

it was a very lucky coincidence that i hadn't happened to take tennyson and maggie's jackets out of the car yet. laziness for the win.

playing outside with the cool breeze and our jackets on made me yearn for the autumn. is it time to go pumpkin picking and drink apple cider yet? because i'm more than ready.

mike and his brother's favorite part of the trip?

re-enacting family portraits to replace inside the frames at my parent's house.

i wish we lived closer to family.

but we are lucky to have times like this to play together.

overall? it was a perfect weekend.

and i'm so glad we were able to do it.